vertook one man, struck him down with
his trunk, trod him to pulp, and then pursued the others. Some of them,
crazed with terror, tried to climb the walls. The savage brute struck
them down one after another, gored them or trampled them to death.

Three terrified wretches fled through the gateway into the courtyard in
which Dermot was standing. One stumbled and the elephant caught him up. The
demented man turned on it and tried to beat it off with his bare hands.
With a scream of fury the maddened beast drove his blood-stained tusk into
the wretch's body, pitched him aloft, then hurled him to the ground and
gored him again and again. The dying shriek that burst from the labouring
lungs turned Dermot's blood cold. The body was kicked, trampled on, and
then torn limb from limb.

The two other men had dashed wildly across the courtyard. One reached the
small door and was beating madly on it with bleeding knuckles, but it
remained implacably closed. The other, driven mad by fear, was running
round and round the courtyard like a caged animal, stopping occasionally to
raise imploring hands and eyes to the windows of the Palace, which were now
filled with spectators. Even the roofs were crowded with natives looking
down on the tragedy being enacted below.

Dermot realised that he had been trapped. There was no escape. He looked up
at the Rajah's windows. One had been pushed open, and he thought that he
could see the _Dewan_ and his master watching him. He determined that he
would not afford them the gratification of seeing him run round and round
the walls of the courtyard like a rat in a trap until death overtook him.
So, when the elephant at last drew off from its victim and stood irresolute
for a moment, he turned to face it.

It seemed to him that he heard his voice called, faintly and from far away,
but all his faculties were intent on watching the death that approached him
in such hideous guise. Dermot's thoughts flew to Badshah for a moment, but
swung back to centre on the coming annihilation. With flaming eyes, trunk
curled, and head thrown up, the elephant charged.

For one brief instant the man felt an insane desire to flee but, mastering
it, he faced the on-rushing brute. A minute more, and all would be over.
The soldier was unconscious of the shouts that rent the air, of the
spectators crowding the balconies and windows. He felt perfectly cool now
and had but one regret--that he had not been able to see Noreen a