Krishna heard the kettledrums from inside the arena and the entire place was thrumming with excitement. That was when Krishna saw the elephant in the front.

Krishna noticed that as the mahout saw him, the mahout egged the elephant forward and the elephant barred the way to the arena.

One glance at the elephant was all Krishna needed.

Krishna walked ahead of Balarama and looked at the mahout. "Let us through. I need to get to the arena."

The mahout gave the dark boy a cold smile and then without any warning, he goaded the elephant forward.

The people around the arena were shocked as they saw the elephant rush forward towards the boy.

The chains which were binding the elephant were absolutely useless as the elephant just pulled it through.

The people in the street were all stupefied and threw themselves back, away from the path of the mad elephant as in one swift movement, the elephant just caught the dark boy in its trunk. And without wasting a second, the elephant started squeezing the boy.

The dark boy hit the elephant on the trunk. The blow was so powerful that the elephant trumpeted in pain and let the boy go.

Krishna then slipped under the legs of the elephant, making sure that the elephant could not see him.

For a second, the elephant could not see Krishna. But then, the elephant smelt out the boy and pulled the boy with its trunk. Or at least tried to.

Krishna again hit the trunk of the elephant and jumped to the back of the elephant.

The elephant was now furious and turned sharply and nearly pushed off its mahout and charged at Krishna.

Then started what seemed like an uneven battle between a huge elephant and a little boy.

But then the boy was quick and light on his feet and he was also very strong. The elephant had a huge girth and found it impossible to turn at the speed with which the boy turned.

Wherever the elephant saw the boy, it charged. But the boy always pushed himself back at the last minute as the elephant collided with the wall ahead of which the boy was standing. As the elephant itself, it got more and more infuriated.

There was a huge ruckus outside the arena, but then the guards did not interfere. The common people were too scared of the mad elephant to interfere. Balarama knew enough, which was why he did not interfere either.

It was said that Krishna was so strong that after tiring out the elephant, in a swift movement, he pulled the elephant by its truck and pushed the elephant to the ground. As the elephant and the mahout fell on the ground with a loud, ear crushing thud, Krishna jumped on the throat of the elephant and yanked out the tusk of elephant with his bare hands.

Using the tusk, Krishna killed the elephant.

******

The common people outside the arena were just shocked with what they were seeing. It was impossible. Just impossible.

The small boy had just killed a mad elephant. With his bare hands.

But then the people were in awe of the boy and moved as he was rubbing the blood from his forehead and was controlling himself.

The dark boy then turned and walked towards the arena. His brother joined him and suddenly for one second, the people saw only the two of them and they respectfully parted ways for the two boys.

*********

Chanur suddenly saw the king's face pale and wondered what had happened and by default, he turned to the door. Chanur bit back a gasp as he saw the dark boy and his brother come inside the arena and Chanur saw exactly what had made the face of the king so pale - in the hands of the dark boy was a single long tusk.

Chanur was almost reeling as he realized that because of the loud kettledrums he had not heard what was going on, outside the arena. But looking at the tusk, Chanur realized exactly what had happened.

Controlling himself, Chanur collected himself as he signaled to the two boys. "You are the Gopa boys!" He told the two of them in a loud sneering voice. "I have heard that all that the Gopas can do is sing, dance, frolic and play with their calves. What are you doing in a wrestling arena?"

Krishna said nothing as he was studying Chanur. Beside Chanur, Mushtika was up and studying the two boys with a very nasty look on his face.

"The king has organized a wrestling match for brave people. Why don't you show me what the Gopas are capable of?" Chanur continued in the same taunting voice.

"They are just boys..."

Chanur turned as he wondered who had spoken.

There had been a collective gasp at his words from the entire arena and everyone here was thinking that Chanur and Mushtika against two little boys was an uneven fight.

"Is that a tusk of an elephant in your hands?" Chanur asked again in a loud voice.

This time there was a pin drop silence in the entire arena as the people saw that the dark boy did have a bloodied tusk in his hands.

Chanur looked satisfied as he realized that now the people were rethinking their previous sentence - that this was no longer an uneven fight. "You evidently hunt elephants for sport. Then you are definitely worthy of fighting me and your brother there can fight with Mushtika. Come. Come and fight and die at our hands."