ESPECIALLY WOMEN.
"We are fearfully and wonderfully made— especially women."
—Thackeray.
The afternoon sunlight flung lengthening shadows across the cavalry Lines, where men and native officers alike were housed in mud-plastered huts, innocent of windows; and where life was beginning to stir anew after the noontide tranquillity of the East.
The eighty horses of each troop stood, picketed with ample lengths of head and heel rope, between the lines of huts occupied by their sowars; while at the permanently open doorways squatted the men themselves,—Sikhs, Punjabi-Mahomedans, Pathans, each troop composed entirely of one or the other,—smoking, gambling, or putting final touches to their toilet in the broad light of day. The native officers alone aspired to a certain degree of privacy. Their huts were detached a little space from those that guarded the horses; and flimsy walls of grass matting, set around them, imparted a suggestion of dignity and aloofness from the common herd.
The hut of Jemadar Alla Dad Khan, of the Pathan troop of Desmond's squadron, boasted just such a matting wall, with a gateless gateway, even as in the bungalows of Sahibs; and withinsides all was very particularly set in order. There was an air of festivity in the open courtyard, on either side of which lay two smoke-grimed rooms, that made up the entire house.
For this was a red-letter day in the eyes of the Jemadar, and of Fatma Bibi, his wife, who had spent a full hour in adorning her plump person, and emphasising its charms according to the peculiar methods of the East. That done, she came forth into the sunlight, attired as becomes a Mahomedan woman who is expecting a visit of ceremony. Above her mysteriously draped trousers she wore a sleeveless coat, adorned with crescent-shaped pockets and a narrow gold braid. A sari [8] of gold-flecked muslin was draped over her head and shoulders, and beneath it her heavily oiled hair made a wide triangle of her forehead. The scarlet of betel-nut was upon her lips; the duskiness of kol shadowed her lashes. Ornaments of glass and silver encircled her neck and arms, and were lavishly festooned around her delicate ears.
Her entire bearing exhaled satisfied vanity like a perfume, as she sat at ease upon a bare charpoy [9] watching her husband's preparations for the expected guests.
He was arrayed in full-dress uniform, even to the two cherished medals on his chest; and his appearance sorted strangely with the peaceful nature of his occupation.
In the midst of the courtyard he had set forth—not without a secret glow of pride—as exact an imitation of the Sahibs' "afternoon tea" as his limited knowledge and resources would permit. From the mess khansamah he had borrowed a japanned tea-tray that had seen much service, a Rockingham teapot, chipped at the spout, two blue-rimmed cups and saucers, and half a dozen plates, which last he had set round the table at precisely equal distances from each other. Two of them were left empty for the use of his guests, and the other four were piled with dainties suitable for so high an occasion—sugar-topped biscuits (beloved of natives throughout the land), raw pistachio nuts, Cabul grapes and oranges. Then, because the central space had a barren aspect, the sugar-bowl was promoted to the place of honour for lack of a more suitable adornment.