"Loxodon!" he breathed.
Never in all his life had the geologist felt so small and insignificant as in the presence of that towering survivor of the prehistoric past.
Zoar stepped forward in front of the beast.
"Ixstus!" he called gently.
The great ears inclined forward to attention.
"Stekkar mal!" the old man commanded.
Down swung the vast, wrinkled trunk in a huge loop, into which Zoar stepped and was hoisted to the table of the monstrous skull—a flat place where five men might have sat and played at cards.
Another word of command, and the mammoth advanced a couple of paces. The snakelike trunk groped forward, and Zenas, wriggling some as he went, was swung aloft and found himself seated breathlessly by the side of Zoar.
The master of the beasts smiled at the other old man.
"When you come again to your own land, you may tell your children's children, if you have them, that you have sat on the head of an amaloc, the grandfather of all beasts," said Zoar.