ils, but my head lay pillowed on an ear of each. Then some of
the smaller children, mounting for a bodyguard, ranged themselves in
a row along the back of each of my bearers; the whole assembly formed
itself in train; and the procession began to move.

Whither they were carrying me, I did not try to conjecture; I yielded
myself to their pleasure, almost as happy as they. Chattering and
laughing and playing glad tricks innumerable at first, the moment they
saw I was going to sleep, they became still as judges.

I woke: a sudden musical uproar greeted the opening of my eyes.

We were travelling through the forest in which they found the babies,
and which, as I had suspected, stretched all the way from the valley to
the hot stream.

A tiny girl sat with her little feet close to my face, and looked down
at me coaxingly for a while, then spoke, the rest seeming to hang on her
words.

"We make a petisson to king," she said.

"What is it, my darling?" I asked.

"Shut eyes one minute," she answered.

"Certainly I will! Here goes!" I replied, and shut my eyes close.

"No, no! not fore I tell oo!" she cried.

I opened them again, and we talked and laughed together for quite
another hour.

"Close eyes!" she said suddenly.

I closed my eyes, and kept them close. The elephants stood still. I
heard a soft scurry, a little rustle, and then a silence--for in that
world SOME silences ARE heard.

"Open eyes!" twenty voices a little way off shouted at once; but when I
obeyed, not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me.
I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way--the
giants had taught them that; but when I raised myself, and looking about
in the open shrubless forest, could descry neither hand nor heel, I
stared in "blank astonishment."

The sun was set, and it was fast getting dark, yet presently a multitude
of birds began to sing. I lay down to listen, pretty sure that, if I
left them alone, the hiders would soon come out again.

The singing grew to a little storm of bird-voices. "Surely the children
must have something to do with it!--And yet how could they set the
birds singing?" I said to myself as I lay and listened. Soon, however,
happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood,
I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves, and looked more
keenly. Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage, the music died
down, a gale of childish laughter rippled