f them pumpkin
things. What! rather have the pumpkin first?" he continued, as the
great trunk curved slowly towards the golden-hued, melon-like fruit.
"Can't swallow that all at once, can you? And I don't want to stop and
cut it. What! you can? Oh, all right, then. I forgot you'd got
grinders as big as meat-tins.--Good-bye, pumpkin.--Now, Mister Archie, I
am not sure, but I think I can say what the mahout does when he wants
him to kneel down. Then don't you stop a moment, but climb up and get
hold of them ropes that he has got round him, pull yourself up, and hold
on. Ready?"

"Yes," said Archie dreamily; but he was shaken up and confused by his
fall.

"Now, Rajah, kneel down!" cried Peter, in the nearest approach he could
recall to the Malay mahout's command; and, to his great delight, the
huge beast swayed from side to side and sank upon the earth, at the same
time curving his trunk towards Peter as he raised his head.

"There you are," cried Peter, as he passed a couple of the bananas he
held ready, and the moment these had been grasped and the trunk lowered
again, "Now then, up with you!" cried the lad; and planting a foot upon
one of the corrugations of the wrinkling trunk, Archie began to scramble
up, passing over the animal's forehead, up between the extended ears and
over the rugosities between head and neck.

He nearly slipped as he reached for one of the ropes that girdled the
animal's loins, but recovered himself, and, to Peter's satisfaction,
seated himself, holding on tightly by the howdah-stays.

"Here you are!" cried Peter again, and this time he handed a great lump
of cake, which the elephant took contentedly.--"Now, Mister Archie,
sir," he cried, as he seized the two spears and handed them up, "take
hold; I'll carry one by-and-by.--Now, old chap," he continued, "it's my
turn now. Up with you!" And once more his memory served him in giving
some rendering of the mahout's command, for in his slow, lumbering
fashion the monster began to sway.

"Hold tight, sir, whatever you do," cried Peter.

"Yes. Are you going to walk?"

"Not me, sir; but I do wish that we hadn't got to leave that basket
behind."

By this time the towering beast was once more upon its feet, and Peter
was puzzling his head for an order he had forgotten; but just as some
misty notion of the Malay words was hovering in his brain the great
trunk encircled his waist, he was lifted from the ground, and the next
minute he w