Satisfied of this, the captain gave the order for the troop to advance, the baggage-train being halted where they were, with the few men appointed for their guard.
“Now then, Dick,” said Wyatt as they trotted on, “this is right. Hulton wants to get us more out in the open. Yes, that’s right; he’s making for that low mound, from which we could sweep the plain in all directions. That’s soldierly. See?”
“Yes, I see,” replied Dick; “but these may be friends coming to meet us.”
“Of course they may, and we shall be none the worse for being prepared. But, by the same rule, they may be enemies, and we shall be all the better for being ready to receive them.”
In less than an hour all doubts were solved by the advance of a little detachment of well-mounted men, who announced that the Rajah was coming himself to meet his friends with all his horse; and soon after the glittering array in attendance on the great chief, mounted in a silver howdah upon a huge elephant, nearly covered with cloth of gold, and with tusks painted and banded with the precious metal, rode up.
It was a sight which riveted all eyes—the Rajah’s officers glittering with jewels and splendidly arrayed, while the Rajah himself, a handsome, dark-eyed man, was in simple, snow-white muslin and white puggree, his sole ornament being a diamond clasp over his forehead, from which rose a delicate white egret plume.
It was like a procession of hundreds of years before, many of the mounted men wearing small steel caps with spiked top and face-guard, while from all round the back depended a protective curtain of the finest chain-armour. Many of them, too, wore shirts of mail, fitting tight to the body, and without exception they carried light, curved tulwars and round shields.
In undress uniform, covered and begrimed with sweat and dust, it seemed to Dick that their troop cut a sorry figure beside the Rajah’s force; and he looked sharply from one to the other of the haughty-looking chiefs on their handsome but undersized horses, fully expecting to see an air of sneering contempt upon their faces as they looked down upon the little auxiliary force which had come to join them.
But he soon saw that he was wrong. The Rajah and his party were men of war, and their eyes glittered with satisfaction as they roamed over the splendidly mounted, stalwart, picked men who rode with the guns, knowing, as they did from hearsay, what a tremendous power these light six-pounders were in the hands of the highly-drilled troop. They knew that the troop meant work, and possibly the saving of their country from a dangerous foe; and there was no mistaking the spontaneous, wild burst of welcome given in long-continued acclamations, which were repeated again and again as the mahout flourished his gilded ankus, and forced the great elephant to kneel so that the Rajah might reach down to shake hands with the officers.
“Something to write home about,” thought Dick as he drew off his gauntlet to grasp the thin brown hand extended to him, when his turn came to meet the flashing dark eyes and pleasant smile turned upon him.