wer with few words."
     "Then call your friend, the man from the seaboard forests; let him stay
here with you. I'll  soon get tired  of  sitting silent like an inarticulate
monkey!"
     Kidogo  came  and sat  with his  legs  tucked up  under him  beside the
chief's  chair,  between Pandion  and the old man. With the Negro's help the
chief  and  Pandion were able to  converse  quite freely.  The  chief  asked
Pandion about  his country and his penetrating glance gave Pandion a feeling
of confidence in the elephant trainer, a wise man who had seen much.
     Pandion told the chief about his life in his own country, about Thessa,
about  his voyage to  Crete,  his slavery in Tha-Quem and  his intention  of
returning  home.  As  he  spoke his fingers  moulded  the  clay, and  Kidogo
translated  what  he said. The  sculptor worked with unusual inspiration and
persistence. The  statue  of  the chief seemed to him  to be  a  finger-post
pointing to the haven of his native land.  Memories of the past gave rise to
impatience, and the enforced stay with the Elephant People already  began to
pall.
     The old man sighed and began to fidget, apparently he was tired.
     "Say something in your own language," the chief suddenly asked.
     "To ellnuiksou ellevthepoy !" exclaimed Pandion.
     These were  the words that his grandfather loved to repeat when he told
the boy stories of famous Greek-heroes; they sounded strange when uttered in
the heart of Africa.
     "What did you say?" asked the chief.
     Pandion  explained  that  those words  expressed the  dream  of all the
people of his country-"Whatever is Hellenic is free!"
     These  words  apparently  gave  the  chief  food for  thought..  Kidogo
mentioned discreetly  to  Pandion that the chief was  tired and that what he
had done would be enough for that day.
     "Yes, that's enough!" exclaimed the elephant trainer, raising his head.
"Come tomorrow. How many days more will it take?"
     "Three  days,"  said Pandion confidently,  despite the signs of warning
that Kidogo made to him.
     "Three days, that's not too much, I can bear that,"  agreed the old man
and rose from his seat.
     Pandion and Kidogo covered the clay with a damp cloth and put it into a
storeroom close to the chief's house.
     On the second day the two friends  told  the chief  about Tha-Quem, its
might and its colossal  buildings. The old chief frowned, he was hurt by the
stories of the people of Aigyptos, but still he listened with interest. When
Pandion told him of the narrow, monotonous world of the Egyptians, the chief
brightened up.
     "Now  it's  time  you  learned  something about  my  people,"  he  said
importantly. "You'll take news of them to your own distant countries."
     The chief told  the friends  how they  made use of  the strength of the
elephants to make long journeys throughout the country. The only danger that
threatened them was the possibility of meeting  herds  of  wild elephants; a
tame  elephant  might, at any moment, decide to return to its wild brethren.
But there were certain ways of preventing even that.
     The chief told them that farther to the east and the south of the place
where the former  slaves lived as the guests of an hospitable people, beyond
the swamps and mountains, there were big  freshwater seas. The seas  were so
big  that they could only be crossed on special boats and that the  crossing
took several days. These freshwater seas* formed a long chain, one after the
other, running in a  southerly direction, and were  surrounded by  mountains
that belched  smoke,  flames and rivers  of fire. (  The freshwater seas-the
great lakes of East Africa). Beyond these seas, however, there was dry land,
high plateaux with numerous wild animals, while the real  edge of the earth,
the shore of the endless sea, lay still farther to the east, beyond a fringe
of swamps.
     On  the plateaux  stood two  gigantic, blindingly  white mountains, not
very far from each caber,  the beauty of which  cannot be conceived by a man
who has not seen them for himself. (Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro, two of the
highest peaks on the African continent.)
     These mountains, he said, were surrounded by dense jungles inhabited by
savage peoples and mysterious animals of an ancient type that were very rare
and  quite  impossible  to  describe. The Elephant  People  had seen canyons
filled  with the bones of  huge animals mixed with the bones of human beings
and fragments  of  their stone weapons.  In the thickets  that  surround the
northernmost white  mountain there were  wild boars as big as a  rhinoceros,
and once  they had  seen  an  animal  there as big as  an  elephant and much
heavier, with two horns placed side by side at the end of its jowl.
     People  lived in  floating villages (  Villages built on huge rafts are
still to  be seen on  the great East African lakes)  on  the freshwater seas
where  they could not be reached  by their enemies; these were savage people
who gave no quarter to anybody.
     Pandion asked the chief how far to the south the land of Africa ran and
whether it was true that there the sun was again lower.
     The old man livened up  at  this question. It  turned  out that he  had
commanded  a big expedition to  the  south  when he had been less than forty
years old.  They  went  on twenty selected elephants  for gold  and for  the
precious grass of the  southern  plains that  gives strength to the aged and
health to the sick.
     Beyond the great river (  The Zambezi with  the  Victoria Falls.)  that
flows from west to  east, where there are giant waterfalls  and  a permanent
rainbow plays in  the high columns  of  spray,  there are endless blue grass
plains. Along the fringes of these grassy plains, along the seacoast, in the
west and in the east,  there  are  mighty trees whose leaves seem to be made
from polished metal and glitter in the sun like a million mirrors.
     The grass and leaves in the  south, said the old man, are not green but
grey, pale blue and dove-coloured,  which makes the country look strange and
cold.  It  is  true, too, that the farther  you  go  to the south the colder
becomes the climate. The period of the rains, he added, which coincides with
our dry season, is unbearably cold for northern people.
     The  old man told Pandion  about an  extraordinary silver tree  that is
found in the mountain gorges far to the south. The tree grows to a height of
thirty cubits, has thin bark with transverse wrinkles, many branches covered
with leaves shine like silver and are as soft as down; the tree, he said, is
possessed of a magic beauty that charms all who see it.
     Barren stony  mountains,  he  continued,  rose up like  gigantic purple
towers with  vertical walls,  at the  foot of which crouched  twisted trees,
covered with large bunches of bright red flowers.
     On the barren  parts of  the plain and the stony  slopes  of the  hills
ugly, twisted bushes and low trees grew.
     (  Various  kinds  of  aloe-trees  from  the   Liliaceae  family,  also
dragon-trees.)
     Their fleshy leaves, filled  with  poisonous sap,  were  attached  like
outspread fingers to the ends of twin  branches  that shot  straight up into
the air. Other trees had the same sort of leaves, reddish in colour, growing
in the  form of a  cap curving downwards  at the end  of a curved stem, four
cubits high, on which there were no branches.
     Near the rivers  and on the fringe of the forests, there were the ruins
of ancient buildings made  of huge dressed stones, apparently the work of  a
powerful and highly skilled people. "Today," said the  old  chief, "there is
nobody living in the vicinity of these ruins  except the dangerous wild dogs
that howl there in the moonlight. Nomad herdsmen and poor hunters wander the
plains. Still farther to the  south there  are people with light grey skins,
who have huge herds of cattle, but the expedition of the Elephant People did
not go so far." ( Tribes of the Hottentot type were much more  widespread in
times of  antiquity than at  present. There  is some reason to  believe them
related to the ancient Egyptians.)
     Pandion and Kidogo listened avidly to the old chief's stories. His tale
of the blue plains seemed like fancy interwoven with fact, but still the old
man's voice sounded convincing; he frequently stared  into the distance, his
eyes flashing with excitement, and it seemed to Pandion that pictures of the
past, retained in his memory, were passing before the old man's eyes.
     Suddenly the chief broke off.
     "You've stopped working," he said, "and I'll have to sit before you for
many more days!"
     Pandion  hurried  although  it  did  not  seem  as  though  haste  were
essential;  he felt  that  the  old chief's bust  was  more  successful than
anything  he had ever done  before.  He had acquired his skill gradually and
imperceptibly, despite all he had gone through;  his  tremendous  experience
and his observations in Aigyptos stood him in good stead.
     On the third day Pandion compared his bust with the  face of the  chief
several times.
     "It's ready," he said with a profound sigh.
     "Have you finished?" asked the chief and, seeing that Pandion nodded in
confirmation, got up and went over to his portrait.
     Kidogo  looked in  admiration  at  Pandion's  work,  scarcely  able  to
restrain words of approval.
     The clay, despite its uniform colour, had taken on all typical features
of that stern, wise and imperious face,  with its firm, protruding jaws, its
wide, sloping forehead, heavy lips and thick nose with distended nostrils.
     The old man turned to the house and called out softly.
     His call was answered by one of his wives, a young woman, with a  large
number of tiny plaits cut short  like a fringe on her forehead. She gave the
chief a mirror  of polished  silver,  obviously northern work, that  had got
into the centre of Africa by some unknown ways.
     The  chief  held the mirror at  arm's  length against the  cheek of the
statue and began to compare his reflection with Pandion's work.
     Pandion  and Kidogo awaited  the old man's  judgement.  The  chief  was
silent for a long time, and then he put down the mirror and said:
     "Great is the power of man's ability. . . . You, stranger, possess this
ability more than  anybody  in our country. You  have made me  better than I
am-that means that you think well of me. I'll pay you in your own coin. What
reward do you want?"
     Kidogo gave Pandion a push, but the young  Hellene answered  the  chief
with words that seemed to come from his very heart.
     "Everything I own you see before you. I have nothing but the spear that
was given to me..." Pandion stammered and continued jerkily: "I need nothing
here in a strange land. I have my own country; it  is  far away but still it
is my greatest treasure. Help me get back home."
     The  elephant  trainer placed his hand on the Hellene's shoulder with a
paternal gesture.
     "I want to talk  with you  again,  come tomorrow with your friend.  Now
we'll  finish this off. I'll order our  potters to dry  the  clay so that it
will never crack.  I want to keep this  picture  of myself. They'll take out
the surplus clay from inside  and will  cover  it with a special pitch -they
know how. The only thing I don't like is the blind  eyes. Can you  put  some
stones in them that I'll give you?"
     Pandion agreed to this. The old man called to his wife again; this time
she brought out a casket covered with a Leopard skin.
     The chief took a fairly  big bag out of the box and shook out on to his
hand a heap of big,  faceted stones, oval in  shape arid  as transparent  as
water. The unusually  brilliant glitter of  the stones  attracted  Pandion's
attention; each stone seemed to concentrate in itself the full power  of the
sunlight, at the same time remaining cold, transparent and pure. (Diamonds.)
     "I've always wanted to have such eyes,"  said the chief,  "so that they
would concentrate  the  light of  life  but themselves would  never  change.
Select the best of them and put them into the bust."
     The young sculptor obeyed him. The portrait of  the  chief  acquired an
aspect  that defies description. The  iridescent stones gleamed in  place of
eyes in the wet, grey clay; their gleam filled the face with magic life. The
contrast had  at first seemed unnatural to Pandion but later  it filled  him
with amazement. The more  he looked the greater the harmony he found  in the
combination of transparent eyes and the dark clay of the sculptured face.
     The elephant trainer was very pleased.
     "Take these  stones as a  souvenir, stranger  craftsman!" exclaimed the
chief and  poured a  number of  them into Pandion's hand. Some  of them were
bigger  than  a  plum-stone in size.  "These stones  come from the  southern
plains and are found in  the  rivers  there.  There's  nothing in the  world
that's  harder or purer than these stones.  When you're back in your distant
land, you can show people the marvels of the south acquired by the  Elephant
People."
     Pandion thanked the old man and went  away,  hiding the gift in the bag
that held Yakhmos' stone.
     "Don't forget, come tomorrow!" the chief called after him.
     Back in their  hut the former slaves talked excitedly  about what would
happen as a result of the success that attended  Pandion's work. Their hopes
in the early continuance of their  journey were strengthened. It seemed that
there was every reason to expect the  Elephant People  would let them go and
show them the true road.
     At  the appointed hour Pandion and Kidogo appeared at the  house of the
chief. The old man  beckoned to them to come up. They sat at the feet of the
elephant trainer, hiding their excitement with difficulty.
     For some time the chief sat in silence and when he  spoke he  addressed
them both at once.
     "I've taken counsel with the other chiefs  and they agree with me. Half
a  moon from now, after the grand hunt, we shall be sending a big expedition
to the west for Coaling nuts and for gold. Six elephants will go through the
forest  and  farther  to the upper reaches of  a big river, seven days march
from here. Give me that stick," said the chief to Pandion.
     The old man drew the outlines of a big gulf where the sea cut deep into
dry  land, and Kidogo  gave  a faint  cry.  The chief  drew  a wavy line  to
indicate a river with two  branches at its head  and placed  a  cross  in  a
junction of the waterways.
     "The elephants will  go  this  far,  you'll follow them  and will  pass
easily through the forest. From there you'll have to go  alone, but  it will
take you five days more to reach the sea. . . ."
     "O  father and  -prince!" exclaimed  the excited Kidogo, "you  are  our
saviour.  That river flows within the bounds of  my country, and I  know the
plateau where the gold is found. . . ." The Negro jumped up in ecstasy.
     "I know," continued the  old chief, with a somewhat supercilious smile,
"I know your people and your country and was at one time acquainted with one
of your strongest chiefs, Yorumefu."
     "Yorumefu!" exclaimed Kidogo. "He's my mother's brother!"
     "Good," said  the chief,  interrupting Kidogo.  "You  will  give him my
greetings.  Have you understood everything I've told you?"  Without  waiting
for an answer he finished by saying, "Now I want  to speak to your  friend."
The chief turned to Pandion. "I feel that you'll become a  great man in your
own country if you succeed in returning home. Ask me whatever you will and I
will answer you." "For a long time I've been thinking of  asking you how you
subdue the elephants," said Pandion.  "Or perhaps  it's  a secret," he added
doubtfully.
     "The training of elephants is  a secret to fools alone," smiled the old
chief, "Any man of wisdom  can easily guess how it's done. .  . . Apart from
the  secret,  however,  it  implies hard  and  dangerous work and  unlimited
patience.  Brains aren't sufficient, there's real  hard work as  well. There
are but few tribes  in this  land that possess the three qualities my people
have-intellect,   industry  and  unbounded  courage.  You  must  understand,
stranger, that a full-grown  elephant cannot  be trained. We catch them when
they're still quite young. A young elephant  is trained  for  ten years. Ten
years  of  persistent  labour are  required  for  the  elephant  to begin to
understand the commands given him by man and to do the necessary work."
     "Ten years!" exclaimed the astounded Pandion.
     "Yes,  not  a moment less, that  is, if  you have correctly  judged the
character of the elephant. And if you make a mistake you will not manage the
task even in  fifteen  years. There  are  stubborn  animals and  stupid ones
amongst  the  elephants. And  then,  you must not forget that the capture of
young  elephants  is a matter of great danger.  We have to capture them with
our own hands, without the aid of trained elephants because they may go back
to  join the herd. The  trained  elephants  help  us when  the herd has been
driven off and the youngsters are made  fast. Several of our bravest men are
always killed during an elephant hunt." The old chief's voice took on a note
of sorrow.  "Tell me,  have  you seen  the exercises that our young warriors
perform? You have. 'Good. These exercises are also necessary training in the
art of elephant hunting."
     On  several occasions Pandion had seen the unusual  games played by the
Elephant People. The warriors planted two high  posts on a  level open space
and fixed a bamboo cross-piece between them at a height of about five cubits
from the ground.
     They would then take a long run, make a peculiar sort of sideways  leap
into the air and fly over the cross-bar. The jumper's  body would double up,
almost  in two, and fly  into the  air with  the  right  side forward in the
direction  of the jump. Pandion had never before seen anybody jump  so high.
Some of  the best jumpers  could leap  to  a  height of  almost six  cubits.
Pandion was  filled  with astonishment  at  the great skill  of the Elephant
People but could not understand what use they could put this ability to. The
words of the stern old  chief did  something to explain the significance  of
these exercises.
     After a short pause the chief continued in a louder' voice:
     "Now you see how difficult a matter it is.  There are other tribes that
hunt elephants. They kill  them  with  heavy spears hurled  down from trees,
drive them into pits or creep up to them when they are asleep in the forest.
I'll  do  this for  you." The old chief slapped himself  on the knee.  "I'll
order the elephant hunters to take you with them  on; the next hunt. It will
be soon, before our expedition leaves  for the western forests. Do  you want
to witness the glory and the torment of my people?"
     "I do and I thank you, chief. And may my companions go with me?"
     "All of you would be too many. Invite one  or two to go with you,  more
would hamper our hunters."
     "Then  let my  two friends  go with  me-he  can  go," Pandion indicated
Kidogo, "and one other. . . ."
     "You  mean  the morose-looking man  with  the thick  beard?"  asked the
chief,  meaning  Cavius; the young Hellene affirmed  the  correctness of his
supposition.
     "I also want to have a talk with him, tell him to come to me," said the
old man.  "I suppose you're in a hurry  to  tell your companions that we are
willing  to help  them.  When  we appoint  the  day of the hunt  you will be
informed." The old chief dismissed the two friends with a gesture.


     To  the  menacing rumble of tom-toms the  tribesmen  assembled  for the
hunt.  Some of  them  were mounted on elephants, loaded with ropes, food and
water,  the  remainder went on  foot. Pandion, Kidogo and Cavius, armed with
their heavy spears, joined the latter party. Two hundred hunters crossed the
river and set out across the plains in a northerly  direction, making for  a
range of  bare stony  hills  faintly  visible  in the  blue  haze above  the
horizon. The hunters moved so fast that even such experienced walkers as our
three friends had difficulty in keeping pace with them.
     The ground  that lay to the  south and  east of the range  of hills was
perfectly  flat,  with huge expanses of level,  burnt-up grassland. The wind
raised clouds of dust over the  yellow plain, obscuring the dull greenery of
the trees and bushes. The nearer  cliffs were clearly visible, but the rocks
beyond them  were almost hidden by a  greyish-blue mist. Steep rounded peaks
jutted  up like the skulls of gigantic, phantom  elephants; while  the lower
rocks were hunched up like the backs of huge crocodiles.
     The Elephant People spent the night under the southern end of the chain
of  rocks and  at dawn moved off along their  eastern  slope. Over the plain
ahead  of them  hung  a  reddish  mirage  in  which  quivered  the  diffused
silhouettes  of trees. An extensive  swamp spread away to the north. A young
man left the hunting party and ordered the three strangers to follow  him up
the rocky ridge.
     Cavius, Pandion  and  Kidogo climbed up to a ledge  two  hundred cubits
higher  than the  surrounding  plain. Over  their heads  rose a  sheer stone
precipice that  breathed intense  heat,  its bright yellow surface scored by
the zigzags of numerous cracks. The hunter led  the friends to another ledge
that overlooked the swamp, ordered them to take cover behind tufts of coarse
grass and stones, made a sign implying silence and left them.
     For a long time the three friends lay still under the blazing  sun, not
daring to say a word. Not a sound came from the valley that spread out below
them.
     Suddenly  from the left faint  squelchy  noises  came floating  towards
them,  growing  louder  as  they drew nearer. From  behind his stone Pandion
looked out cautiously through the scarcely moving grass and held his breath.
     The dark  grey cloud of  thousands of elephants covered  the swamp. The
huge  animals  were  crossing it diagonally  from the side of the rocks and,
passing over the boundary between swamp  and grassland, were making  for the
south-east.
     The bodies of the  animals stood cut clearly against the yellowish-grey
grass.  They were moving  in herds  with  anything from  a hundred  to  five
hundred  head in each,  herd  following  herd with a  short interval between
them. Each  herd formed a solid mass of animals  pressed  close against each
other; viewed from above, it looked like the movement of a grey island whose
surface, undulating with hundreds of backs, was scarred by the white streaks
of the tusks.
     In the swampy places the herd stretched out in a thin line. Some of the
elephants  left the herd, ran  to one side  and stood there spreading  their
great ears and  placing their hind-legs  apart  in a funny way;  they  soon,
however, rejoined the general stream.
     Some of them, mostly the huge bulls, moved unhurriedly, their heads and
ears lowered; others advanced gravely, holding the forepart of the body high
and  crisscrossing their hind-legs;  a  third kind waddled  along  sideways,
their thin tails jutting up above them.  Tusks of the most varied shapes and
sizes-some  short, others so long that they almost  reached the ground, some
curved  upwards and others quite  straight-flashed  white against  the  grey
background.
     Kidogo brought  his  lips close  to  Pandion's ear. "The  elephants are
moving towards  the swamps  and rivers," he said. "The grasslands are  burnt
up." "Where are the hunters?" Pandion asked. "They are waiting in hiding for
a herd that contains a  lot of young elephants; such herds are always at the
end. You can see there are only full-grown elephants here."
     "Why is it some elephants have long tusks and others short?"
     "The short ones are broken."
     "Fighting amongst themselves?"
     "I have bean told that elephants rarely  fight amongst themselves. They
mostly  break  their tusks when  they pull up trees. They use their tusks to
overturn trees so that they can eat the  fruits,  leaves and thin twigs. The
forest elephants have  much stronger tusks than the plains elephants; that's
why hard ivory goes  to the markets from the forests and soft ivory from the
plains."
     "Are these forest or plains elephants?"
     "They're plains elephants. Look for yourself." Kidogo pointed to an old
elephant that was hanging back not far from the rocks where the friends were
hiding.
     The grey giant, knee-high  in  the grass,  turned directly towards  the
watching friends. Its ears were spread out widely on either side, their skin
stretched taut  like  sails. The  elephant lowered its  head. This  movement
brought  the  animal's sloping forehead forward, deep  pits appeared between
the  eyes  and  the  crown  of the head,  and  the  whole head took  on  the
appearance  of a heavy pillar that tapered towards the  bottom, unnoticeably
changing to  the vertically pendant trunk. Deep transverse  folds, like dark
rings,  marked the trunk at regular intervals. At the base  of the trunk two
tubes jutted out at a  sharp angle on either side, from which very short and
thick tusks spread outwards.
     "I  can't  understand  how you  knew that it  was  a plains  elephant,"
whispered Pandion after carefully examining the calm old giant.
     "Do  you  see  his  tusks? They're  not broken, they're worn away. They
don't grow on an  old elephant like they do on one in the prime of his life,
and he has worn them away because they are soft. You never see such tusks on
a forest elephant, they are mostly long and thin."
     The friends  conversed softly. Time  passed and  the leading  elephants
disappeared beyond the horizon, the entire herd turning into a dark strip.
     From the left came still  another herd.  At its head marched four  bull
elephants of enormous size, almost eight cubits high. They waved their heads
as they walked,  their long, slightly curved tusks rising and falling and at
times touching the grass with their sharp points.
     There were many cows in the herd; these could be distinguished by their
sunken  backs and the huge folds  of  skin on their flanks.  Baby elephants,
pressing close  to  the  hind-legs of the  cows, toddled  along uncertainly;
while to  one side,  keeping to  themselves, was  the  merry throng  of  the
elephant youth. Their tiny tusks and ears, their small long heads, their big
stomachs and the  equal  length of their fore-  and hind-legs  distinguished
them from the grown-ups.
     The friends realized that the decisive moment of the hunt had come.  It
was  difficult  for the baby elephants  to march  through the swamp, and the
herd moved farther to the right  on to a  strip of  hard  ground between the
bushes and occasional trees.
     "Why is it that such a  heavy animal as the  elephant doesn't get stuck
in the swamps?" asked Pandion.
     "They have special feet," began Kidogo, "they. . . ."
     A  thunderous noise, made by the hunters banging on sheets of metal and
tom-toms, accompanied by their frenzied howls, spread so suddenly across the
plain that the friends gasped in amazement.
     The  elephant herd, panic-stricken,  rushed for the swamp  only to find
there another line of men with  tomtoms  and  trumpets that  rose out of the
grass.  The leading  elephants  held back, checking the pressure from  those
behind. The  piercing trumpeting of the frightened elephants, the thunder of
metal  sheets,  the crackle  of breaking  branches-through  all that hellish
noise  the thin, plaintive whine  of the calves could occasionally be heard.
The  animals  dashed here and  there, at first bunching together, then again
spreading out. The  figures of the  men could be  seen in the dust clouds in
the midst of that chaos of milling  giants. The hunters did not approach the
herd but ran from place to place, reformed their  ranks and again beat their
metal  sheets.  Gradually the friends  began to understand what  the hunters
were doing;  they were  cutting the young elephants  off from the adults and
forcing them  to the right into the open mouth of a dry watercourse that cut
into the stone cliff and was protected by a strip of forest. The grey giants
ran after  the hunters, trying to trample on enemies that had  appeared from
they knew not where. The men, however, leaping high into the air, hid in the
bushes and behind the trees. While the  infuriated animals were waving their
trunks  and seeking  their hidden enemies,  new rows  of  hunters, screaming
wildly and  rattling their metal sheets, appeared from  the other  side. The
elephants  turned  on the  newcomers who repeated  the  same manoeuvre in an
effort to cut off the young elephants.
     The herd  moved farther  and farther  into the grasslands,  grey bodies
disappeared  behind the trees and only the deafening noise and the clouds of
dust that rose high into the air indicated the hunting ground.
     The  astounded friends,  amazed at the bravery and skill of the hunters
in avoiding the maddened monsters who charged  down on  them, and continuing
their dangerous  business  no matter what  happened, gazed in silence at the
empty land with its crushed  bushes and broken  trees. Kidogo's face  wore a
worried frown as he listened to what was going on, and he said softly:
     "Something's wrong. The hunt isn't going the way it should!"
     "How do you know that?" asked the astonished Cavius.
     "They brought us here because  they  expected the herd  to move  to the
east. The herd has moved off to the right, I suppose that must be bad."
     "Let's go over there, back along the ledge, the way we came," suggested
Pandion.
     Kidogo pondered over the suggestion for  a  moment and  then agreed. In
the bustle of the hunt their coming could not make any difference.
     Bending low and keeping  concealed  behind stones and grass, the  three
friends  moved a  distance of a thousand cubits  back in the direction  from
which they had come until they were again opposite the open plain.
     They could see the gully in the rocks where the hunters had driven more
than a dozen  young elephants. The hunters were darting  about  amongst  the
trees, skilfully dropping nooses over the animals  and fastening them to the
tree-trunks.
     A line of warriors  armed with broad spears  closed the entrance to the
gully. The noise and shouting was now at its height some two thousand cubits
away; apparently the greater part of the herd was over there.
     Suddenly the loud  trumpeting of elephants  came from in front and from
the  left. Kidogo shuddered. "The  elephants are attacking," he whispered. A
man let  out a long moan,  the angry cries of another sounded  like words of
command.
     On  the far  side of  the  open  space  in  front  of  them,  where two
wide-spreading trees cast a huge patch of shadow, the friends could see some
movement.  A moment later  a huge elephant appeared from there with his ears
outspread  and  his trunk  stretched out  in front of him like a log. He was
followed  by  two  other  similar  giants.  Pandion recognized in  them  the
monsters  who  had  led  the herd. The fourth, accompanied by  several other
elephants,  was  a  little distance behind.  From  the bushes  on  the right
hunters ran out to cut  off the elephants. They ran between them and as they
ran they threw  spears at  the  elephant that  had last appeared. The latter
trumpeted  furiously and turned on the men who were running as fast as their
legs could  carry them towards the  swamp. The other elephants followed him.
The three leaders paid no attention  to the hunters' scheme to separate them
from their fellows, and continued their  race towards the valley between the
rocks, most probably attracted by the cries of the young.
     "That's  bad,  that's  bad,  the  leaders  have  turned  in  the  other
direction,"  whispered  Kidogo  excitedly,  squeezing Pandion's  arm till it
hurt.
     "Look. . . . Look, there's bravery for you," shouted Cavius, forgetting
himself.
     The hunters that barred the entrance to the  valley stood firm and made
no attempt to conceal themselves from the infuriated monsters. As they moved
forward, strung  out in a long chain, the low, burned-out grass offered them
no cover.
     The  leading elephant  rushed  straight  at the middle of  the  line of
hunters.  Two men  stood  stock-still while their neighbours on  either side
sprang forward  towards the  approaching giant. The  elephant  slackened his
pace, raised his  trunk high into the air, trumpeted maliciously and set out
to  trample the hunters  underfoot. No  more  than  ten cubits separated the
brave men  from the elephant when  they leapt  aside like lightning. At that
same  moment  two men rose  out of  the grass beside  each of the elephant's
hind-legs; two of them thrust their broad spears into the animal's belly and
the other two leaned back to strike at the elephant's legs.
     A  high-pitched,  whistling  note escaped the  leader's  raised  trunk.
Lowering it  the elephant turned his  head towards the nearest  man  on  the
right. The hunter could not escape him or was too slow in his movements.
     Blood spurted  from his body and the three friends could see from their
vantage point the bare bones of his side and shoulder. The wounded man  fell
to the ground without a sound, but the elephant also collapsed heavily on to
its hind-quarters and  began slowly crawling away sideways. The hunters that
had stopped  the  leading  elephant  then  joined  their  comrades  who were
engaging  the  other  two.  These  were  either  cleverer  or  had  previous
experience  of man; they  dashed from side to  side,  giving the  hunters no
opportunity to creep up behind them, and crushed three men underfoot.
     The clouds  of dust that  hung over the scene of the hunt turned red in
the rays of  the setting sun. The elephants looked like huge black towers at
the base of which fearless men were darting to and fro. They leaped into the
air to escape the  long  tusks,  met the animals' trunks with  spears thrust
shalt  downwards into  the ground  and  with  loud  shouts  ran  behind  the
elephants, attracting  attention away from other hunters who would otherwise
have been trampled to death.
     The  frenzied animals  kept up their  incessant  trumpeting.  When they
turned  their  heads towards the  rocks  on which  the  three  friends  were
sitting, they seemed extraordinarily tall,  their widespread ears waved high
above  the hunters. Seen  from the side  the elephants, their heads lowered,
looked  smaller,  their tusks almost raked the ground, ready  to  gore their
enemies. Pandion, Cavius and Kidogo realized that they were looking -at only
part of the battle; it was going on far away beyond the trees where the herd
was concentrated, and away to the left  in the  swamp where the  hunters had
drawn off the  fourth leader and the elephants  that  had come with him. The
three friends had no idea  what was going on there, but  they had no time to
think about it,  for the  bloody struggle  being  enacted  before their eyes
demanded all their attention.
     From  behind  the  trees  came  the rumble  of approaching  tom-toms as
several dozen hunters came to the aid of their comrades. The leaders of  the
elephant  herd halted in indecision, the men shouted and waved their spears,
and the elephants retreated.  They ran to  the third, wounded leader,  stood
one  on either side  of him, pushed  their tusks under his  heavy  body  and
lifted  him  on to his feet. Squeezing him between  their  huge bodies, they
dragged him behind the trees, dropped him, picked him up again and made off.
Several of the hunters started out to follow up the elephants, but they were
stopped by the chief hunter.
     "He won't get away ... they'll soon leave him ... you'll infuriate them
again..." Kidogo translated his words.
     The noise away  to the  right died down, apparently the battle had been
won. A group of hunters that appeared from the north, from  the direction of
the swamp, were carrying two inert bodies. Nobody paid  any attention to the
three friends who made their way cautiously down to the plain  to survey the
field  of battle.  They went towards  the  place where  the  main  herd  was
concentrated. As they pressed their way through the  bushes, Kidogo suddenly
jumped back  in  fright-a  dying  elephant,  the  tip  of  its  trunk  still
quivering,  lay  on the crown of  a tree  that he  must  have broken down by
falling  against  it.  Farther on, where the  trees  were sparser,  a second
elephant lay  in a  grey  heap  on  its belly,  with  bent legs and its back
hunched up. As it scented the approach of men  it  raised its head; the deep
folds of skin  that  lay  around  its dull, sunken eyes gave  the  animal an
expression of the infinite weariness of old age. The giant lowered its head,
leaning" on  its  tusks,  and then with a  dull thud  fell on its  side. The
hunters were calling  to  each other all round.  Kidogo  waved his hand  and
turned  back-another  herd  of  elephants had appeared from  the south.  The
friends hurried back to the rocks, but this  time it  was a  false alarm-the
trained elephants of the Elephant People were approaching.
     The young elephants tied to  the trees  stuck up  their tails and  made
frantic efforts  to get at the men, trying to reach them  with their trunks.
The  elephant drivers placed their trained animals one on either side of the
captives. They  squeezed  them between their bodies and led them away to the
village. As a precaution ropes were fixed to the neck and hind-legs of every
young elephant; fifteen men  in  front and behind held  the ropes. The tired
faces  of the hunters, haggard from the terrific strain  of  the  hunt, were
filled with gloom. Eleven motionless bodies had already been laid out on the
wattle platforms  on  the backs of elephants, and hunters were still beating
the bushes in search of another two missing men.
     The elephants  with the captives were led away, and the hunters  sat or
lay on the ground resting after the fray. The friends went  up  to the chief
hunter and asked him whether there  was anything they  could do to help. The
chief hunter looked at them 'angrily and said brusquely:
     "Help? What can  you do to  help,  strangers? It's been a hard hunt and
we've  lost many brave men. Wait  where  you were  told and don't get in our
way!''
     The friends went back to the rocks and sat down apart from the hunters,
afraid to quarrel with people on whom their entire future depended.
     Cavius, Pandion and Kidogo lay down to wait until they were called, and
talked  softly amongst  themselves. The sun  was going down and long shadows
from the battlemented rocks stretched out into the plain.
     "Still  I  can't understand why the huge elephants  don't kill all  the
people in battle," said Cavius thoughtfully. "If the elephants were to fight
better, they could crush all the hunters to dust. . . ."
     "You're  right,"  agreed Kidogo.  "It's the good luck  of  man that the
elephant is fainthearted."
     "How can that be?" asked the astonished Etruscan.
     "It's simply because the elephant isn't used  to fighting. He's  so big
and  strong that no other animal ever attacks him; he's  not threatened with
danger since only man is bold enough to hunt him. This is why the grey giant
is not a reliable fighter, his will is easily broken, and  he can't stand up
to a long fight if he doesn't  crush his enemy immediately. The buffalo is a
different case.  If the buffalo possessed  the size  and  intellect  of  the
elephant, all those who hunt him would be killed."
     Cavius muttered something indefinite under  his breath; he did not know
whether  to believe the Negro  or not; but then  he recalled  the indecision
which he himself had seen the elephants display at the most decisive  moment
of the battle and said no more.
     "The spears the Elephant People  use are quite different from ours; the
blades are eight fingers wide," put in Pandion. "What enormous strength must
be needed to strike with such a spear."
     Kidogo suddenly stood  up and listened. Not a sound  came from the side
where the hunters  had been resting. The sky, golden in the setting sun, was
rapidly darkening.
     "They have gone away and forgotten us," exclaimed the Negro and ran out
from behind the rocks.
     Not a soul was to be seen  anywhere. In the distance  scarcely  audible
voices  were calling to one  another; the hunters were on their way  back to
the village without the three friends.
     "Let's  follow  them immediately,  the journey  is  a  long one,"  said
Pandion hastily, but the Negro held his friend