Then Noreen said in a voice shaking with emotion:
"How can I thank you? Again you have saved me. And this time from a fate
even more dreadful than the first. I'd sooner be killed outright by the
elephants than endure to be carried off to some awful place by those
wretches. Who were they? Were they brigands, like one reads of in Sicily?
Was I to be killed or to be held to ransom?"
"Oh, the latter, I suppose," replied Dermot.
But there was a doubtful tone about his words. In fact, he was at a loss to
understand the affair. It was probably not what he had thought it at
first--an attempt on the part of enterprising Bhuttia raiders to carry off
an Englishwoman for ransom. For when he overtook them they were on a path
that led away from the mountains, so they were not making for Bhutan. And
the identity of the leader perplexed him.
There could be no political motive for the outrage. The affair was a
puzzle. But he put the matter aside for the time being and began to
consider their position. The sun was declining, for the afternoon was well
advanced. As far as he could judge they were a long way from Malpura, and
it seemed to him that Badshah was not heading directly for the garden. But
he had sufficient confidence in the animal's intelligence to refrain from
interfering with him again. The pangs of hunger reminded him that he had
had no food since the early morning cup of tea at the planter's bungalow
where he had passed the night, for he had hoped to breakfast at Malpura.
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