The mahout yelled and belabored the elephant on the skull.  Rajah did not mind this beating at all.  Whatever his idea was, he evidently proposed to see it fulfilled.

Cunningly he dashed under some branches, sweeping the mahout off his neck.  The branches, with a crash as of musketry, struck the howdah, but it held, thanks to the stoutness of the belly bands and the care with which they had been adjusted round the huge barrel.

Bruce stood up, appalled.  For a time he was incapable of movement.  Short as the time was, it was enough to give Rajah such headway as he needed.  He disappeared from sight.  Bruce saw the futility of shooting at the beast.  The only thing he could do was to mount up beside Ramabai and Pundita and give chase; and this he did in short order, dragging up the bruised and shaken mahout with him.  The pursuing elephant, with this extra handicap, never brought Rajah into sight.  But the trail was clear, and they followed.

Surely that poor girl was marked for misfortune.  In all the six years Bruce had possessed Rajah he had never exhibited anything but docility.  The elephant was not running amuck, though he might eventually work himself into that blind ungovernable rage.  Off like that, without the slightest warning!  If Kathlyn could only keep him clear of the trees, for the old rogue would do his best to scrape off the irksome howdah.

Kathlyn heard the shouts from behind, but she could not understand whether these were warnings or advice.  Could they overtake her before she was flung off?  She tried to recall the “elephant talk” Ahmed had taught her in the old days at the farm, but just now she was too dazed.  At the end of an hour all sounds from the rear ceased; no more pistol shots to encourage her with the knowledge that friends were near.  Rajah must have outstripped them two or three miles.

At length she came into a small clearing amid the tall jungle grass, a dead and brittle last year’s growth.  She saw two natives in the act of kicking out a dung fire.  Rajah headed directly toward them, the fire evidently being in the line of path he had chosen.  This rare and unexpected freedom, this opportunity to go whither he listed, was as the giant fern he used to eat in the days when he was free and wild in Ceylon.

Kathlyn called out to the men, but they turned and fled in terror.  To them Rajah was amuck.  The elephant passed the fire so closely that the wind of his passing stirred the fire into life again; and this time it crept toward the highly inflammable grass.  A few hundred yards beyond Kathlyn turned to see the flames leaping along the grass.  Rajah, getting a whiff of the acrid smoke, quickened his stride.  The fire followed with amazing rapidity and stopped only when it reached the bed of a trickling stream, no doubt a torrent during the big rains.  A great pall of smoke blotted out everything in the rear; blotted out hope, for Bruce could never pick up the trail now.