“ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 145, 20 June 1936, Page 12

“ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.”

OUR SERIAL STORY

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4 ' Radi mt Moon Flower. ’ ’

(Continued from last Svurday) Soie though his heart was at the < on Kiousnesg of his father’s danger, I'aloot had no fear now: he experienced a sensation of exhilaration when he realised his position riding a strange elephant at dead of night on a matter of life and death. Agha needed no urging; once on the road he shuffled along at his fastest as if divining the vital mportance of his errand. The boy was iilent, engrossed in his own thoughts, while, strange to relate the animal occasionally raised his trunk and felt about with it for his rider—a movement apparently owing to the fact that the lad’s weight was so insignificant as to cause the beast to doubt whether he still carried the rider. Weird sounds issued from the jungle on both sides of the track and dim four-footed forms every now and then flitted across to their front; but they met no human beings and the few villages that abutted on the road were wrapped in darkness and slumber. In due course tuev reached the river, sixteen mile’, and that obstacle passed. Talbot knew that he had only nine more miles to cover ere arriving at his destination. He guessed it to be about three in the morning now—an uncanny hour: while Ygha paused at the water's edge to J rink the lad shuddered as he contemplated the sombre, swiftlv-flowing river icre a good hundred broad: :rossing a deep, racing river by night n a swimming pad elephant, was quite

a different thing from riding that padelephant on dry ground, and the poor little fellow’s heart webnigb failed him. But he trusted in God and by now he had learned to rely on his dumb friend; as Agha had brought him in safety thus far, so woui] the dear brute carry him in safety avross the river. “Go on, Agha,” he said, when the beast finished drinking. Slowly ana carefully did the elephant advance into the stream and gradually sink lower. The boy clung to the pad rope, looking fearfully at the current surging against Agha’s side, and hoping that he would sink no further. But when the animal ‘lost soundings” and plunged forward into deep water, his whole body save the upper part of the head and tip of the trunk ' ecame suddenly immersed and al] in a moment Talbot lost hold of the rope and was whirled shrieking away. Fie could nor. swim, he vainly tried to keep afloat, and was about going und?r. when he ; felt himself seized by the middle, jerked into the air and lowered on to some solid substance, which proved to be the elephont’s head and there he was now securely held by the upraised trunk. Agha had saved him* Bravely the good brute swam, for the opposite shore, maintaining a grip on his little rider; it was not till he touched ground again and wash well above the water’s surface that he released the boy and lowered his proboscis. (To be Continued }