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Updated: July 28, 2025
Their only European neighbours were the planters on tea-gardens scattered about in the great forest below, the nearest thirty miles off. The few visitors that Ranga Duar saw in the year were the General on his annual inspection, an occasional official of the Indian Civil Service, the Public Works or the Forest Department, or some planter friend of the Dermots.
And the tale of them rarely reaches the ear of the representatives of the Suzerain Power or the columns of the daily press. A dark pall enveloped the mountains, and over Ranga Duar raged one of the terrifying tropical thunderstorms that signalise the rains of India. Unlike more temperate climes this land has but three Seasons.
You were right about him, Major; and I was a fool.... Is it true you've been attacked up in Ranga Duar?" he continued. "Are you wounded, Major Dermot?" broke in the girl anxiously. "No, Miss Daleham. I'm quite safe and sound." Then he told them briefly what had happened. When he had finished he asked them when the trouble began at Malpura. "Three days ago," replied Fred.
There was no time to be lost if the raiders were to be overtaken before they crossed the border. Indeed, with the start that they had, pursuit seemed almost hopeless. Nevertheless, Dermot resolved to attempt it, and single-handed. For he could not wait for the planters to gather, and summoning his men from Ranga Duar was out of the question. He did not consider the odds against him.
And the picture stayed with him when, after dinner at which he was congratulated by his brother officers, he went to his room and found a letter overlooked in his rush to dress for Mess. It was from Violet, the first that had come from her since his arrival in Ranga Duar. It breathed passion and longing, discontent and despair, in every line.
In the course of the day the Chinese Amban had announced to Colonel Dermot that he did not wish to leave so soon and desired to remain longer in Ranga Duar; but the Political Officer courteously but very firmly told him that he must go with the Envoy.
The reason of the existence of this outpost and its garrison was the guarding of the duars, or passes, through the Himalayas against raiders from Bhutan, that little-known independent State lying between Tibet and the Bengal border. Its frontier was only two miles from, and a few thousand feet above, Ranga Duar.
And when she entered the room the first person that Noreen saw was Dermot, seated at a small table with Payne and Granger. On his return from a secret excursion across the Bhutan border the Major had found awaiting him at Ranga Duar the official invitation of the Lalpuri Durbar.
Then the new mahout, salaaming again to the officer, started his huge charge off, and the elephant lumbered away with swaying stride to its peelkhana, or stable, two thousand feet below in the forest at the foot of the hills on which stood the Fort of Ranga Duar.
If only he could see Muriel and plead with her. Perhaps in time she might bring herself to forgive him. But how was he to meet her? Now that Mrs. Dermot had gone to England, the girl would not come again to Ranga Duar. She was, he knew, accompanying her father in his tour of the forests of the districts in his charge.
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