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Even the black panther, the most savage of all cats, will rarely offer battle except when attacked. Meantime the man who had followed Kathlyn arrived at the city. Five hours later Kathlyn stepped out of her howdah, gave Rao the money for the mahouts and looked about. This was the gate to the capital. How many times had her father passed through it? Her jaw set and her eyes flashed.
Some are reluctant to strike out, when they begin to enter the deepest channel, and try to turn back; the mahouts and 'mates' shout, and belabour them with bamboo poles.
Gorgeously-ornamented cloths covered the backs of the huge animals, while the mahouts sat on their necks, to direct them where to go and what to do. Reginald, not accustomed to that style of shooting, thought it very dull work, and longed to be on foot, where he could encounter the savage monsters face to face.
The dâk bungalow at Madpur Duar was soon reached, a single-storied building with a couple of trees shading the well behind it and a group of elephants and their mahouts. On the verandah Benson and his daughter were standing, the girl dressed in a khaki drill coat and skirt over breeches and soft leather gaiters, and waving a welcome to Badshah's riders.
And then, as the band marched by, Rajah Suleiman's group collected in front of the great clump of trees left standing when a portion of the jungle had been cleared, and the huge elephants, now gorgeous with trappings, and each bearing its showy howdah, in which were seated the Rajah himself and his principal chiefs, responded to a final blast of the highly polished brass instruments and the thunderous roll of the drums by a simultaneous uneasy trumpeting of their own, with which were mingled the cries of the mahouts, who had to ply their sharp-pointed goads to keep their charges in subjection.
We'll walk down to the peelkhana by a short cut through the hills to look for kalej pheasant on the way. Take the gun with you and load one barrel with shot; but put a bullet in the other, for you never know what we may meet. Badshah will go down by the road, as well as one of the servants to bring the rifles and tell the mahouts to get a detachment elephant ready.
He saw the vultures stir uneasily and some rise into the air as the elephants passed under them. At last through the trees he began to catch occasional glimpses of the mahouts, and he lost hope.
It is strange that in these encounters the wild elephants made no attempt to attack or dislodge the mahouts or the cooroowes, who rode on the tame ones. They moved in the very midst of the herd, any individual in which could in a moment have pulled the riders from their seats; but no effort was made to molest them.
At the thought, I patted her soft cheek with my hand, and in response she smiled up into my eyes with wondrous trust and winsomeness. "Our party, as I have said, numbered twelve, this without counting the three mahouts, lithe and active men, and brave as any one of us.
Almost at the moment he stepped into the courtyard a familiar sound greeted his ears. It was the trumpeting of an elephant. But there was a strange note of rage and excitement in it, and he thought of the remarks of the mahouts the previous day on the return from the Moti Mahal. Probably the must elephant of which they spoke was chained somewhere close by.
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