"Then the gods who preserved my fathers to old age, have not forgotten that I learned patience in my extreme youth," sighed the man.
Seeing that the elephant was not quieting, Kudrat Sharif spoke now in pacifying tones—to the mahout:
"Come down among us who are your brothers; we have prepared all things for your refreshment."
"I will come down with a full heart and an empty stomach, most beneficent, when this Majesty will permit," the strange mahout assented wearily.
"Is he rough, son—to sit?" asked the very old man, coming closer.
The elephant shied a step and his mahout cuddled one ear with his fingers, as he replied:
"He is the smoothest thing that ever moved upon the surface of the earth—like a wind driven by fiends. But he never stops."
The elephant was rolling more widely if anything, than at first; so the mahouts stood back a little and considered him.
His blackness was like very old bronze, with certain metallic gleams in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red devil in his eye.
Without warning, he flicked his mahout off his neck and set him precisely on the ground—the movement so quick no eye could follow his trunk as it did it.