alters in a most effective manner. There is enough suggestion of the supernatural and the weird to interest the reader in this aspect of the old superstition, while the whole story is altered, by skillful handling, into a romance with a happy ending. You should give attention, then, to two points in your study of the plot: first, to tracing the old plot, the return of the ghostly lover; and, second, to study of the means by which Irving grafts his new plot upon this old foundation.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Some qualities of Irving's style are well shown in this story. His humor, particularly in his description of persons, should be studied, and may be compared with character-description in other sketches you have read. For example, make a list of the words that show what the baron looked like. In the same way, list words and phrases that show what kind of man he was. What was your first thought about the identity of the stranger? Did you think, at any time, that it really was the ghost of the suitor? What sentence seemed to promise that the ghost would come back? In the account of the evening's festivities, note how the

melancholy of the stranger is made clear, progressively. What circumstances increase this feeling not only in the stranger but in the reader?

2. Study the mixture of weirdness and humor throughout the story. Draw up in parallel columns a set of phrases or catch-words that will make this balance plain to you.

3. Study the transitions from one part of the story to another. How many such sections are there? How does Irving pass from one to another? Draw up an outline of the plot so as to make these transitions clear, and tell the story briefly, following this outline.

4. Study the dénouement, or solution of the plot, carefully. Make a note of the steps in this solution. Does the element of surprise come in? At what point in the story did you first realize how it was to come out? Note any elements that helped to this conclusion, such as the stress on the obedient character of the heroine; the fact that she had never seen the man she was to marry; the opportunity the stranger had to woo her before revealing his identity. There are other similar elements scattered through the story. By studying them you will see how carefully a good short story is planned by the author.

I

An elephant is old on the day he is born, say the natives of Burma, and no white man is ever quite sure just what they mean. Perhaps they refer Perhaps they refer to his pink, old-gentleman's skin and his droll, fumbling, old-man ways and his squeaking, treble voice. And maybe they mean he is born with a wisdom such as usually belongs only to age. 10 And it is true that if any animal in the world has had a chance to acquire knowledge it is the elephant, for his breed are the oldest residents of this old world.

They are so old that they don't seem to belong to the twentieth century at all. Their long trunks, their huge shapes, all seem part of the re

Long and long ago, when the world was very young indeed, when the mountains were new, and before the descent of the great glaciers taught the meaning of cold, they were the rulers of the earth, but they have been conquered in the struggle for existence. Their great cousins, the mastodon and the mammoth, are completely gone, and their own tribe 30 can now be numbered by thousands.

But because they have been so long upon the earth, because they have wealth of experience beyond all other creatures, they seem like venerable sages in a world of children. They are like the last veterans of an old

10

war, who can remember scenes and faces that all others have forgotten.

Far in a remote section of British India, in a strange, wild province called Burma, Muztagh was born. And although he was born in captivity, the property of a mahout, in his first hour he heard the far-off call of the wild elephants in the jungle.

The Burmans, just like the other people of India, always watch the first hour of a baby's life very closely. They know that always some incident will occur that will point, as a weathervane points in the wind, to the baby's future. Often they have to call a man versed in magic to interpret, but sometimes the prophecy is quite selfevident. No one knows whether or 20 not it works the same with baby elephants, but certainly this wild, farcarrying call, not to be imitated by any living voice, did seem a token and an omen in the life of Muztagh. And it is a curious fact that the little baby lifted his ears at the sound and rocked back and forth on his pillar legs.

Of all the places in the great world, only a few remain wherein a captive 30 elephant hears the call of his wild brethren at birth. Muztagh's birthplace lies around the corner of the Bay of Bengal, not far from the watershed of the Irrawaddy, almost north of Java. It is strange and wild and dark beyond the power of words to tell. There are great dark forests, unknown, slow-moving rivers, and jungles silent and dark and impenetrable.

It was not definitely discovered until 50 the mahout came out of his hut with a lighted fagot for a first inspection.

The mahout knew elephants from head to tail, and he was very well acquainted with the three grades that compose that breed. The least valuable of all are the Mierga-a light, small-headed, thin-skinned, weaktrunked, and unintelligent variety that are often found in the best elephant 60 herds. They are often born of the most noble parents, and they are as big a problem to elephant men as razorbacks to hog-breeders. Then there is a second variety, the Dwasala, that compose the great bulk of the herd-a good, substantial, strong, intelligent grade of elephant. But the Kumiria is the best of all; and when one is born in a captive herd it is a time for rejoicing. He is 70 the perfect elephant-heavy, symmetrical, trustworthy, and fearlessfitted for the pageantry of kings.

The mahout hurried out to the lines, for now he knew that the baby was born. The mother's cries had ceased. The jungle, dark and savage beyond ever the power of man to tame, lay just beyond. He could feel its heavy air, its smells; its silence was an essence. 80 And as he stood, lifting the fagot high, he heard the wild elephants trumpeting from the hills.

He turned his head in amazement. A Burman, and particularly one who chases the wild elephants in their jungles, is intensely superstitious, and for an instant it seemed to him that the wild trumpeting must have some secret meaning, it was so loud and 90 triumphant and prolonged. It was greatly like the far-famed elephant salute-ever one of the mysteries of those most mysterious of animalsthat the great creatures utter at certain occasions and times.

"Are you saluting this little one?" he cried. "He is not a wild

tusker like you.
He is not a wild
pig of the jungle. He is born in
bonds, such as you will wear too,
after the next drive!"

They trumpeted again, as if in scorn of his words. Their great strength was given them to rule the jungle, not to haul logs and pull chains! The man turned back to the 10 lines and lifted higher his light.

Yes-the little elephant in the lightglow was of the Kumiria. Never had there been a more perfect calf. The light of greed sprang again in his eyes. And as he held the fagot nearer so that the beams played in the elephant's eyes and on his coat, the mahout sat down and was still, lest the gods observe his good luck, and, being jealous, 20 turn it into evil.

The coat was not pinky dark, as is usual in baby elephants. It was distinctly light-colored-only a few degrees darker than white.

In

The man understood at once. the elephants, as well as in all other breeds, an albino is sometimes born. A perfectly white elephant, up to a few years ago, had never been seen, 30 but on rare occasions elephants are born with light-colored or clouded hides. Such creatures are bought at fabulous prices by the Malay and Siamese princes, to whom a white elephant is the greatest treasure that a king can possess.

Muztagh was a long way from being an albino, yet a tendency in that direction had bleached his hide. And 40 the man knew that on the morrow Dugan Sahib would pay him a lifetime's earnings for the little wabbly calf, whose welcome had been the wild cries of the tuskers in the jungle.

was born with the memory of jungle kingdoms, and the life in the elephant lines almost killed him with dullness. 50

There was never anything to do but nurse of the strong elephant milk and roam about in the keddah or along the lines. He had been bought the second day of his life by Dugan Sahib, and the great white heaven-born saw to it that he underwent none of the risks that are the happy fate of most baby elephants. His mother was not taken on the elephant drives into the jungles, 60 so he never got a taste of this exciting sport. Mostly she was kept chained in the lines, and every day Langur Dass, the low-caste hillman in Dugan's employ, grubbed grass for her in the valleys. All night long, except the regular four hours of sleep, he would hear her grumble and rumble and mutter discontent that her little son shared with her.

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Muztagh's second year was little better. Of course he had reached the age where he could eat such dainties as grass and young sugar cane, but these things could not make up for the fun he was missing in the hills. He would stand long hours watching their purple tops against the skies, and his little dark eyes would glow. He would see the storms break and flash above 80 them, behold the rains lash down through the jungles, and he was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman night came down, it 90 seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at such times even his mother looked at him with wonder.

"Oh, little restless one," Langur Dass would say, "thou and that old cow thy mother and I have one heart between us. We know the burning we understand, we three!"

It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest people than any other hillman in the encampment. But his caste 10 was low, and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters had mostly only scorn for him. They called him Langur after a graybearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants? He never wanted to join 20 in the drives-which was a strange

thing indeed for a man raised in the hills. Perhaps he was afraid-but yet they could remember a certain day in the bamboo thickets, when a great wild buffalo had charged their camp, and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard of and knew nothing whatever about.

One day they asked him about it. 30 "Tell us, Langur Dass," they asked, mocking the ragged, dejected-looking creature, "if thy name speaks truth, thou art brother to many monkeyfolk, and who knows the jungle better than thou or they? None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk with my lord the elephant. Hai! We have seen thee do it, Langur Dass. How is it that when we go hunting, 40 thou art afraid to come?"

Langur looked at them out of his dull eyes, and evaded their question just as long as he could. "Have you forgotten the tales you heard on your mothers' breasts?" he asked at last. "Elephants are of the jungle. You are of the cooking-pots and thatch! How should such folk as ye are understand?"

This was flat heresy from their 50 viewpoint. There is an old legend among the elephant-catchers to the effect that at one time men were subject to the elephants.

Yet mostly the elephants that these men knew were patient and contented in their bonds. Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the 60 chase after others of their breed. Only on certain nights of the year, when the tuskers called from the jungles, and the spirit of the wild was abroad, would their love of liberty return to them. But to all this, little Muztagh was distinctly an exception. Even though he had been born in captivity, his desire for liberty was with him just as constantly as his 70 trunk or his ears.

He had no love for the mahout that rode his mother. He took little interest in the little brown boys and girls that played before his stall. He would stand and look over their heads into the wild, dark heart of the jungle that no man can ever quite understand. And being only a beast, he did not know anything about the so caste and prejudices of the men he saw, but he did know that one of them, the low-caste Langur Dass, ragged and dirty and despised, wakened a responsive chord in his lonely heart.

They would have long talks together, that is, Langur would talk and Muztagh would mumble. "Little calf, little fat one," the man would say, "can great rocks stop a tree from 90 growing? Shall iron shackles stop a prince from being king? Muztaghjewel among jewels! Thy heart speaks through those sleepless eyes of thine! Have patience-what thou knowest, who shall take away from thee?"

But most of the mahouts and catchers noticed the rapidity with

10

which the little Muztagh acquired weight and strength. He outweighed, at the age of three, any calf of his season in the encampment by a full two hundred pounds. And of course three in an elephant is no older than three in a human child. He was still just a baby, even if he did have the wild tuskers' love of liberty.

"Shalt thou never lie the day long in the cool mud, little one? Never see a storm break on the hills? Nor feel warm rain dripping through the branches? Or are these matters part of thee that none may steal?" Langur Dass would ask him, contented to wait a very long time for his answer. "I think already that thou knowest how the tiger steals away at thy shrill 20 note; how thickets feel that crash beneath thy hurrying weight. A little I think thou knowest how the madness comes with the changing seasons. How knowest thou these things? Not as I know them, who have seen-nay, but as a king knows conquering; it's in thy blood! Is a bundle of sugar cane tribute enough for thee, Kumiria? Shall purple trappings please thee? 30 Shall some fat rajah of the plains make a beast of burden of thee? Answer, lord of mighty memories!"

And Muztagh answered in his own. way, without sound or emphasis, but giving his love to Langur Dass, a love as large as the big elephant heart from which it had sprung. No other man could even win his friendship. The smell of the jungle was on Langur 40 Dass. The mahouts and hunters smelled more or less of civilization and were convinced for their part that the disposition of the little lightcolored elephant was beyond redemption.

"He is a born rogue," was their verdict, and they meant by that, a particular kind of elephant, sometimes a young male, more often an old and

savage tusker, alone in the jungle— 50 apart from the herd. Solitariness doesn't improve their dispositions, and they were generally expelled from a herd for ill-temper to begin with. "Woe to the fool prince who buys this one!" said the graybeard catchers. "There is murder in his eyes."

But Langur Dass would only look wise when he heard these remarks. He knew elephants. The gleam in the 60 dark eyes of Muztagh was not viciousness, but simply inheritance, a love of the wide wild spaces that left no room for ordinary friendships.

But calf-love and mother-love bind other animals as well as men, and possibly he might have perfectly fulfilled the plans Dugan had made for him but for a mistake the sahib made in the little calf's ninth year.

He sold Muztagh's mother to an elephant-breeder from a distant province. Little Muztagh saw her march away between two tuskers-down the long elephant trail into the valley and the shadow.

70

"Watch the little one closely tonight," Dugan Sahib said to his mahout. So when they had led him back and forth along the lines, they so saw that the ends of his ropes were pegged down tightly. They were horsehair ropes, far beyond the strength of any normal nine-yearold elephant to break. Then they went to the huts and to their women and left him to shift restlessly from foot to foot and think.

Probably he would have been satisfied with thinking, for Muztagh did 90 not know his strength, and thought he was securely tied. The incident that upset the mahout's plans was simply that the wild elephants trumpeted again from the hills.

Muztagh heard the sound, long drawn and strange from the silence of the jungle. He grew motionless.