"Now please show me the direction in which your garden lies, if you can,"
said Dermot.

"Oh, it is quite near," Noreen answered. "That is the road to it."

She let the rope go to point out the way, but instantly grasped it again.
Dermot turned Badshah's head down the track.

"Oh, what about all these other elephants?" asked the girl apprehensively,
looking at them where they were grouped together, gazing with curiosity at
Badshah's passengers. "Will they come too?"

"No," said Dermot reassuringly, "you needn't be afraid. They won't follow.
We'd create rather too much of a sensation if we arrived at your bungalow
at the head of a hundred _hathis_."

"But are they really wild?" she asked. "They look so quiet and inoffensive
now; though when I was on the ground they seemed very dreadful indeed. But
I was told that wild elephants are dangerous."

"Some of them undoubtedly are," replied Dermot. "But a herd is fairly
inoffensive, if you don't go too near it. Cow-elephants with young calves
can be very vicious, if they suspect danger to their offspring."

A turn in the road through the jungle shut out the sight of the huge
animals behind them, and Noreen breathed more freely. She began to wonder
who her rescuer was and how he had come so opportunely to her relief. Their
dramatic meeting invested him in her eyes with more interest than she would
have found in any man whose acquaintance she had made in a more unromantic
and conventional manner. And so she bestowed more attention on him and