“Who knows, daughter?  It may be.  Shri Krishn has many incarnations,” said the old man solemnly.

“Nay, I do not think that he is Krishna,” remarked an elderly coolie.  “It may be that he is another of the Holy Ones.”

“Perhaps he is Gunesh,” ventured a younger man.

“No; he bestrides Gunesh.  I think he must be Krishna,” chimed in another.  “What lesser god would dare to use Gunesh as his steed?”

“He is Gunesh himself,” asserted a grey-beard.  “Does he not range the jungle and the mountains at the head of all the elephants of the Terai?  Can he not call them to his aid as Hanuman did the monkeys?”

“He is certainly a Holy One or else a very powerful demon,” declared the old man.  “It is an evil and a dangerous thing to molest those whom he protects.  The Bhuttias, ignorant pagans that they are, carried off the missie baba he favours.  What, think ye, has been their fate?  With your own eyes ye have all seen the blood and the flesh of men upon the tusk and legs of his sacred elephant.”

And so through the night the shuttle of superstitious talk went backward and forward and wove a still more marvellous garment of fancy to drape the reputation of elephant and man.  The godship that the common belief had long endowed Badshah with was being transferred to his master; and a mere Indian Army Major was transformed into a mysterious Hindu deity.

Meanwhile in the well-lighted bungalow in which all the sahibs were gathered together the servants were hurriedly preparing a supper such as lonely Malpura had never known.  And Noreen’s pretty drawing-room was crowded with men in riding costume or in uniform—­for most of the planters belonged to a Volunteer Light Horse Corps, and some of them, expecting a fight, had put on khaki when they got Daleham’s summons.  Their rifles, revolvers, and cartridge belts were piled on the verandah.  Chunerbutty, feeling that his presence among them would not be welcomed by the white men that night, had gone off to his own bungalow in jealous rage.  And nobody missed him.  Dermot, despite his protests, had been dragged off to have his hurts attended to, and it was then seen that he had been touched by three bullets.

When all were assembled in the room the planters demanded the tale of Noreen’s adventures; and the girl, looking dainty and fresh in a white muslin dress, unlike the heroine of her recent tragic experience, smilingly complied and told the story up to the point of Dermot’s unexpected and dramatic intervention.

“Now you must go on, Major,” she said, turning to him.

“Yes, yes, Dermot.  Carry on the tale,” was the universal cry.

Everyone turned an expectant face towards where the soldier sat, looking unusually embarrassed.

“Oh, there’s nothing much to tell,” he said.  “The raiders—­they were Bhuttias—­had left a trail easy enough to see, though I confess that I would have lost it once but for my elephant.  When I came up to them, as Miss Daleham has just told you, they all ran away except two.”