“Soldiers. White soldiers!” said he. “Let us see.”
“It is always soldiers when thou and I go out alone together. But I have never seen the white soldiers.”
“They do no harm except when they are drunk. Keep behind this tree.”
They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two came forward uncertainly. They were the advance-party of a regiment on the march, sent out, as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot sticks with fluttering flags, and called to each other as they spread over the flat earth.
At last they entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.
“It’s here or hereabouts—officers’ tents under the trees, I take it, an’ the rest of us can stay outside. Have they marked out for the baggage-wagons behind?”
They cried again to their comrades in the distance, and the rough answer came back faint and mellowed.
“Shove the flag in here, then,” said one.
“What do they prepare?” said the lama, wonderstruck. “This is a great and terrible world. What is the device on the flag?”
A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion, who looked up and down the shaded cave of greenery, and returned it.