She looked lovingly at Dermot whose arm was still about her. Her brother betrayed no surprise. "I'm not afraid to die, dear one," she whispered to her lover. "I couldn't live without you now. And I'm happy at this moment, happier than I've ever been, I think. But I wish you had saved yourself." He mastered his emotion with difficulty. "Darling, life without you wouldn't be possible for me either." He could not take his eyes from her; and the minutes were flying all too swiftly. At last he looked at his watch and held out his hand to the boy. "Good-bye, Daleham, you've got your wish. You're dying like a soldier for England," he said. "We've done our share for her. Now, we've three minutes more. If the Rajah and Chunerbutty come into view again I'll have them with my last two shots." He turned to the girl and took her in his arms for a last embrace. "Good-bye, sweetheart. Dear love of my heart. Pray that we may be together in the next world." He paused and listened. "Are they coming?" But he did not put her from him. One second now was worth an eternity. Then suddenly a distant murmur swelled through the strange silence. Daleham looked out over the barricade. "They're--No. What is it? What are they doing?" All round the circle of besiegers there was an eerie hush. No voice was heard. All--the Rajah, the flag-bearer, Brahmins, soldiers, coolies--had turned their faces away from the bungalow and were staring into the distance. And as the few survivors of the garrison looked up over the barricade an incredible sight met their eyes. From the far-off forest, bursting out at every point of the long-stretching wall of dark undergrowth that hemmed in the wide estate, wild elephants appeared. Over the furrowed acres they streamed in endless lines, trampling down the ordered stretch of green bushes. In scores, in hundreds, they came, silently, slowly; the great heads nodding to the rhythm of their gait, the trunks swinging, the ragged ears flapping, as they advanced. Converging as they came, they drew together in a solid mass that blotted out the ground, a mass sombre-hued, dark, relieved only by flashes of gleaming white. For on either side of every massive skull jutted out the sharp-pointed, curving ivory. Of all save one. For the mammoth that led them, the splendid beast that captained the oncoming array of Titans under the ponderous strokes of whose feet the ground trembled, had one tusk, one only. And as though the white flag were a magnet to him, he moved unerringly towards it, the immense, earth-shaking phalanx following him.