as
hour after hour went by his whole body ached with the strain of sitting
upright without a support to his back and being jolted violently at
every step of the elephant. At last they reached a clearing in the
forest where stood the _mahout's_ huts and a tall, wooden building, the
_peelkhana_, or elephant stables. It lay at the foot of the mountains;
and from here the road wound upwards among the lower hills, under steep
cliffs, by the brink of precipices and beside deep ravines down which
brawling streams tumbled.

As the party mounted higher and ever higher the big trees fell away
behind them until Frank could look down on a sea of foliage stretching
away out of sight east and west but bounded on the south by the Plains
of India seen vaguely through the shimmering heat-haze. Up, up they
climbed, until far above him he caught glimpses of buildings dotted
about among jungle-clad knolls and spurs jutting out from the dark face
of the mountains. And at last as evening shadows began to lengthen they
reached a lovely recess in the hills, a deep horse-shoe; and in it an
artificially-levelled parade-ground, a rifle-range running up a gully, a
few bungalows dotted about among the trees and lines of single-storied
barracks enclosed by a loopholed stone wall told Wargrave that he had
come to his journey's end. This was his place of exile--this was Ranga
Duar.

CHAPTER VI

A BORDER OUTPOST

"What a beautiful spot!" thought Frank as he gazed entranced at the
scenery. "I've never seen anything like it. It looks like Heaven after
the ugliness of Rohar. And how delightfully cool it is, too, up in the
mountains! Well, with this climate and good shooting in the forest below
life won't be as dreadful as I thought. I wish poor Violet were here out
of the heat and glare. How she'd love all this beauty, these trees,
these gardens, the glorious mountains!"

He sighed as he thought of the woman who was so far away.

"_Huzoor_, that is the Mess" broke in the voice of his _mahout_, as he
pointed to a long, red-tiled building half-hidden among the trees a few
hundred feet above them. To reach it they had to pass a large,
well-built stone bungalow, two-storied, unlike all the others and
standing in a lovely garden glowing with the vivid hues of the flowers,
the flaming red of huge bushes of bougainvillea and poinsettia. Frank,
glancing towards it, was about to ask the _mahout_ who lived in it when
he started in horror and cried t