these other elephants?" asked the girl apprehensively,
looking at them where they were grouped together, gazing with curiosity at
Badshah's passengers. "Will they come too?"

"No," said Dermot reassuringly, "you needn't be afraid. They won't follow.
We'd create rather too much of a sensation if we arrived at your bungalow
at the head of a hundred _hathis_."

"But are they really wild?" she asked. "They look so quiet and inoffensive
now; though when I was on the ground they seemed very dreadful indeed. But
I was told that wild elephants are dangerous."

"Some of them undoubtedly are," replied Dermot. "But a herd is fairly
inoffensive, if you don't go too near it. Cow-elephants with young calves
can be very vicious, if they suspect danger to their offspring."

A turn in the road through the jungle shut out the sight of the huge
animals behind them, and Noreen breathed more freely. She began to wonder
who her rescuer was and how he had come so opportunely to her relief. Their
dramatic meeting invested him in her eyes with more interest than she would
have found in any man whose acquaintance she had made in a more unromantic
and conventional manner. And so she bestowed more attention on him and
studied his appearance more closely than she would otherwise have done. He
struck her at once as being exceedingly good looking in a strong and manly
way. His profile showed clear-cut and regular features, with a mouth and
chin bespeaking firmness and determination. His face in repose was grave,
almost stern, but she had seen it melt in sudden tenderness as he sprang to
her aid when she had felt faint. She noticed that his eyes were very
attractive and unusually dark--due, although she did not know it, to the
Spanish strain in him as in so many other Irish of the far west of
Connaught--and with his darker hair, which had a little wave in it, and his
small black moustache they gave him an almost foreign look. The girl had a
sudden mental vision of him as a fierce rover of bygone days on the Spanish
Main. But when, in a swift transition, little laughter-wrinkles creased
around his eyes that softened in a merry smile, she wondered how she could
have thought that he looked fierce or stern. Although, like many of her
sex, she was a little prejudiced against handsome men, and he certainly was
one, yet she was strongly attracted by his appearance. Probably the very
contrast in colouring and type between him and her made him appeal to her.