in
bracken. In one such spot Wargrave's eye was caught by a flash of bright
colour, and his rifle went half-way to his shoulder, only to be lowered
again when he saw two _sambhur_ hinds, graceful animals with glossy
chestnut hides, watching the advancing elephants curiously but without
fear. For, used to seeing wild ones, they did not realise that Badshah
and his companion carried human beings. Their sex saved them from the
hunters who, leaving them unscathed, passed on and plunged into the
dense undergrowth on the far side of the clearing.

The elephants fed continually as they moved along. Sweeping up great
bunches of grass, tearing down trails of leafy creepers, breaking off
branches from the trees, they crammed them all impartially into their
mouths. Picking up twigs in their trunks they used them to beat their
sides and legs to drive off stinging insects or, snuffing up dust from
the ground, blew clouds of it along their bellies for the same purpose.

Suddenly the Colonel stopped Badshah and whispered:

"There's a _sambhur_ stag, Wargrave. There, to your left in the
undergrowth. Have a shot at him."

The subaltern looked everywhere eagerly, but in the dense tangle could
not discern the animal. Like all novices in the jungle he directed his
gaze too far away; and suddenly a dark patch of deep shadow in the
undergrowth close by materialised itself into the black hide of a stag
only as it dashed off. It had been standing within fifteen paces of the
elephants, knowing the value of immobility as a shield. At last its
nerve failed it; and it revealed itself by breaking away. But as it fled
Colonel Dermot's rifle spoke; and the big deer crumpled up and fell
crashing through the vegetation to the ground. The second elephant's
_mahout_, a grey-bearded Mahommedan, slipped instantly to the earth and,
drawing his _kukri_, struggled through the arresting creepers and
undergrowth to where the stag lay feebly moving its limbs. Seizing one
horn he performed the _hallal_, that is, he cut its throat to let blood
while there was still life in the animal, muttering the short Mussulman
creed as he did so. For his religion enjoins this hygienic
practice--borrowed by the Prophet from the Mosaic law--to guard against
long-dead carrion being eaten. At the touch of the Colonel's hand
Badshah sank to its knees; and Wargrave, very annoyed with himself for
his slowness in detecting the deer, forced his way through the
undergrowth to examin