or His Excellency was giving a fancy dress ball.
Motors and carriages were still rolling up in a long line to the
entrance where the gorgeously-clad Indian Cavalry soldiers of the
Governor's Bodyguard--tall and stately back-bearded men in long scarlet
tunics, white breeches and high black boots, their heads swathed in
gaudy _loongies_ (turbans) with tails streaming down their backs,
holding steel-headed bamboo lances with red and white pennons in their
white-gauntleted right hands--lined the approach. Inside, the splendid
ballroom, ablaze with electric lights, was crowded with gaily-dressed
figures in costumes beautiful or bizarre. The good-looking, middle-aged
baron who was the King's representative in the Bombay Presidency was
standing, dressed as Charles II., beside his plain but pleasant-featured
wife in the garb of Amy Robsart, receiving the last of their guests,
while already the dancing had begun.

Later in the evening a group of officers in varied costumes stood near
one of the entrances criticising the dresses and the company.

"By George, that's a magnificent kit," said a Garrison Gunner just
arrived on short leave from Bombay. "What's it supposed to be?"

"A Polish hussar, I think," replied a subaltern in Wellesley's Rifles.

"No, he's Murat, Napoleon's cavalry leader," said an Indian Lancer
captain.

The wearer of the costume alluded to was passing them in a waltz. He was
a young man in a splendid old-time hussar uniform, a scarlet dolman
thick-laced with gold, a fur-trimmed slung pelisse, tight scarlet
breeches embroidered down the front of the thighs in gold, and long red
Russian leather boots with gold tassels. He was good-looking, but not in
an English way, and the swarthiness of his complexion and a slight kink
in his dark hair seemed to hint a trace of coloured blood. He was
plainly Israelite in appearance; and the large nose with the
unmistakable racial curved nostril would become bulbous with years, the
firm cheeks flabby and the plump chin double.

"That dress cost some money, I'll bet," said the Gunner, cheaply attired
as a Pierrot. "Just look at the gold lace. I say, he's got glass
buttons."

"Glass be hanged, Fergie, they're diamonds. Real diamonds, honour
bright, Murat wore diamonds. He was buckin' about them in the Club
to-night," said a captain in a British infantry regiment quartered in
Poona. "That's Rosenthal of the 2nd Hussars from Bangalore. Son of old
Rosenthal the South African