"But knowing now the danger, I laughed in my beard, for Gunesh Tanti, this human tiger and slayer of innocent men, just as had been the tiger now slung across the back of my elephant, was fairly delivered into my hand. He who had come to trap me was himself entrapped. And thanks all to this little maid of the glen! At the thought, I patted her soft cheek with my hand, and in response she smiled up into my eyes with wondrous trust and winsomeness.
"Our party, as I have said, numbered twelve, this without counting the three mahouts, lithe and active men, and brave as any one of us. The neck of the gorge was narrow, and for a hundred yards on either side there were steep precipices down which rocks could be tumbled on fleeing men. By a goat path over the hillside the fort could be reached by one sure of foot and knowing the way. Such a lad was of our party, a cousin of my own, who could race with the deer.
"In a few minutes he had girded his loins and was on his mission, disappearing over the crest of the almost perpendicular crag up which he had clambered. He was to warn the garrison, turn out every man and boy fully armed, and bid them to sweep down on the ambushed robbers. The mothers and the maidens would hold the fort. No other garrison, when once on the alert, was needed for such an enemy."
Again the Rajput smiled proudly, but the silence of intent listening was unbroken, and he continued:
"The firing of a matchlock was to be our signal that my men held the upper end of the pass, and were descending on our enemies. Meanwhile, my immediate followers prepared the rocks above the narrow neck of the defile and got them ready for instant rolling down. To this last task four of our number were deputed. The others abided with me. Our plan was to block the narrow passage by ranging the elephants abreast of each other, and, so that the animals themselves might not be stampeded by the unexpected din of battle, we chained their forelegs, first each animal separately, and then the middle one to his comrades on either side.
"At last all our preparations were completed, the huge beasts in line, my companions mounted into the howdahs. I alone remained on foot, I and the little woodcutters' daughter, standing by my side, holding trustfully to my hand, and no longer weeping.
"'You must come with me, my almond-sweet,' I said, as I raised the child in my arms, and passed her up into the howdah of my own elephant, the central one. Then I myself clambered aloft. The tiger's corpse had been flung to the ground, and our three mahouts sat in their proper places, iron goads in hand, ready to perform their task of keeping the elephants under control.
"At last, after a tense period of waiting, the welcome report of the matchlock reverberated from among the hills.
"The fight does not really concern my story," said the Rajput, grimly. "It is sufficient to say that Gunesh Tanti and all his band perished to a man—some slain by the swords of my horsemen charging down the pass, some crushed by the falling rocks, some of the last survivors, who flung themselves desperately against our living barrier, dying on our handpikes or being trampled under foot by the 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.