The Story.

More than five thousand years before the birth of our prophet Muhammed, The Praised One; even before Ur was; the ancestors of King Surgulla, who belonged to a Turanian tribe, came down from the Heights of Elam on the east, into the plain country and finally settled near Nun-ki, that is, the place of the first water, on the left bank of the Euphrates.

Here was the temple of Hea, the water god; here the palm trees grew in a great garden watered by crystal springs; which place the Jews, a modern people, call the Garden of Eden. Here sat the fathers in judgment under a great palm tree and the chief mufti read from the tablets:

“When the upper region was not yet called heaven,

And the lower region was not yet called earth,

And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,

Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them

And the waters were gathered together into one place.”

The first settlement of tents grew into a city and was called the City of The Good God, Urugudda, which in time was shortened to Eridu. Eridu enjoying several centuries of peace and prosperity, became the capital of [pg 343] a great nation; a seat of learning, philosophy and religion and architecturally beautiful. Its many white public buildings, palaces and temples of fretted marble and porphyry with their red and green tiled roofs and cupolas and gold crescent-crowned minarets, resplendent under a tropic sun, excited the cupidity of every bold robber, who, riding from the desert, viewed its greatness from the distant sand hills.

The people of Girsu were nomads; and worshiped the sun, the moon and water. Their chief had a half grown son, born to sit in the light of the sun, Chalginna. His sole possessions were a light, keen spear, a swift white camel, a water bottle made from a goat skin and a mat on which to sleep. In the stillness of the night as he rested on his mat of camel cloth, though he slept too soundly to hear the roar of the camels or the bleating of the goats or the barking of the jackal, he saw the city and dreamed of its conquest and pillage. Each morning fearful that during the night something might have happened to it, he rode the miles across the desert to the highest of the sand hills, from which with eyes keen as an eagle’s, he looked, the while whetting his wolf-like appetite to feed upon it.

In the city there was a boy his own age, the son of the king, and nearly as strong and brave as he, who day after day was drilled to take his father’s place; and who had dreams of empire more extensive than his father’s. When he was grown, he journeyed with a considerable retinue eastward into Persia, where he was to marry the daughter of a great prince. It was well his caravan guard was strong; because Chalginna, who had gathered about him near a hundred kindred spirits ruled by his fiercer spirit hovered upon its flanks, as a band of hungry [pg 344] wolves from the shelter of the thicket eye the lambs while the shepherd is about and lick their chops in anticipation of mutton at the first lapse of vigilance.

The band reasoning that the wedding party, returning, would be richer by the princess and her dowry, deferred their attack; but reckoned not that part of that dowry would be a dozen elephants, the first brought into the valley of the Euphrates.

In a seemingly boundless desert, where the hills of sand were shifted by the winds and famine and thirst held cheerless dominion, they charged the caravan; but their camels balked and ran away, never before having seen or scented such monsters. Two, crazed by the sight of the great beasts, lost their heads and charged alone, bearing their now unwilling riders who rolled off and sought to hide in the sand drifts. The prince and his mahout, on a young male elephant hunted them. The elephant threshed the camels into helpless cripples and the prince killed the two robbers with shafts from his cross-bow.

This failure taught Chalginna a lesson. When the elephants were placed to pasture in the rich river plains; under cover of the night, he drove his war camels into their vicinity, until they knew the herd and the herd knew the camels. The boldest of his men provided themselves with short staffs, tipped with an iron point and hook, first walked among the elephants and then rode about upon their heads as did their mahouts. All the elephants grew to know and mind them, except Gisco, the young bull which the prince rode. He trumpeted wrathfully and beat about dangerously with his trunk whenever a Semite or camel approached him.

[pg 345] Seven years have passed since the marriage of the prince. Chalginna, first captain of the robber band, then chief of his tribe is now ruler of Yemen and head of a great confederacy of desert tribes. Erigalla is king of Eridu, having succeeded his father.

Each of his caravans is pillaged or made to pay tribute and his subjects are kidnapped and held for ransom, by Chalginna. It is impossible to follow the robber into the desert or to corner him in battle; because when attacked, his force riding camels, scatters as chaff across the desert of loose sand; and neither horses nor elephants nor man can follow.

There are now thirty-three elephants, Gisco the bull, which bears the king’s howdah, is leader of the herd and knows no master except his mahout and the king.

One night, the uproar and trumpeting of the elephants awoke the city, though their pasture was more than a mile down the river. A company of horsemen sent to investigate reported that seven of the elephants were missing and the king’s great elephant was badly wounded, having thirty spear heads buried in his fleshy sides and many wounds about the head and neck; while trampled into the earth about his feet or torn and maimed almost beyond identification of form were the bodies of seven camels and four of Chalginna’s troopers.

King Erigalla sent out five hundred horsemen and a hundred and fifty chariots to recover his elephants. When they came to the camp of Chalginna, he did not run but gave battle and drove them back to the very gates of the city. Then he dared the king to meet him in the great river valley; but the king declined, feeling that now he should reserve his strength, expecting an assault upon the city.

[pg 346] Again by night Chalginna visited the river pastures, having a dual purpose; one was to kill the bull elephant, but he had been taken to the palace garden, where, soothed by the cooling spray from the great fountain, he was being nursed back to his great strength; the other was to cut down a great tree and a number of saplings, which were dragged to the desert camp by thirty work camels and need in the construction of a portable ram. The great tree trunk was rigged to swing from a frame on raw hide belts and a platform built on either side on which men might stand and, grasping pegs driven in the log, propel it back and forth with great force. Above the whole Chalginna built an oval canopy of saplings, broad enough not only to cover the machine, but to shield the four great elephants which would bear it. When finished the strongest of his men, twelve on each side, took places on the platforms; and for some days men and elephants were drilled in its manipulation. When the training was completed, Chalginna having gathered six thousand troopers, five thousand on camels and a thousand horsemen, at twilight started on the march against the city of Eridu. The portable ram, suggesting an immense land tortoise, led the advance; Chalginna and his staff rode beside it on the other elephants and the troopers followed.

Gisco, the king’s bull elephant, though fully recovered, was still chained to a stake in the palace garden. There he stood, swaying his great body, feeding upon rank and tender rushes brought from the river marsh; and to drive away the flies and reduce the heat occasionally sprayed his body and the earth around with water from the fountain. The wind blew from the desert. Shortly past [pg 347] midnight he ceased swaying and lifted his great ears, stood for a moment as a great beast of bronze; then he raised his trunk aloft and trumpeted an alarm that was heard by half the city. The wind had borne to his keen sense of smell the pungent odor of the camel, the scent of the missing from his herd and given warning that his old enemies, Chalginna’s troopers, were at hand.

The watchman on the wall looking carefully desertward, saw a great black mass approaching the main gate and gave a general alarm. The palace is awakened. The king, his mahout and two of his guard come into the garden; slaves having placed the war howdah upon Gisco, they take their places, and the elephant lumbers off towards the great gate. At the gate the king climbs from the howdah into a midwall opening and ascends to the barbican. Looking about, he sees his soldiers in place behind the parapets; the city is on guard; then looking desertward, he sees the black mass quite near and gradually severs from it Chalginna’s tortoise, which he knows is some implement of war and surmises its purpose.

When the tortoise is within fifty feet of the wall, darts and arrows of the besieged are showered upon it, but as it is well shielded by the sapling cover thatched with rawhide, there is no halt until it is against the wall. Then the great ram pounds upon the gate of bronze and iron and the thuds are heard above the noise of conflict. Chalginna has called and is knocking for admittance; and the city trembles.

Barrels of boiling water are poured upon the machine and great stones and darts are cast upon it; but it turns all as a tortoise shell turns rain and the sticks and pebbles of a boy. Then they throw burning pitch and [pg 348] firebrands upon it, but they have so water soaked it that it will not burn.

The gates begin to give and in a last effort to destroy the dread machine Gisco and half dozen elephants loaded with warriors are let out a secret gate and charge upon it. Three of the elephants reached the ram but are so violently assailed by Chalginna and his staff and the elephants on which they are riding, which turn against their old mates, that they can do nothing more than protect themselves. Gisco strikes at the machine and nearly upsets it. The operator shifts the ram from the gate and drives the great log against his side with such force as to break several of his ribs and knock him to the earth.

Chalginna, who has seen the king in the howdah borne by Gisco, jumps to the back of the fallen elephant, but slips and falls within reach of his trunk; his left arm is seized and broken, almost wrenched from its socket. His followers after rescuing their leader, swarm about the king and overpower him. He is bound and borne to the rear; and Chalginna is lifted back upon his elephant. The gates yield; the robbers enter; and the city is given over to pillage, violence and slaughter.

Many of Erigalla’s soldiers are slain, many of the women are made slaves. The queen and her young son, a boy of three years, though the city is searched, cannot be found. Chalginna by conquest becomes its ruler and adopts its standard as his own; an eagle with outstretched wings bearing in her talons the cab of a lion.

On a bare spot, but a few hundred yards beyond the city wall, almost beside the dusty road leading to the great gate; a place where lepers and the blind are wont [pg 349] to sit and beg; Chalginna placed along the edge of a huge, half buried, flat rectangular stone, great cubes of hewn granite four inches apart, so that they formed a little doorless chamber not much larger than one of the granite blocks used in its construction. The people passing said to one another: “Our new king is building a shrine or a tomb.”

When finished, except the dropping into place of the cap stone weighing ten tons, the captive king is brought forth and placed within. Then the cap stone is shifted into place and the doorless prison closed upon the prisoner.

Upon the front Chalginna cut this inscription:

“The palace of King Erigalla. His subjects are the beggars and lepers of the city; they may render obeisance to their sovereign; but let no other person dare, or to speak with, save to revile him. He who disobeys shall be made a beggar and blind.”

Gisco, the day after the battle, lay where he had fallen. When night came on, driven by thirst to move despite the pain, slowly he rose on his great columnar legs and stumblingly dragged his ungainly body to the river where on the low bank he sank exhausted and filled himself with the tepid water. Screened by a dense growth of water palm and creepers, he lay there for several days; then having recovered sufficiently to move about a bit, fed upon the tender rushes of the marsh.

After many days his strength returned. Going forth to feed in the pastures he found another bull had usurped his place as leader of the herd. After a battle lasting for hours he regained his supremacy.

[pg 350] Chalginna’s mahouts, wishing to use the elephants to move some great stones to strengthen the wall came down to drive the herd to the city. Gisco would not let one of them approach him, but followed after the submissive herd, trumpeting his resentment.

Instinctively he shunned the prison of Erigalla until he sensed his master was within, then pressing his head against the great front stone, backed by his seven tons of bulk he shoved upon it but could not shake or budge it as the stones were set in cement mortar and riveted with bars of iron. Then he passed his trunk into one of the apertures; and the captive reached out his arm and stroked the end of it with his hand.

A trooper passing on a camel jabbed the elephant in the flank with the point of his spear. He turned more quickly than seemed possible and killed both trooper and camel; then driven to madness by the scent of the nomad horde in possession of the city, or possibly to revenge his master, he charged through the gate, killing and destroying as he went, and for an hour was master of the city.

They set out poisoned fruit to tempt him but he would not eat. They sought to blind him with darts, but his small eyes were uninjured, though his head and great sides bristled with arrows.

At the order of Chalginna, a gang of workmen set a great stake deep in the earth, without the wall beside the road near the great gate and not more than fifty yards from King Erigalla’s prison; to this they fixed a few links of heavy chain.

The mahout who had driven him before the city had been sacked was forced by threats of death to bring him to the stake and fasten the chain upon his leg, a few inches [pg 351] above his five great toes; and Gisco too was a prisoner, and so near that when the king spoke his name he heard and answered.

It was well for the sanity of the king in the first months of that imprisonment that the elephant was a fellow prisoner; and by his low trumpetings conveyed to him his sympathy and loyalty. No other being dared, though a dirty beggar woman, bearing a small boy child upon her hip, frequently passed, hoping to see the king, but he sat in a corner out of sight, with his head bent forward upon his breast or overcome by despair rolled in the dust upon the floor.

Had the woman seen the face of the king she would not have known him. The bones of his cheeks stood out, his eyes were sunk in their sockets, and his face and body were black from the dust of the highway, which nearly choked him. Given barely sufficient water to sustain life, he constantly suffered from thirst, and in a parched voice mumbled half unconscious prayers: “Cast me not off, Oh God! for no one else can help me. Grant that in my affliction my eyes shall not grow blind to Thy goodness! Feeble as I am, Thou only art my refuge.”

The man was nearly mad; the elephant ate his rushes in contentment.

Once, when the sirocco blew so fiercely that the beggars sought shelter behind the angles of the city wall and the highway was deserted, a bunch of blue lotus flowers rolled at the King’s feet and a familiar voice whispered his name. He rose from his corner and peering through a crevice between the stones saw the face of the beggar woman whom he had seen pass and repass so often, always carrying on her hip a little boy or now and again feeding a handful of green rushes to Gisco. Reaching [pg 352] out his grimy hand and arm he touched the tips of her fingers, and when his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, he saw beside her face, that of his little son. Think you they cared for the sandstorm?

The baby slept and woke and spoke of being hungry and the wind blew on. The woman, because the jailer would shortly come, bringing a small earthen jar of water and a cake of bread made of millet seed, was forced to leave. From a small leather bag, hidden in the breast of her dress she took several priceless gems and tossed them through to the king, retaining several less valuable ones; then saying she would return between midnight and morning she went to a hovel built against the outer wall, in the beggar colony and prepared food for her boy. When the morning star showed itself, lifting the sleeping boy she came again to the prison, bringing a small skin of water and a bag of dried fruit. From that day she rose with the morning star and visiting her husband, brought water and food. When the boy slept in the afternoon, she sat in the narrow shade of the prison and held him, but dared not speak a word.

In time, other beggars seeing the beggar woman resting in the shade of the prison came there to rest and talk, and they came to know the king and talk with him, telling him what had occurred throughout the kingdom.

The captain of the gate guard, who had supervision of the king and Gisco, noticed that the beggar children played with and climbed over the elephant and fed him grass and bits of bread, though he would not let one of Chalginna’s troopers approach him. He also noticed that the beggars were beginning to gather about the king’s prison and to talk with him. This he thought to forbid, but before doing so asked Chalginna for instructions. He [pg 353] thought it a great joke, saying: “It seems the inscription is to be fulfilled. The prison is being converted into the palace of the king of the beggars. Do not interfere with the king’s court, let his subjects render obeisance. How have the mighty fallen.”

One day a beggar from a far country resting against the prison wall, heard the king bemoaning his fate and asked:

“Why weepest thou?”

“Once I was king of this country, but now I am a beggar and a prisoner.”

“What matter it? God giveth to one man a diadem and a throne; another as great in his sight, sitteth in the dust at the gate of the city and soliciteth alms; time may shift the one to the other’s place, and one is as well off as the other. If you would have peace, strike not the feeble, soothe the afflicted, do good as it is offered to your hand. If you would make the night of your prison as bright as day, light it with the lamp of your good works. The less you have here, the smoother your road to paradise. A camel carrying only his hump of curses and blessings makes the best time. You see before you a beggar who would not exchange his peace of mind for the sceptre of Chalginna. A king must be a light sleeper or lose his head with his crown.”

The king thought over this counsel. A few days later he asked the beggar woman to bring him a bag of silver coins, and among them she placed a few gold ones.

Thereafter, when a beggar spoke to the king of being hungry—after he had promised not to mention the gift—a silver coin found its way into his hand. A poor water carrier with a large family, who had lost his donkey, received a gold coin to buy another. A mother of three [pg 354] small children was given one with which to buy a goat and some food. A crippled beggar, forced to visit a far country, was given two gold coins, with which he purchased an old but serviceable camel.

The king advised with and comforted all who sought him. His subjects grew in number, the homage they rendered was prompted by affection and the tribute they paid was love.

On his birthday, in the second year of his imprisonment, the prison house was dressed in blue lotus flowers and wreathed with palm leaves, and a great collar of flowers was placed about the neck of Gisco.

Chalginna, riding in state beyond the great gate, was impressed by the decorations and the gathering. More than three hundred beggars, mainly women and children, bearing palm branches, were gathered around the little prison house and on a throne covered with goat skins, just under the inscription, sat a little boy, wearing a crown of blue lotus flowers and holding a palm branch sceptre.

Contemptuously curious, he asked the child’s name and was told, “He is the son of a beggar woman, probably a leper, that lives in a hovel near the gate,” whereat he laughed and rode on.

The celebration ended by the planting of a thrifty young palm to the right of the prison. From the day of its planting, each beggar when he had water to spare, poured it about its root, and the tree grew rugged and thrifty from these libations.

On each succeeding birthday the same ceremony was repeated, until a grove of fifteen thrifty young palms shaded the prison and made a comfortable resting place for the beggars and the traveling poor.

[pg 355] The boy who took the part of king, now almost a man, continued in that character. The assembly of beggars at these birthday ceremonies now numbered thousands. They looked upon the imprisoned king with more favor than on Chalginna, who to feed his extravagances, became an extortionist and was fast making beggars of even his most loyal subjects. It was beginning to be whispered about that many of those who participated in the ceremony were not really beggars, and the captain of the gate suggested to Chalginna that the crowd was growing dangerous. He rode out to see and, impressed by its proportions, determined in the future to forbid the ceremony.

Ants ate to a mere shell the stake to which the chain that bound Gisco was attached, and it parted almost of its own accord. He was a great overfed elephant, ponderous in bulk and frame, weighing more than seven tons, and at last grown as tractable and lazy as a puppy.

When the stake parted, he had no thought to move beyond the radius of the circle of the chain, but continued to walk the old beat, or stand and sway his great bulk as he had done for so many, many days. He no longer struck at or trumpeted with rage when Chalginna’s troopers rode within reach, but ate nuts and dates from their hand.

His old mahout visiting the spot and seeing how the long imprisonment had affected the elephant was moved to tears. He made up his mind, by some expedient, to rouse the spirit of the great beast. Coming through the gate before it was closed, he spent the night without the city and after midnight mounting to the old place on the elephant’s head, sought to ride him to the river pastures; [pg 356] but he circled the old limit of his chain and could not be budged beyond.

As the beggars looked after the material wants of Gisco, so they had cared for the king; and he within the confines of his prison, which was a space not a fiftieth as great as Gisco’s circle, had found room to exercise and keep his body in condition. Gradually, the wants and wrongs of his subjects, which were many, forced upon him the resumption of the cares of a sovereign, until he was now the servant of the beggars, though he advised, counciled and commanded them.

The man had lived above his environment, the elephant had not.

Environment tended to Chalginna’s destruction; he was too primitive by nature to be the king of a great city. Had he been as capable as when he took the city, he would long since have been alarmed by the influence of Erigalla, and have placed him where deposed kings are harmless; but power and the vices of the city had ruined a great nomad chieftain. He was ambitious now only to indulge new vices and extravagances, and energetic only in the collection of tribute.

In the sixteenth year of Erigalla’s imprisonment the beggars with certain of his former subjects, men who could remain loyal to a deposed king, if he were a just man, made extensive preparations to celebrate his birthday. Many who heretofore had worn disguises as beggars, came this time armed and habited in their usual garb. More than ten thousand gathered without the gates to celebrate the occasion.

Chalginna had forgotten his resolve to forbid the ceremony. In these days he forgot many things. When told of the great gathering, he called together his personal [pg 357] guard and rode out, curious to see and if he should deem it expedient, forbid the ceremony.

He was scarcely noticed by the multitude, though a few, feeling safe in the crowd, hooted their derision.

As he approached the prison, three strange elephants drew a derrick against the wall and the great cap stone was lifted half off. The captive king, wearing the crown which Chalginna had never found, and dressed as was his wont in the olden days, was lifted over the wall and took his seat on a throne in the palm grove in front of the prison.

Gisco, whose neck was bound about with a great wreath of lotus flowers, seeing his old master or disturbed by the three strange elephants, stepped gingerly beyond the circle of his captivity and came slowly towards them, giving low trumpetings of joy.

Chalginna, who assumed to treat the king’s temporary release as a part of a farcical ceremony, but was so exercised by it as to determine upon his death that night, was incensed beyond self-control when the elephant which had disabled his arm, passing near seemed to sneeze contemptuously in his very face.

He struck at the great beast with his short sword, and though he did little more than scratch through the thick hide, he severed the wreath of lotus flowers and it dropped to the ground.

Gisco the spiritless, the lazy, for a moment was transformed into Gisco the war elephant. He struck the king’s horse lifeless; grasped the king about the middle and lifting him high above the heads of the astonished multitude, dropped him head down, through the roof of the prison; then shoving the half removed cap stone [pg 358] into place, slowly walked back to his old circle and began eating from his rack of rushes.

While yet the multitude stood apathetic in astonishment, the beggar seer, who was consulted as an oracle, the same who had advised the captive king in the early days of his imprisonment, climbed upon the cap stone of the prison and addressed the multitude: “Let no one oppose the decree of God. Chalginna is deposed.” And the people echoed: “It is the will of God! Long live King Erigalla! Long live the King!”

And he reigned in peace sixty and seven years from that day, saw his son’s sons and their children, died in honor and full of days, and was succeeded by his son, the beggar boy, known as Surgulla the Great, who for forty and three years ruled all the land from the Red Sea east to the Persian Gulf and from the Black Sea south to the Gulf of Aden.

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