Taking advantage of the swoon of the Princess, which made her unconscious, Alemguir gave the signal to depart.
We left the Palace, and then the City, to join the main army, which was encamped outside on the plains.
The Artillery and the Elephants were placed in the centre; the Horsemen on the right and left, and the foot-soldiers in front and at the rear.
The trumpets sounded a warlike march; the drums beat; the whole army gave a shout—and we marched on the enemy.
[CHAPTER VIII]
BATTLE
What a fearful thing is a battle! How terrible—how grand! It intoxicates, and stuns you. The music, the roar of the cannon, the firing, the shouts of the combatants; the tumult, the smoke, the dust—excite in you a strange madness, which makes you hate the creatures which you can scarcely see—whom you have never known, and who, for no other reason, are filled with the same murderous rage towards you!
At first I, who had never killed anything but tigers, shuddered at the thought of shedding human blood. I hesitated—I avoided giving blows. But suddenly I saw my Master in danger; a horseman was aiming at him at close range. He had not time to fire—my armed tusks disappeared in the belly of the horse, which I lifted high up in the air, and whose bleeding carcass I tossed, with its rider, into the ranks of the enemy.
From that moment it was carnage where I went. I pierced. I cut. I disembowelled all before me—making corpses of the living, and crushing to pulp the dead under my great feet, which soon were shod with blood.