eined instantly, and his two companions followed his
example; dignity forbade this. We must go to him.

But we did not.

As we reached the centre at our steady trot, but with our horses bearing
hard on the bit, Brace shouted--

"Halt!"

Without a touch, our horses stopped short, and there was an uneasy
movement of those facing us, the beautiful animals tossing their heads,
snorting, and seemed to know what was coming.

Then in another instant Brace said to us softly--

"Right about face!" and we turned, and sat to the wonder of the sowars
the rajah was training, while I felt how easily they might rush out and
cut us down from behind.

But there was not time, for Brace thundered out--

"Draw--swords!" and then, "The troop will advance at a walk."

There was a flash in the sunlight as our sabres leapt from their
scabbards, and another as Dobbs raised his trumpet to his lips and his
note rang out.

In an instant the whole line was in motion, advancing slowly, with the
heavy dull trampling of the horses, loudly heard by me above the
tumultuous beating of my heart.

I glanced to the right, and then at the rajah and his two officers
glittering with gold and gems, motionless, and as if astounded. It must
have struck him and his men that we were volunteers, renegades come to
join them, and drill the little force. But as we came abreast of them,
with the sowars all steadily in their places, and taking everything as a
matter of course, Brace's voice rose again--

"Trot!"

Again Dobbs's trumpet rang out, and the splendid horses, all trained to
the notes of that bugle, broke at once into a steady trot. The gun
wheels and limbers rattled, and an exciting yell ran along the line, men
beginning to drag frantically at their reins as the rajah and his
officers now awoke to the position of affairs, and roared out orders.
But, above the noise and the confusion in the line, Brace's voice rose
clear and loud--"Gallop!"

Then, clear ringing, and given with all his might, Dobbs blew forth a
triumphant charge, and the sowars might as well have pulled at rocks as
against the bits of the excited horses, as they broke into the swift
race to which they had been trained, gathering excitement from the
rattle of the wheels as, in a quarter of a minute, we were thundering
away down the plain, our speed increasing, the guns leaping and bounding
over the uneven ground; and as I gave one glance back, I saw the
white-robed gunners l