d 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 pi