They had, as it seemed, an immense world to themselves. It was difficult to grasp the scale of these hills and these remarkably English-looking trees, until Romesh stiffened and pointed, and found them their first elephants. In a sheltered bay on their left hand, a whole ponderous herd winding its way down through the trees, across the open belt of spongy grass, and into the silvery shallows. Beside the boles of those trees the two big tuskers shrank to the dimensions of toy animals. There were seven or eight cows, and four calves, varying from a half-grown youngster to a small, skittish baby. They played and splashed and squealed like puppies in the shallows, sending up fountains of spray, while the elders wallowed blissfully, and heaved themselves ashore to graze afterwards streaming water like granite cliffs deluged by a flowing tide. Romesh, flashing white teeth in a delighted, proprietorial grin, shut off the engine and let the boat slide slowly inshore between the drowned trees, and they watched for a long time, until the herd moved off at leisure into the forest.

  After that it was elephants all the way; they saw them pacing in line, far up on a half-cleared hillside, moving methodically down towards the lake. They saw them bathing in half a dozen sheltered coves, and paused each time to draw inshore and take pictures. Several times they saw deer, and once, where the shores opened out in grassland and they emerged into the widest part of the lake, a large sambur grazing, bulky as a bison. The sun rose higher, and the clear heat of the day came on, but the fresh currents of air across the water were cool and fragrant. Silver-blue before them, under a deepening blue sky only delicately dusted with cloud, the lake expanded broad and calm, and here the light was dazzling. They could see the long barrage of the Periyar dam far in the distance. After the enclosed, steep-shored bays the elephants preferred, this was a minor sea.

  ‘It’s time to turn back,’ Lakshman said reluctantly, ‘If we are to get the boat back on time.’

  ‘What a pity! ’ Patti sighed. ‘This is glorious. How long ago was the dam built, Lakshman?’

  ‘Last century, it’s an old one. I think about 1890. It turns the Periyar river through a long tunnel, and makes it flow east down into the Madurai plains. It used to go west to the Malabar coast.’

  ‘And the wild life sanctuary, is that old, too?’

  ‘Quite old, it was made while this was still Travancore State territory. It’s been established so long that it has many, many herds of elephants.’

  ‘You like to keep boat?’ Romesh suggested hopefully. ‘Come again in afternoon? Sometimes is better in afternoon. Maybe even see tiger.’ He had brought the boat about, and they were heading gently back for the narrows.

  ‘Oh, could we?’ She looked hopefully at Larry. ‘Is it very expensive? Couldn’t you be our guests this time? If you don’t have to rush away?’

  They looked at one another, and apart from the question of who paid, which could be left in abeyance for the time being, there was no need for much persuasion. The beauty of the place and the fascination of the animals made departure seem a deprivation; at least they could have one more trip, for the late afternoon watering.

  ‘All right, why not? If the boat isn’t already booked for the rest of the day? After all, it is Sunday, there are sure to be a few trippers.’

  ‘I take you,’ promised Romesh heartily. ‘I fix it for boat.’

  ‘Good for you!’ Patti was delighted. ‘Romesh, you’re a treasure. What’s the rest of your name, may we know?’

  He flashed his magnificent teeth at her in a pleased grin. ‘It is Romesh Iyar, memsahib.’

  ‘A good Keralese name.’

  ‘Yes, memsahib, from Quilon.’

  They were between the steep banks again now. Once or twice they caught sight of buildings close to the water, one, as Romesh told them, formerly a palace. They were encountering, too, the boats which had set off later than theirs, and had just reached this stage in the pilgrimage. The big launch, packed with the Sunday whites of husbands and the fluttering saris of wives and flower-tinted dresses of children, ploughed steadily ahead into open water, passing them closely.

  ‘I see the Bessancourts made it,’ Larry said.

  There they sat among the butterfly passengers, he in his sober grey suit and Panama hat, she in her black shalwar and grey and white kameez, with a white muslin scarf over her pile of black hair. They looked about them at the strange and beautiful world of the Periyar Lake with wide, attentive, appraising eyes; and when they saw their young acquaintances in the small launch they did not wave, but inclined their heads with the tightest of French smiles, as on an after-church promenade in Combeaufontaine or Oulchy-le-Chateau.

  They were drawing near to the final inlet that would bring them back within sight of the hotel, when they met the smart white launch, as small as their own, but newer. Mr and Mrs Mani sat installed among its cushions in jubilant state, beaming like gratified children; and Mrs Mani, though somewhat taken aback at recognising her acquaintances in a private boat when she had certainly taken it for granted they were passengers among the rest in the communal launch, nevertheless fluttered a silk handkerchief at them graciously, and achieved a very accomplished smile for their benefit. Sushil Dastur sat in the stern of the boat, very neatly and nervously, his knees drawn up, hugging the inevitable briefcase that went with him everywhere. And opposite the Manis, lounging along the whole of one seat with a cushion at his back, sat a tall, bulky man in a tussore suit and a snow-white shirt, grey hair curled in tufts over his ears, and the sunlight glinting blindly from the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses. They saw him briefly in passing as a sculptured mask in bronze, without eyes, with a heavy mouth and jaw and a thick, pale throat.

  Romesh exchanged the smallest flick of a hand with the other boatman, and grinned to himself. When he laughed he looked even younger, and childishly mischievous.

  ‘So that’s the wealthy and distinguished business contact,’ Dominic remarked, when the other boat was out of earshot. Romesh looked up brightly from the wheel. ‘You know him, sahib?’

  ‘Never saw him before. Never heard of him until last night. His guests told us they would be sharing his boat today, that’s all. Do you know him?’ He added with interest: ‘He has a house somewhere here on the lake, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Quite close, sahib, over there, not far from the road.’ He was shaking gently with suppressed mirth. ‘I am laughing because Ajit Ghose, that boat-boy, he is new here one month only, he does not know! I was on list to take that boat today, and this Ajit, he thinks to himself, this client is very rich man! So he gets list changed, to have that boat for himself. I saw what he want, but I let him do it. Me, I know this Mr Mahendralal Bakhle. He is rich, but he is not generous. It will not be so fat a tip as Ajit thinks.’

  ‘What did you say the man’s name was?’ Patti asked sharply, turning to stare after the diminishing boat with abruptly quickened interest.

  ‘Mahendralal Bakhle. You know that name, memsahib?’

  ‘Not exactly – it just sounds familiar, somehow. I think I’ve read it somewhere,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there something about him in the papers – about trouble on his farms, and some labourers who were killed? I’m nearly sure that was the name.’

  ‘It is possible. He is a big landlord, own much land down in plains, near Sattur.’

  ‘But surely,’ Dominic objected, ‘there’s a limit to the amount of land any one person can own now – twenty-five acres, or something quite modest like that.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sahib, that is true, but there are ways. Some landlords say that they part with their land, give it to their womenfolk, but often it is not true. Mr Bakhle, he still controls everything, all that land.’ Romesh’s English failed him, and he waved a frustrated hand, and addressed himself to Lakshman in Malayalam.

  ‘He says,’ Lakshman reported, ‘that Bakhle was mixed up not long ago in some very nasty trouble with his Harijan labourers. That must be what Miss Galloway is thinking about. They wanted a rise in pay, and then there was an armed raid on their village, and several people were killed. Everyone seems sure that Bakhle had hired the strong-arm men to do the job for him.’ He lifted his shoulders in helpless distaste. ‘It could happen. Such things have been known.’

  Priya, who was so silent and self-contained, and yet missed nothing, said simply: ‘I have known such casualties come into our wards. There is very strong feeling among the Harijan labourers, and there is also great pressure being used against them.’

  ‘Not, in fact, a very popular man, this Bakhle,’ Larry deduced.

  ‘With reason, it seems,’ said Patti, casting a last long, dark look after his boat before she turned her back on it.

  ‘Very much disliked, so Romesh says,’ agreed Lakshman. ‘But also very much envied and courted. Money is money, it talks loudly everywhere.’

  ‘Prefer present company,’ said Romesh boldly, and showed his teeth again in a bountiful smile.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said Larry drily. ‘Even if this doesn’t turn out to be a very generous tip, either?’

  ‘Even if there is no tip.’ Romesh asserted firmly, and brought the boat gently to rest, with a tiny hiss of compressed ripples, against the shoulder of the hard.

  The Manis must have been invited to lunch at the villa, for they did not reappear at the hotel until nearly three-thirty, when it was time to embark again for the afternoon watering. Sunday whites and Sunday saris were assembling again in the party launch, and among them the sombre Bessancourts sat like monuments to France. And in from the gardens came Sudha Mani, the folds of her rose-coloured sari fluting round her plump ankles, her bracelets jingling with triumph, Gopal Krishna treading ponderously at her back, and Sushil Dastur at heel like a tired little dog.

  ‘Sushil Dastur, go and order tea.’ She sank into a cane chair among the palms and fanned herself gracefully. ‘And see what kinds of sweets they have, and choose me some of those I like. Be quick! No, give me the flowers, you are dropping them.’ She installed her booty on a spare chair, and beamed at Patti and Priya, who were just going out to the landing-stage. ‘From Mr Bakhle’s garden! So beautiful, aren’t they? He has such a fine garden. Was it not wonderful this morning?’

  ‘Wonderful!’ they agreed truthfully.

  The afternoon cruise was curiously different from the morning one; a completely changed light draped the hills, clear, yellowish, very still. The sky was washed nearly clean of cloud, and of a wonderfully pale, bright and remote blue. They remembered that dusk would come early here, and deceptively; there would still be full daylight in the open water when the many deep inlets were already drenched in darkness. But as yet it was bright sunlight, only just slanting towards the west.

  ‘Look, Bakhle’s out again!’ Larry pointed a finger into one of the still, green aisles of the lake as they passed; and there was the immaculate white launch idling gently off-shore, with the silk-clad figure of Mahendralal Bakhle lolling at ease on his cushions, perhaps asleep, or near it. He had no voluble guests to entertain now, and the boat-boy was ready to respond to his every inclination, mindful of that fat tip he expected at the end of the day from a man so rich. The thought made Romesh chuckle happily and wickedly to himself as he observed them.

  ‘That Ajit Ghose, he is so clever! Those people from Bengal, they think everyone in the south is stupid.’

  ‘Their mistake,’ said Patti drily. ‘He’s from Bengal, is he?’

  ‘Yes, memsahib. He is not bad fellow, only he does not talk with us much, not friendly. Maybe only he is a long way from home.’

  ‘And you don’t know why he came south to work? I’d have thought the south had its own unemployment problem.’

  Romesh shrugged and let that go, having nothing to say on the subject. ‘See – elephant!’ His pointing finger indicated them with precision, high on the steep hillside where the sun filtered through the trees and turned animals and earth to moving gold and static gold. In orderly file they paced after their tusker leader, the cows and calves following confidently; and though they seemed to move with the deliberation of doomsday, they covered the ground at an amazing pace, bearing obliquely downhill to the water. And now they were more playful and more relaxed than in the morning, scratching themselves meditatively on the ghostly trees, surging through the breast-deep water with a bow-wave breaking in phosphorescence before them, the little ones bouncing and frolicking in abandoned joy, the elders curling their trunks over them protectively.

  Patti said: ‘I love elephants!’ And after a moment of silent watching she said sadly: ‘Why can’t we have a community like that, as placid and as natural and as perfect!’ And indeed there was a conviction of untroubled happiness and kindliness here which at this moment seemed to justify her.

  ‘Some worlds,’ Larry said dourly, ‘are simpler than others. You take what’s dished out to you, and pay for it. Not like the Spanish proverb!’

  ‘Look!’ whispered Lakshman. The boat lay motionless now, and under the slope of trees it was premature dusk. ‘They’re going to cross!’

  What moved them to it no one could guess, but the tusker and his younger fellow had waded far out into the water, and the cows were moving without haste after them, and marshalling the little ones with them. The whole herd was surging steadily into the lake, and setting course unmistakably for the other shore. Forward they lurched until tusks and trunks and massive shoulders and twitching ears had all vanished under the water, like ships sinking at their launching; but when only the domed, glistening tops of their heads remained visible, the lurching gait changed, and they swam. Like animated black stepping-stones, the herd sailed across the narrow arm of the lake with hardly a ripple, unhurried, majestic, oblivious of the boat that lay off in entranced silence, watching their passing from some thirty yards away. Occasionally a trunk came up for air, waved gently for a moment, and was again withdrawn, or the tip of an ear ruffled the surface. The watchers hardly drew breath until the cluster of rounded stones drew near to the steep shore opposite, and the leaders heaved their huge shoulders clear of the lake, streaming water and phosphorescence, and thumped imperturbably up the slope and into the tall grass, to disappear among the trees. The cows thrust up their heads one by one and followed, nuzzled by their calves, and all the glistening herd passed out of sight with hardly a sound.

  Patti drew a long, awed breath. ‘My God, and I never even knew they could!’

  They looked at one another like people awakening from a dream. After that, anything was going to be an anti-climax.

  Why look for more elephants? They had been so close that they could almost have leaned over and patted the littlest calf on its bobbing pewter head as it sailed by. And while they had been spellbound here, the day had lurched a long step towards its ending, at least here between the shrouding forested hills. In the opener water it would still be bright.

  ‘Have we still got time to go on to the wider part?’ Larry asked. ‘It must look marvellous in this light.’

  Lakshman conferred with Romesh, and Romesh in his obliging fashion hoisted a shoulder, and flashed his grin, and said that they need not worry about staying out beyond their time, they had plenty of fuel, and there would be no more cruises after this one. So they headed for the open water, silvery and placid mile on mile to the dam; and the day changed its mind and came back to full sunlight as soon as they were out from between the enfolding arms of the forest. Several times they saw elephants again, and several times deer, and the sky over them became the clear, pre-sunset sky of a summer day at home, shading down from deepest blue at the zenith to jade green at the rim of the world. The few feathers of cloud were coloured like roses, in variations of pink and gold.

  They turned back at last. Romesh was just bringing the boat about in a long, sweeping curve, the water hissing along its side, when they all heard a distant, muffled report, not at all loud, but borne across the mirror of lake as though it came from everywhere at once, or from nowhere.

  ‘What was that?’ Larry demanded. ‘I thought there was no shooting here. It isn’t a hunting reserve, it’s a wild life sanctuary.’

  ‘That is right, sahib,’ Romesh confirmed. ‘But sometimes wardens must shoot injured animal, or rogue animal.’

  ‘But it didn’t sound like a gun to me,’ Dominic said. ‘More like what you hear at a good distance when they’re blasting in a quarry. But I don’t suppose there such a thing for a hundred miles around here.’

  They listened, straining their ears, but the sound was not repeated. They had the broadest expanse of the lake to themselves, and the silvery hush of the hour was like a glass bell enclosing them.

  ‘Ah, we’re dreaming!’

  But they had not been dreaming. Looking ahead as they sped towards the narrows, they saw a tiny puff of iridescent cloud rise and assemble in the sky far before them, and there hang shimmering like gilded dust for some four or five minutes before it disintegrated. In a countryside almost without aerial pollution, even a shot in a quarry would have produced little more than that. And before the arms of forest rose on either side to shut them in, it was gone.

  The successive bends of lake became surfaces of steel mirror, reflecting pastel channels of sky, and shut in by black walls of forest. But wherever a wider bay opened the light took heart and returned. It was well after six o’clock when they came back to the place where they had seen the elephants cross, and instinctively looked again at the shore from which they had set out, where a few dead trees provided scratching posts in the shallows, and man-tall reeds grew, a paler patch in the dusk.

  ‘What’s that?’ Larry asked, pointing. ‘There in the reeds, look – something white… ’ Reddish elephants they had seen, but a white elephant would be too much to ask. Deer, perhaps? Anything pale would look white at this hour.

  They peered, and caught the gleam he had been the first to see. Too white for deer, and too motionless; something low in the water, half obscured by the vertical stems of the reeds. ‘Wait!’ said Dominic sharply. ‘Ease up, Romesh, there’s something queer there— Take us in towards it a bit.’