Toomai knew that so long as he lay still on Kala Nag 's neck nothing would happen to him , for even in the rush and scramble of a Keddah drive a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the neck of a tame elephant . And these elephants were not thinking of men that night . Once they started and put their ears forward when they heard the chinking of a leg iron in the forest , but it was Pudmini , Petersen Sahib 's pet elephant , her chain snapped short off , grunting , snuffling up the hillside . She must have broken her pickets and come straight from Petersen Sahib 's camp ; and Little Toomai saw another elephant , one that he did not know , with deep rope galls on his back and breast . He , too , must have run away from some camp in the hills about . At last there was no sound of any more elephants moving in the forest , and Kala Nag rolled out from his station between the trees and went into the middle of the crowd , clucking and gurgling , and all the elephants began to talk in their own tongue , and to move about . Still lying down , Little Toomai looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs , and wagging ears , and tossing trunks , and little rolling eyes . 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 XXXXX moved forward , still tramping , and he could not tell where he was in the clearing .
Nag Toomai accident chinking first hissh night seconds trip-hammers war