as a well-known
voice fell on his ear he faltered and looked about him. Dermot spoke his
name and the elephant turned and went straight to him, to the amazement of
the _peelkhana_ attendants watching from behind trees on the hillside. Yet
they feared lest his intention was to attack the sahib, for when a tame
tusker is seized with a fit of madness, it often kills even its _mahout_,
to whom ordinarily it is much attached.

Dermot raised his hand. Badshah stopped and sank on his knees, while his
master cast off the broken shackles and swung himself astride of his neck.
Then the elephant rose again and of his own volition rolled swiftly forward
into the jungle which closed around them and hid animal and man from the
astounded watchers.

One by one the _mahouts_ and coolies stole from the shelter of the trees
and gathered together.

"_Wah! Wah!_ the sahib has gone mad, too," exclaimed an old Mohammedan.

"He will never return alive," said another, shaking his head sorrowfully.
"_Afsos hun_ (I am sorry), for he was a good sahib. The _shaitan_ (devil)
has borne him away to _Eblis_ (hell)."

Here Ramnath broke in indignantly:

"My elephant is no _shaitan_. He is _Gunesh_, the god _Gunesh_ himself. He
will let no harm come to the sahib, who is safe under his protection."

The other Hindus among the elephant attendants nodded agreement.

"_Such bath_ (true words)," they said. "Who knows what the gods purpose?
Which of you has ever before seen any man stop a _dhantwallah_ (tusker)
when the madness was upon him? Which of ye has known a white man to have a
power that even we have not, we whose fathers, whose forefathers for
generations, have tended elephants?"

"Ye speak true talk," said the first speaker. "The Prophet tells us there
are no gods. But _afrits_ there are, _djinns_--beings more than man. What
know we of those with whom the sahib communes when he and Badshah go forth
alone into the forest?"

"The sahib is not as other sahibs," broke in an old coolie. "I was with him
before--in Buxa Duar. There is naught in the jungle that can puzzle him. He
knows its ways, the speech of the men in it--ay, and of its animals, too.
He was a great _shikari_ (hunter) in those old days. Many beasts have
fallen to his gun. Yet now he goes forth for days and brings back no heads.
What does he?"

"For days, say you, Chotu?" queried another _mahout_. "Ay, for more than
days. For nights. What man among us, what man even of these wild