It took all my faith to withstand the awe of the sight.

For these men were not the common Indian breed, but a race nurtured and armed for great wars, disciplined to follow one man, and sharpened to a needle-point in spirit.

Perhaps if I had been myself a campaigner I should have been less awed by the spectacle; but having nothing with which to compare it, I judged this a host before which the scattered Border stockades and Nicholson's scanty militia would go down like stubble before fire.
At the head of the plateau, just under the brow of the hill, and facing the half-circle of level land, stood a big tent of skins.

Before it was a square pile of boulders about the height of a man's waist, heaped on the top with brushwood so that it looked like a rude altar.

Around this the host had gathered, sitting mostly on the ground with knees drawn to the chin, but some few standing like sentries under arms.