fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a
silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in
Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came to
the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a
while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the
dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!

I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I ran
I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of the
fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps even
then looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I felt
safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.

And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up from
the East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of Perdondaris
still took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told him
quietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about the
gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know; and I told him how
the weight of the thing was such that it could not have been brought from
afar, and the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. We
agreed that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault of
man, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen near
and recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee at once; so
he commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and others raised the
anchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost the
last rays of the sun we left Perdondaris, that famous city. And night came
down and cloaked Perdondaris and hid it from our eyes, which as things
have happened will never see it again; for I have heard since that
something swift and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdondaris in a
day--towers, walls and people.