When he had finished his tale there was silence between them for a little.  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.  It occurred to him that his companion must be in the same plight.

“Are you hungry, Miss Daleham?” he asked.

“Hungry?  I don’t know.  I haven’t had time to think about food,” she replied.  “But I’m very thirsty.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh, don’t tantalise me, Major,” she replied laughing.  “I feel I’d give anything for one now.  But unfortunately there aren’t any tea-rooms in this wonderful jungle of yours.”

Dermot smiled.

“Perhaps it could be managed,” he said.  “What I am concerned about is how to get something substantial to eat, for I foolishly came away from Granger’s bungalow, where I stayed last night, without replenishing my stores, which had run low.  I intended asking you for enough to carry me back to Ranga Duar.  But when I heard what had happened—­Hullo! with luck there’s our dinner.”

He broke off suddenly, for a jungle cock had crowed in the forest not far away.

“I wish I had a shot gun,” he whispered.  “But my rifle will have to do. Mul, Badshah.”

He guided the elephant quietly and cautiously in the direction from which the sound had come.  Presently they came to an open glade and heard the fowl crow again.  Dermot halted Badshah in cover and waited.  Presently there was a patter over the dry leaves lying on the ground, and a jungle cock, a bird similar to an English bantam, stalked across the glade twenty yards away.  It stopped and began to peck.  Dermot quietly raised his rifle and took careful aim at its head.  He fired, and the body of the cock fell to the earth headless.