In a part of a forest lived an elephant-king named Four-Tusk who had a numerous retinue of elephants. His time was spent in protecting the herd.

Now once there came a twelve-year drought, so that tanks, ponds, swamps, and lakes went dry. Then all the elephants said to the lord of the herd: “O King, our little ones are so tortured by thirst that some are like to die, and some are dead. Pray devise a method of removing thirst.” So he sent in eight directions elephants fleet as the wind to search for water.

Now those who went east found beside a path near a hermitage a lake named Lake of the Moon. It was beautiful with swans, herons, ospreys, ducks, sheldrakes, cranes, and water-creatures. It was embowered in flowering sprays of branches drooping under the weight of various blossoms. Both banks were embellished with trees. It had beaches made lovely by sheets of foam born of the splashing of transparent waves .that danced in the breeze and broke on the shore. Its water was perfumed by the ichor-juice that oozed from elephant-temples washed clean of bees; for these flew up when the lordly creatures plunged. It was ever screened from the heat of the sun by hundreds of parasols in the shape of the countless leaves of tress on its banks. It gave forth deep-toned music from untouched waves that turned aside on meeting the plump legs, hips, and bosoms of mountain maidens diving. It was brimming with crystal water, and beautified with thickets of water-lilies in full bloom. Why describe it? It was a segment of paradise.

When they saw this, they hastened back to report to the elephant-king.

So Four-Tusk on hearing their report, traveled with them by easy stages to the Lake of the Moon. And finding a gentle slope all around the lake, the elephants plunged in thereby crushing the heads, necks, fore-paws and hind-paws of thousands of rabbits who long before had made their home on the banks. Now after drinking and bathing, the elephant king with his followers departed to his own portion of the jungle.

Then the rabbits who were left alive held an emergency convention. “What are we to do now?” said they. “Those fellows --- curse their tracks! — will come here every day. Let some plan be framed at once to prevent their return.”

Thereupon a rabbit named Victory, perceiving their terror and their utter woe at the crushing of sons, wives, and relatives, said compassionately: “Have no fear. They shall not return. I promise it. For my guardian angel has granted me this grace.”

And hearing this, the rabbit-king whose name was Block-Snout, said to Victory: “Dear friend, this is beyond peradventure. For

Good Victory knows every fact

The textbooks teach; knows how to act

In every place and time. Where he

Is sent, there comes prosperity.

And again:

Speak for pleasure, speak with measure,

Speak with grammar’s richest treasure,

Not too much, and with reflection —

Deeds will follow words’ direction.

The elephants, sir, making acquaintance with your ripe wisdom, will become aware of my majesty, wisdom, and energy, though I am not present. For the proverb says:

I learn if foreign kings be fools or no

By their dispatches or their nuncio.

And there is a saying:

The envoy binds; he loosens what is bound:

Through him success in war, if found, is found.

And if you go, it is as if I went myself. Because, if you

Speak what lies in your commission,

Speak with careful composition,

Grammar and good ethics seeking,

‘Tis as if myself were speaking.

And again:

This is, in brief, the envoy’s care:

An argument to fit the facts

And sound results, so far as speech

May be translated into acts.

“Depart then, dear friend. And may the office of envoy prove a second guardian angel to you.”

So Victory departed and espied the elephant-king in the act of returning to the lake. He was surrounded by thousands of lordly elephants, whose ears, like flowering branches, were swaying in a dignified dance. His body was dappled with masses of pollen from his couch made of twigs from the tips of branches of flowering cassia trees; so that he seemed a laden cloud with many clinging lightning-flashes. His trumpeting was as deep toned and awe inspiring as the clash of countless thunderbolts from which in the rainy season piercing flashes gleam. He had the glossy beauty of leaves in a bed of pure blue lotuses. His twisting trunk had the charm of a perfect snake. His presence was that of an elephant of heaven. His two tusks, shapely, smooth, and full, had the color of honey. Around his entire visage rose a charming hum from swarms of bees drawn by the fragrant perfume of the ichor-juice that issued from his temples.

And Victory reflected: “It is impossible for folk like me to come too near. Because, as the proverb puts it:

An elephant will kill you if

He touch; a serpent if he sniff;

King’s laughter has a deadly sting;

A rascal kills by honoring.

I must by all odds seek impregnable terrain before introducing myself.”

After these reflections, he climbed upon a tall and jagged rock-pile before saying: “Is it well with you, lord of the two-tusked breed?” And the elephant-king hearing this, peered narrowly about and said: “Who are you, sir?” “I am an envoy,” said the rabbit. “In whose service?” asked the elephant, and the envoy answered: “In the service of the blessed Moon.” “State your business,” said the elephant-king and the rabbit stated it thus.

“You are aware, sin that no injury may be done an envoy in the discharge of his function. For all kings, without exception, use envoys as their mouthpieces. Indeed, there is a proverb:

Though swords be out and kinsmen fall in strife

The king still spares the harsh-tongued envoy’s life.

“Therefore by command of the Moon I say to you: Why. O