Having reached the place
first they were waiting for the others when Dermot appeared. So terrible
were the tales told in their villages about this dread white man and his
mysterious elephant that, believing that he had come to punish them for
their crime, all but the two leaders fled in panic. Several of the
fugitives ran into the party of armed Hindus which they were to meet, a
member of which spoke a certain amount of Bhutanese. Having learned what
had happened he ordered them to guide the newcomers' pursuit.
When the attack began the Bhuttias, having no fire-arms, took refuge in
trees. So when the herd swept down upon the assailants all the hillmen
escaped. But they were witnesses of the terrible vengeance of the powerful
devil-man and devil-elephant. When at last they had ventured to descend
from the trees that had proved their salvation and returned to their
villages these two confided the story to their headman. At his orders they
had come to surrender the price of their crime and plead for pardon.
Their story only deepened the mystery, for, when Dermot eagerly
questioned them as to the identity of the Hindus, he was again brought
up against a blank wall, for they knew nothing of them. He deemed it
politic to promise to forgive them and allow them to keep the money that
they had received, after he had thoroughly impressed upon them the
enormity of their guilt in daring to lay hands upon a white woman.
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