him.

"But you are wounded. There's blood on your face and on your neck. Are you
badly hurt?"

Dermot laughed reassuringly.

"To tell you the truth I had forgotten all about it. They are only
scratches. The skin is cut, that's all. Come, we mustn't delay any longer."

At a word from him Badshah knelt. He hurriedly threw the pad on the
elephant's back and made him rise so that the surcingle rope could be
fixed. Then he brought the animal to his knees again and lifted Noreen on
to the pad. But before he took his own seat he searched the undergrowth
around the glade and found many corpses of men almost unrecognisable as
human bodies, so crushed and battered were they. From the number that he
came upon it was evident that most of their assailants had been slain. But
all the elephants except his had disappeared; and the sounds of the
massacre were dying away.

Slinging his rifle he climbed on to the pad; and Badshah rose and went
swiftly along a track that seemed to Dermot to lead towards Malpura. He did
not attempt to guide the elephant, but placed himself so that his body
would shield the girl from the danger of being struck by overhanging
boughs. He held her firmly as they were borne through the darkness that now
filled the forest; for the swift-coming Indian night had fallen.

"Keep well down, Miss Daleham," he said. "You must be on your guard against
being swept off the pad by the low branches."

"Oh, Major Dermot," cried the girl with a shudder, "have all these terrible
things really happened in the last few hours or has it all been a hideous
nightmare?"

"Please try not to think of them," he answered. "You are safe now."

"Yes; but you? You have to face these dangers again, since you are so much
in the jungle. Oh, my forest that I thought a fairyland! That such terrible
things can happen in it!"

"I can assure you that they are very unusual," he replied with a cheery
laugh. "You have been very fortunate; for you have crammed more excitement
and adventure into one day than I have seen previously in all my time in
the jungle."

"It all seems so incredible," she said. "Did you really mean that Badshah
brought his herd to our rescue? But I know he did. I heard him call them.
When he ran off I thought that he was frightened and had abandoned us. But
I did him a great injustice."

Her companion was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"Look here, Miss Daleham, we had better not tell that tale of Badshah quite