Narada River is deep at that point, banked up by the dyke that forms the waterfall; below the fall it shallows to a ford a quarter of a mile wide. Far across the river Quorn could see a stream of crimson topped with billowing smoke where the thorn fires had caught the jungle undergrowth. There were no men in sight. Doubtless they had fled from the spreading flame. There was no wind just then; the fire was eating its way outward in a circle. "Maybe I can get this fool across the ford," Quorn muttered. CHAPTER IX. THE LOST RANEE. There was a well-defined track down the rocks to the foot of the fall, and below that there was a footpath all along the river to the ford. Quorn rode along that, watching the troubled water, half-expecting to see the Ranee's body, mangled by the crags, floating in mid-stream or stranded. But he knew there were alligators, slimy, greedy devils; floating bodies had a slim chance; even the fords were sometimes dangerous for passengers on foot. All that way along the river bank Quorn was sick at heart and careless even of Asoka's comfort or his destiny; however, he began to be puzzled before long by symptoms that he noticed, and he was more than ever puzzled by Asoka's willingness to cross the river when they reached the ford. "What's eating you? What's making you forget?" he wondered. All the way across the ford he indulged in sentimental guesswork as to whether the Ranee's death had not humiliated and broken Asoka's spirit. Nearly every one is capable at times of that sort of imagination. However, on the far bank he got down to search for what the matter might be, and soon discovered the spear-wound in Asoka's rump. It was nothing serious, although it might be painful, and he understood then that Asoka had been merely asking for attention. He made Asoka kneel and, having no remedies handy, made a fly-brush of grass at the end of a string that would sway with the elephant's movement and prevent the stinging flies from laying eggs in the open cut. It was while he was tying the string to the _howdah_ rail that Bamjee came. By this time the _babu_ had lost his spectacles. There was hardly a shred of untorn clothing on his body and almost every inch of him was bleeding from the thorns. He was breathless and he fell at Quorn's feet. For a minute or two he lay and vomited. Then suddenly his will power triumphed and he knelt--sputtered--exploded: "Damn! Loafer! Bloody fool! You wait here? Oh, my God! I saw you on the far bank--didn't you see my signal?" "Looking for the Ranee," Quorn answered. Then he lowered his voice. "She's drownded." "Liar!" "She is. She's drownded." "Liar, I tell you! I saw her swim--she was washed out of the _howdah_ close inshore--caught the grass in her hands and climbed out--scrambled up the bank. He seized her--" "For the love o' God, who did?"