Next after Utirupa the princes rode in proper order of rank and precedence, each with two attendants up behind him waving fans of ostrich plumes.  Then came a band.  Then Samson, and a score of British officers in carriages whose teams were nearly frantic from the din and the smell of elephants and had to have runners to hold their heads—­all of which added exquisite amusement.  Then another band, and a column of the maharajah’s troops.  Then more elephants, loaded with the lesser notables; and after them, a column nearly a mile long of Rajput gentry on the most magnificent horses they could discover and go in debt for.

After the Rajput gentry came a third band, followed by more maharajah’s troops, and then Yasmini on her elephant, followed by twenty princesses and Tess, each with a great beast to herself and at least two maids to wave the jeweled fans.  Then more troops, followed by Dick and Tom Tripe together on horseback leading the rank and file.  Trotters jogged along between Tom and Dick, pausing at intervals to struggle with both forefeet to remove a collar bossed with solid gold that he regarded as an outrage to his dogly dignity.

And the rank and file were well worth looking at, for whoever could find a decent suit of clothes was marching, shouting, laughing, sweating, kicking up the dust, and having a good time generally.  The water-sellers were garnering a harvest; fruit- and sweetmeat-peddlers were dreaming of open-fronted shops and how to defeat the tax-collector.  The police swaggered and yelled and ordered everybody this and that way; and nobody took the slightest notice; and the policemen did not dare do anything about it because the crowd was too unanimously bent on having its own way, and therefore dangerous to bully but harmless if not hit.

Half-way down the thronging stream of men on foot came another elephant—­ a little one, alone, carrying three gentlemen in fine white raiment—­Bimbu and Pinga and Umra to wit, who, it is regrettable to chronicle, were very drunk indeed and laughed exceedingly at most unseemly jokes, exchanging jests with the crowd that would have made Tess’s hair stand on end, if she could have heard and understood them.  From windows, and roofs that overhung the street, people threw flowers at Bimbu, Pinga and Umra, because all Hindustan knows there is merit in treating beggars as if they were noblemen; and Bimbu wove himself a garland out of the buds to wear on his turban, which made him look more bacchanalian than ever.

In and out and around and through the ancient city the procession filed, passing now and then through streets so narrow that people could have struck Utirupa through the upper story windows; but all they threw at him was flowers, calling him “Bahadur” and king of elephants, and great prince, and dozens of other names that never hurt anybody with a sense of pageantry and humor.  He acted the part for them just as they wanted him to, sitting bolt upright in the howdah like a prince in a fairy story, with jeweled aigrette in his turban and more enormous diamonds flashing on his silken clothes than a courtesan would wear at Monte Carlo.  And all the other princes were likewise in degree, only that they rode rather smaller elephants, Akbar having no peer when he was sober and behaved himself.