He explained the reason of the reverence paid to Badshah. Daleham,
returning, renewed his thanks as his sister went into the bungalow to see
about breakfast. When she returned to tell them that it was ready, Dermot
hardly recognised in the dainty girl, clad in a cool muslin dress, the
terrified and dishevelled damsel whom he had first seen standing in the
midst of the elephants.

During the meal she questioned him eagerly about the jungle and the ways of
the wild animals that inhabit it, and she and her brother listened with
interest to his vivid descriptions. A chance remark of Daleham's on the
difficulty of obtaining labour for the tea-gardens in the Terai interested
Dermot and set him trying to extract information from his host.

"I suppose you know, sir, that as these districts are so sparsely populated
and the Bhuttias on the hills won't take the work, we have to import the
thousands of coolies needed from Chota Nagpur and other places hundreds of
miles away," said Daleham. "Lately, however, we have begun to get men from
Bengal."

"What? Bengalis?" asked Dermot.

"Yes. Very good men. Quite decent class. Some educated men among them. Why,
I discovered by chance that one is a B.A. of Calcutta University."

"Do you mean for your clerical work, as _babus_ and writers?"

"No. These chaps are content to do the regular coolie work. Of course we
make them heads of gangs. I believe they're what are called Brahmins."

"Impossible! Brahmins as tea-garden coolies?" exclaimed Dermot in surprise.