Dermot dragged the girl down to the ground beside him as a shot rang out.

“I suppose they will kill us, Major Dermot,” she said calmly. “But couldn’t you manage to get away in the darkness? You know the jungle so well. Please don’t hesitate to leave me, for I should only hamper you. Won’t you go?”

Emotion choked the soldier for a moment. He gripped her arm and was about to speak when suddenly the forest on every side of them resounded to a pandemonium of noise: a chorus of wild shrieks, shots, the crashing of trampled undergrowth, the death-yells of men amid the savage screams and fierce trumpetings of a herd of elephants.

“Oh, what’s that? What terrible thing is happening?” cried the girl.

Dermot seized her and dragged her close against the trunk of the tree. In the gloom they saw men flying madly past them pursued by elephants. One wretch not ten yards from them was overtaken by a great tusker, which struck him to the ground, trampled on him, kicked and knelt upon his lifeless body until it was crushed to a pulp, then placing one forefoot on the man’s chest, wound his trunk round the legs and seized them in his mouth, tore them from the body, and threw them twenty yards away. All around similar tragedies were being enacted; for the herd of wild elephants had charged in among the attackers.

Dermot gathered the terrified girl in his arms and held her face against his breast, so that she should be spared the horror of the sights about them; but he could not shut out the terrible sounds, the agonised shrieks, the despairing yells of the wretches who were meeting with an awful fate. He remained motionless against the tree, hoping to escape the notice of the fierce animals, whom he could see plunging through the jungle in pursuit of their prey, for they were hunting the men down. Suddenly one elephant came straight towards them with trunk uplifted. Dermot put the girl behind him and raised his rifle; but with a low murmur from its throat the animal lowered its trunk, and he recognised it.

“Thank God! we are saved,” he said. “It’s Badshah. He has brought his herd to our rescue.”

The girl clung to him convulsively and scarcely heard him; for the tumult in the jungle still continued, though the terrible pursuit seemed to be passing farther away. The giant avengers were still crashing through the jungle after their prey; and an occasional heartrending shriek told of another luckless wretch who had met his doom.

Dermot gently disengaged the clinging hands and repeated his words. The girl, still shuddering, made an effort and rose to her knees.

Dermot went forward and laid his hand on the elephant’s trunk.

“Thank you, Badshah,” he said. “I am in your debt again.”

The tip of the trunk touched his face in a gentle caress. Then he stepped back and said: “Now we’ll go at once, Miss Daleham. We won’t stop this time until we reach your bungalow.”

The girl had already recovered her courage and stood beside him.

“But you are wounded. There’s blood on your face and on your neck. Are you badly hurt?”

Dermot laughed reassuringly.

“To tell you the truth I had forgotten all about it. They are only scratches. The skin is cut, that’s all. Come, we mustn’t delay any longer.”

At a word from him Badshah knelt. He hurriedly threw the pad on the elephant’s back and made him rise so that the surcingle rope could be fixed. Then he brought the animal to his knees again and lifted Noreen on to the pad. But before he took his own seat he searched the undergrowth around the glade and found many corpses of men almost unrecognisable as human bodies, so crushed and battered were they. From the number that he came upon it was evident that most of their assailants had been slain. But all the elephants except his had disappeared; and the sounds of the massacre were dying away.

Slinging his rifle he climbed on to the pad; and Badshah rose and went swiftly along a track that seemed to Dermot to lead towards Malpura. He did not attempt to guide the elephant, but placed himself so that his body would shield the girl from the danger of being struck by overhanging boughs. He held her firmly as they were borne through the darkness that now filled the forest; for the swift-coming Indian night had fallen.

“Keep well down, Miss Daleham,” he said. “You must be on your guard against being swept off the pad by the low branches.”

“Oh, Major Dermot,” cried the girl with a shudder, “have all these terrible things really happened in the last few hours or has it all been a hideous nightmare?”

“Please try not to think of them,” he answered. “You are safe now.”

“Yes; but you? You have to face these dangers again, since you are so much in the jungle. Oh, my forest that I thought a fairyland! That such terrible things can happen in it!”

“I can assure you that they are very unusual,” he replied with a cheery laugh. “You have been very fortunate; for you have crammed more excitement and adventure into one day than I have seen previously in all my time in the jungle.”

“It all seems so incredible,” she said. “Did you really mean that Badshah brought his herd to our rescue? But I know he did. I heard him call them. When he ran off I thought that he was frightened and had abandoned us. But I did him a great injustice.”

Her companion was silent for a moment. Then he said:

“Look here, Miss Daleham, we had better not tell that tale of Badshah quite in that way. It would seem impossible, and no European would credit it. Natives would, of course, for as it is they seem to look upon him as a god already.”

“Yes; but you think as I do, don’t you?” she exclaimed in surprise. “Surely you believe that he did bring the other elephants to save us.”

“Yes, I do. I know that he did, for I-well, between ourselves I have seen him do even more wonderful things. But others wouldn’t believe us, and I don’t want to emphasise the marvellous part of the story. I’d rather people thought that the dacoits, or whoever those men were who attacked us, accidentally fell foul of a herd of wild elephants.”

“Perhaps you are right. But we know. It will be just our own secret and Badshah’s,” she said dreamily.

Then she relapsed into silence. In spite of the terrible experiences through which she had just passed she felt happy at the pressure of Dermot’s arm about her and the sensation of being utterly alone with him in a world of their own, as they were borne on through the darkness. Fatigue made her drowsy, and the swaying motion of the elephant’s pace lulled her to sleep.

She woke suddenly and for an instant wondered where she was. Then remembrance came and she felt the warm blood mantle her face as she realised that she was nestling in Dermot’s arms. But, drowsy and content, she did not move. Looking up she saw the stars overhead. They were out of the forest.

“I must have been asleep,” she said. “Where are we?”

“At Malpura. There are the lights of your bungalow,” replied Dermot. He said it almost with regret, for he had found the long miles through the forest almost short, while the girl nestled confidingly, though unconsciously, in his arms and he held her against his heart.

As the elephant neared the house Dermot gave a loud shout.

Instantly the verandah filled with men who rushed out of the lighted rooms and tried to pierce the darkness. A little distance from the bungalow a large number of coolies, seated on the ground, rose up and pressed forward to the road. From behind the house several white-clad servants ran out.

Dermot shouted again and called out Daleham’s name.

There was a frantic rush down the verandah steps.

“Hurrah! it’s the Major,” cried a planter.

“And-and-yes, Miss Daleham’s with him. Hooray!” yelled another.

“Good old Dermot!” came in Payne’s voice.

Through the throng of shouting, excited men the girl’s brother broke.

“Noreen! Noreen! My God, are you there? Are you safe?” he cried frantically.

Almost before Badshah sank to the ground, the girl, with a little sob, sprang into her brother’s arms and clung to him, while Dermot was dragged off the pad by the eager hands of a dozen men who thumped him on the back, pulled him from one to another, and nearly shook his arm off. The servants had brought out lamps to light up the scene.

From the verandah steps Chunerbutty looked jealously on. He had been relieved at knowing that the girl had returned, but in his heart he cursed the man who had saved her. He was roughly thrust aside by Parry, who dashed up the steps, ran into the house, and emerged a minute later holding a large tumbler in his hand.

“Where is he, where is he? Look you, I know what he wants. Here’s what will do you good, Major,” he shouted.

Dermot laughed and, taking the tumbler, drank its contents gratefully, though their strength made him cough, for the bibulous Celt had mixed it to his own taste.

“Major, Major, how can we thank you?” said Fred Daleham, coming to him with his sister clinging to his arm.

But she had to release him and shake hands over and over again with all the planters and receive their congratulations and expressions of delight at seeing her safe and sound. Meanwhile her brother was endeavouring in the hubbub to thank her rescuer. But Dermot refused to listen.

“Oh, there’s nothing to make a fuss about I assure you, Daleham,” he said. “It was just that I had the luck to be the first to follow the raiders. Any one else would have done the same.”

“Oh, nonsense, old man,” broke in Payne, clapping him on the back. “Of course we’d all have liked to do it, but none of us could have tracked the scoundrels like you could. How did you do it?”

“Yes; tell us what happened, Major.”

“How did you find her, Dermot?”

“What occurred, Miss Daleham?”

“Did they put up a fight, sir?”

The eager mob of men poured a torrent of questions on the girl and her rescuer.

“Easy on, you fellows,” said Dermot, laughing. “Give us time. We can’t answer you all at once.”

“Yes, give them a chance, boys. Don’t crowd,” cried one planter.

“Here! We can’t see them. Let’s have some light,” shouted another.

“Where are those servants? Bring out all the lamps!”

“Lamps be hanged! Let’s have a decent blaze. We’ll have a bonfire.”

Several of the younger planters ran to the stable and outhouses and brought piles of straw, old boxes, anything that would burn. Others despatched coolies to the factory near by to fetch wood, broken chests, and other fuel. Several bonfires were made and the flames lit up the scene with a blaze of light.

“Why, you’re wounded, Dermot!” exclaimed Payne.

“Oh, no. Just a scratch.”

“Yes, he is wounded, but he pretends it’s nothing,” said Noreen. “Do see if it’s anything serious, Mr. Payne.”

“I assure you it’s nothing,” protested the soldier, resisting eager and well-meant attempts to drag him into the house and tend his hurts by force. But attention was diverted when a planter cried:

“Good Heavens! what’s this? The elephant’s tusk is covered with blood.”

“Tusk! Why, he’s blood to the eyes,” exclaimed another.

For the leaping flames revealed the fact that Badshah’s tusk, trunk, and legs were covered with freshly-dried blood.

“Good Heavens! he’s been wading in it.”

“What’s that on his tusk? Why, it’s fragments of flesh. Oh, the deuce!”

There were exclamations of surprise and horror from the white men. But the mass of coolies, who had been pressing forward to stare, drew back into the darkness and muttered to each other.

“The god! The god! Who can withstand the god?” they whispered.

“Arhe, bhai! (Aye, brother!) But which is the god? The elephant or his rider? Tell me that!” exclaimed a grey-haired coolie.

Among the Europeans the questions showered on Dermot redoubled.

“Look here, you fellows. I can’t answer you all at once,” he expostulated. “It’s a long story. But please remember that Miss Daleham has had a tiring day and must be worn out.”

“Oh, no, I’m not,” exclaimed the girl. “Not now. I was fatigued, but I’m too excited to rest yet.”

“Come into the bungalow everyone and we’ll have the whole story there,” said her brother. “The servants will get supper ready for us. We must celebrate tonight.”

“Indeed, yes. Look you, it shall be very wet tonight in Malpura, whateffer,” cried Parry, who was already half drunk. “Here, boy! Boy! Where is that damned black beastie of mine? Boy!”

His khitmagar disengaged himself from the group of servants and approached apprehensively, keeping out of reach of his master’s fist.

“Go to the house,” said Parry to him in Bengali. “Bring liquor here. All the liquor I have. Hurry, you dog!”

He aimed a blow at him, which the khitmagar dodged with the ease of long practice and ran to execute his master’s bidding.

Daleham gave directions to his butler and cook to prepare supper, and led the way into the house with his arm round his sister, who, woman-like, escaped to change her dress and make herself presentable, as she put it. She had already forgotten the fatigues of the day in the hearty welcome and the joy of her safe home-coming.

But before Dermot entered the bungalow he had water brought and washed from Badshah’s head and legs the evidences of the terrible vengeance that he had taken upon their assailants. And from the verandah the planters looked at animal and master and commented in low tones on the strange tales told of both, for the reputation of mysterious power that they enjoyed with natives had reached every white man of the district.

The crowd of coolies drifted away to their village on the tea-garden, and there throughout the hot night hours the groups sat on the ground outside the thatched bamboo huts and talked of the animal and the man.

“It is not well to cross this sahib who is not as other sahibs,” said a coolie, shaking his head solemnly.

“Sahib, say you? Is he only a sahib?” asked an old man. “Is he truly of the gora logue (white folk)?”

“Why, what else is he? Is not his skin white?” said a youth, presumptuously thrusting himself into the conclave of the elders.

“Peace! Since when was it meet for children to prattle in the presence of their grandsires?” demanded a grey-haired coolie contemptuously. “Know, boy, that Shri Krishn’s skin was of the same colour when he moved among us on earth.”

Krishna, the Second Person of the Hindu Trinity, the best-loved god of all their mythological heaven, is represented in the cheap coloured oleographs sold in the bazaars in India as being of fair complexion.

“Is he Krishna himself?” asked a female coolie eagerly, the glass bangles on her arm rattling as she raised her hand to draw her sari over her face when she thus addressed men. “Is he Krishna, think you? He is handsome enough to be the Holy One.”

“Who knows, daughter? It may be. Shri Krishn has many incarnations,” said the old man solemnly.

“Nay, I do not think that he is Krishna,” remarked an elderly coolie. “It may be that he is another of the Holy Ones.”

“Perhaps he is Gunesh,” ventured a younger man.

“No; he bestrides Gunesh. I think he must be Krishna,” chimed in another. “What lesser god would dare to use Gunesh as his steed?”

“He is Gunesh himself,” asserted a grey-beard. “Does he not range the jungle and the mountains at the head of all the elephants of the Terai? Can he not call them to his aid as Hanuman did the monkeys?”

“He is certainly a Holy One or else a very powerful demon,” declared the old man. “It is an evil and a dangerous thing to molest those whom he protects. The Bhuttias, ignorant pagans that they are, carried off the missie baba he favours. What, think ye, has been their fate? With your own eyes ye have all seen the blood and the flesh of men upon the tusk and legs of his sacred elephant.”

And so through the night the shuttle of superstitious talk went backward and forward and wove a still more marvellous garment of fancy to drape the reputation of elephant and man. The godship that the common belief had long endowed Badshah with was being transferred to his master; and a mere Indian Army Major was transformed into a mysterious Hindu deity.

Meanwhile in the well-lighted bungalow in which all the sahibs were gathered together the servants were hurriedly preparing a supper such as lonely Malpura had never known. And Noreen’s pretty drawing-room was crowded with men in riding costume or in uniform-for most of the planters belonged to a Volunteer Light Horse Corps, and some of them, expecting a fight, had put on khaki when they got Daleham’s summons. Their rifles, revolvers, and cartridge belts were piled on the verandah. Chunerbutty, feeling that his presence among them would not be welcomed by the white men that night, had gone off to his own bungalow in jealous rage. And nobody missed him. Dermot, despite his protests, had been dragged off to have his hurts attended to, and it was then seen that he had been touched by three bullets.

When all were assembled in the room the planters demanded the tale of Noreen’s adventures; and the girl, looking dainty and fresh in a white muslin dress, unlike the heroine of her recent tragic experience, smilingly complied and told the story up to the point of Dermot’s unexpected and dramatic intervention.

“Now you must go on, Major,” she said, turning to him.

“Yes, yes, Dermot. Carry on the tale,” was the universal cry.

Everyone turned an expectant face towards where the soldier sat, looking unusually embarrassed.

“Oh, there’s nothing much to tell,” he said. “The raiders-they were Bhuttias-had left a trail easy enough to see, though I confess that I would have lost it once but for my elephant. When I came up to them, as Miss Daleham has just told you, they all ran away except two.”

“What did these two do?” asked Granger, his host of the previous night.

“Not much. They tried to stand their ground, but didn’t really give much trouble. So I took Miss Daleham up on my elephant and we started back. But like a fool I stopped on the way to have grub, and somebody began shooting at us from the jungle, until wild elephants turned up and cleared them off. Then we came on here. That’s all.”

These was a moment’s silence. Then Granger, in disgusted tones, exclaimed:

“Well, Major, of all the poor story-tellers I’ve ever heard, you’re the very worst. One would think you’d only been for a stroll in a quiet English lane. ‘Then we came on here. That’s all.’”

“Oh, yes, you can’t ask us to believe it was as tame as that, Major,” said another planter. “We expected to hear something a little more exciting.”

“You go out after thirty or forty raiders-

“No, only twenty-two all told,” corrected Dermot.

“All right, only twenty-two, come back with three hits on you and your elephant up to his eyes in blood and-and-well, hang it all, Major, let’s have some more details.”

“Come, Miss Daleham,” Payne broke in, “you tell us what happened. I know Dermot, and we won’t get any more out of him.”

“Yes; let’s hear all about it, Noreen,” said her brother. “I’m sure it wasn’t as tame as the Major says.”

“Tame?” echoed the girl, smiling. “I’ve had enough excitement to last me all my life, dear. I think that Major Dermot has put it rather mildly. I’m sure even I could tell the story better.”

She narrated their adventures, giving her rescuer, despite his protests, full credit for his courage and resource, only omitting the details of their picnic meal and slurring over their relief by the wild elephants. The planters listened eagerly to her tale, breaking into applause at times. When she had finished Parry laid a heavy hand on Dermot’s shoulder and said solemnly, though thickly:

“Look you, you are a bad liar, Major Dermot. Your story would not deceive a child, whateffer. But I am proud of you. You should have been a Welshman.”

The rest overwhelmed the soldier with compliments and congratulations, much to his embarrassment, and when Noreen left the room to supervise the arrangement of the supper-table they plied him with questions without extracting much more information from him. But when a servant came to announce that the meal was ready and the planters rose to troop to the dining-room, Dermot reached the door first and held up his hand to stop them.

“Gentlemen, one moment, please,” he said. Then he looked out to satisfy himself that the domestic was out of hearing and continued: “I’d be obliged if during supper you’d make no allusion before the servants to what has happened today. Afterwards I shall have something to say to you in confidence that will explain this request of mine.”

The others looked at him in surprise but readily agreed. Before they left the room Daleham noticed the Hindu engineer’s absence for the first time.

“By Jove, I’d forgotten Chunerbutty,” he exclaimed. “I wonder where he is? Perhaps he doesn’t know we’re going to have supper. I’d better send the boy to tell him.”

“Indeed no, he is fery well where he is,” hiccoughed Parry, who, seated by a table on which drinks had been placed, had not been idle. “This is not a night for black men, look you.”

“Yes, Daleham, Parry’s right,” said Granger. “Let us keep to our own colour tonight. Things might be said that wouldn’t be pleasant for an Indian to hear.”

“Forgive my putting a word in, Daleham,” added Dermot. “But I have a very particular reason, which I’ll explain afterwards, for asking you to leave Chunerbutty out.”

“Yes, we don’t want a damned Bengali among us tonight, Fred,” said a young planter bluntly.

“Oh, very well; if you fellows would rather I didn’t ask him I won’t,” replied their host. “But I’m afraid his feelings will be hurt at being left out when we’re celebrating my sister’s safe return. He’s such an old friend.”

“Oh, hang his feelings! Think of ours,” cried another of the party.

“All right. Have it your own way. Let’s go in to supper,” said the host.

The hastily improvised meal was a merry feast, and the loud voices and the roars of laughter rang out into the silent night and reached the ears of Chunerbutty sitting in his bungalow eating his heart out in bitterness and jealousy. Noreen, presiding at one end of the long table, was the queen of the festival and certainly had never enjoyed any supper in London as much as this impromptu meal. General favourite as she always was with every man in the district, this night there was added universal gladness at her escape and the feeling of satisfaction that the outrage on her had been so promptly avenged. While the girl was pleased with the warmth and sincerity of the congratulations showered upon her, she was secretly delighted to see the high esteem in which all the other men held Dermot. He was seated beside her and shared with her the good wishes of the company. His health was drunk with all the honours after hers, and the planters did not spare his blushes in their loudly-expressed praises of his achievements. Cordiality and good humour prevailed, and, although the fun was fast and furious, Parry was the only one who drank too much. Before he became objectionable, for he was usually quarrelsome in his cups, he was dexterously cajoled out of the room and safely shepherded to his bungalow.