CHAPTER XII

ON THE POLO-GROUND

Violet Oliver travelled to India in the late autumn of that year, free from apprehension.  Somewhere beyond the high snow-passes Shere Ali would be working out his destiny among his own people.  She was not of those who seek publicity either for themselves or for their gowns in the daily papers.  Shere Ali would never hear of her visit; she was safe.  She spent her Christmas in Calcutta, saw the race for the Viceroy’s Cup run without a fear that on that crowded racecourse the importunate figure of the young Prince of Chiltistan might emerge to reproach her, and a week later went northwards into the United Provinces.  It was a year, now some while past, when a royal visitor came from a neighbouring country into India.  And in his honour at one great city in those Provinces the troops gathered and the tents went up.  Little towns of canvas, gay with bordered walks and flowers, were dotted on the dusty plains about and within the city.  Great ministers and functionaries came with their retinues and their guests.  Native princes from Rajputana brought their elephants and their escorts.  Thither also came Violet Oliver.  It was, indeed, to attend this Durbar that she had been invited out from England.  She stayed in a small camp on the great Parade Ground where the tents faced one another in a single street, each with its little garden of grass and flowers before the door.  The ends of the street were closed in by posts, and outside the posts sentries were placed.

It was a week of bright, sunlit, rainless days, and of starry nights.  It was a week of reviews and State functions.  But it was also a week during which the best polo to be seen in India drew the visitors each afternoon to the club-ground.  There was no more constant attendant than Violet Oliver.  She understood the game and followed it with a nice appreciation of the player’s skill.  The first round of the competition had been played off on the third day, but a native team organised by the ruler of a Mohammedan State in Central India had drawn a by and did not appear in the contest until the fourth day.  Mrs. Oliver took her seat in the front row of the stand, as the opposing teams cantered into the field upon their ponies.  A programme was handed to her, but she did not open it.  For already one of the umpires had tossed the ball into the middle of the ground.  The game had begun.

The native team was matched against a regiment of Dragoons, and from the beginning it was plain that the four English players were the stronger team.  But on the other side there was one who in point of skill outstripped them all.  He was stationed on the outside of the field farthest away from Violet Oliver.  He was a young man, almost a boy, she judged; he was beautifully mounted, and he sat his pony as though he and it were one.  He was quick to turn, quick to pass the ball; and he never played