“If you really want to know I will tell you, but it is a profound secret,” he said, smiling.  “Griggs, swear!”

I raised my hand and murmured something about the graves of my ancestors.

“Well,” he continued, “yesterday morning at the collector’s house I saw a garden; in the garden there were roses, carefully tended, for it is late.  I took the gardener apart and said, ’My friend, behold, here is silver for thee, both rupees and pais.  And if thou wilt pick the best of thy roses and deliver them to the swift runner whom I will send to thee at supper time when the stars are coming out, I will give thee as much as thou shalt earn in a month with thy English master.  But if thou wilt not do it, or if thou failest to do it, having promised, I will cause the grave of thy father to be defiled with the slaughter of swine, and, moreover, I will return and beat thee with a thick stick!’ The fellow was a Mussulman, and there was a merry twinkle in his eye as he took the money and swore a great oath.  I left a running man at Pegnugger with a basket, and that is how you got the roses.  Don’t tell the collector, that is all.”

We all laughed, and Miss Westonhaugh gave the rose to Isaacs, who touched it to his lips, under pretence of smelling it, and put it in his buttonhole.  Kildare came up at this moment and created a diversion; then the collector joined us and scattered us right and left, saying it was high time we were in the howdahs and on the way.  So we buckled on our belts, and those who wore hats put them on, and those who preferred turbans bent while their bearers wound them on, and then we moved off to where the elephants were waiting and got into our places, and the mahouts urged the huge beasts from their knees to their feet, and we went swinging off to the forest.  The pad elephants, who serve as beaters and move between the howdah animals, joined us, and presently we went splashing through the reedy patches of fern, and crashing through the branches, towards the heart of the jungle.

Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, whose long experience had made him as cool when after tigers as when reading the Pioneer in his shady bungalow at Simla, had taken Miss Westonhaugh with him in his howdah, and as an additional precaution for her safety, the little collector of Pegnugger, who was a dead shot, only allowed two pad elephants to move between himself and Ghyrkins.  As there were thirty-seven animals in all, the rest of the party were much scattered.  I thought there were too many elephants for our six howdahs, but it turned out that I was mistaken, for we had capital sport.  The magistrate of Pegnugger, who knew the country thoroughly, was made the despot of the day.  His orders were obeyed unquestioningly and unconditionally, and we halted in long line or marched onwards, forcing a passage through every obstacle, at his word.  We might have been out a couple of hours, watching every patch of jungle and blade