Chapter XI
After Finnerty and Swinton left Gilfain in the evening, the major said: "If you don't mind, we'll stick to this elephant and ride on to the keddah, where I'll take the bell off Moti; I won't take a chance of having the sapphire stolen by leaving it there all night. I am worrying now over letting Prince Ananda have Moti—I forgot all about the stone, really."
"Worked beautifully to-day, didn't it?" Swinton commented.
"Yes. I fancy it saved the girl's life, at least; for if I'd not had Moti I'd have lost out on the mix-up with Stripes. I'll get a metal clapper to-morrow, but I doubt its answering; it will clang, and the sapphire has a clinking note like ice in a glass. And, while an elephant hasn't very good eyesight, he's got an abnormally acute sense of hearing. Moti would twig the slightest variation in the tone of that bell that she's probably worn for a hundred years or more—maybe a thousand, for all I know. There's a belief among the natives that a large elephant has been wandering around northern India for a thousand years; it is called the 'Khaki Hethi'—brown elephant."
Swinton looked curiously at the major. "Do you believe that?"
"Each year in this wonderland I believe more; that is, I accept more without looking for proofs. It is the easiest way. Yes," he added, in a reflective way, "I'll have trouble with Moti, I'm afraid; elephants are the most suspicious creatures on earth, and she is particularly distrustful."
"Don't bother about the sapphire," Swinton objected.
"Oh, yes, I will. I've got to take off the bell, anyway, to find some substitute. If I don't, somebody'll poison Moti if they can't get the sapphire any other way."
At the keddah the two dismounted and walked over to where Moti was under her tamarind tree. Swinton became aware of the extraordinary affection the big creature had for Finnerty. She fondled his cheek with the fingers of her trunk, and put it over his shoulder, giving utterance to little guttural chuckles of satisfaction, as though she were saying: "We fooled the tiger, didn't we?"
Finnerty called to a native to bring him some ghie cakes—little white cookies of rice flour and honey that had been cooked in boiling ghie, butter made from buffalo's milk—and when they were brought he gave the delighted elephant one. She smacked her lips and winked at Finnerty—at least to Swinton her actions were thus.