“The idea is a capital one,” Malchus said, “and if carried out will surely succeed.  You and I have often seen during our campaigns elephants in this state, and know how every one flies as they come along screaming loudly, with their trunks high, and their great ears out on each side of their heads.  At any rate it is worth trying, Nessus, and if by any chance we should fail in getting through the gate, the mahout would, of course, take his elephant back to the stable, and I might slip out there and conceal myself till night, and then make my way back here again.”

“That’s what we have arranged,” Nessus said.  “And now, my lord, I will leave you and go back to the stables, in case they should search them again tonight.  If you will push off and lie a short distance away from the steps I will be here again half an hour before daybreak.  I will bring you a garb like my own, and will take you direct to the stable where the animal is kept.  There will be no one there save the mahout and my two friends, so that it will be easy for us to cover you in the howdah before the elephants go out.  There is little chance of anyone coming into the stables before that, for they have been searched so frequently during the last two days that Hanno’s agents must by this time be convinced that wherever you are hidden you are not there.  Indeed, today the search has greatly relaxed, although the vigilance at the gate and on the walls is as great as ever; so I think that they despair of finding you, and believe that you must either have made your escape already, or that if not you will sooner or later issue from your hiding place and fall into their hands.”

Malchus slept little that night, and rejoiced when he again saw Nessus descending the steps.  A few strokes of his paddle sent the raft alongside.  Nessus fastened a cord to it to prevent it from drifting away.

“We may need it again,” he said briefly.  Malchus placed his own clothes upon it and threw over his shoulders the bernous which Nessus had brought.  He then mounted the steps with him, the gate was closed and the bolt shot, and they then made their way across to the stables.  It was still perfectly dark, though a very faint light, low in the eastern sky, showed that ere long the day would break.

Five minutes’ walking and they arrived at the stables of the elephants.  These, like those of the horses and the oxen which drew the cumbrous war machines, were formed in the vast thickness of the walls, and were what are known in modern times as casemates.  As Nessus had said, the Indian mahout and the other two Arabs were the only human occupants of the casemate.  The elephant at once showed that he perceived the newcomer to be a stranger by an uneasy movement, but the mahout quieted him.

While they were waiting for morning, Nessus described, more fully than he had hitherto had an opportunity of doing, the attack made upon him on board the ship.