And while they waited in sullen Asiatic patience,
through the restless silence and the smell--the suffocating, spice-fed,
filth-begotten smell of India--there ran an undercurrent of even
deeper mystery than India had ever known.
Priest-ridden Hanadra, that had seen the downfall of a hundred kings,
watched through heat-wearied eyes for another whelming the blood-soaked,
sudden flood that was to burst the dam of servitude and rid India
of her latest horde of conquerors. But eight hundred yards from where
her high brick walls lifted their age-scars in the stifling reek,
gun-chains jingled in a courtyard, and, sharp-clicking on age-old
flagstones, rose the ring of horses' feet.
Section Number One of a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery was waiting
under arms. Sabered and grim and ready stood fifty of the finest
men that England could produce, each man at his horse's head; and
blacker even than the night loomed the long twelve-pounders, in tow
behind their limbers. Sometimes a trace-chain jingled as a wheel-horse
twitched his flank; and sometimes a man spoke in a low voice, or
a horse stamped on the pavement; but they seemed like black graven
images of war-gods, half-smothered in the reeking darkness.
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