Read "Fire Of Beauty" by Elizabeth Louisa Moresby online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
On a certain day found fortunate by the astrologers--a day of early winter, when the dawns were pure gold and the nights radiant with a cool moon--did a mighty troop of Moslems set their camp on the plain of Chitor. It was as if a city had blossomed in an hour. Those who looked from the walls muttered prayers to the Lord of the Trident; for these men seemed like the swarms of the locust--people, warriors all, fierce fighting-men. And in the ways of Chitor, and up the steep and winding causeway from the plains, were warriors also, the chosen of the Rajputs, thick as blades of corn hedging the path.
(Ahi! that the blossom of beauty should have swords for thorns!)