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Except to lessen his speed it made little difference to the elephant; but for the man it was harder to find his way. On the twisting jungle tracks his luminous compass was of little use. He was forced to trust mainly to the animal. But soon a suspicion arose in his mind that Badshah had swerved away from the direction in which Salchini lay and was heading for Malpura.
Picking up twigs in their trunks they used them to beat their sides and legs to drive off stinging insects or, snuffing up dust from the ground, blew clouds of it along their bellies for the same purpose. Suddenly the Colonel stopped Badshah and whispered: "There's a sambhur stag, Wargrave. There, to your left in the undergrowth. Have a shot at him."
Her heart ached for an hour or two alone with her one-time friend of the forest. O to be out with him on Badshah in the silent jungle, no matter what dangers encircled them! Perhaps there the cloud between them would vanish. But could she not speak to him here in the Palace? He seemed to be no longer fascinated with Ida, if indeed he ever had been. She could tell him of the Rajah's insult.
Indeed, only the continual employment of the latter's kukri, with which he hacked at the throttling creepers and clutching thorny branches, saved him. Darker and gloomier grew the way. The sides of the nullah closed in until there was scarcely room for the animals to pass, and then Dermot found Badshah had entered a natural tunnel in the mountain side.
Just as they were emerging from dense undergrowth on to such a glade, Dermot's eye was caught by something moving ahead of them. He checked Badshah; and they remained concealed in in the thick vegetation. Then through the trees came a trim little kakur buck, stepping daintily in advance of his doe which followed a few yards behind.
In a lighter tone he continued: "As a reward and a souvenir you shall have the skin. I'll get the villagers to take it off. Now stay on Badshah, please, while I slip down and have a look at the tiger's little nest." With rifle at the ready, lest the dead animal should have had a mate, he climbed down into the nullah. He had not gone ten yards before his foot struck against something hard.
The talk died away and no sound was heard but the soft padding of their elephant's huge feet in the dust of the road. The subaltern soon found the howdah infinitely more trying than a seat on the pad when Badshah was in motion; for the plunging gait of the animal jerked him backwards and forwards and threw him against the wooden rails if he forgot to hold himself at arm's length from them.
To his relief Badshah suddenly turned and passed through the trees again towards the tunnelled entrance, and the hundreds of other elephants followed him in file. In a few minutes Dermot found himself plunged into darkness once more, and the Valley of Death had disappeared.
Skilled in the knowledge of the various sounds that elephants make he knew by the brassy note of this that the animal was in deadly fear. He sprang up to go to his assistance, when Badshah burst through the trees and came towards him at his fastest pace, his drooping ears and tail and outstretched trunk showing that he was terrified.
"Good morning, Wargrave," said the Colonel, as the subaltern greeted him and his wife. "You're in good time." Eileen, deserting Badshah, ran to Frank and demanded to be lifted up and kissed. When he had obeyed the small tyrant, he said: "I haven't brought a rifle, sir." "That's right. I have one and a ball-and-shot gun for you.
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