l my master of my success, for
which I was praised and regaled with good things. Then we went back to
the forest together and dug a mighty trench in which we buried the
elephant I had killed, in order that when it became a skeleton my
master might return and secure its tusks.

For two months I hunted thus, and no day passed without my securing, an
elephant. Of course I did not always station myself in the same tree,
but sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. One morning as I
watched the coming of the elephants I was surprised to see that,
instead of passing the tree I was in, as they usually did, they paused,
and completely surrounded it, trumpeting horribly, and shaking the very
ground with their heavy tread, and when I saw that their eyes were
fixed upon me I was terrified, and my arrows dropped from my trembling
hand. I had indeed good reason for my terror when, an instant later,
the largest of the animals wound his trunk round the stem of my tree,
and with one mighty effort tore it up by the roots, bringing me to the
ground entangled in its branches. I thought now that my last hour was
surely come; but the huge creature, picking me up gently enough, set me
upon its back, where I clung more dead than alive, and followed by the
whole herd turned and crashed off into the dense forest. It seemed to
me a long time before I was once more set upon my feet by the elephant,
and I stood as if in a dream watching the herd, which turned and
trampled off in another direction, and were soon hidden in the dense
underwood. Then, recovering myself, I looked about me, and found that
I was standing upon the side of a great hill, strewn as far as I could
see on either hand with bones and tusks of elephants. "This then must
be the elephants' burying place," I said to myself, "and they must have
brought me here that I might cease to persecute them, seeing that I
want nothing but their tusks, and here lie more than I could carry away
in a lifetime."

Whereupon I turned and made for the city as fast as I could go, not
seeing a single elephant by the way, which convinced me that they had
retired deeper into the forest to leave the way open to the Ivory Hill,
and I did not know how sufficiently to admire their sagacity. After a
day and a night I reached my master's house, and was received by him
with joyful surprise.

"Ah! poor Sindbad," he cried, "I was wondering what could have become
of you. When I went to the forest I