It was soon arranged thus. At a word from Finnerty, Moti lumbered heavily to her feet, while he stood with uplifted whip, ready to cut a stinging blow to her trunk should she show signs of temper. Quite understanding this threat, Moti gently thrust her trunk toward the major's face and fumbled his chin with her thumb and finger as though she would say: "I know a friend when I find him."
As they neared the elephant encampment, Moti, catching the sound of Bahadar's ears fanning flies, rumbled a soft message of peace; but there was no expected noise of greeting from the natives, no bustle of sleepers rising to greet the sahibs. They came right into the camp before some of the men, who had slept with their heads rolled in the folds of turbans or loin cloths, sat up groggily or struggled to incapable feet. The mahout reeled up from somewhere near Bahadar and salaamed drunkenly, a foolish, deprecating leer on his lips.
The sight of Moti partly sobered him, and his mind caught up the blurred happenings of the night. "An evil spirit, sahib," he babbled, "caused us to fall heavy in sleep, and we were wakened by the breaking of the rawhide nooses that bound Moti; then she fled to the jungle."
"This fool is drunk!" Mahadua declared angrily. "If the sahib will beat him with a whip he will tell who brought the arak."
Gothya repudiated Mahadua's assertion, but a firm tap of the riding whip on his buttocks, with threats of more, gradually brought out the story of their debauch. A party of native liquor runners, men who smuggled arak across the line from Nepal, had stumbled upon the party and had driven a thriving trade.
"That accounts largely for the stealing of Moti," Finnerty declared. He had in his hand the rawhide noose, showing that it had been cut close to the elephant's leg. Evidently the priest had been able to crawl right in to the camp, the drunkards having let their fire die.
The mahout, salaaming, said: "Sahib, the jungle is possessed of evil gods to-night. Just when it was growing dark we saw passing on a white horse the one who gallops at night to destroy."
"Was that before you became drunk, or since?" Finnerty asked sarcastically.
"At that time the wine had not arrived, sahib. We all saw passing yonder in the jungle where there is no path the white horse."
"Gad! It has been the girl coming down out of the hills," Finnerty said to Swinton. "There must be something about to materialise when she waited so late. We'll camp here," he added to Mahadua. "Send a couple of these fellows to the keddha to tell Immat to bring out his tusker, with a couple of ropes."