e
freed my legs, and got hold of a stick I spied a couple of yards from
me, I would have fallen upon all six of them! "But the Little Ones will
come at night!" I said to myself, and was comforted.

All day I worked hard. When the darkness came, they tied my hands, and
left me fast to the tree. I slept a good deal, but woke often, and every
time from a dream of lying in the heart of a heap of children. With the
morning my enemies reappeared, bringing their kicks and their bestial
company.

It was about noon, and I was nearly failing from fatigue and hunger,
when I heard a sudden commotion in the brushwood, followed by a burst of
the bell-like laughter so dear to my heart. I gave a loud cry of delight
and welcome. Immediately rose a trumpeting as of baby-elephants, a
neighing as of foals, and a bellowing as of calves, and through the
bushes came a crowd of Little Ones, on diminutive horses, on small
elephants, on little bears; but the noises came from the riders, not the
animals. Mingled with the mounted ones walked the bigger of the boys
and girls, among the latter a woman with a baby crowing in her arms. The
giants sprang to their lumbering feet, but were instantly saluted with a
storm of sharp stones; the horses charged their legs; the bears rose and
hugged them at the waist; the elephants threw their trunks round their
necks, pulled them down, and gave them such a trampling as they had
sometimes given, but never received before. In a moment my ropes were
undone, and I was in the arms, seemingly innumerable, of the Little
Ones. For some time I saw no more of the giants.

They made me sit down, and my Lona came, and without a word began to
feed me with the loveliest red and yellow fruits. I sat and ate, the
whole colony mounting guard until I had done. Then they brought up two
of the largest of their elephants, and having placed them side by side,
hooked their trunks and tied their tails together. The docile creatures
could have untied their tails with a single shake, and unhooked their
trunks by forgetting them; but tails and trunks remained as their little
masters had arranged them, and it was clear the elephants understood
that they must keep their bodies parallel. I got up, and laid myself in
the hollow between their two backs; when the wise animals, counteracting
the weight that pushed them apart, leaned against each other, and made
for me a most comfortable litter. My feet, it is true, projected beyond
their ta