And she was happier than he in their new life.  For in this land that is essentially a soldier’s country, won by the sword, held by the sword, in spite of all that ignorant demagogues in England may say, Fred Daleham felt all the more keenly the disappointment of his inability to follow the career that he would have chosen.  However, he was a healthy-minded young man, not given to brooding and vain regrets.

“Are you ready to start, dear?” he said to his sister now.  “Shall I order the ponies?”

“I am ready.  But have you finished your coffee?”

“Thanks, yes.  We’ll go off at once then, for I have a long morning’s work, and we had better get our ride over while it’s cool.”

He shouted to his “boy” to order the syces, or grooms, to bring the ponies.

“Where are we going today, dear?” asked the girl, putting on her pith helmet.

“To the nursery first.  I want to see if the young plants have suffered much from that hailstorm yesterday.”

“Wasn’t it awful?  What would people in England say if they got hailstones like that on their heads?”

“Chunerbutty and I measured one that I picked up outside the withering shed,” said the brother.  “It was a solid lump of clear ice two inches long and one and a half broad.”

“I couldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen them,” observed the girl.  “I wonder that everyone who is caught out in such a storm is not killed.”

“Animals often are—­and men, too, for that matter,” replied Daleham.

Noreen tapped her smart little riding-boot with her whip.

“I’m glad we’re going out to the nursery,” she said.  “It’s my favourite ride.”

“I know it is, but I don’t like taking you there, Sis,” replied her brother.  “I always funk that short cut through the bit of jungle to it.  I never feel sure that we won’t meet a wild elephant in it.”

“Oh; but I don’t believe they are dangerous; and I do love the ride through that exquisite patch of forest.  The trees look so lovely, now that the orchids on them are in flower.”

“My dear girl, get that silly idea that elephants are not dangerous out of your head,” said Daleham decidedly.  “You ask any of the fellows.”

“Mr. Parry says they’re not.”

“Old Parr’s never seen any elephant but a tame one, unless it’s a pink or speckled one with a brass tail climbing up the wall of his room when he’s got D.T’s.  He never went out shooting in the jungle in his life.  But you ask Payne or Reynolds or any of the chaps on the other gardens who know anything of the jungle.”

The girl was unwilling to believe that her beloved forest could prove perilous to her, and she feared lest her excursions into it should be forbidden.

“Well, perhaps a rogue might be dangerous,” she admitted grudgingly.  “But I don’t believe that even a rogue would attack you unprovoked.”

“Wouldn’t it?  From all I’ve heard about them I’d be very sorry to give one of them the chance,” said her brother.  “I’d almost like you to meet one, just to teach you not to be such a cocksure young woman.  Lord! wouldn’t I laugh to see you trying to climb a tree—­that is, if I were safe up one myself!”