题目内容
elephant was damaging the town. Would I please come and do something about it?
I did not know what I could do, but I got onto a horse and started out. I took my gun,
maybe too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might scare him. Various local
people stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings.
It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one. It had been chained up but last
night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its owner had set out to run after it, but had taken
the wrong direction. He was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant
had suddenly appeared in the town. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut (棚屋),
killed a cow and turned over fruitstalls.
I came round the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian,
and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant caught him
with its trunk, put its foot on his back and grounded him into the earth. This was the rainy season
and he was lying on his stomach in the soft mud, the peacebreaker standing beside, looking
innocent.
As I lifted my gun, I hesitated a few seconds. Then I fired. That was a shot that did for him.
You could see the pain of it knock the last strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for
a moment to rise, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time.
And then down he came, with a crash that shook the ground.
B. He knew elephants well.
C. He was not a local villager.
D. He was the owner of the elephant
B. it got out of control
C. it hated the village people
D. it was a wild elephant
B. the dead man
C. the author
D. the subinspector
B. sad
C. frightened
D. happy
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