George Manville Fenn

Draw Swords! George Manville Fenn

Book Excerpt: ...tisfaction, and the breeches taken up. There is not much to be admired in a pair of breeches, be they ever so well cut; but still they were satisfactory, for, in their perfect whiteness, they threw up the beauty of the jacket and made a most effective contrast with the high, black jack-boots--the uniform of the Bengal Horse Artillery-man of those days being a compromise between that of our own corps and a Life Guardsman. The temptation was strong to try the white garments, and then draw on the high, black boots in their pristine glossiness; but that was deferred till a more convenient season, for there was the capital of the human column to examine--that glistening, gorgeous helmet of gilded metal, with its protecting Roman pattern comb, surmounted by a plume of scarlet horsehair, to stream right back and wave and spread over the burnished metal, to cool and shade from the torrid beams of the sun, while the front bore its decoration of leopard-skin, emblematic of the fierce swiftness of the anim...