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Updated: May 11, 2025
Despite his warning Noreen nearly slipped off the pad at the sudden and jerky upheaval when the elephant rose. "Now please show me the direction in which your garden lies, if you can," said Dermot. "Oh, it is quite near," Noreen answered. "That is the road to it." She let the rope go to point out the way, but instantly grasped it again. Dermot turned Badshah's head down the track.
When at daybreak the herd moved on again, climbing ever higher in the mountains, the three men lay flat on Badshah's back and covered themselves with their grey blankets lest vigilant watchers on the peaks around might espy them. Thus do the mahouts of the koonkies, or trained female elephants employed in hunting and snaring wild tuskers, conceal themselves during the chase.
Haggard, hollow-eyed, and worn out, despite the rest, he staggered to his feet and was swung up to Badshah's neck by the crooked trunk and started again. He was hastening towards Salchini, where he hoped to secure Payne's car, if the owner had not fled, and try to get into touch with Army Headquarters. But what to do if his friend had gone he hardly knew.
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 the clearing before it Badshah and another animal were standing, a group of mahouts and coolies near them. "We'll mount and start at once," said Colonel Dermot, beckoning to his elephant, which came to him. "Get up, Wargrave." The subaltern looked up doubtfully at the pad on Badshah's back. "How can I, sir? Isn't he going to kneel?" he asked.
Hours elapsed before the last elephant had passed; and Dermot, cramped by sitting still on Badshah's neck, was worn out with heat and fatigue long before the slow procession ended. When at last the almost interminable line had gone by, Badshah moved off at a rapid pace and passed the slow-plodding animals until he had overtaken the leaders.
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.
They had got within a mile of it and were close to the foot of the hills when Badshah stopped suddenly and smelt the ground. Colonel Dermot leaned over the huge head and stared down intently at something invisible to his young companion. "What is it, sir?" asked Wargrave in a whisper. "Bison. Badshah's pointing for us.
A man working on the small patch of cleared soil in which he and his fellows grew their scanty crops saw them, recognised Badshah and his male rider, and ran away shouting to the hamlet. Then out of it swarmed men, women, and children, the last naked, while only miserable rags clothed the skinny frames of their elders. All prostrated themselves in the dust in Badshah's path. The elephant stopped.
To Parker, who had awaited their arrival at Dermot's gate and hurried forward to help down from Badshah's back the first Englishwoman who had ever visited their solitary station, she took an instant liking, which increased when she found that he openly admired his commanding officer as much as she did secretly.
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