manding here. But I'd have no
chance of getting through. You are our only hope. Oh, I don't mean of
relief. There's no possibility of that."

"No; if I do manage to get into touch with Headquarters, it would be too
late, even if they could spare any troops."

"Yes, it's all over now, bar the shouting. Well, we've had some jolly times
together, sir, you and I, in this little place, haven't we? Do you remember
when the Dalehams were up here? What a nice girl she was. I hope she's
safe."

"I hope to Heaven she is," muttered Dermot. "Well, Parker, I must say
good-bye. We've been good friends, you and I; and I'm sorry it's the
end."

In the darkness their hands met in a firm grip.

"One word, sir," whispered the subaltern. "If you do pull through, you've
got my mother's address. You'll let her know? She thinks a lot of me, poor
old lady."

Dermot answered him only by a pressure of the hand. The next moment he was
gone. Parker, straining eyes and ears, saw nothing, heard nothing.

Half an hour later a picquet of slant-eyed men lying on the steep slopes of
the hill below the Fort saw above them a man's figure dark against the
paling stars. They challenged and sprang towards it with levelled bayonets.
The next instant they were hurled apart, dashed to the ground, trampled to
death. One as he expired had a shadowy vision of some awful bulk towering
black against the coming dawn.

The sun was low in the heavens when Dermot awoke in a bracken-carpeted
glade of the forest thirty miles away from Ranga Duar. Over him Badshah
stood watchfully. The man yawned, rubbed his eyes and sat up. He looked at
his watch.

"Good Heavens! I've slept for hours!" he cried.

Overcome by fatigue, for he had not even lain down once since the siege
began, and finding that he was in danger of falling off the elephant, he
had dismounted for a few minutes' rest. But exhausted Nature had conquered
him, and he had fallen into a deep sleep. Haggard, hollow-eyed, and worn
out, despite the rest, he staggered to his feet and was swung up to
Badshah's neck by the crooked trunk and started again.

He was hastening towards Salchini, where he hoped to secure Payne's car, if
the owner had not fled, and try to get into touch with Army Headquarters.
But what to do if his friend had gone he hardly knew. The heavy firing at
Ranga Duar, echoed by the mountains, must have been heard in the district;
and all the planters had probably taken the warning and gone