Kuthen's followers came to a halt, while he and his family rode forward, preceded by a horseman, not far short of a hundred years old, who carried a double cross in token of the submission of his people both to Christianity and to the sovereignty of the Hungarian king. The King and Queen, their two sons, and two daughters, all wore loose garments of white woollen, fastened round the waist by unpolished belts of some sort of metal; and on their heads were pointed fur caps, such as are still worn by the Persians. The King and his sons had heavy swords of a peculiar shape, while the Queen and Princesses carried feather fans decorated with countless rows of red beads and bits of metal. What trust Kuthen felt in King Béla was shown by the fact that his bodyguard numbered no more than two or three hundred men armed for the most part with spears. Master Peter had much to tell when he returned home of the beautiful horses covered with the skins of wild beasts, on which Kuthen and his family were mounted, and which naturally excited the admiration of such horse-lovers as the Hungarians; also he told of the band of singers who preceded the chiefs, and marked the pauses between their songs by wild cries and the beating of long narrow drums; of the servants, women, and children, who journeyed in the rear of the army, those of the latter too small to walk being carried in fur skins slung on their mothers' backs; and of the immense flocks and herds reaching far away into the distance, whose herdmen, mounted on small, rough horses, drove their charges forward with long whips and the wildest of shouts. He told her, too, how King Béla had galloped forward to welcome his guest with outstretched hand, and had made the most gracious and friendly of speeches. "Much too gracious!" grunted Peter with a shrug of his shoulders. "All very fine, but the country will have to pay for it!" "Oh, yes, and when all sorts of compliments had been exchanged (through the interpreters of course, for they can't speak decent Hungarian) then up came the baggage-horses, and the tents were pitched in a twinkling side by side. They sprang up like mushrooms, and before long there was a regular camp, such a camp as you never saw!" Béla's tent was of bright colours without, and sparkled with silver and gold within; but Kuthen's, which was larger (for it accommodated his whole family), was meant not for show, but for use, and to be a defence against wind and rain, and was composed of wild-beast skins. There was a banquet in the royal tent in the evening, and the haughty Hungarian nobles saw, to their astonishment and relief, that, though their dress was simple, not very different in fact from that in which they had travelled, the King and Queen and their family actually knew how to behave with the dignity befitting their exalted rank.