ulatory exclamation presented it to Karl, telling him to drink to
his heart's content. This injunction Karl obeyed without the slightest
reluctance.

The flask was soon emptied; and once more let down and re-filled, and
again emptied; and this series of operations was continued, until all
were satisfied, and there was no longer a thirsty individual in the top
of that tree.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A GIGANTIC SYRINGE.

Having by Caspar's ingenious artifice obtained as much water as they
wanted, the besieged felt better able to endure their irksome situation.
They were resigning themselves with as much philosophy as they could
command to bear it a little longer, when to their great astonishment
they were treated to more water than they wanted, and from a source as
curious as was unexpected.

Whether the elephant had taken a hint from seeing the flask plunged down
into the water, or whether the idea had occurred to it without being
suggested by anything in particular, it would be difficult to say.
Certain it is, that just after the last flask-full had been pulled up,
and before the eddying ripples had subsided from the surface, the rogue
was seen to make a rush into the water, at the same time deeply
submerging his proboscis, as if about to take a drink.

For some moments he remained in a stationary attitude, apparently
filling his capacious stomach with the fluid.

There was no reason why he should not be as thirsty as themselves; and
the spectators in the tree had no other thought, than that the great
quadruped had waded into the pool simply for the purpose of quenching
his thirst.

There was something about his movements, however, and the style in which
he had set about sucking up the water, which betrayed a different
determination; and it was not long before this was evinced by a
performance which, under other circumstances, might have evoked laughter
from those who witnessed it. In this instance, however, the spectators
were themselves the victims of the joke--if joke it might be termed--and
during its continuance, not one of the three felt the slightest
inclination to indulge in mirth. It was thus that the elephant acted:--

Having filled its trunk with the water of the stream, it raised it
aloft. Then pointing it towards the tree, and even directing it with as
much coolness and precision as an astronomer would have used in
adjusting his telescope, it sent the fluid in a drenching stream into
the f