How it had fallen into the robber's hands could not now be ever known, for the man was dead. Had poor Denham escaped the tiger, been spared from the fire, to fall a prey at last to a fellow-man? Had he been the victim of other perils, and had the dacoit only found the watch in the jungle and appropriated it? Was the fellow even venturing to bring it in for the reward, and could he have told more of the gallant lad's fate? Who could say now?
Mr. Brudenel questioned the Burman closely, seeking confirmation of the story in its every detail of place and time. The man knew nothing of Denham, nor as to how the watch had fallen into the hands of the dacoit, who was one of a band of robbers that was harrying the mountain villages at a little distance. The watch was useless to him evidently. It had run down, and was silent. Either he had not possessed the key, or did not understand how to use it; and he had worn it round his neck as an ornament in a conspicuous manner, which had attracted the Burman's notice.
Mr. Gilchrist paid the offered reward in silence, carried the watch into the house, and, laying it down, broke into a passion of grief which, for a time, admitted of no consolation.
[CHAPTER XIX]
LOST IN THE JUNGLE
Ralph, upon flying from the infuriated elephant, had followed the defile before described, rushing up its tortuous windings with little heed beyond that of his own safety. If he thought at all, he believed that the others were following him at no great distance; attracted, as he had been, by the rough stones lying in the bed of the stream; where, after the rains, it tumbled headlong down the pass, a mountain torrent of double its present width. The loose boulders, and jagged fragments of rock, would, he considered, cut the pads in the elephant's feet and deter the animal's pursuit. In this he was mistaken, but the idea guided his flight at the time.
He did not pause for reflection; it was instinct more than deliberation which impelled his flight. On he ran; his active, well-trained young limbs covering the ground rapidly; leaping from rock to boulder, springing over pool and marshy hollow, and instinctively taking advantage of every soft grassy slope.
All at once his heedless progress was arrested by summary disaster. He stepped upon something soft, which turned beneath his foot instead of proving to be a rounded hard stone. A fearful screech was heard, curdling the very marrow in his bones, and bringing his heart to his mouth as he fell, measuring his length prone upon the sward. An unearthly spitting and growling assailed him, which, as he quickly came to himself after the shock of his fall, he first thought emanated from an enraged cat; but the next moment, was, he perceived, the token of something far worse.
He had tumbled over two young tiger cubs, and their dam was hurrying up to their rescue, from the pool where she had been drinking.