The natives all ran to the point where the path debouched on the open space. All their lives they had seen their Raja come, as had their fathers, and theirs before them, and as often as not keeping just such state, but they never tired of the spectacle, and it never failed to move them. The rustle of satisfaction which is the Oriental equivalent of our “loud cheering,” and, by the way, very much more eloquent, swept through them like a gust of gentle wind in a field of well-ripe corn; then, as their prince came nearer, they prostrated themselves on each side of his way. They were delighted to see him, and exquisitely proud of his gorgeous and noised display, but not a face relaxed, all were inordinately grave, as too were the harlequin mobbery that preceded and followed his litter. Except in China and Burmah, merriment is not the Asian’s idea of enjoyment, and very rarely its expression. Even the babies are grave. But, for all that, the tatter-demalion Rukh populace were enjoying themselves intensely.
It was a wild procession that came down the mountain path. A gigantic negro, flourishing two great naked sabers, and gyrating in a barbaric war-dance, headed it. His sole garment was a tiger’s skin slung over one shoulder and falling apron-wise over one breast down to a little below his waist, his sole ornament a wide head-band of brass in which one great red stone burned. Six music-men followed him, beating their tom-toms and clashing their cymbals till the very air winced. They wore less than the ebon major-domo did, but what their crimson loin cloths lacked in quantity they made up in color, and they were flaked with chips of purple, green and yellow glass, and the musicians’ great, sinewy arms were hung with bells. And most of the runners who padded lightly behind them tinkled too as they walked. The short-distance runners, sent only about the capital itself, to and fro from the palace on the Raja’s errands, wore no bells, but the many more who were sent all over the kingdom, and even beyond it, each wore many tiny but noisy bells; for all Asia knows that wild beasts fear the sound of bells as they fear nothing else, and will flee from the path of the panting runner who tinkles and rings as he goes.
A half score of men, clad to their heels in spotless flowing white, each with a flat hat with wide, tightly rolled brim, each hat of a different costly brocade, came next, and close behind them was carried the Raja’s palanquin. It looked something like a Chinese bride-chair, but its gauze-hung sides were not opaque; it looked something like a Burmese pagoda, for its gilded, pointed roof rose above it on much the same lines as does the great pile at Mulmien. It looked a little like a high-carried boat; and not a little like a grotesque howdah, one corner of its canopy-roof upheld by a glittering, bright blue monkey, one by a writhing green-eyed vermilion snake, one by a twisted white and pink pelican, the other by an elaborate square pillar of sandal-wood, whose carvings simulated bamboos and tulips. It looked something like a super pantomime-chair; and it looked, as it was, a thing of great cost, and of the almost lifelong labor of many skilled and patient craftsmen.
The seated figure inside it showed but indistinctly through the gauzy film of the litter’s curtains; a human figure undoubtedly, and in perfect repose, but instinct with power—a blur of turquoise and rose, of heliotrope and saffron, of silk and satin and tinsel and gems. Immediately behind him came the strangest sight in Rukh—an English valet, if ever one was in Mayfair—an immaculate, demure, correct valet who might have strolled into the picture from St. James Street, and as unmoved, detached and imperturbable there in the Eastern glare and din as if the gyrating negro had been a white-gloved constable on point-duty, the prostrate half-naked crowd a well-dressed, leisurely mêlée of shoppers, or just come from Burlington House, and the musicians before and the guards and rabble behind buses and taxis on Piccadilly and Albemarle Street.
Behind Watkins, for his name was as English as his coat, came the Raja’s bodyguard, or a considerable detachment of it—grim-faced, high-cheeked men of all heights and shapes, dressed in the most fantastic and parti-colored attire that men-at-arms ever wore yet: short sleeveless jackets of velvet, jackets of silk that were all sleeves, pleated petticoats of chintz and of shantung silk, trousers of red and yellow woolens, bare brown, hairy legs, and legs spiraled with puttee-like twistings, some of exquisite embroideries, some of time-tarnished rags. Some wore upturned-toed sandals, some were shod but with studs on their toes or a ring of jade on one ankle or on both. One wore a helmet, one carried an umbrella, several wore caps—caps made of fur, of brocade or of sheer white “chicken-work”—one bare head was perfectly bald, one wore a dancing mop of densely oiled corkscrew curls. Several wore long chains of barbaric beads that clacked as they moved, one wore a collar of glass-jeweled tin; two were turbaned. All were armed with antique match-locks, some of them with barrels six or seven feet long; and one carried a tame, monster-sized rat on his naked shoulder, and three had marigolds stuck behind their ears, which was where two carried cheroots. Six boys, wearing long yellow skirts but nothing above them, brought up the rear. Two carried big, squat, lighted braziers, lest even in this heat their lord be cold; four, lest he be warm, carried huge long-handled fans of peacocks’ feathers and others of glass-sprinkled braided sweetgrass.
The bearers put the litter down deferentially, directly in front of the temple, and knelt down behind it with their faces to the ground.
Lucilla Crespin, for all her anxiety, wanted to laugh at this raree-show. She’d seen it done better at a Drury Lane pantomime!
But Crespin and Traherne had less impulse to laugh, or to smile. They suspected something of the strength that might lurk in the tigerish claws underneath the ridiculous gloves of tinsel.
The man in Bond Street clothes came at once, with a padded, cat-like tread to the side of the resting litter, parted its curtains, and held down obsequiously a crooked broadcloth arm through which, as it rose, the seated figure put a slim brown hand.
The Raja stepped out, released his servitor’s arm, and made just a step towards the three Europeans, scanning the men lightly and in silence—not seeming to see Mrs. Crespin.