In a seemingly boundless desert, where the hills of sand were shifted by the winds and famine and thirst held cheerless dominion, they charged the caravan; but their camels balked and ran away, never before having seen or scented such monsters. Two, crazed by the sight of the great beasts, lost their heads and charged alone, bearing their now unwilling riders who rolled off and sought to hide in the sand drifts. The prince and his mahout, on a young male elephant hunted them. The elephant threshed the camels into helpless cripples and the prince killed the two robbers with shafts from his cross-bow.
This failure taught Chalginna a lesson. When the elephants were placed to pasture in the rich river plains; under cover of the night, he drove his war camels into their vicinity, until they knew the herd and the herd knew the camels. The boldest of his men provided themselves with short staffs, tipped with an iron point and hook, first walked among the elephants and then rode about upon their heads as did their mahouts. All the elephants grew to know and mind them, except Gisco, the young bull which the prince rode. He trumpeted wrathfully and beat about dangerously with his trunk whenever a Semite or camel approached him.
[pg 345] Seven years have passed since the marriage of the prince. Chalginna, first captain of the robber band, then chief of his tribe is now ruler of Yemen and head of a great confederacy of desert tribes. Erigalla is king of Eridu, having succeeded his father.
Each of his caravans is pillaged or made to pay tribute and his subjects are kidnapped and held for ransom, by Chalginna. It is impossible to follow the robber into the desert or to corner him in battle; because when attacked, his force riding camels, scatters as chaff across the desert of loose sand; and neither horses nor elephants nor man can follow.
There are now thirty-three elephants, Gisco the bull, which bears the king’s howdah, is leader of the herd and knows no master except his mahout and the king.
One night, the uproar and trumpeting of the elephants awoke the city, though their pasture was more than a mile down the river. A company of horsemen sent to investigate reported that seven of the elephants were missing and the king’s great elephant was badly wounded, having thirty spear heads buried in his fleshy sides and many wounds about the head and neck; while trampled into the earth about his feet or torn and maimed almost beyond identification of form were the bodies of seven camels and four of Chalginna’s troopers.
King Erigalla sent out five hundred horsemen and a hundred and fifty chariots to recover his elephants. When they came to the camp of Chalginna, he did not run but gave battle and drove them back to the very gates of the city. Then he dared the king to meet him in the great river valley; but the king declined, feeling that now he should reserve his strength, expecting an assault upon the city.
[pg 346] Again by night Chalginna visited the river pastures, having a dual purpose; one was to kill the bull elephant, but he had been taken to the palace garden, where, soothed by the cooling spray from the great fountain, he was being nursed back to his great strength; the other was to cut down a great tree and a number of saplings, which were dragged to the desert camp by thirty work camels and need in the construction of a portable ram. The great tree trunk was rigged to swing from a frame on raw hide belts and a platform built on either side on which men might stand and, grasping pegs driven in the log, propel it back and forth with great force. Above the whole Chalginna built an oval canopy of saplings, broad enough not only to cover the machine, but to shield the four great elephants which would bear it. When finished the strongest of his men, twelve on each side, took places on the platforms; and for some days men and elephants were drilled in its manipulation. When the training was completed, Chalginna having gathered six thousand troopers, five thousand on camels and a thousand horsemen, at twilight started on the march against the city of Eridu. The portable ram, suggesting an immense land tortoise, led the advance; Chalginna and his staff rode beside it on the other elephants and the troopers followed.
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Gisco, the king’s bull elephant, though fully recovered, was still chained to a stake in the palace garden. There he stood, swaying his great body, feeding upon rank and tender rushes brought from the river marsh; and to drive away the flies and reduce the heat occasionally sprayed his body and the earth around with water from the fountain. The wind blew from the desert. Shortly past [pg 347] midnight he ceased swaying and lifted his great ears, stood for a moment as a great beast of bronze; then he raised his trunk aloft and trumpeted an alarm that was heard by half the city. The wind had borne to his keen sense of smell the pungent odor of the camel, the scent of the missing from his herd and given warning that his old enemies, Chalginna’s troopers, were at hand.