The kinship is of honour, not of blood, Sahib," he answered.

Then Chakkra informed Skag that Kudrat Sharif, Neela Deo's mahout, was
the third of his line to serve the Blue God, who was not yet nearly in
the ictus of his power and beauty; while he, Chakkra, was the only
mahout Gunpat Rao had known--since he came down from the Vindhian
trap-stockades, where he was snared. He was about thirty years younger
than Neela Deo, the King. Would the Sahib bear in mind that an
elephant continues to increase in strength and wisdom for an hundred
years? And now would he consider Gunpat Rao's size--the perfection of
his shape? Might not such a Prince claim relationship to such a King?

. . . Chakkra then pointed out that when the grandson of his own little
son should sit just here, behind the incomparable ears of his
beloved--the ears with linings like flower-petals--so, looking out upon
the world from a greater height than this--then doubtless people would
have learned that another mighty elephant had come into the world.

Skag missed nothing of the talk. Another time it would have filled him
with deep delight. It belonged to his own craft. A man might use all
the words, of all the languages in all their flexibilities and never
tell the whole truth of his own craft. In fact, a man can only drop a
point here and there about his life work. One never comes to the end.

Also before his eyes was the joy of Nels in action--the big fellow
leaping to his task, steadily drawing them on, it appeared; and always
a breath of ease would blow across Skag's being as he noted the
quickening; but when that was merely sustained for a while, the hope of
it wore away, and he wanted more and more speed--past any giving of man
or beast. . . . The old drum of the Kabuli tale constantly recurred,
as if a trap door to the deeps were often lifted. Skag would brush his
hand across his brow, shading his head with his helmet lifted apart for
a moment, to let the sunless air circulate.

They passed through the open jungle merging into a country of low hills
and frequent villages. The rains that had broken in Poona had not yet
reached this country. . . . The sun went down and the afterglow
changed the world. Carlin's afterglow, it was to Skag, from their
moment at the edge of the jungle--on the evening of the troth; there
was pain about it now. India had a different look to him--alien,
sinister, of a depth of suffering undreamed of, because of t