Cliff Climbers

<SPAN name="chap23"></SPAN> <h3>Chapter Twenty Three.</h3> <h4>A gigantic syringe.</h4> <p>Having by Caspar&rsquo;s ingenious artifice obtained as much water as they wanted, the besieged felt better able to endure their irksome situation. They were resigning themselves with as much philosophy as they could command to bear it a little longer, when to their great astonishment they were treated to more water than they wanted, and from a source as curious as was unexpected.</p> <p>Whether the elephant had taken a hint from seeing the flask plunged down into the water, or whether the idea had occurred to it without being suggested by anything in particular, it would be difficult to say. Certain it is, that just after the last flask-full had been pulled up, and before the eddying ripples had subsided from the surface, the rogue was seen to make a rush into the water, at the same time deeply submerging his proboscis, as if about to take a drink.</p> <p>For some moments he remained in a stationary attitude, apparently filling his capacious stomach with the fluid.</p> <p>There was no reason why he should not be as thirsty as themselves; and the spectators in the tree had no other thought, than that the great quadruped had waded into the pool simply for the purpose of quenching his thirst.</p> <p>There was something about his movements, however, and the style in which he had set about sucking up the water, which betrayed a different determination; and it was not long before this was evinced by a performance which, under other circumstances, might have evoked laughter from those who witnessed it. In this instance, however, the spectators were themselves the victims of the joke&mdash;if joke it might be termed&mdash;and during its continuance, not one of the three felt the slightest inclination to indulge in mirth. It was thus that the elephant acted:&mdash;</p> <p>Having filled its trunk with the water of the stream, it raised it aloft. Then pointing it towards the tree, and even directing it with as much coolness and precision as an astronomer would have used in adjusting his telescope, it sent the fluid in a drenching stream into the faces of the three individuals whom it was holding in siege. All three, who chanced to be sitting close together, were at the same instant, and alike, the victims of this unexpected deluge; and before any of them could have counted half a score, they were wet from head to foot, every rag upon their backs, and fronts too, becoming as thoroughly saturated as if they had been exposed for hours to a drenching rain storm!</p> <p>But the elephant was not satisfied with giving them a single shower-bath. As soon as its first supply was exhausted, it once more immersed its pliant sucker, re-filled the reservoir, took a good aim, and ejected the fluid into their faces.</p> <p>In this way the creature continued drawing up the water from the stream, and squirting it from its vast muscular syringe, until it had douched them nearly a dozen times.</p> <p>Their situation was anything but enviable; for the watery stream, propelled against them with as much force as from the hose-pipe of a fire-engine, almost washed them from their unstable seats; to say nothing of the great discomfort which the douche occasioned them.</p> <p>It would be difficult to guess what could be the object of the elephant in this curious performance. Perhaps it may have conceived a hope either of driving them out of the tree, or forcibly washing them from the branches; or perhaps it merely designed to make their situation as uncomfortable as possible, and thus to some extent satisfy its spite.</p> <p>It would be equally difficult to tell how long the performance might have lasted. Perhaps for hours longer&mdash;since the supply of water was inexhaustible; but it was brought to a conclusion which neither the great pachyderm himself foresaw, nor they who were the subjects of his aqueous dispensation.</p> <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />