The Political Officer, looking about him, pointed to a thick creeper with withered-seeming bark and said with a laugh: 

“There’s your water, Wargrave.  Lots of it on tap.  See here.”

He cut off a length of the liana, which contained a whitish, pulpy interior.  From the two ends of the piece water began to drip steadily and increased to a thin stream.

“By George, sir, that’s a plant worth knowing,” said Frank.

“It’s a most useful jungle product,” said the Colonel, holding it up so that his companion, using clay as soap, could wash his hands.  “It’s called the pani bel—­water-creeper.  One need never die of thirst in a forest where it is found.  Try the water in it.”

He raised it so that the clear liquid flowed into the subaltern’s mouth.  It was cool, palatable and tasteless.

“By George, sir, that’s good,” exclaimed Wargrave, examining the plant carefully.  “Now let me hold it for you.”

After Dermot and the two natives had cleansed their hands and arms the party moved on, the transport elephant looking like an itinerant butcher’s shop as it followed Badshah.  Again the undergrowth parted before the great animals like the sea cleft by the bows of a ship and closed similarly behind them when they had passed.  Of its own volition the leader swerved one side or the other when it was necessary to avoid a tree-trunk or too dense a tangle of obstructing creepers.  But once Dermont touched and turned it sharply out of its course to escape what seemed a very large lump of clay adhering to the under side of an overhanging bough in their path.

“A wild bees’ nest,” said the Colonel, pointing to it.  “It wouldn’t do to risk hitting against that and being stung to death by its occupants.”

A few minutes later he suddenly arrested Badshah at the edge of a fern-carpeted glade and whispered: 

“Look out!  There’s a barking-deer.  Get him!”

Across the glade a graceful little buck with a bright chestnut coat stepped daintily, followed at a respectful distance by his doe.  Their restless ears pointed incessantly this way and that for every warning sound as they moved; but neither saw the elephants hidden in the undergrowth.  Raising his rifle Frank took a quick aim at the buck’s shoulder and fired.  The deer pitched forward and fell dead, while its startled mate swung round and leapt wildly away.

“A good shot of yours, Wargrave,” remarked Colonel Dermot, when Badshah had advanced to the prostrate animal.  “Broke its shoulder and pierced the heart.”

Frank looked down pityingly at the pretty little deer stretched lifeless among the ferns.

“It seems a shame to slaughter a harmless thing like that,” he said.

“Yes; I always feel the same myself and never kill except for food,” replied the Political Officer.  “Unless of course it’s a dangerous beast like a tiger.  Well, the khakur is too dead to hallal; but that doesn’t matter, as we’re going to eat it ourselves and not give it to the sepoys.”