"Don't you like him?" she asked at length.
"Decidedly; if that picture does him justice."
"Well, come on down to the tent-pegging, and find out for yourself."
From the bungalows crowning the mound a bare road sloped northward to the cavalry lines. Along it the two women rode at a foot's pace; for Evelyn still had much to say, and the girl was a notable listener. But even so the parade-ground below them came rapidly into view—a level expanse of brown earth, hard as a usurer's heart, varied only by lines of featureless mud huts, and backed by the dragon's teeth of the hills, brown also, save where sharply defined shadows broke the prevailing monotony of hue.
But the foreground of this toneless setting vibrated with life, movement, colour.
Groups of native troopers, in blue belted tunics and turbans of blue and gold, occupied the central space. English officers, in undress uniform, rode to and fro among them, criticising, encouraging, and generally directing the course of events. In an open shamianah, [4] eight or ten men divided their attention between a table at the back of the tent and the four ladies of the station, who perforce converted military events into those friendly gatherings which are the mainstay of Anglo-Indian life. Native onlookers, of all races and ranks, formed a mosaic border to the central theme; and a jumble of rollicking Irish airs from the Sikh band set Honor's foot tapping the air with brisk precision.
"Wait, Evelyn," she said. "I would like to see those four Pathans take the pegs from here. One gets the effect better from rising ground."
And Evelyn, whose knowledge of effects was limited to hats and hairdressing, drew rein obediently, her eyes probing the crowd for the one figure, to whom the rest were mere accessories, and rather troublesome accessories at that.