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THE WOLVES APPEARED the following day. Perhaps they had heard us mention them earlier and finally decided to show up. They don't appear to have come in a spirit of war, possibly because the results of their hunting during the latter part of the night were enough to fill their stomachs, besides, a convoy like this of more than fifty men, many of them armed, instills a certain sense of respect and prudence, wolves might be bad, but they're not stupid. They're experts at weighing up the relative strength of the forces involved on either side and never let themselves be carried away by enthusiasm, never lose their heads, perhaps because they have no flag or military band to sweep them to glory, no, when they launch an attack, they do so in order to win, a rule to which, however, as we will see later on, there is the occasional exception. These wolves had never seen an elephant. It would not surprise us to learn that some of the more imaginative wolves, always assuming wolves have thought processes parallel to those of human beings, had thought how lucky it would be for the pack to have at its dis posal all those tons of meat just outside the lair, the table always set for lunch, dinner and supper. The ingenuous canis lupus signatus, the latin name of the iberian wolf, does not know that the elephant's skin is impervious to bullets, although one must, of course, bear in mind the enormous difference between old-fashioned bullets, which you could never be sure would go precisely where you wanted them to, and the teeth of these three representatives of the lupine race gazing down from the top of a hill at the lively spectacle of that column of men, horses and oxen preparing for the next stage of their journey to castelo rodrigo. It's quite possible that solomon's skin would not have resisted for long the concerted action of three lots of very sharp teeth honed over the centuries by the need to survive and to eat absolutely anything that crossed their path. The men are talking about the wolves, and one of them says to those nearby, If you're ever attacked by a wolf and all you have is a stick to defend yourself with, on no account let the wolf get his teeth round it, Why, asked someone, Because the wolf will gradually work his way up the stick, all the time keeping a firm grip on the wood, until he's close enough to pounce, Devilish creatures, To be fair, though, wolves are not the natural enemies of man, and if they sometimes appear to be, that's only because we're an obstacle to their having a free run of everything the world has to offer an honest wolf, Those three don't look as if they harbor any particularly hostile intentions, They must have eaten already, besides there are too many of us for them to dare to attack, say, one of those horses, which for them would be a very tasty morsel indeed, There they go, shouted a soldier. It was true. The wolves, who, from the moment they arrived, had been sitting utterly motionless, silhou etted against the backdrop of clouds, were now moving off, as if gliding rather than walking, until they disappeared, one by one. Will they be back, asked the soldier, Possibly, perhaps just to see whether or not we're still here or if an injured horse has been left behind, said the man who knew about wolves. Up ahead, the bugle sounded the order to assemble. More or less half an hour later, the column lumbered into action, with the ox-cart at the front, followed by the elephant and the porters, then the cavalry and, bringing up the rear, the quartermaster's wagon. They were all exhausted. Meanwhile, the mahout had informed the commanding officer that solomon was tired, not so much because of the distance they had traveled from lisbon, but because of the terrible state of the roads, if they merited that name. The commanding officer informed him that in a day or, at most, two, they would be within sight of castelo rodrigo, If we arrive first, he added, the elephant will be able to rest for however many days or hours it takes for the spanish to join us, as will everyone else in our party, men and beasts, And what if we arrive after them, That depends on how much of a hurry they're in and what their orders are, although I imagine that they, too, will want at least one day's repose, We're in your hands, sir, and my one desire is that your interests might also be our interests, They are, said the commanding officer. He dug in his spurs and rode on ahead, to encourage the ox-driver, for the speed of the convoy's progress depended in large measure on his driving skills, Come on, man, get those oxen moving, he shouted, it's not far to castelo rodrigo now and it won't be long before we can sleep under a roof again, And eat like human beings, I hope, said the ox-driver in a low murmur so that no one would hear him. At any rate, the command ing officer's orders did not fall on deaf ears. The driver used his prod to urge the oxen on, then shouted a few words of encouragement in that dialect common to all ox-drivers, with immediate and effective results, an impetus that was maintained for the next ten minutes or quarter of an hour, or for as long as the ox-driver could keep the flame burning. Feeling more dead than alive, starving but too weary to eat, the convoy pitched camp when the sun had already set and night was upon them. Fortunately, the wolves had not come back. If they had, they would have been able to saunter round half the encampment and choose the most succulent victim from among the horses. True, such a grandiose theft would have come to no good, a horse being too large an animal to be dragged off just like that, but if they had succeeded, we would not have found words strong enough to describe the travelers' fear when they realized that wolves had infiltrated the camp, and it would be a matter then of every man for himself. Let us give thanks to heaven that we were spared that test. Let us also thank heaven that the imposing towers of the castle have just come into view, it makes one feel like saying, as someone else once did, Today you will be with me in paradise, or, to use the commanding officer's more down-to-earth words, Tonight we'll sleep under a roof, but then, no two paradises are alike, some have houris and some do not, however, to find out just what kind of paradise we're in, all we need do is peer round the door. With a wall to protect you from the cold north wind, a roof to keep off the rain and the damp night air, you need very little else to enjoy the greatest comfort in the world. Or the delights of paradise.
Anyone who has been following this story with due atten tion will have found it odd that, after the amusing episode in which solomon kicked the village priest, there has been no further reference to other encounters with the local inhabitants, as if we were crossing a desert rather than a civilized european country, a country, moreover, as even schoolchildren know, that gave new worlds to the world. There were some encounters, but only in passing, in the most literal sense of the phrase, in that people came out of their houses to see who was coming and found themselves face to face with the elephant, and while some crossed themselves in amazement and fear, others, though equally afraid, burst out laughing, probably at the sight of the elephant's trunk. This, however, is nothing in comparison with the enthusiasm and the sheer number of boys and the occasional idle adult who came running from the town of castelo rodrigo when they heard the news about the elephant's journey, although no one knows quite how it got there, the news, that is, not the elephant, who will take some time yet to hove into view. Nervous and excited, the commanding officer gave orders to the sergeant to send someone to ask one of the older boys if the spanish soldiers had arrived. The boy was obviously a galician because he replied with another question, Why are they coming here, is there going to be a war, Answer the question, have the spaniards arrived or not, No, sir, they haven't. The information was passed to the commanding officer, on whose face there immediately appeared the most beatific of smiles. There was no doubt about it, fate seemed determined to favor the portuguese troops.