Beginning at the left end of the first line, she passed slowly and alone before them, looking each man in the eyes, smiling at each one as she passed him.  Not a man but had his full meed of attention and the honor due to him who brings the spirit of observance and the will to help another man succeed.

Back along the second line she went, with the same supreme dignity and modesty, omitting not even the oldest veteran, nor letting creep into her smile the veriest suggestion of another sentiment than admiration for the manliness by whose leave she was doing what she did.  Each man received his smile of recognition and the deference due his pride.

Then down the third line, yet more slowly, until Tess had cold chills, thinking Utirupa was not there!  One by one she viewed them all, until the last man’s turn came, and she took him by the hand and led him forth.

At that the whole assembly milled into a mob and reformed in double line up and down the room.  The same voice that had thundered in the darkness roared again and two hundred swords leapt from their scabbards.  Under an arch of blazing steel, in silence, Yasmini and her chosen husband came to the dais and stood facing the assembly hand in hand, while the swords went back to their owners’ sides and once more the crowd clustered in the center of the hall.

There was a movement in among them then.  Some servants brought in baskets, and distributed them at about equal intervals amid the forest of booted legs.  When the servants had left the hall, Yasmini spoke.

“My Lords, in the presence of you all I vow love, honor, fealty and a wife’s devotion to the prince of my choosing—­to my husband who shall be—­ who now is by Gandharva ceremony; for I went to him of my own free will by night!  My Lords, I present to you—­”

There was a pause, while every man present caught his breath, and the women rustled like a dove-cot behind the panel.

“—­Gunga Khatiawara Dhuleep Rhakapushi Utirupa Singh—­Maharajah of Sialpore!”

Two hundred swords sprang clear again.  The chandeliers rattled and the beams shook to the thunder of two hundred throats.

“Rung Ho!” they roared.

“Rung Ho!”

“Rung Ho!” bringing down their right feet with a stamp all together that shook the building.

Then the baskets were cut open by the swords’ points and they flung flowers at the dais, swamping it in jasmine and sweet-smelling buds, until the carpet was not visible.  The same black-bearded veteran who had spoken first mounted the dais and hung garlands on Yasmini and her prince, and again the hall shook to the roar of acclamation and the sharp ringing of keen steel.

But Yasmini had not finished all she had to say.  When the shouting died and the blades returned to scabbards, her voice again stirred their emotions, strangely quiet and yet reaching all ears with equal resonance, like the note of a hidden bell.