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Updated: June 10, 2025
Down the long slopes and up the steep inclines the two big elephants close on either side of Mitha Baba plunging into khuds and out again most of the time up-ended, one way or the other, at astounding angles the wild herd raced with Mitha Baba toward whatever destination she might choose.
The old mahout gasped a broken cry, as Mitha Baba lifted him and set him not too gently on the ground; she was in a hurry herself and she was making speed on her own account she objected to being urged. The Gul Moti, understanding in a flash, cried quickly: "No, no! Mitha Baba, I want him! Put him up to me put him up to me soon!" Mitha Baba wavered in her long stride.
Mitha Baba's calling was just as wild as before; but it had become wild exultation. . . . They were coming up into what reminded the Gul Moti of something she had heard that the really old jungle is always dark; that the light of day never touches earth there. This was almost dark, the moon glinting through black shadows only at intervals. The sense of this place was strange.
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.
"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.
If they once arrived there, no man could say how many of them, or if any of them, would ever be recovered. The Nerbudda River crossed their path mid-way almost at flood. If they entered that tide deep and wide and muddy state-housings of great value would be hopelessly damaged. Mitha Baba was beginning to show that she did not like the old mahout's urging but Mitha Baba was always willful.
It meant a fight an open fight between the wild herd and the caravan. The wild herd would never give Mitha Baba over to her own they would surely fight to keep her. Everything tightened in the Gul Moti and locked hard. She had known most of the caravan elephants all her life what would happen to them?
Mitha Baba, the greatest female of the caravan, under her pale rose caparison and gold lacquered howdah with its curtains of frost-green, was beating the ground with angry feet and thrusting her head aside impatiently. Something was holding her. When he saw, the Chief Commissioner made haste to reach her leaving Kudrat Sharif, who was confident of keeping Neela Deo.
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.
Dawn broke upon them while they were still in the very rugged hills; and as the mountain outlines cleared of mist, the Gul Moti saw that Mitha Baba was leading her catch straight away back to Hurda. True to her training there being no trap-stockades near the toiler was taking them home! The situation was absurd; but it roused the Gul Moti like one out of a dream to actual joy.
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