Her white sola-topee (sun helmet) had scarcely disappeared in the crowd
when the Hindu of the freight caboose emerged from the steerage, no
longer in bedraggled linen trousers and ragged turban, but dressed like
a native fop. He was in no hurry. Leisurely he followed Kathlyn to
the hotel, then proceeded to the railway station. He had need no
longer to watch and worry. There was nothing left now but to greet her
upon her arrival, this golden houri from the verses of Sa'adi. The two
weeks of durance vile among the low castes in the steerage should be
amply repaid. In six days he would be beyond the hand of the meddling
British Raj, in his own country. Sport! What was more beautiful to
watch than cat play? He was the cat, the tiger cat. And what would
the Colonel Sahib say when he felt the claws? Beautiful, beautiful,
like a pattern woven in an Agra rug.
Kathlyn began her journey at once. Now that she was on land, moving
toward her father, all her vigor returned. She felt strangely alive,
exhilarated. She knew that she was not going to be afraid of anything
hereafter. To enter the strange country without having her purpose
known would be the main difficulty. Where was Ahmed all this time?
Doubtless in a cell like his master.
Three days later she stood at the frontier, and her servant set about
arguing and bargaining with the mahouts to engage elephants for the
three days' march through jungles and mountainous divides to the
capital. Three elephants were necessary. There were two howdah
elephants and one pack elephant, who was always lagging behind.
Through long aisles of magnificent trees they passed, across hot
blistering deserts, dotted here and there by shrubs and stunted trees,
in and out of gloomy defiles of flinty rock, over sluggish and swiftly
flowing streams. The days were hot, but the nights were bitter cold.
Sometimes a blue miasmic haze settled down, and the dry raspy hides of
the elephants grew damp and they fretted at their chains.
Rao, the khidmutgar Kathlyn had hired in Calcutta, proved invaluable.
Without him she would never have succeeded in entering the strange
country; for these wild-eyed Mohammedan mahouts (and it is pertinent to
note that only Mohammedans are ever made mahouts, it being against the
tenets of Hinduism to kill or ride anything that kills) scowled at her
evilly. They would have made way with her for an anna-piece. Rao was
a Mohammedan himself, so they listened and obeyed.
All this the first day and night out. On the following morning a
leopard crossed the trail. Kathlyn seized her rifle and broke its
spine. The jabbering of the mahouts would have amused her at any other
time.
"Good, Mem-sahib," whispered Rao. "You have put fear into their
devils' hearts. Good! Chup!" he called. "Stop your noise."