She glided towards us also, noiselessly
moving over the dusty road with her bare feet; and before we
realized what she was doing she had daubed me as well as the colonel
and Miss X---, which made the latter sneeze and wipe her face for
at least ten minutes, with loud but vain utterances of indignation.
The Babu and Mulji offered their faces to the little hand, full
of saffron, with smiles of condescending generosity. But the
indomitable Narayan shrank from the vestal so unexpectedly at the
precise moment when, with fiery glances at him, she stood on tiptoe
to reach his face, that she quite lost countenance and sent a full
dose of powder over his shoulder, whilst he turned away from her
with knitted brow. Her forehead also showed several threatening
lines, but in a moment she overcame her anger and glided towards
Ram-Runjit-Das, sparkling with engaging smiles. But here she met
with still less luck; offended at once in his monotheism and his
chastity, the "God's warrior" pushed the vestal so unceremoniously
that she nearly upset the elaborate pot-decoration of the altar.
A dissatisfied murmur ran through the crowd, and we were preparing
to be condemned to shameful banishment for the sins of the warlike
Sikh, when the drums sounded again and the procession moved on.
In front of everyone drove the trumpeters and the drummers in a car
gilded from top to bottom, and dragged by bullocks loaded with
garlands of flowers; next after them walked a whole detachment
of pipers, and then a third body of musicians on horseback, who
frantically hammered huge gongs.
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