with the utter weakness of the little company that followed them, striking an added note of pathos. Slowly they marched round the huge arena, slowly because they were old and the light of life burned low. It seemed almost as if some of them would never accomplish even that short journey. Something seemed to rise up and catch one in the throat as one watched. No moment in all my life has been quite like that. One felt as if one must cry out, as if one must break down and sob for very sympathy and joy and pride. They were the remnant, all that was left in India of those who had passed through the fire of Delhi and Lucknow—of those who had helped to save the Empire.
In the forefront marched the little band of Europeans, only twenty-seven of them. Behind, more pathetic still by reason of their great loyalty to another and once alien race, the company of Sepoys, only three hundred and eighty-seven strong all told. They were in every variety of costume. There was no attempt to march them round to their seats on the furthest side in anything like order. They were just left to come as they would. And it was just that that moved one most. It was the utter contrast to everything that had gone before, and that was to come after. Strength, precision, pomp, discipline, these had been the watchwords hitherto. Here there was neither one nor the other—only a great appalling weakness, a pathetic reminder of the strength that once had been. With quick, spontaneous unanimity the whole assembly rose to its feet, and then, brokenly at first, as if
