But the others insisted on keeping to the subject.  They had all been curious as to the truth of the stories about Dermot’s supposed miraculous power over wild elephants, but no one had ever ventured to question him on the subject before.

“I suppose you know, Major, that the natives have some wonderful tales about Badshah?” said a planter.

“Yes; and of you, too, sir,” said the young assistant manager.  “They think you both some special brand of gods.”

“I’m not surprised,” said the Major with assumed carelessness.  “They’re ready to deify anything.  They will see a god in a stone or a tree.  You know they looked on the famous John Nicholson during the Mutiny as a god, and made a cult of him.  There are still men who worship him.”

“They’re prepared to do that to you, Major,” said Granger frankly.  “Barrett is quite right.  They call you the Elephant God.”

Dermot laughed and stood up.

“Oh, natives will believe anything,” he said.  “If you’ll excuse me now, Daleham, I’ll turn in—­or rather, turn out.  I’d like to get some sleep, for we’ve an early start before us.”

“Yes, we’d better all do the same,” said Granger, rising too.  “How are you going to bed us all down, Daleham?  Bit of a job, isn’t it?”

“We’ll manage all right,” replied the young host.  “I told the servants to spread all the mattresses and charpoys that they could raise anywhere out on the verandah and in the spare rooms.  I’m short of mosquito curtains, though.  Some of you will get badly bitten tonight.”

“I’ll go to old Parr’s bungalow and steal his,” said Granger.  “He’s too drunk to feel any ’skeeter biting him.”

“I pity the mosquito that does,” joined in a young planter laughing.  “The poor insect would die of alcoholic poisoning.”

“I’ve given you my room, Major,” said Daleham.  “I know the other fellows won’t mind.”

No persuasion, however, could make Dermot accept the offer.  While the others slept in the bungalow, he lay under the stars beside his elephant.  The house was wrapped in darkness.  In the huts in the compound the servants still gossiped about the extraordinary events of the day, but gradually they too lay down and pulled their blankets over their heads, and all was silence.  But a few hundred yards away a lamp still burned in Chunerbutty’s bungalow where the Hindu sat staring at the wall of his room, wondering what had happened that day and what had been said in the Dalehams’ dining-room that night.  For he had prowled about their house in the darkness and seen the company gathered around the supper-table.  And he had watched Dermot shut the door between the room and the verandah, and guessed that things were to be said that Indians were not meant to hear.  So through the night he sat motionless in his chair with mind and heart full of bitterness, cursing the soldier by all he held unholy.

Long before dawn Noreen, refreshed by sleep and quite recovered from the fatigues and alarms of the previous day, was up to superintend the early meal that her servants prepared for the departing company.  No one but her brother was returning to Malpura, the others were to scatter to their own gardens when Dermot had finished with them.