As the elephant moved along
his rider's eye was quick to recognise the traces of the passing of the
raiders, where no sign would have been visible to one unskilled in
tracking.
All at once Badshah slackened his pace and began to advance with the
caution of a tusker stalking an enemy. Confident in the animal's
extraordinary intelligence Dermot cocked his rifle. The elephant suddenly
turned off the path and moved noiselessly through the undergrowth for a few
minutes. Then he stopped on the edge of an open glade in the forest.
Scattered about in it, sitting or lying down half-asleep, were a number of
short, sturdy, brown-faced men with close cropped bare heads. Each was clad
in a single garment shaped like a Japanese _kimono_ and kilted up to expose
thick-calved, muscular bare legs by a girdle from which hung a _dah_--a
short, straight sword. A little apart from them sat Noreen Daleham in a
chair in which she was securely fastened and to which long carrying-poles
were tied. She was dressed in riding costume and wore a sun-helmet.
The girl was pale, weary, and dejected, and looked so frail and unfitted to
cope with so terrifying a situation that a feeling of immense tenderness
and an instinctive desire to protect her filled Dermot as he watched her.
Then passionate anger welled up in him as he turned his eyes again to her
captors; and he longed to make them pay dearly for the suffering that she
had endured.
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