The trial led towards the mountains, as was natural.  But after several hours’ progress Badshah turned suddenly to the left and endeavoured to continue on towards the west.  Dermot was disappointed, for he had persuaded himself that the elephant quite understood the quest and was following the trail.  He headed Badshah again towards the north, but with difficulty, for the animal obstinately persisted in trying to go his own way.  When Dermot conquered finally they continued towards the mountains.  But before long the soldier found that he had lost all traces of the raiding party.  He cast around without success and wasted much time in endeavouring to pick up the trail again.  At last to his annoyance he was forced to turn back and retrace his steps.

At the spot where the conflict of opinion between him and the elephant had taken place he cast about and found the track again.  It led in the direction in which Badshah had tried to take him.  The elephant had been wiser than he.  Now, with an apologetic pat on the head, Dermot let him follow the new path, wondering at the change of route, for it was only natural to expect that the Bhuttias would have made for the hills by the shortest way to the nearest pass into Bhutan.  As the elephant moved along his rider’s eye was quick to recognise the traces of the passing of the raiders, where no sign would have been visible to one unskilled in tracking.

All at once Badshah slackened his pace and began to advance with the caution of a tusker stalking an enemy.  Confident in the animal’s extraordinary intelligence Dermot cocked his rifle.  The elephant suddenly turned off the path and moved noiselessly through the undergrowth for a few minutes.  Then he stopped on the edge of an open glade in the forest.

Scattered about in it, sitting or lying down half-asleep, were a number of short, sturdy, brown-faced men with close cropped bare heads.  Each was clad in a single garment shaped like a Japanese kimono and kilted up to expose thick-calved, muscular bare legs by a girdle from which hung a dah—­a short, straight sword.  A little apart from them sat Noreen Daleham in a chair in which she was securely fastened and to which long carrying-poles were tied.  She was dressed in riding costume and wore a sun-helmet.

The girl was pale, weary, and dejected, and looked so frail and unfitted to cope with so terrifying a situation that a feeling of immense tenderness and an instinctive desire to protect her filled Dermot as he watched her.  Then passionate anger welled up in him as he turned his eyes again to her captors; and he longed to make them pay dearly for the suffering that she had endured.

But, despite his rage, he deliberated coolly enough on the best mode of attack, as he counted the number of the raiders.  There were twenty-two.  The soldier’s quick eye instantly detected that one of them, although garbed similarly to the rest, was in features unlike a Bhuttia and had not the sturdy frame of a man of that race.  He was wearing shoes and socks and was the only one of the party not carrying a dah.