She turned to go; but, stopping her, he said:
"Oh, but you don't understand. He's a great friend of mine and he knows that I'm awfully fond of you, little girl. So he's ready to do anything for us and give me a——"
She walked past him, her eyes blazing with anger, with so resolute an air that he drew back and watched her go. She went straight to her room and remained there until Ida came to tell her that it was time to dress for the celebration of the Puja festival.
In the outer courtyard of the Palace six of the Rajah's State elephants, their tusks gilded and foreheads gaudily painted, caparisoned with rich velvet housings covered with heavy gold embroidery trailing almost to the ground, bearing on their backs gold or silver howdahs fashioned in the shape of temples, awaited the European guests. Chunerbutty, when allotting positions as Master of Ceremonies, took advantage of his position to contrive that Noreen should accompany him on the elephant on which he was to lead the line. The girl discovered too late that they were to be alone on it, except for the mahout on its neck. Dermot and Barclay managed to be together on another animal.
When all were in position in the howdahs, to which they climbed by ladders, the gates were thrown open, and through a mob of salaaming retainers the elephants emerged with stately tread on the great square in front of the Palace and proceeded through the city. The houses were gaily decorated. Flags and strips of coloured cloth fluttered from every building; gaudy carpets and embroideries hung from the innumerable balconies and windows. The elephants could scarcely force a passage through the narrow streets, so crowded were they with swarms of men, women, and children in holiday attire, all going in one direction. Their destination was the park of the Moti Mahal or Pearl Palace, the Rajah's summer residence outside the walls of the city.
There the enormous crowd was kept back by red-robed retainers armed with tulwars—native curved swords—leaving clear a wide stretch of open ground, in the centre of which on a gigantic altar was the image of the Goddess Kali. Before it a magnificent bull was firmly secured by chains and ropes to stout posts sunk deep in the earth. The animal's head drooped and it could hardly stand up, for it had been heavily drugged for the day's ceremony and was scarcely conscious.
The Rajah's army was drawn up in line fronting the altar, but some distance away from it. Two old muzzle-loading nine-pounder guns, their teams of powerful bullocks lying contentedly behind on the grass, formed the right of the line. Then came the cavalry, consisting of twenty sowars on squealing white stallions with long tails dyed red. Left of them was the infantry, two hundred sepoys in shakoes, red coatees, white trousers, and bare feet, leaning on long percussion-capped muskets with triangular bayonets.
Shortly after the Europeans had arrived and their elephants taken up their position on one side of the ground, cheering announced the coming of the Rajah. The cannons were discharged by slow matches and the infantrymen, raising their muskets, fired a ragged volley into the air. Then towards the altar of Kali the Rajah was seen approaching in a long gilded car shaded by a canopy of cloth-of-gold and drawn by an enormous elephant, richly caparisoned. Two gold-laced, scarlet-clad servants were perched on the back of the car, waving large peacock-feather fans over their monarch. A line of carriages followed, conveying the Dewan, the Durbar officials, the Ministers of the State and the leading nobles of Lalpuri. After the first volley, which scattered the horses of the cavalry, the artillery and infantry loaded and fired independently as fast as their antiquated weapons permitted, until the air was filled with smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder.
The Rajah, hemmed in by spearmen with levelled points and followed by all his suite with drawn swords, timidly approached the bull, tulwar in hand. The animal was too dazed to lift its head. The Rajah raised his gleaming blade and struck at the nape of its neck, and at the same moment two swordsmen hamstrung it. Immediately the Dewan, Ministers, and nobles crowded in and hacked at the wretched beast as it lurched and fell heavily to the ground. The warm blood spurted out in jets and covered the officials and nobles as they cut savagely at the feebly struggling carcase, and the red liquid splashed the Rajah as he stood gloating over the gaping wounds and the sufferings of the poor sacrifice, his heavy face lit up by a ghastly grin of delight.