een heard
before--cried out; and Mitha Baba went in like a thunder-bolt. How it
happened no one could tell, but one of the wild elephants--before Mitha
Baba's rush, or in the instant when she reached him--caught his tusk
under Nut Kut's side-bands. They were made of heavy canvas, with chains
on top. As Mitha Baba drove at him and Nut Kut turned--his tusk ripped
out sidewise. With a frantic scream he got away, running up into the
jungle--still screaming so far as they could hear.

The Gul Moti, numb with weariness, had held on with her last ounce of
strength. Now she sat amazed at her escape--while a tumult of trumpeting
shattered the air about her. There was disturbance among the fighting
pairs; some staying with each other, some changing--running to and
fro--charging at odd angles. But when the confusion cleared--more fresh
ones had come in!

Now Nut Kut was a whirl-wind--he was unbelievable. One broke away from
him and ran--demoralised. One died--fairly defeated. Still others came
to meet him; yet his challenges were triumphant to the point of frenzy.

"Call on the gods! The devil is in!" rang out.

Gunpat Rao was now fighting for his life. The "tricky elephant" had
charged him from the open. This was the bad one whom the mahouts had
recognised on sight--had feared from the beginning. Gunpat Rao was one
of the finest young elephants in captivity; one of the swiftest in the
caravan; but the mahouts knew he could not think a trick! The sense of
his danger swept them.

The Gul Moti knew that "white elephants" are always feared--being almost
always bad. This one was not white; nor grey, nor yellow. He was
whitish-grey--dull-tawny overcast--unclean looking. He was larger in
frame than Gunpat Rao; but very lean--long, loose-jointed. He moved like
a suckling trying to caper. But there was a rakish look about him.

In spite of all their own stress--every one of their elephants being in
some degree of jeopardy--the mahouts gave as much attention to Gunpat Rao
as they could. It was foregone conclusion--he was doomed. Bracing
themselves to witness his defeat, expecting to see his bitter death in
the end, yet the bad one's method at the start maddened them beyond
control.

"He was bred in the Pit!" one mahout called.

"His father was Depravity!" another called back.

And they cursed him with the curses of the Hills.

Chakkra, who was Gunpat Rao's mahout, was a plucky little man; but his
face had