rossed by a jewelled belt, bearing a sabre set with precious stones,
and upon his head he wore a little Astrakhan fur _kepi_, surmounted by
an egret's plume, like a feathery fountain from a diamond jet.

Orders were given for the guard to turn out, and the resident and Major
Sandars hurriedly prepared to meet their distinguished guest, who,
however, did not stop at the island, but went straight on to the
corvette, where he was received by a guard of marines, the captain
awaiting his visitor upon the quarter-deck.

The visit was but short, for at the end of a few minutes Captain Horton
accompanied the sultan on board the naga, and the long low vessel was
swiftly turned, and rowed with no little skill to the island
landing-place, where a sufficiently imposing military force, under
Captain Smithers, was ready to receive him, the sultan walking up to the
residency verandah, between a double line of infantry with bayonets
fixed.

The eastern potentate's opal eyeballs rolled from side to side as,
looking rather awkward in his ill-fitting European dress, he tried hard
to emulate the dignity of his bronze followers in baju and sarong, each
man with the handle of his kris carefully covered by a silken fold.

On landing here, the sultan was followed by his kris and sword-bearers,
each having his appointed station behind the monarch, holding the
weapons by the sheath, with the hilt against the right shoulder, so that
a very respectable procession, full of colour and glow, was formed from
the landing-place to the residency.

The most incongruous part of the following was the appearance of the
officer who bore an umbrella to keep the rays of the sun from his
liege's head; but as in place of one of the gorgeous, gold-fringed,
scarlet-clothed sunshades generally used for that purpose, this was an
unmistakeable London-made chaise gingham, with a decidedly Gampish look,
it robbed its master of some of his dignity, though he was so busily
employed in trying to carry his richly-jewelled sabre with the ease of
the English officers, and at the same time to show the splendid weapon
to the best advantage, that he saw not the want of dignity in his
umbrella, and walked awkwardly to where Mr Linton received him in
company with Major Sandars, and such officers as could hurry on the
uniforms they so scrupulously avoided in that torrid clime.

Tom Long, who paid more attention to the embellishment of his person
than any man in the detachment