ar love of my heart. Pray that we may be together
in the next world."

He paused and listened.

"Are they coming?"

But he did not put her from him. One second now was worth an eternity.

Then suddenly a distant murmur swelled through the strange silence. Daleham
looked out over the barricade.

"They're--No. What is it? What are they doing?"

All round the circle of besiegers there was an eerie hush. No voice was
heard. All--the Rajah, the flag-bearer, Brahmins, soldiers, coolies--had
turned their faces away from the bungalow and were staring into the
distance. And as the few survivors of the garrison looked up over the
barricade an incredible sight met their eyes.

From the far-off forest, bursting out at every point of the long-stretching
wall of dark undergrowth that hemmed in the wide estate, wild elephants
appeared. Over the furrowed acres they streamed in endless lines, trampling
down the ordered stretch of green bushes. In scores, in hundreds, they
came, silently, slowly; the great heads nodding to the rhythm of their
gait, the trunks swinging, the ragged ears flapping, as they advanced.
Converging as they came, they drew together in a solid mass that blotted
out the ground, a mass sombre-hued, dark, relieved only by flashes of
gleaming white. For on either side of every massive skull jutted out the
sharp-pointed, curving ivory. Of all save one.

For the mammoth that led them, the splendid beast that captained the
oncoming array of Titans under the ponderous strokes of whose feet the
ground trembled, had one tusk, one only. And as though the white flag were
a magnet to him, he moved unerringly towards it, the immense, earth-shaking
phalanx following him.

The awestruck crowds of armed men, so lately flushed with fanatical lust of
slaughter, stood as though turned to stone, their faces set towards the
terrifying onset. Their pain unheeded, their groans silenced, the wounded
staggered to their feet to look. Even the dying strove to raise themselves
on their arms from the reddened soil to gaze, and, gazing, fell back dead.
Slowly, mechanically, silently, the living gave way, the weapons dropping
from their nerveless grip. Step by step they drew back as if compelled by
some strange mesmeric power.

And on the verandah the few survivors of the little band stood together,
silent, amazed, scarce believing their eyes as they stared at the
incredible vision. All but Dermot. His gaze was fixed on the leader of t