d beast will come to sudden stop, and as
like as not will swerve round sharply and charge back again towards the
heart of the city." And I braced myself to withstand the shock, and took
fresh grip upon the woman who lay against my breast. But with louder
screams and wilder trumpetings the mammoth held straight on, and
presently came to the harbour's edge, and sent the spray sparkling in
sheets amongst the sunshine as it went with its clumsy gait into the
water.

But at this point the pace was very quickly slackened. The great sewers,
which science devised for the health of the city in the old King's
time, vomit their drainings into this part of the harbour, and the solid
matter which they carry is quickly deposited as an impalpable sludge.
Into this the huge beast began to sink deeper and deeper before it could
halt in its rush, and when with frightened bellowings it had come to
a stop, it was bogged irretrievably. Madly it struggled, wildly it
screamed and trumpeted. The harbour-water and the slime were churned
into one stinking compost, and the golden castle in which we clung
lurched so wildly that we were torn from it and shot far away into the
water.

Still there, of course, we were safe, and I was pleased enough to be rid
of the bumpings.

Phorenice laughed as she swam. "You handle yourself like a sore man,
Deucalion. I owe you something for lending me the cushion of your body.
By my face! There's more of the gallant about you when it comes to the
test than one would guess to hear you talk. How did you like the ride,
sir? I warrant it came to you as a new experience."

"I'd liefer have walked."

"Pish, man! You'll never be a courtier. You should have sworn that with
me in your arms you could have wished the bumping had gone on for ever.
Ho, the boat there! Hold your arrows. Deucalion, hail me those fools in
that boat. Tell them that, if they hurt so much as a hair of my mammoth,
I'll kill them all by torture. He'll exhaust himself directly, and when
his flurry's done we'll leave him where he is to consider his evil ways
for a day or so, and then haul him out with windlasses, and tame him
afresh. Pho! I could not feel myself to be Phorenice, if I had no fine,
red, shaggy mammoth to take me out for my rides."

The boat was a ten-slave galley which was churning up from the farther
side of the harbour as hard as well-plied whips could make oars drive
her, but at the sound of my shouts the soldiers on her foredec