"I thank Your Majesty," I said, "but we must shortly leave for Ozenê. I should not like my ship to sail for home without me.
"That beastly place?" said King Girixis, yawning. "Full of fanatical sectaries? Know, sir, that I am Orthodox, as was my sire before me. But I do not force my beliefs upon others, and I treat my Buddhist subjects the same as any others. You will find things otherwise in Ozenê. But then, meseems, you merchants must needs face such risks. If you can cross the dreadful Black Water, you can do anything." He snapped his fingers, and a servant appeared with a tray of gifts.
"I regret that I can offer you but one small gift apiece," said the king. "Our treasury has been straitened of late."
Otaspes chose a silver ornament. When the tray was proffered to me, I picked up a little bronze statuette with a ring at the top and a fine chain for hanging it round one's neck, as Phoenicians do with glass statuettes of their Pataecian gods. The statuette was that of a pudgy man with an elephant's head, seated on a flower.
"Would Your Majesty mind telling me what this means?" I asked.
Girixis smiled. "That is the Lord Ganesha, one of the most popular minor gods among the Orthodox. He is the patron of literature and commerce. With that statue in your possession, you should be able to sell anybody anything, since Ganesha gives you the power to make people believe whatever you say."
"Well, I am a merchant, and I have written a little for publication, so this statue should be the perfect amulet for me."
"May it prove so. You came hither by boat, did you not? How will you get to Ozenê?"
"We had thought of buying horses, sire."
"My dear barbarians! That will never do; the Paripatras swarm with tigers and brigands. The only small parties who can cross the hills in safety are holy men, so poor they tempt not the robbers and so pure that even the tigers let them be."
"What, then, Highness?" I asked.
"If you could tarry ..." Girixis turned to his minister. "Munda, when leaves the next caravan for Ozenê?"
"At the next full moon, sire, fifteen days hence."
"Can you wait until then?" the king asked me. "I fear not, sire."
"Well, then ..." He snapped his fingers. "I have it! Permit me to lend you an elephant. Thus shall you be safe from attack. Let me see—there are you, and your Persian friend, and your slave. Old Prasada can easily bear the three of you and your trade goods. See to it, Munda."
"But, Your Majesty!" protested the minister, "that elephant is too precious to risk—"
"Not another word, Munda. Prasada is my elephant, and if I am fain to lend him to these foreign gentlemen, that is that."
Thus it happened that, two days later, Otaspes, Gnouros, and I hoisted ourselves and our gear aboard the biggest bull in Girixis' herd. Prasada was certainly a monster, as tall as two men, one atop the other, with tusks half again as long as my arm. He was also elderly, as was shown by the deep hollows on the sides of his head and the ragged edges of his ears. He moved slowly and ponderously, refused to be hurried for long, and did not get excited over trifles as, I was told, younger elephants were wont to do. He had formerly been the Royal Elephant, regularly used by the king for war and parades. But a few years before, Girixis had retired him from this post in favor of a younger and more spirited beast.
Our saddle was not one of those box-shaped affairs, with benches for two or four riders, which Indian kings occupy for hunting, war, and processions. It was a less pretentious but more practical structure. First, on the elephant's back were two long rolls of padding, extending the length of the animal's torso, one on each side of its spinal ridge. Atop these rolls was laid a huge plank, also as long as the animal's back. From this plank, a footboard was hung by ropes on each side. The whole assembly was held in place by a girth of ropes, which went around the elephant's body just aft of the forelegs, and a crupper around the base of the tail.
At each end, the plank bore an iron staple, a span high and as wide as the plank itself, which served as a handrail for those seated at the ends of the plank. Those in the middle had loops of rope to hold on by. When I first clambered aboard, I tried to sit astride the plank, as if I were riding a horse. But the plank proved too wide for this purpose, and the elephant's barrel too thick. After a half hour of torment like that which I had undergone in trying to assume the lotus posture, I turned sideways on the plank, with both feet on one footboard, and made out much better.
Prasada was lying down when we mounted him. The plank proved amply long for the three of us. The driver or mahavata, a little gray-bearded man named Koka, scrambled up to Prasada's neck and picked up the two-foot iron goad, which he had hung over Prasada's left ear. He spoke to the beast and whacked him over the head with the goad. The blow made a sound like a drum or a hollow log, but the elephant did not seem to mind.
The driver called back: "Beware!" Up went Prasada's foreparts. Gnouros yelped with fright and clutched the rear staple. Then the hindquarters rose in their turn, and Prasada plodded out of the elephant yard. He had an easy gait: a gentle, back-and-forth, rocking motion. A bell hung from his neck tolled with an irregular rhythm.
We shuffled through the winding streets, out the Ozenê Gate, and along the muddy road to the hills. A drizzle hid the rising sun.
We were still riding through cultivated fields—mostly of poppies, whence the Indians extract an intoxicating juice— when Prasada stopped. A little man in breechclout and shawl, with a pair of baskets slung over his shoulder by a yoke, stood in the road before us. He and Koka engaged in a long colloquy, but I could not follow their speech. Otaspes confessed himself likewise baffled.
"I think," he said at last, "that the man in the road is asking Koka to give him a ride."
"Well, now, we won't have anything like that—" I began, when the man in the road scuttled around to Prasada's rear and scrambled up like a monkey, baskets and all, using the elephant's tail and the ropes of his harness. Before I knew what had happened, he had squeezed in between Gnouros and the after end of the plank.
"Koka!" I cried. "We do not wish another passenger. He crowds us. Put him off, at once!"
"Sorry, my lord," said Koka, "but this man has forced me to let him board the elephant."
"What do you mean, forced you? Nobody can force you except Master Otaspes and me."
"He has compelled me by his reasoning. Giving him this ride will gain me merit in my next life."
"You heard me!" I yelled. "Put him off, do you hear?"
"I am sorry, my lord, but I cannot."
"You do as I command, or by all your ten-armed Indian gods 111 wring your scrawny neck!"
"Then who will drive the elephant?" said the driver, helplessly spreading his hands.
"You might as well calm down, old boy," said Otaspes, who had been slyly grinning. "This is India, where people who ruffle easily don't last long. We are not really crowded. I'm wider than you, and I do not mind. Besides, it never hurts to do a favor that costs nought."
"You're too good-natured," I grumbled. "By the time we reach Ozenê, we shall have these knaves hanging from the elephant's ears."
"Besides," persisted Otaspes, "this man may give us news. One never knows what one may pick up. Koka, find out who he is and what he does."
There was more speech in the dialect I did not know. Then Koka announced: "His name is Bhumaka, and he is a snake charmer. He came to Mahismati to earn a pittance with his snakes during the natal fete."
"Snakes!" screamed Otaspes. "Mean you that he has serpents in those baskets?"
"Only in one of them, my lord. The other contains mice to feed his serpents on."