seemed a very large lump of clay adhering to the under side of an
overhanging bough in their path.

"A wild bees' nest," said the Colonel, pointing to it. "It wouldn't do
to risk hitting against that and being stung to death by its occupants."

A few minutes later he suddenly arrested Badshah at the edge of a
fern-carpeted glade and whispered:

"Look out! There's a barking-deer. Get him!"

Across the glade a graceful little buck with a bright chestnut coat
stepped daintily, followed at a respectful distance by his doe. Their
restless ears pointed incessantly this way and that for every warning
sound as they moved; but neither saw the elephants hidden in the
undergrowth. Raising his rifle Frank took a quick aim at the buck's
shoulder and fired. The deer pitched forward and fell dead, while its
startled mate swung round and leapt wildly away.

"A good shot of yours, Wargrave," remarked Colonel Dermot, when Badshah
had advanced to the prostrate animal. "Broke its shoulder and pierced
the heart."

Frank looked down pityingly at the pretty little deer stretched lifeless
among the ferns.

"It seems a shame to slaughter a harmless thing like that," he said.

"Yes; I always feel the same myself and never kill except for food,"
replied the Political Officer. "Unless of course it's a dangerous beast
like a tiger. Well, the _khakur_ is too dead to _hallal_; but that
doesn't matter, as we're going to eat it ourselves and not give it to
the sepoys."

The _mahout_ and the coolie were already cleaning the deer and, without
troubling to cut it up, bound its legs together with _udal_ fibre and
tied it to the pad of their elephant; and the party moved on again.

Half a mile further on the silence of the forest was broken by the loud
crowing of a cock, taken up and answered defiantly by others.

"Hallo! are we near a village, sir?" asked Wargrave, surprised at the
familiar sounds so far in the heart of the wild.

"No; those are jungle-fowl," whispered the Political Officer. "Get your
gun ready."

He halted the elephant and picked up his fowling-piece. Frank hurriedly
substituted a shot cartridge for the one loaded with ball in his gun. He
heard a pattering on the dry leaves under the trees and into a fairly
open space before them stalked a pretty little bantam cock with red comb
and wattles and curving green tail-feathers, followed by four or five
sober brown hens, so like in every respect to domestic fowl that
Wargrave he