“Dick, are you inclined to come and help the rajah to fight these savage mountaineers?” asked Reginald.
“I should think so! Wherever your honour goes, I am ready to follow,” answered Dick.
“Well, then, Burnett, let us settle it. We will tell the rajah at once that we are ready to help him to bring his rebellious subjects into order.”
The rajah was highly pleased. “If we succeed, you shall both be made great khans, and become the possessors of untold wealth; that I promise you!” he exclaimed.
The next day the army was on its march, the fighting-men scarcely so numerous as the camp-followers. The first were fierce-looking fellows,—partly cavalry and partly infantry. The cavalry were richly accoutred; the officers in gorgeous uniforms, with spears, carbines, and curved swords with jewelled hilts rattling by their sides. The foot-soldiers had more of a fighting look, with their shields and matchlocks. Then came elephants, carrying gaily-ornamented howdahs; camels—some for riding and others employed as beasts of burden—and horses innumerable; palanquins, conveying some of the female members of the rajah’s family, without whom the old chief never moved from home,—the whole train forming an immense line of a mile or more in length. Burnett and Reginald, as they surveyed it, could not help thinking that an active foe might manage to get in the rear and plunder them before the fighting-men could arrive for their defence.
The villagers, as the troops marched through the country, were thrown into the greatest consternation; the soldiers, without ceremony, taking whatever they wanted, and maltreating those who resisted them. The villagers were also compelled to turn out and make the roads practicable, or to cut new ones, to enable the army to advance. Men and women were all set to work; the only pay they received being abuse and punishment when they were unable to accomplish their tasks as rapidly as the rajah desired.
The camp at night occupied a considerable extent of country; and as the act of encamping occupied some time, a halt was called an hour or more before sunset. The rajah’s tent was pitched in the neighbourhood of an immense banyan-tree; those of his chief officers and attendants being placed, without much order, around it. Among these, one was appropriated for the use of Reginald and his friend. As they lay stretched at their length in the tent, smoking their hookahs, they could not fail to be struck by the picturesqueness of the curious scene. Near them lay the camels, chewing the cud in silence, and gracefully moving their bending necks as they brought up the balls of food into their mouths. The horses, picketed here and there, cropped their evening meal; while the elephants stood silently at a distance, occasionally moving their long trunks, or flapping their ears. The cries of the birds and the screams of the monkeys, as they composed themselves for the night, came forth from the neighbouring forest; while, at a distance, the devout Mussulmans were engaged in the muggreet, or evening prayer, as they knelt on their little mats, and bowed their heads to kiss the ground. Richly-dressed officers moved about amid the tents, and scantily-clothed warriors reclined in groups in all directions. The most actively engaged persons were the cooks, who were preparing the evening meal for their masters; the attendants standing ready to convey it to them as soon as it should be prepared. The setting sun, casting his lurid beams across the landscape, lighted up the figures of men and animals, and the tents and trees, with a golden hue.
Reginald had brought Faithful; who, indeed, would not have consented to have been left behind, and who now kept so strict a watch in his tent, that neither robber nor assassin would have ventured to enter it.
The only person of any consequence in the rajah’s household who had not come was Khan Cochût. He had no fancy for encountering the dangers of war; and though the rajah had commanded his attendance, he excused himself on the plea of severe illness.