elephants. Not one of more
than five score men lived to carry back the tale of death to the robber
haunts whence they had come.

"On our side some lives were lost, seven in all; but this is the penalty
that brave men have to pay in the doing of righteous deeds. Their
memory is honoured.

"As for the little maid, I had nested her in the best-protected corner
of the howdah, and in the thick of the fray, when a shower of arrows had
fallen upon us, I had covered her tiny form with my shield. But during
the final hand-to-hand fight, when all was din and turmoil with the
shouting of the men and the angry trumpeting of the elephants, I had not
paid her any special heed. From her lips came no sound to attract my
attention--no cry of fear, nor wailing murmur.

"But at the end I looked for the little child, lifting the shield that
had partly guarded her. She met my gaze with a smile. But straightway I
noticed that an arrow, descending almost perpendicularly, had pierced
her soft little arm, and transfixed it to her side. Yet had she not
cried out, nor even now, when I was tending her, did she whimper.

"I drew forth the arrow, breaking it in twain, so as to let the shaft
pass through the arm. Although blood flowed freely, I saw at a glance
that the wound in the body was a mere puncture, and also that on the
limb only a piercing of the flesh. Therefore was her hurt not serious,
although of a certainty painful, and terrifying too for a child so
young. But even now not one word of complaining did she utter. She kept
her sweet smile on me. Brave little maid!

"Tearing a length of cambric from my turban, I had bound both arm and
tender breast, and readjusted the sari of yellow-dyed cotton that formed
her simple garment. And now she reposed, happy and contented, in my
arms. I remained in the howdah, while my companions cut off the heads of
the robbers, and loaded these trophies of victory on one of the other
elephants, so that a triumphal pile might be made in the courtyard of
the citadel. Then, with the tiger replaced on the neck of my own
elephant, we moved for home, a group of fifty horsemen now forming our
escort. The headless bodies of our enemies were left as fitting spoil
for the jackals and the vultures, the latter of whom, scenting the
carrion, were already beginning to drop down, it might seem, from the
blue vault of heaven.

"By the time we gained the fortress the dusk was gathering. Across the
drawbridge, promptly l