they crossed the border. Indeed, with the start that they had, pursuit
seemed almost hopeless. Nevertheless, Dermot resolved to attempt it, and
single-handed. For he could not wait for the planters to gather, and
summoning his men from Ranga Duar was out of the question. He did not
consider the odds against him. Had Englishmen stopped to do so in India,
the Empire would never have been founded. With his rifle and the prestige
of the white race behind him he would not have hesitated to face a hundred
such opponents. His blood boiled at the thought of the indignity offered to
the girl; though he was not seriously concerned for her safety, judging
that she had been carried off for ransom. But he pictured the distress and
terror of a delicately nurtured Englishwoman at finding herself in the
hands of a band of savage outlaws dragging her away to an unknown and awful
fate. She was his friend, and he felt that it was his right as well as his
duty to rescue her.

With a grim determination to follow her abductors even to Punaka, the
capital of Bhutan, he swung his leg across Badshah's neck and set out,
having bade Chunerbutty inform Daleham and the planters that he had started
in pursuit.

The raiders had left the garden by a path leading to the north and headed
for the mountains. When Dermot got well clear of the bungalow and reached
the confines of the estate, he dismounted and examined the ground over
which they had passed. In the dust he found the blurred prints of a number
of barefooted men and in one place four sharply-defined marks which showed
where they had set down the chair in which Noreen was being carried,
probably to change the bearers. A mile or two further on the track crossed
the dry bed of a small stream. In the sand Dermot noticed to his surprise
the heel-mark of a boot among the footprints of the raiders, it being most
unusual for Bhuttias to be shod.