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 , with Kala Nag , very footsore , shambled into the camp . Little Toomai 's face was gray and pinched , and his hair was full of leaves and drenched with dew , but he tried to salute Petersen Sahib , and cried faintly : `` The dance -- the elephant dance ! I have seen it , and -- I die ! '' As Kala Nag sat down , he slid off his neck in a dead faint .
But , since native children have no nerves worth speaking of , in two hours he was lying very contentedly XXXXX Petersen Sahib 's hammock with Petersen Sahib 's shooting-coat under his head , and a glass of warm milk , a little brandy , with a dash of quinine , inside of him , and while the old hairy , scarred hunters of the jungles sat three deep before him , looking at him as though he were a spirit , he told his tale in short words , as a child will , and wound up with : `` Now , if I lie in one word , send men to see , and they will find that the elephant folk have trampled down more room in their dance-room , and they will find ten and ten , and many times ten , tracks leading to that dance-room .
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