Polaris the old man regarded with especial interest, and when the meal had been cleared away he sat and talked with him and Glorian for many minutes, recalling odd, old tales of the history of Ruthar, with which he showed remarkable familiarity. "But Ruthar's greatest story is yet to be made," he said in conclusion of his tales. Then he called his servants to show his guests to their chambers. "What! Have I ridden all these miles, friend Oleric, and then to be put to bed without the chance to tell you that these wonderful beasts about which you have bragged so much are only elephants after all?" said Zenas Wright, forgetting in his stubbornness the ivory gateway at Zele-omaz. The red captain grinned and put a question to Zoar. The old man answered with a shake of his head: "The amalocs love not to be disturbed at night, and especially they love not fires or lights. If you and your friends would sleep in peace this night, I counsel that you wait till daybreak to see the beasts. Otherwise they may revile you in such fashion as will shake your couches and drive all sleep from your pillows." So Zenas was forced to be content and go to his bed with no chance to crow over Oleric. All night long there penetrated occasionally through the geologist's slumbers the noise of raucous trumpeting and the padding stamp of ponderous feet. When they had broken their fast in the morning, Zoar led his guests into the court and sent men to throw open the great bronze doors in the front of the nearest of the stone buildings. "Now for an elephant," muttered Zenas. "Perhaps a mighty big one, but still an elephant." Then Zenas stopped, amazed. Out through the doors of bronze and into the open court stalked a mountain of flesh and ivory and stood swaying restlessly from one foot to another, flapping ears that would have made a bed covering, and looking keenly about with little, inflamed eyes. Elephantine in shape only was this monster. The points of its shoulders were fifteen feet from the ground--a full yard taller than the most stalwart elephant that ever bore the howdah of a mogul emperor. Tusks that were ten feet long projected from its massive skull, curving downward where they left the bone and then out and up in such fashion that if they had been continued farther they would have formed spirals. The body of the monster was covered with a coarse and woolly growth of reddish-brown hair, through which there pricked long, black bristles. On the trunk the wool was sparse and the bristles shorter, and one could see that the hide of the beast was a drab-gray. Neck it had none; but along the spine, just back of the skull and extending beyond the shoulders, was a ridge or mane of coarse, black hair. His face gone white and his eyes round and goggling, Zenas Wright stood and stared up at this Gargantuan offspring of the hinder ages. "_Loxodon!_" he breathed.