Instantly the keepers flung themselves furiously upon the soldiers.

The trooper who held the key threw it over the wall just before he was overpowered.

But Ahmed had come prepared.

From out the howdah he took a heavy leather pad, which he adjusted over the fore skull of the elephant, and gave a command.
The skull of the elephant is thick.

Hunters will tell you that bullets glance off it as water from the back of a duck.