The situation was thus rendered really very alarming;
the anchor-rope, which had securely caught, could not be
disengaged, nor could it yet be cut by the knives of our
aeronauts, and the balloon was rushing headlong toward
the wood, when the animal received a ball in the eye just
as he lifted his head. On this he halted, faltered, his knees
bent under him, and he uncovered his whole flank to the
assaults of his enemies in the balloon.
"A bullet in his heart!" said Kennedy, discharging
one last rifle-shot.
The elephant uttered a long bellow of terror and agony,
then raised himself up for a moment, twirling his trunk in
the air, and finally fell with all his weight upon one of his
tusks, which he broke off short. He was dead.
"His tusk's broken!" exclaimed Kennedy--"ivory too
that in England would bring thirty-five guineas per
hundred pounds."
"As much as that?" said Joe, scrambling down to the
ground by the anchor-rope.
"What's the use of sighing over it, Dick?" said the
doctor. "Are we ivory merchants? Did we come hither
to make money?"
Joe examined the anchor and found it solidly attached
to the unbroken tusk. The doctor and Dick leaped out on
the ground, while the balloon, now half emptied, hovered
over the body of the huge animal.
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