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 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 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: