A couple of bullets he should have into him, at all events; and if opportunity offered, a good many more, should these not be sufficient.

Von Bloom would not relinquish those fine tusks without a struggle.
He at once set about considering the safest mode of attack; but was not allowed time to mature any plan.

The elephant appeared to be restless, and was evidently about to move forward.

He might be off in a moment, and carry them after him for miles, or, perhaps, in the thick cover of wait-a-bits get lost to them altogether.
These conjectures caused Von Bloom to decide at once upon beginning the attack, and without any other plan than to stalk in as near as would be safe, and deliver his fire.

He had heard that a single bullet in the forehead would kill any elephant; and if he could only get in such a position as to have a fair shot at the animal's front, he believed he was marksman enough to plant his bullet in the right place.
He was mistaken as to killing an elephant with a shot in the forehead.
That is a notion of gentlemen who have hunted the elephant in their closets, though other closet gentlemen the anatomists--to whom give all due credit--have shown the thing to be impossible, from the peculiar structure of the elephant's skull and the position of his brain.
Von Bloom at the time was under this wrong impression, and therefore committed a grand mistake.