I caught sight of Hassan beside them looking gray, as unhappy black men usually do.

Will saw him too.
"The cannibal's ours," he said, "supposing we want him and play our cards kind o' careful." The next thing to delay the train was an elephant, who walked the track ahead of us and when the engine whistled only put on speed.

Hypnotized by the tracks that reached in parallel lines to the horizon, with trunk outstretched, ears up, and silly tail held horizontally he set himself the impossible task of leaving us behind.

The more we cheered, the more the engine screamed, the fiercer and less dignified became his efforts; he reached a speed at times of fourteen or fifteen miles an hour, and it was not until, after many miles, he reached a culvert he dared not cross that he switched off at right angles.

Realizing then at last that the train could not follow him to one side he stood and watched us pass, red-eyed, blown and angry.