CHAPTER VI: A DRAMATIC INTRODUCTION

When Noreen Daleham rose half-stunned from the ground where her pony had flung her and realised that she was surrounded by wild elephants she was terrified. The stories of their ferocity told her at the club flashed across her mind, and she felt that she was in danger of a horrible death. When the huge animals closed in and advanced on her from all sides she gave herself up for lost.

At that awful moment a voice fell on her ears and she heard the words:

“Don’t be alarmed. You are in no danger.”

In bewilderment she looked up and saw to her astonishment and relief a white man sitting on the neck of one of the great beasts.

“Oh, I am so glad!” she exclaimed. “I was terrified. I thought that these were wild elephants.”

Dermot smiled.

“So they are,” he said. “But they won’t hurt you. Can I help you? What are you doing here? Have you lost your way in the jungle?”

By this time Noreen had recovered her presence of mind and began to realise the situation. It was natural that this man should be astonished to find an Englishwoman alone and in distress in the forest. Her appearance was calculated to cause him to wonder—and a feminine instinct made her hands go up to her untidy hair, as she suddenly thought of her dishevelled state. She picked up her hat and put it on.

“I’ve had a fall from my pony,” she explained, trying to reduce her unruly tresses to order. “It shied at the elephants and threw me. Then I suppose it bolted.”

She looked around but could see nothing except elephants, which were regarding her solemnly.

“But where have you come from? Are you far from your camp?” persisted Dermot. “Shall I take you to it?”

“Oh, we are not in camp,” replied Noreen. “I live on a tea-garden. It is quite near. I can walk back, thank you, if you are sure that the elephants won’t do me any harm.”

But as she spoke she felt her knees give way under her from weakness, and she was obliged to sit down on the ground. The shock of the fall and the fright had affected her more than she realised.

Dermot laid his hand on Badshah’s head, and the animal knelt down.

“I’m afraid you are not fit to walk far,” said Dermot. “I must take you back.”

As he spoke he slipped to the ground. From a pocket in the pad he extracted a flask of brandy, with which he filled a small silver cup.

“Drink this,” he said, holding it to her lips. “It will do you good.”

Noreen obeyed and drank a little of the spirit. Then, before she could protest, she was lifted in Dermot’s arms and placed on the pad on Badshah’s back. This cool disposal of her took her breath away, but to her surprise she felt that she rather liked it. There was something attractive in her new acquaintance’s unconsciously authoritative manner.

Replacing the flask he said:

“Are you used to riding elephants?” She shook her head.

“Then hold on to this rope across the pad, otherwise you may slip off when Badshah rises to his feet. You had better keep your hand on it as we go along, though there isn’t much danger of your falling.”

As he got astride the elephant’s neck he continued: “Now, be ready. Hold on tightly. Uth, Badshah!”

Despite his warning Noreen nearly slipped off the pad at the sudden and jerky upheaval when the elephant rose.

“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 studied his appearance more closely than she would otherwise have done. He struck her at once as being exceedingly good looking in a strong and manly way. His profile showed clear-cut and regular features, with a mouth and chin bespeaking firmness and determination. His face in repose was grave, almost stern, but she had seen it melt in sudden tenderness as he sprang to her aid when she had felt faint. She noticed that his eyes were very attractive and unusually dark—due, although she did not know it, to the Spanish strain in him as in so many other Irish of the far west of Connaught—and with his darker hair, which had a little wave in it, and his small black moustache they gave him an almost foreign look. The girl had a sudden mental vision of him as a fierce rover of bygone days on the Spanish Main. But when, in a swift transition, little laughter-wrinkles creased around his eyes that softened in a merry smile, she wondered how she could have thought that he looked fierce or stern. Although, like many of her sex, she was a little prejudiced against handsome men, and he certainly was one, yet she was strongly attracted by his appearance. Probably the very contrast in colouring and type between him and her made him appeal to her. He was as dark as she was fair. And when he was standing on the ground she had seen that he was well above middle height with a lithe and graceful figure displayed to advantage by his careless costume of loose khaki shirt and Jodpur breeches. The breadth of his shoulders denoted strength, and his rolled-up sleeves showed muscular arms burned dark by the sun.

“How did you manage to come up just at the right moment to rescue me?” she asked. “I have not thanked you yet for saving me, but I do so now most heartily. I can’t tell you how grateful I feel. I am sure, no matter what you say, that those elephants would have killed me if you hadn’t come.”

Dermot laughed.

“I’m afraid I cannot pose as a heroic rescuer. I daresay there might have been some danger to you, had I not been with them. For one can never tell what elephants will do. Out of sheer nervousness and fright they might have attacked you.”

“You were with them?” she echoed in surprise. “But you said that these were wild ones.”

“So they are. But this animal we are on is a tame one and was captured years ago in the jungle about here. I think he must have belonged to this particular herd, for they accept him as one of themselves.”

“Yes; but you?”

“Oh, they have made me a sort of honorary member of the herd for his sake, I think. He and I are great pals,” and Dermot laid his hand affectionately on Badshah’s head. “He saved my life not long ago when I was attacked by a vicious rogue.”

Noreen suddenly remembered the conversation at the club lunch.

“Oh, are you the officer from the Fort up at Ranga Duar?” she asked.

“One of them. I am commanding the detachment of Military Police there,” he answered. “My name is Dermot.”

“Then I’ve heard of you. I understand now. They said that you could do wonderful things with wild elephants, that you went about the forest with a herd of them.”

“They said?” he exclaimed. “Who are ‘they’?”

“The men at the club. We have a planters’ club for the district, you know. At our last weekly meeting they spoke of you and said that you had nearly been killed by a rogue. Mr. Payne told us that he used to know you.”

“What? Payne of Salchini? I knew him well. Awfully good chap.”

“Yes, isn’t he? I like him so much.”

“I saw a lot of him when I was stationed at Buxa Duar with my Double Company. Hullo! here we are at a tea-garden.”

They had suddenly come out of the forest on to the open stretch of furrowed land planted with the orderly rows of tidy bushes.

“Yes; it is ours. It’s called Malpura,” said Noreen. “My brother is the assistant manager. Our name is Daleham.”

“Here comes somebody in a hurry,” remarked Dermot, pointing to where, on the road ahead of them, a man on a pony was galloping towards them with a cloud of dust rising behind him.

“Yes, it’s my brother. Oh, what’s happening?” she exclaimed.

For as he approached his pony scented the elephant and stopped dead suddenly, nearly throwing its rider over its head.

“Fred! Fred! Here I am!” she cried.

But Daleham’s animal was unused to elephants and positively refused to approach Badshah. In vain its rider strove to make it go on. It suddenly put an end to the dispute between them by swinging round and bolting back the way that it had come, despite its master’s efforts to hold it.

Noreen looked after the pair anxiously.

“You needn’t be alarmed, Miss Daleham,” said Dermot consolingly. “Your brother is quite all right. Once he gets to a safe distance from Badshah the pony will pull up. Horses are always afraid of elephants until they get used to them. See, he is slowing up already.”

When the girl was satisfied that her brother was in no danger she smiled at the dramatic abruptness of his departure.

“Poor Fred! He must have been awfully worried over me,” she said.

“He probably thought I was killed or at least had met with a bad accident. And now the poor boy can’t get near me.”

“I daresay he was alarmed if your pony went home riderless.”

“Yes, it must have done so. Naughty Kitty. It must have bolted back to its stable and frightened my poor brother out of his wits.”

“Well, he’ll soon have you back safe and sound,” said Dermot. “Hold on tightly now, and I’ll make Badshah step out. Mul!”

The elephant increased his pace, and the motion sorely tried Noreen. As they passed through the estate the coolies bending over the tea-bushes stopped their work to stare at them. Noreen remarked that they appeared deeply interested at the sight of the elephant, and gathered together to talk volubly and point at it.

When they neared the bungalow they saw Daleham standing on the steps of the verandah, waiting for them. He had recognised the futility of struggling with his pony and had returned with it.

As they arrived he ran down the steps to meet them.

“Good gracious, Noreen, what has happened to you?” he cried, as Badshah stopped in front of the house. “I’ve been worried to death about you. When the servants came to the factory to say that Kitty had galloped home with broken reins and without you, I thought you had been killed.”

“Oh, Fred, I’ve had such an adventure,” she cried gaily. “You’ll say it served me right. Wait until I get down. But how am I to do so, Major Dermot?”

“The elephant will kneel down. Hold on tightly,” he replied. “Buth, Badshah.” He unslung his rifle as he dismounted.

When her brother had lifted her off the pad, the girl kissed him and said:

“I’m so glad to get back to you, dear. I thought I never would. I know you’ll crow over me and say, ‘I told you so.’ But I must introduce you to Major Dermot. This is my brother, Major. Fred, if it had not been for Major Dermot, you wouldn’t have a sister now. Just listen.”

The men shook hands as she began her story. Her brother interrupted her to suggest their going on to the verandah to get out of the sun. When they were all seated he listened with the deepest interest.

At the end of her narrative he could not help saying:

“I warned you, young woman. What on earth would have happened to you if Major Dermot had not been there?” He turned to their visitor and continued: “I must thank you awfully, sir. There’s no doubt that Noreen would have been killed without your help.”

“Oh, perhaps not. But certainly you were right in advising her not to enter the forest alone.”

“There, you see, Noreen?”

The girl pouted a little.

“Is it really so dangerous, Major Dermot?” she asked.

“Well, one ought never to go into it without a good rifle,” he replied. “You might pass weeks, months, in it without any harm befalling you; but on the other hand you might be exposed to the greatest danger on your very first day in it. You’ve just had a sample.”

“You were attacked yourself by a rogue, weren’t you?” asked the girl. “You said that your elephant saved you? Was this the one? Do tell us about it.”

Dermot briefly narrated his adventure with the rogue. Brother and sister punctuated the tale with exclamations of surprise and admiration, and at the conclusion of it, turned to look at Badshah, who had taken refuge from the sun’s rays under a tree and was standing in the shade, shifting his weight from leg to leg, flapping his ears and driving away the flies by flicking his sides with a small branch which he held in his trunk. Dermot had taken off his pad.

“You dear thing!” cried the girl to him. “You are a hero. I’m very proud to think that I have been on your back.”

“It was really wonderful,” said Daleham. “How I should have liked to see the fight! I say, all our servants have come out to look at him. By Jove! any amount of coolies, too. One would think that they’d never seen an elephant before.”

“I’m sure they’ve never seen such a splendid one,” said his sister enthusiastically. “He is well worth looking at. But—oh, what is that man doing?”