He heard the click of tusks as they crossed other tusks by accident , and the dry rustle of trunks twined together , and the chafing of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd , and the incessant flick and hissh of the great tails . Then a cloud came over the moon , and he sat in black darkness . But the quiet , steady hustling and pushing and gurgling went on just the same . He knew that there were elephants all round Kala Nag , and that there was no chance of backing him out of the assembly ; so he set his teeth and shivered . In a Keddah at least there was torchlight and shouting , but here he was all alone in the dark , and once a trunk came up and touched him on the knee . Then an elephant trumpeted , and they all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds . The dew from the trees above spattered down like rain on the unseen backs , and a dull booming noise began , not very loud at first , and Little Toomai could not tell what it was . But it grew and grew , and Kala Nag lifted up one forefoot and then the other , and brought them down on the ground -- one-two , one-two , as steadily as trip-hammers . The elephants were stamping all together now , and it sounded like a war drum beaten at the mouth of a cave . The dew fell from the trees till there was no more left to fall , and the booming went on , and the ground rocked and shivered , and Little Toomai put his hands up to his ears to shut out the sound . 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 XXXXX the night .
above at behind in near on over that till with