Toomai leaned forward and looked , and he felt that the forest was awake below him -- awake and alive and crowded . A big brown fruit-eating bat brushed past his ear ; a porcupine 's quills rattled in the thicket ; and in the darkness between the tree stems he heard a hog-bear digging hard in the moist warm earth , and snuffing as it digged . Then the branches closed over his head again , and Kala Nag began to go down into the valley -- not quietly this time , but as a runaway gun goes down a steep bank -- in one rush . The huge limbs moved as steadily as pistons , eight feet to each stride , and the wrinkled skin of the elbow points rustled . The undergrowth on either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas , and the saplings that he heaved away right and left with his shoulders sprang back again and banged him on the flank , and great trails of creepers , all matted together , hung from his tusks as he threw his head from side to side and plowed out his pathway . Then Little Toomai laid himself down close to the great neck lest a swinging bough should sweep him to the ground , and he wished that he were back in the lines again . The grass began to get squashy , and Kala Nag 's feet sucked and squelched as he put them down , and the night mist at the bottom of the valley chilled Little Toomai . There was a splash and a trample , and the rush of running water , and Kala Nag strode through the bed of a river , feeling his way at each step . Above the noise of the water , as it swirled round the elephant 's legs , Little Toomai could hear more splashing and some trumpeting both upstream and down -- great grunts and angry snortings , and all the mist about him seemed to be full of rolling , wavy shadows . `` Ai ! '' he said , half aloud , his teeth chattering . `` The elephant-folk are out tonight . It is the dance , then ! '' Kala Nag swashed out of the water , blew his trunk clear , and began another climb . But this time he was not alone , and he had not to make his path . That was made already , six feet wide , in front of him , where the bent jungle-grass was trying to recover itself and stand up . Many elephants must have gone that way only a few minutes before . Little Toomai looked back , and behind him a great wild tusker with his little pig 's eyes glowing like hot coals was just lifting himself out of the misty river . Then the trees closed up again , and they went on and up , with trumpetings and crashings , and the sound of breaking branches on every side of them . At last Kala Nag stood still between two tree-trunks at the very top of the hill .
They were part of a circle XXXXX trees that grew round an irregular space of some three or four acres , and in all that space , as Little Toomai could see , the ground had been trampled down as hard as a brick floor .
Above as at before between like of over that up