The other two guards made no move to leave their advantageous posts. The Brahman, also, abandoning his invocation to Agni, mounted the nearest tower, to watch the arrival of his earthly ruler. He had scarcely taken up his position when the vanguard of returning warriors rode out upon the bridge, a glittering company, headed by the stateliest of figures, at whose approach the guards all but knelt in salute to their ruler, Rai-Khizar-Pál, Rajah of Mandu in the country of Malwa, a brave and noble king. Slightly behind him rode two other richly dressed men, mounted on beautiful horses, each of whom came in for some share of the acknowledgments of the guards,—Puran, captain of the troops, and Ragunáth, confidential adviser of the Rajah. Slowly, for the horses were fagged with long marching, the three passed over the bridge, followed by a lengthening train of officers and men, horse and foot, over whose robes of crimson and white and green played the last beams of the setting sun, sending off a dazzle of light from the rubies that fastened a long spray of white feathers to the turban of the Rajah. By the time the first of the cavalcade had entered the broad road leading straight across the plateau to the palaces at its eastern end, throngs of field-workers and people of the town had begun to line the edges of the route; for the news of the army’s return had spread from one end of the plateau to the other, and men and women left their work and, stained and disordered with toil, rushed to the road to greet their ruler and their defenders. A well-built lot of people they were, by far the greater number of the men invested with the cord of the twice-born. And their king’s popularity was very evident from the welcome they were giving him. Men of the Brahman caste lifted their hands to him, Vaisyas fell upon their knees, and Sudras and Pariahs prostrated themselves upon the earth till he had passed. Then all stood gazing eagerly at the slow-moving file of troops. Jests, salutations, and words of welcome passed between the onlookers and the returning warriors; and the general spirit of joy was redoubled when it was found that the campaign, short as it had been, was also a victorious one. Evidences of victory presently became visible; for, at the end of the lines of foot-soldiers, came a long string of captives, many on foot, a few mounted upon mules, these last with their feet bound together by thongs passed round the animals, their arms tied behind them with ropes of hide, and the beasts themselves fastened together in a long chain. Beside this mounted company, who represented captives of station, rode a soldier armed with a triple-lashed whip, which he used with no great degree of compassion upon the backs of his charges.