the good fortune
to arrive there so speedily as I had hoped. God ordered it otherwise.

Three or four days after my departure we were attacked by pirates, who
easily seized upon our ship because it was not a vessel of war. Some
of the crew offered resistance, which cost them their lives. But for
myself and the rest, who were not so imprudent, the pirates saved us,
and carried us into a remote island, where they sold us.

I fell into the hands of a rich merchant, who, as soon as he bought
me, took me to his house, treated me well, and clad me handsomely as a
slave. Some days after, he asked me if I understood any trade. I
answered that I was no mechanic, but a merchant, and that the pirates
who sold me had robbed me of all I possessed.

"Tell me," replied he, "can you shoot with a bow?"

I answered, that the bow was one of my exercises[70] in my youth. He
gave me a bow and arrows, and taking me behind him on an elephant,
carried me to a thick forest some leagues from the town. We penetrated
a great way into the wood, and when he thought fit to stop, he bade me
alight; then showing me a great tree, "Climb up that," said he, "and
shoot at the elephants as you see them pass by, for there is a
prodigious number of them in this forest, and if any of them fall come
and give me notice." Having spoken thus, he left me victuals, and
returned to the town, and I continued upon the tree all night.

[Footnote 70: "The use of a bow was a constituent part of an Eastern
education."--Notes to _Vathek_, p. 301. See the account of Cyrus's
education--Xenophon's _Cyclopaedia._]

I saw no elephant during the night, but next morning, at break of day,
I perceived a great number. I shot several arrows among them; and at
last one of the elephants fell, when the rest retired immediately, and
left me at liberty to go and acquaint my patron with my success. When
I had informed him, he commended my dexterity, and caressed me highly.
We went afterward together to the forest, where we dug a hole for the
elephant, my patron designing to return when it was rotten, and take
his teeth to trade with.

I continued this employment for two months. One morning, as I looked
for the elephants, I perceived with extreme amazement that, instead of
passing by me across the forest as usual, they stopped, and came to me
with a horrible noise, and in such numbers that the plain was covered
and shook under them. They surrounded the tree in which I was
concealed,