"I've never had the chance of doing any before, Your Highness," replied Frank, shaking his hand. "I'm awfully anxious to try it; but, being a novice, I'm afraid I'll only be in the way."
"I'm sure you won't," said the Maharajah courteously. His command of English was perfect. "Pigsticking is not at all difficult; and I hear that you are a good rider."
He looked at his watch and then, turning in the saddle, addressed another officer of the regiment who was chaffing Raymond for being late:
"Are we all here now, Captain Ross?"
"Yes, sir. These two lazy fellows are the last," replied Ross laughingly.
"Very well, gentlemen, we'll start."
He waved his hand; and at the signal two black-bearded sowars, or soldiers of his cavalry regiment, dashed by him and out through the Palace gates at a hard-gallop, leading the way past the guard, who turned out and presented arms as the Maharajah and the British officers, together with the crowd of nobles, officials and mounted attendants, followed at a smart pace. The city was now waking to life. From their windows the sleepy inhabitants stared at the party, mostly too stupefied at that hour to recognise and salute their ruler. Pot-bellied naked brown babies waddled on to the verandahs to gaze thumb in mouth at the riders. Pariah dogs, nosing at the gutters and rubbish-heaps that scented the air, bolted out of the way of the horses' hoofs.
As the sportsmen passed out of the city gates the sun was rising above the horizon, the terrible Hot Weather sun of India, whose advent ushers in the long hours of gasping, breathless heat. For a mile or so the route lay through fertile gardens and fields. Then suddenly the cultivation ended abruptly on the edge of a sandy desert that, seamed with nullahs, or deep, steep-sided ravines, and dotted with tall clumps of thorny cactus, stretched away to the horizon. The road became a barely discernible track; but the two sowars cantered on, confidently heading for the spot where the fresh horses awaited the party.
Over the sand the riders swept, past a slow-plodding elephant lumbering back to the city with a load of fodder, by groups of tethered camels. Hares started up in alarm and bounded away, grey partridges whirred up and yellow-beaked minas flew off chattering indignantly. The slight morning coolness soon vanished; and Wargrave, soft and somewhat out of condition after his weeks of shipboard life, wiped his streaming face often before the guiding sowars threw up their hands in warning and vanished slowly from sight as their sure-footed horses picked their way down a steep nullah. This was the ravine in which the quarry hid. One after another of the riders followed the leaders down the narrow track, trotted across the sandy, rock-strewn river-bed and climbed up the far side to where the fresh horses and a picturesque mob of wild-looking beaters stood awaiting them.
Among the animals Wargrave noticed a smart grey Arab pony with a side-saddle.