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Would you leave my children fatherless? . . . There is none other " They stood in the lifting day overlooking a broad sloping country the Vindha peaks faintly outlined in the far distance. "It is the broad valley of Nerbudda," Chakkra said, "full of milk and wine against the seasons.
Bracing themselves to witness his defeat, expecting to see his bitter death in the end, yet the bad one's method at the start maddened them beyond control. "He was bred in the Pit!" one mahout called. "His father was Depravity!" another called back. And they cursed him with the curses of the Hills. Chakkra, who was Gunpat Rao's mahout, was a plucky little man; but his face had gone old.
Skag had lost the magic of externals, the drift of his great interest. All his lights were around Carlin, and powers of hatred, altogether foreign to his faculties, pressed upon him in the threat of the hour. . . . Yes, Chakkra remembered the five Kabuli men who had sat in the market-place.
Chakkra, the mahout, was singing the praises of Gunpat Rao, his master, as they rolled forward; flapping an ear to keep time and waving his ankas the steel hook of which was never used. "Kin to Neela Deo, is Gunpat Rao; liege-son to Neela Deo, the King!" he repeated. It appeared that he was reminding Gunpat Rao, rather than informing the American, of this honour.
Once in the dark after a ford, when Nels had rushed along the left bank to find the scent, Gunpat Rao plunged straight on to the right without waiting; and the mahout sang his praises with low but fiery intensity: "He is coming. He is coming into his own!" "What do you mean, Chakkra? Make it clear to me who have not many words of Hindi "
Gunpat Rao. . . . Gunpat Rao. The mahouts say young male elephants will follow a strange male for the chance of a fight. It's consistent enough. Yes, we'll call in Chakkra. . . . Are you ready to travel, sir?" This was to Skag. No array of terms could express how ready to travel was Sanford Hantee.
Yes, he remembered the story of the beating of the monster, the long slow healing after that; and his last look, as he left Hurda for the last time. . . . It was well, Chakkra said, that they had open country for the chase. It was well that the Kabuli did not call to the Sahibas, and hide them in one of the great Mohammedan households of Hurda where even Indian Government might not search.
"I am here." The two great beasts were moiled together against the stream. . . . The man and woman, whose eyes still held, might have missed the flash of steel that Chakkra parried with his ankas. In fact, it was the sound of a quick gasp of Margaret Annesley that made them turn, just as Chakkra shouted: "By necessity, Sahib! . . . It is accomplished!"
That was always the point of the blackest fear that the elephant ahead should come to some Mohammedan household, and leave Carlin where no one could pass the veil. "But what of the messenger who brought word to the Sahibas?" Skag asked. "He would slip away. Some hiding place for him possibly back at Hurda." Chakkra seemed sure of this. That was Skag's long night.
Gunpat Rao seemed gradually overcoming obstructions; as if his great idea mounted and cleared, his body requiring time to strike its rhythm. Chakkra sang to him. The sun became hotter and higher until it hung at the very top of the universe and forgot nothing. There was a stillness in the hills that would frighten anything but a fever bird to silence.
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