Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/249

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AN AMERICAN VICEREINE
239

word—to know that they would follow one, faithful even unto death—who wouldn't swagger strong in the knowledge of such loyalty as this? I have respected every guardsman I have ever met since. Then came the Royal Horse Artillery, no less inspiring, and great favourites with the crowd. More Dragoons and officers, and then—the Herald. Suddenly one was back in mediæval Europe. It was again the days of chivalry, of joust and tourney. The Herald, a blaze of red and blue and gold, with gorgeous tabard emblazoned with the arms of England, was riding, mace in hand, into the lists, his magnificent black charger pacing proudly, as if he knew full well that he was the cynosure of every eye. A moment and the splendid figure had passed by, and one's eye was riveted by the trumpeters—six native and six British—in coats of crimson velvet, lettered with the royal and imperial monogram on front and back. Hanging from the silver trumpets and the drums were banderoles, ablaze with the royal arms—the last touch of magnificence. Slowly they moved by, like some dream picture of the Middle Ages. In a flash one was back again amidst the pomp and glory of the India of to-day, as the Viceroy's bodyguard passed by—that splendid corps in gold and scarlet—the best mounted troops in all the East. And then, again, more splendid still, the Imperial Cadet Corps. Even then one felt that one had no adjective left to describe them, and the marvellous procession had but just begun. The ever-changing blaze of colour and magnificence literally smote one and made one dumb. Even