"Do you feel like that?" curiously.
"In my soul, dad, in my soul." She stared dreamily toward the
empurpling hills. "I can't explain, but that's the way I feel. Some
day we shall be free again, reenter the life we have known and all this
will resolve itself into an idle dream. Ahmed has said it."
"No, he is alive somewhere back there."
Bruce turned to look at her again, but Kathlyn was still gazing at the
hills without seeing them.
"A white elephant," mused the colonel. "Do you know it for a fact that
this Bala Khan has a white elephant?" he called across to Ramabai.
"I have never seen it Sahib. It is what they say."
"A pair of mottled ears is the nearest I ever came to seeing a white
elephant, and I've hunted them for thirty years, here, in Ceylon, in
Burma, in Africa. There was once a tiger near Madras that hadn't any
stripes. The natives would not permit him to be killed because they
held that, being unique, he was sacred. A sacred white elephant! Poor
simple-minded fools!" The colonel felt in his pockets, then dropped
his hands dispiritedly. How long since he had tasted tobacco? "Bruce,
have you got a cheroot in your pocket? I think a smoke would brace me
up."
Bruce laughed and passed up a broken cigar, which the colonel lighted
carefully. The weariness seemed to go out of his face magically.
"This Bala Khan should be Mohammedan," said Bruce. "The Pathan
despises the Hindu."
"There are Hindus in yonder city; quite as many," said Ramabai, "as
there are Mohammedans. Even the Pathan expects that which he can not
understand."
"Isn't that the wall behind that sand-hill? Let me have the glasses a
moment. Colonel. . . . H'm! The walled city, all right. Some people
moving about outside. Dancers, I should say."
"Professional," explained Ramabai.
"Nothing religious, then? By George!"
"What is it?" asked the colonel.
"Take a look. There's an elephant being led into the city gates."
The colonel peered eagerly through the glasses.
"The sun is shining on him. . . . No! he is . . . white! A white
elephant! I'd give ten thousand this minute to own it. There, it's
entered the gate. Well, well, well! And I've lived to see it! Poor
old Barnum, to have carried around a tinted pachyderm! He's white as
any elephant flesh could be. Those dancing chaps are going in, too.
What caste would those dancers be, Ramabai?"
"Pariahs, quite possibly; probably brigands."
The rim of the sun was sinking rapidly as Bruce drew his elephant to a
halt before the gate of the white walled city. The guard ran out,
barring the way.
"I am Ramabai, a friend of Bala Khan. I am come to pay him a visit.
Direct me to his house or his palace."