The howdah was a regal affair, such as native princes affect on state occasions. The girl was almost hidden by the gilded sides of its canopied top; indeed, her features were completely masked by a veil draped from the rim of her helmet. The heavy figure of Doctor Boelke bulged from the front of the howdah.
"Where are we stationed, major?" Ananda called, the mahout checking their elephant some distance away.
"To the left, beyond the pipal tree."
Swinton chuckled, observing Gilfain stretching his long neck as the prince's elephant plodded on; evidently there was to be no introduction.
"We'd better get placed at once," Finnerty declared; "the buffalo may get out of hand—anything may happen. The elephants that will act as stops are already in place on the two sides; I sent them on ahead. The natives on their backs will keep tapping on gongs to prevent the tiger from breaking through the sides; if he does break through, they'll blow shrill blasts on their conch shells. Away you go, Swinton!"
And at an order from the mahout, their elephant trudged over to the point of honour, accompanied by the Banjara. In a few minutes his voice rose in the plaintive squeak of a buffalo, and in answer down the wind that rustled the feathered tops of the cane came a mild clamour of buffaloes, being driven, and men's voices crying:
"Dut, dut! Gar! Aoi-aoi!"
The buffalo were in a huge fan, advancing in a crescent troupe slowly, so that the tiger, not suddenly overrun, would keep slipping along in front.
Finnerty sat with his .450 Express across his knee, his eyes fixed on Gilfain, whose head he could just see above the bank of the nala, which was shallow where it struck the plain.
The turmoil of buffalo noises and their drivers' cries, drawing near, had increased in the cane. To the left, on one of the stop elephants, a native beat vigorously on his brass gong, followed by voices crying from a stop elephant: "The tiger passes!" Then a conch shell sent out its warning screech.