Gisco, whose neck was bound about with a great wreath of lotus flowers, seeing his old master or disturbed by the three strange elephants, stepped gingerly beyond the circle of his captivity and came slowly towards them, giving low trumpetings of joy.
Chalginna, who assumed to treat the king’s temporary release as a part of a farcical ceremony, but was so exercised by it as to determine upon his death that night, was incensed beyond self-control when the elephant which had disabled his arm, passing near seemed to sneeze contemptuously in his very face.
He struck at the great beast with his short sword, and though he did little more than scratch through the thick hide, he severed the wreath of lotus flowers and it dropped to the ground.
Gisco the spiritless, the lazy, for a moment was transformed into Gisco the war elephant. He struck the king’s horse lifeless; grasped the king about the middle and lifting him high above the heads of the astonished multitude, dropped him head down, through the roof of the prison; then shoving the half removed cap stone [pg 358] into place, slowly walked back to his old circle and began eating from his rack of rushes.
While yet the multitude stood apathetic in astonishment, the beggar seer, who was consulted as an oracle, the same who had advised the captive king in the early days of his imprisonment, climbed upon the cap stone of the prison and addressed the multitude: “Let no one oppose the decree of God. Chalginna is deposed.” And the people echoed: “It is the will of God! Long live King Erigalla! Long live the King!”
And he reigned in peace sixty and seven years from that day, saw his son’s sons and their children, died in honor and full of days, and was succeeded by his son, the beggar boy, known as Surgulla the Great, who for forty and three years ruled all the land from the Red Sea east to the Persian Gulf and from the Black Sea south to the Gulf of Aden.
The End
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOICES; BIRTH-MARKS; THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT ***