Elizabeth Ann Scarborough by The Harem of Aman Akbar

Author:The Harem of Aman Akbar
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I dreamed all night of riding the elephant, my bones jolting even in my sleep. I hesitate to mention where the blisters which disturbed my slumber were located, and resolved that the next day I would walk until the blisters upon my feet matched those elsewhere.

In the morning the rain might never have been, except that the path was muddy, though the heat had already sucked the moisture from it so that in some places the dark brown had already turned light and dusty. Brilliant flowers bloomed among sparkling leaves, bright as emeralds.

I walked a few paces behind the elephant all morning and though the view ahead was not the sort of which bards sing, I felt the better for having momentarily come down in the world. Around midday we came upon water once more and the elephant wanted to bathe again. Amollia and Aster also dismounted.

I sat down upon the river bank and watched the elephant, who found to his delight that he could wholly submerge himself in these deep waters and did so, only the tip of his trunk protruding. I thought about swimming across to the other side and seeing what lay ahead, but felt too lethargic. Amollia and Aster took the opportunity to stretch their legs, exploring a little path that wandered off to the left of the one we were on. The flowers bloomed in even greater and gaudier profusion than elsewhere, and the exclamations of my companions that floated back to me with the bird songs and chatterings of monkeys above the low music of the water indicated that the flowers were even more beautiful farther on.

When I felt the first spit of rain on my arm, I knew that more time had passed than any of us thought, and I rose reluctantly and started down the path after my wayward co-wives, thinking to meet them returning. However, when I had walked for several minutes, it occurred to me that I was wasting time, since I had the use of a perfectly good, if rather waterlogged, elephant, and could enlist his aid in apprehending the strays. With this idea in mind, I trotted back down the path, but when I came to the spot where the elephant had been bathing, he was gone—ears, tail, trunk, tusks and all.

Cursing the inconstancy of elephants and people who were never around when one needed them, I once more ran down the flower-bordered trail, and began calling. Soon the din of the rain beating on the roof of the jungle muffled my cries, even to my own ears, and I ran dumbly on, and sometimes blindly too, for here along the river the overhead protection was not very great, and I cursed myself for several varieties of an idiot for neglecting to bring along my palm-leaf parasol. Thus I failed to notice the strange, idol-ridden edifice until I had almost run past it. Only when I heard myself hailed and turned to see Amollia’s grin flashing at me from the stone doorway did I see what the thick vegetation had all but concealed.

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