"In the evening, after prayers, appeared Mr. Ahmed Khan, slowly sauntering in, accompanied by his friends and domestics; a privileged servant carrying in his arms a magnificent bird, tall, thin, gaunt, and active, with the fierce, full, clear eye, the Chashmi Murwarid,[6] as the Persians call it; small, short, thin, taper head, long neck, stout crooked back, round compact body, bony, strong, and well-hung wings, stout thighs, shanks yellow as purest gold, and huge splay claws—in fact, a love of a cock.
"I thought of Bhujang for a moment despairingly.
"After a short and ceremonious dialogue, in which the old gentleman 'trotted' me out very much to his own satisfaction and the amusement of his companions, the terms of the wager were settled, and Bhujang was brought in, struggling upon his bearer's bosom, kicking his stomach, stretching his neck, and crowing with an air, as if he were the Sans-peur of all the cocks. 'There's an animal for you!' I exclaimed, as he entered. It was a rich treat to see the goguenard looks of my native friends.
"Countenances, however, presently changed, when sending for a few dozen Indian cock-spurs,[7] like little sabres, I lashed a pair to my bird's toes, and then politely proceeded to perform the same operation to my friend's. Ahmed Khan looked on curiously. He was too much of a sportsman, that is to say, a gentleman, to hang back, although he began to suspect that all was not right as he could have wished it to be. His bird's natural weapon was sound, thin, and sharp as a needle, low down upon the shank, at least an inch and a quarter long, and bent at the correctest angle; mine had short, ragged, and blunt bits of horn—the most inoffensive weapons imaginable. But the steel levelled all distinctions.
"We took up the champions, stood a few yards apart—the usual distance—placed them on the ground, and when the 'laissez aller' was given, let go.
"For some reason, by me unexplainable, the game-cock, especially in this country, when fighting with a dunghill, seldom begins the battle with the spirit and activity of his plebeian antagonist. Possibly the noble animal's blood boiling in his veins at the degrading necessity of entering the lists against an unworthy adversary confuses him for a moment. However that may be, one thing is palpable, namely, that he generally receives the first blows.
"On this occasion the vulgarian Bhujang, who appeared to be utterly destitute of respect for lineage and gentle blood—nay, more like an English snob, ineffably delighted at the prospect of 'thrashing' a gentleman—began to dance, spring, and kick with such happy violence and aplomb, that before the minute elapsed one of his long steels was dyed with the heart's blood of his enemy.
"Politeness forbad, otherwise I could have laughed aloud at the expression assumed by the faces present as they witnessed this especial 'do.' Ahmed Khan, at the imminent peril of a wound from the triumphant dunghill, whom excited cowardice now made vicious as a fiend, raised his cock from the ground, looked piteously for an instant at his glazing eye and drooping head, bowed, and handed it over to me with a sigh.
"Then like the parasite of Penaflor after dinner, I thus addressed him—