But it was all one gigantic jar that ran through him -- this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth . Once or twice he could feel Kala Nag and all the others surge forward a few strides , and the thumping would change to the crushing sound of juicy green things being bruised , but in a minute or two the boom of feet on hard earth began again . A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him . He put out his arm and felt the bark , but Kala Nag moved forward , still tramping , and he could not tell where he was in the clearing . There was no sound from the elephants , except once , when two or three little calves squeaked together . Then he heard a thump and a shuffle , and the booming went on . It must have lasted fully two hours , and Little Toomai ached in every nerve , but he knew by the smell of the night air that the dawn was coming . The morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills , and the booming stopped with the first ray , as though the light had been an order . Before Little Toomai had got the ringing out of his head , before even he had shifted his position , there was not an elephant in sight except Kala Nag , Pudmini , and the elephant with the rope-galls , and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the hillsides to show where the others had gone . Little Toomai stared again and again . The clearing , as he remembered it , had grown in the night . More trees stood in the middle of it , but the undergrowth and the jungle grass at the sides had been rolled back . Little Toomai stared once more . Now he understood the trampling . The elephants had stamped out more room -- had stamped the thick grass and juicy cane to trash , the trash into slivers , the slivers into tiny fibers , and the fibers into hard earth . `` Wah ! '' said Little Toomai , and his eyes were very heavy . `` Kala Nag , my lord , let us keep by Pudmini and go to Petersen Sahib 's camp , or I shall drop from thy neck . '' The third elephant watched the two go away , snorted , wheeled round , and took his own path . He may have belonged to some little native king 's establishment , fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away .
Two hours later , as Petersen Sahib was eating early breakfast , his elephants , who had been double chained that night , began to trumpet , and Pudmini , mired to the shoulders , XXXXX Kala Nag , very footsore , shambled into the camp .
Before at behind except from into near that through with