The view which it commands is a fine one. Across
the flat expanse of the rice-fields, with the broad placid river
winding through them, the eye ranges eastward to high tablelands,
their lower slopes embowered in woods, while afar off looms the
great chain of the western Ghauts, and in the furthest distance the
Neilgherries or Blue Mountains, hardly distinguishable from the
azure of the sky above.
But it was not to the distant prospect that the king's eyes
naturally turned at this crisis of his fate. His attention was
arrested by a spectacle nearer at hand. For all the plain below was
alive with troops, their banners waving gaily in the sun, the white
tents of their many camps standing sharply out against the green and
gold of the ricefields. Forty thousand fighting men or more were
gathered there to defend the king. But if the plain swarmed with
soldiers, the road that cuts across it from the temple to the king's
stand was clear of them. Not a soul was stirring on it. Each side of
the way was barred by palisades, and from the palisades on either
hand a long hedge of spears, held by strong arms, projected into the
empty road, their blades meeting in the middle and forming a
glittering arch of steel.
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