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All the swaying trunks were lifted together and pointed towards him to sense him, with a unanimity of motion that made it seem as if they were receiving him with a salute. And, as Badshah moved on into the centre of the vast herd and stopped, again the murmured welcome rumbled from the great throats. Dermot slung his rifle on his back. It would not be needed now.
The girl shrank at his touch and struggled in vain in his powerful grasp. Then suddenly she cried out: "Badshah!" The Chinaman thrust his face, inflamed with passion and desire, close to hers. "You must, you shall, come to me by force, if not willingly," he growled. "By all the gods or devils ." But at that instant he was plucked from her by a resistless force and hurled violently to the ground.
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.
But before he acquainted Army Headquarters in India with his discovery, he went to the pass again on Badshah to examine and survey it thoroughly. When this was done and he had despatched his sketches and report to Simla, he felt free to carry out a project that interested him.
Suddenly, without warning, Badshah came out on a stretch of forest clear of undergrowth between the great tree-trunks, and to his amazement Dermot saw that it was filled with wild elephants. Everywhere, as far as the eye could range between the trees, they were massed, not in tens or scores, but in hundreds.
He broke off suddenly, for a jungle cock had crowed in the forest not far away. "I wish I had a shot gun," he whispered. "But my rifle will have to do. Mul, Badshah." He guided the elephant quietly and cautiously in the direction from which the sound had come. Presently they came to an open glade and heard the fowl crow again. Dermot halted Badshah in cover and waited.
Throughout the whole proceeding Badshah remained motionless, and his rider began to believe that he had ordered his wild kindred to make themselves acquainted with his human friend. It seemed a ridiculous idea, but the whole proceeding was so wildly improbable that the soldier felt that nothing could surprise him further.
He resigned himself to anything that might happen and was filled with an immense curiosity. Was there really some truth in the stories about Badshah, some foundation for the natives' belief in his mysterious powers? This reception of him by the immense gathering of his kind was beyond credence Dermot knew that wild elephants do not welcome a strange male into a herd.
She had not been to bed herself, but after a bath and a change of clothing had given her children their breakfast and bidden them make no noise, because their beloved "Fwankie" was lying ill in the house. Yet she could not forbear to smile when she saw the portentous gravity with which Eileen tiptoed out into the garden to tell Badshah the news and order him to be very quiet.
We'll walk down to the peelkhana by a short cut through the hills to look for kalej pheasant on the way. Take the gun with you and load one barrel with shot; but put a bullet in the other, for you never know what we may meet. Badshah will go down by the road, as well as one of the servants to bring the rifles and tell the mahouts to get a detachment elephant ready.
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