That was an important hour--the hour of a great crisis in the life of the field-cornet.
He was standing with folded arms on the bank of the lake, directly over the spot where the elephant had fallen.

He appeared to be wrapt in silent meditation, his eyes bent upon the huge carcass of the animal.
No, not on the carcass.

A close observer would have perceived that his eyes did not wander over that mountain of thick skin and flesh, but were resting upon a particular spot.
Was it the wound in the animal's side?
And was Von Bloom meditating how the thrust had caused the death of such a huge creature?
Neither one nor the other.

His thoughts were upon a very different theme from either.
The elephant had fallen so that his head was clear of the water, and rested upon a little bank of sand; along which, his soft and limber trunk lay extended to its full length.

Curving like a pair of gigantic scimitars from its base, were the yellow enamelled tusks; those ivory arms that for years,--ay centuries, perhaps,--had served him to root up the trees of the forest, and rout his antagonists in many a dread encounter.