“Not even if he was as drunk as Noah.  All he’d have to do ’ud be hold on to the wall and walk forward.  The road turns a corner, but the walls are all blind and there’s no other way but past the palace.  You sit here, though, my boy.  No need to try that.  Your wife’s all right.”

“Well, maybe I’d better stay here.”

“Sure.”

“Do you suppose I could back the dog-cart into the shed where your horse is?  I hardly like to leave my horse standing any longer in the open, yet he’s better in the shafts in case we want him in a hurry.”

“Yes, the door’s wide enough.”

“Then I’ll do it.”

“Suit yourself.  But take some of that rum before you go outside.  The night air’s bad for your lungs.  Help yourself and pass the bottle, as the Queen said to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“All right, I will.”

Dick poured a little on his handkerchief, thrust the handkerchief through the broken pane and waved it violently to spread the smell.  It was cheap, immodest stuff, blatant with its own advertisement.  Then he set the jorum down on the end of the table farthest from the wall, to the best of his judgment out of reach from the window.

“Come along, Tom,” he said then.  “Help me with the horse.”

“What’s your hurry?  Take a drink first.”

“No, let’s take one together afterward.”

He took Tom by the shoulder and pushed him to his feet.

“The horse might break away.  Come on, man, hurry!”

Over his shoulder Dick could see a long trunk nosing its way gingerly through the broken pane and searching out the source of the alluring smell.  He pushed Tripe along in front of him, and together they backed the dog-cart into the stable-place, making a very clumsy business of it for three reasons:  Tom Tripe was none too sober:  the horse was nearly crazy with fear of the uncanny brutes just beyond the wall; and Dick was in too much hurry for reasons of his own.  However, they got horse and cart in backward, and the door shut before the crash came.

The crash was of a falling mud-brick wall, pushed outward by the shoulders of a pachyderm that wanted alcohol.  The beast had had it out of all sorts of containers and knew the trick of emptying the last drop.  The jorum was about his usual dose.

About two minutes later, while Dick and Tom Tripe between them held a horse in intolerable durance between the shafts, and Tom’s horse out of sympathy kicked out at random into every shadow he could reach, the door and part of the wall of Tom’s shed fell outward into the pitch dark street as Akbar, eleven feet four inches at the shoulder, strode forward conjecturing what worlds were yet to conquer.  The other elephants stood motionless at their pickets.  A terrified mahout emerged through the debris like a devil from bell’s bunkers, calling to his elephant all the endearing epithets he knew, and cursing him alternately.  The horses grew calmer and submitted to caresses, like children and all creatures that have intimate contact with strong men; and presently the night grew still.