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But I say, Gunpat Rao came from the Vindhas, you know." It dawned upon Skag that this wasn't monologue, but conversation; also that it had some vague bearing upon his own affairs. The pause was very slight, when the Deputy resumed: "Yes, Gunpat Rao is from the Vindha Hills, within the life-time of one man. . . . Mitha Baba is as fast, but she won't do it; so there's an end.
Skag would have supposed their movement leisurely, except that he saw Nels steadily at work. Gunpat Rao, the most magnificent elephant in the Chief Commissioner's stockades excepting Neela Deo and Mitha Baba was making speed under him, at this moment.
"I must not be left and yet you must take these clothes from her!" the Gul Moti said, while they helped the old man to the ground. "Then go to her neck oh, Thou Healer-without-fear! She will not wait long she follows Nut Kut, the demon! and Gunpat Rao, who both got away with everything on!" Still hoping, the Gul Moti slipped over the edge of the big howdah and climbed toward Mitha Baba's neck.
All that afternoon Skag's eyes strained ahead, and his respect grew for the thief elephant with his greater burden, and his wonder increased for Nels and Gunpat Rao. One dim far peak held his eyes from time to time; but Skag lived in the low beat of India's misery the fever and famine; the world of veils and the miseries beyond knowledge of the world.
The Bengali mahout, Chakkra, appeared; a sturdy little man with blue turban, red kummerband, and a scarf and tunic of white. The Deputy flicked away his cigarette and now spoke fast talk having to do with Nels, with the Hakima, with Gunpat Rao, who was his particular mahout's master, and of the strange elephant who had carried the two Sahibas away.
The great head before him, with Chakkra's legs dangling behind the ears, had grasped something of the urge of their chase. A vast and mysterious mechanism was locked in the great grey skull. Actually Gunpat Rao seemed to laugh that he had shown the way to Nels. "You don't mean, Chakkra, that he goes into the silence like a holy man?" "It is like."
Her face was actually strange the awful pallor the fire. It left his brain a blank to other impressions, for minutes. The Gul Moti only glimpsed the stone-white face of her American, beside the Chief Commissioner, as Neela Deo charged past, on his way to take over the fight that was taxing Gunpat Rao to the last breath before defeat. Neela Deo had seen at once where he was needed most.
Ominously quiet questions went up to the mahouts; and the mahouts were full-ready to answer! In the end, it sounded like a wild Himalayan chant about Neela Deo's great fight to save Gunpat Rao. The people listened patiently, till an inward meaning enlightened them. Then they exulted: "Neela Deo, Neela Deo, King of all elephants!"
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.
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.
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