The BridgeBuilders ...........................................................................................................................................1

Rudyard Kipling......................................................................................................................................1

The least that Findlayson, of the Public Works Department, expected was a C.I.E.; he dreamed of a C.S.I.

Indeed, his friends told him that he deserved more. For three years he had endured heat and cold,

disappointment, discomfort, danger, and disease, with responsibility almost to topheavy for one pair of

shoulders; and day by day, through that time, the great Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his

charge. Now, in less than three months, if all went well, his Excellency the Viceroy would open the bridge in

state, an archbishop would bless it, and the first trainload of soldiers would come over it, and there would be

Findlayson, C. E., sat in his trolley on a construction line that ran along one of the main revetments the

huge stonefaced banks that flared away north and south for three miles on either side of the river and

permitted himself to think of the end. With its approaches, his work was one mile and threequarters in

length; a latticegirder bridge, trussed with the Findlayson truss standing on sevenandtwenty brick piers.

Each one of those piers was twentyfour feet in diameter, capped with red Agra stone and sunk eighty feet

below the shifting sand of the Ganges' bed. Above them was a railwayline fifteen feet broad; above that,

again, a cartroad of eighteen feet, flanked with footpaths. At either end rose towers, of red brick, loopholed

for musketry and pierced for big guns, and the ramp of the road was being pushed forward to their haunches.

The raw earthends were crawling and alive with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny asses climbing out of the

yawning borrowpit below with sackfuls of stuff; and the hot afternoon air was filled with the noise of

hooves, the rattle of the drivers' sticks, and the swish and rolldown of the dirt. The river was very low, and

on the dazzling white sand between the three centre piers stood squat cribs of railwaysleepers, filled within

and daubed without with mud, to support the last of the girders as those were riveted up. In the little deep

water left by the drought, an overhead crane travelled to and fro along its spilepier, jerking sections of iron

into place, snorting and backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the timberyard. Riveters by the hundred

swarmed about the lattice sidework and the iron roof of the railway line hung from invisible staging under

the bellies of the girders, clustered round the throats of the piers, and rode on the overhang of the

footpathstanchions; their firepots and the spurts of flame that answered each hammerstroke showing no

more than pale yellow in the sun's glare. East and west and north and south the constructiontrains rattled and

shrieked up and down the embankments, the piled trucks of brown and white stone banging behind them till

the sideboards were unpinned, and with a roar and a grumble a few thousand tons' more material were flung

Findlayson, C. E., turned on his trolley and looked over the face of the country that he had changed for seven

miles around. Looked back on the humming village of five thousand workmen; up stream and down, along

the vista of spurs and sand; across the river to the far piers, lessening in the haze; overhead to the

guardtowers and only he knew how strong those were and with a sigh of contentment saw that his work

was good. There stood his bridge before him in the sunlight, lacking only a few weeks' work on the girders of

the three middle piers his bridge, raw and ugly as original sin, but pukka permanent to endure when all

memory of the builder, yea, even of the splendid Findlayson truss, has perished. Practically, the thing was

Hitchcock, his assistant, cantered along the line on a little switchtailed Kabuli pony who through long

"I've been thinking about it," the senior answered. "Not half a bad job for two men, is it?"

"One and a half. 'Gad, what a Cooper's Hill cub I was when I came on the works!" Hitchcock felt very old

in the crowded experiences of the past three years, that had taught him power and responsibility.

"You were rather a colt," said Findlayson. "I wonder how you'll like going back to officework when this

"I shall hate it!" said the young man, and as he went on his eye followed Findlayson's, and he muttered, "Isn't

"I think we'll go up the service together," Findlayson said to himself. "You're too good a youngster to waste

on another man. Cub thou wast; assistant thou art. Personal assistant, and at Simla, thou shalt be, if any credit

Indeed, the burden of the work had fallen altogether on Findlayson and his assistant, the young man whom he

had chosen because of his rawness to break to his own needs. There were labour contractors by the

halfhundred fitters and riveters, European, borrowed from the railway workshops, with, perhaps, twenty

white and halfcaste subordinates to direct, under direction, the bevies of workmen but none knew better

than these two, who trusted each other, how the underlings were not to be trusted. They had been tried many

times in sudden crises by slipping of booms, by breaking of tackle, failure of cranes, and the wrath of the

river but no stress had brought to light any man among men whom Findlayson and Hitchcock would have

honoured by working as remorselessly as they worked themselves. Findlayson thought it over from the

beginning: the months of offcework destroyed at a blow when the Government of India, at the last moment,

added two feet to the width of the bridge, under the impression that bridges were cut out of paper, and so

brought to ruin at least half an acre of calculations and Hitchcock, new to disappointment, buried his head in

his arms and wept; the heartbreaking delays over the filling of the contracts in England; the futile

correspondences hinting at great wealth of commissions if one, only one, rather doubtful consignment were

passed; the war that followed the refusal; the careful, polite obstruction at the other end that followed the war,

till young Hitchcock, putting one month's leave to another month, and borrowing ten days from Findlayson,

spent his poor little savings of a year in a wild dash to London, and there, as his own tongue asserted and the

later consignments proved, put the fear of God into a man so great that he feared only Parliament and said so

till Hitchcock wrought with him across his own dinner table, and he feared the Kashi Bridge and all who

spoke in its name. Then there was the cholera that came in the night to the village by the bridge works; and

after the cholera smote the smallpox. The fever they had always with them. Hitchcock had been appointed a

magistrate of the third class with whipping powers, for the better government of the community, and

Findlayson watched him wield his powers temperately, learning what to overlook and what to look after. It

was a long, long reverie, and it covered storm, sudden freshets, death in every manner and shape, violent and

awful rage against red tape half frenzying a mind that knows it should be busy on other things; drought,

sanitation, finance; birth, wedding, burial, and riot in the village of twenty warring castes; argument,

expostulation, persuasion, and the blank despair that a man goes to bed upon, thankful that his rifle is all in

pieces in the guncase. Behind everything rose the black frame of the Kashi Bridge plate by plate, girder

by girder, span by span and each pier of it recalled Hitchcock, the allround man, who had stood by his

So the bridge was two men's work unless one counted Peroo, as Peroo certainly counted himself. He was a

Lascar, a Kharva from Bulsar, familiar with every port between Rockhampton and London, who had risen to

the rank of serang on the British India boats, but wearying of routine musters and clean clothes, had thrown

up the service and gone inland, where men of his calibre were sure of employment. For his knowledge of

tackle and the handling of heavy weights, Peroo was worth almost any price he might have chosen to put

upon his services; but custom decreed the wage of the overheadmen, and Peroo was not within many silver

pieces of his proper value. Neither running water nor extreme heights made him afraid; and, as an exserang,

he knew how to hold authority. No piece of iron was so big or so badly placed that Peroo could not devise a

tackle to lift it a looseended, sagging arrangement, rigged with a scandalous amount of talking, but

perfectly equal to the work in hand. It was Peroo who had saved the girder of Number Seven pier from

destruction when the new wirerope jammed in the eye of the crane, and the huge plate tilted in its slings,

threatening to slide out sideways. Then the native workmen lost their heads with great shoutings, and

Hitchcock's right arm was broken by a falling Tplate, and he buttoned it up in his coat and swooned, and

came to and directed for four hours till Peroo, from the top of the crane, reported "All's well," and the plate

swung home. There was no one like Peroo, serang, to lash, and guy, and hold, to control the donkeyengines,

to hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out of the borrowpit into which it had tumbled; to strip, and dive, if need

be, to see how the concrete blocks round the piers stood the scouring of Mother Gunga, or to adventure

upstream on a monsoon night and report on the state of the embankmentfacings. He would interrupt the

fieldcouncils of Findlayson and Hitchcock without fear, till his wonderful English, or his still more

wonderful linguafranca, half Portuguese and half Malay, ran out and he was forced to take string and show

the knots that he would recommend. He controlled his own gang of tackle men mysterious relatives from

Kutch Mandvi gathered month by month and tried to the uttermost. No consideration of family or kin allowed

Peroo to keep weak hands or a giddy head on the payroll. "My honour is the honour of this bridge," he

would say to the abouttobedismissed. "What do I care for your honour? Go and work on a steamer. That

The little cluster of huts where he and his gang lived centred round the tattered dwelling of a seapriest one

who had never set foot on black water, but had been chosen as ghostly counsellor by two generations of

searovers all unaffected by port missions or those creeds which are thrust upon sailors by agencies along

Thames bank. The priest of the Lascars had nothing to do with their caste, or indeed with anything at all. He

ate the offerings of his church, and slept and smoked, and slept again, "for," said Peroo, who had haled him a

thousand miles inland, "he is a very holy man. He never cares what you eat so long as you do not eat beef,

and that is good, because on land we worship Shiva, we Kharvas; but at sea on the Kumpani's boats we attend

strictly to the orders of the Burra Malum [the first mate], and on this bridge we observe what Finlinson Sahib

Finlinson Sahib had that day given orders to clear the scaffolding from the guardtower on the right bank,

and Peroo with his mates was casting loose and lowering down the bamboo poles and planks as swiftly as

From his trolley he could hear the whistle of the serang's silver pipe and the creek and clatter of the pulleys.

Peroo was standing on the topmost coping of the tower, clad in the blue dungaree of his abandoned service,

and as Findlayson motioned to him to be careful, for his was no life to throw away, he gripped the last pole,

and, shading his eyes shipfashion, answered with the longdrawn wail of the fo'c'sle lookout: "Ham dekhta

Findlayson laughed and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a steamer, and he was sick for home. As

his trolley passed under the tower, Peroo descended by a rope, apefashion, and cried: "It looks well now,

Sahib. Our bridge is all but done. What think you Mother Gunga will say when the rail runs over?"

"There is always time for her; and none the less there has been delay. Has the Sahib forgotten last autumn's

flood, when the stoneboats were sunk without warning or only a halfday's warning?"

"Yes, but nothing save a big flood could hurt us now. The spurs are holding well on the West Bank."

"Mother Gunga eats great allowances. There is always room for more stone on the revetments. I tell this to

"No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in thine own fashion."

The Lascar grinned. "Then it will not be in this way with stonework sunk under water, as the Qyetta was

sunk. I like sussuspensheen bridges that fly from bank to bank. with one big step, like a gangplank.

"Ho! ho! He is like the Burra Malum. He sleeps below while the work is being done. Then he comes upon the

quarterdeck and touches with his finger, and says: 'This is not clean! Dam jibboonwallah!'"

"No, Sahib; but he does not come on deck till the work is all finished. Even the Burra Malum of the

"I, also!" said Peroo, with an unshaken countenance. "May I take the light dinghy now and row along the

"Nay, Sahib. It is thus. At sea, on the Black Water, we have room to be blown up and down without care.

Here we have no room at all. Look you, we have put the river into a dock, and run her between stone sills."

"We have bitted and bridled her. She is not like the sea, that can beat against a soft beach. She is Mother

"Peroo, thou hast been up and down the world more even than I. Speak true talk, now. How much dost thou

"All that our priest says. London is London, Sahib. Sydney is Sydney, and Port Darwin is Port Darwin. Also

Mother Gunga is Mother Gunga, and when I come back to her banks I know this and worship. In London I

did poojah to the big temple by the river for the sake of the God within. . . . Yes, I will not take the cushions

Findlayson mounted his horse and trotted to the shed of a bungalow that he shared with his assistant. The

place had become home to him in the last three years. He had grilled in the heat, sweated in the rains, and

shivered with fever under the rude thatch roof; the limewash beside the door was covered with rough

drawings and formulae, and the sentrypath trodden in the matting of the verandah showed where he had

walked alone. There is no eighthour limit to an engineer's work, and the evening meal with Hitchcock was

eaten booted and spurred: over their cigars they listened to the hum of the village as the gangs came up from

"Peroo has gone up the spurs in your dinghy. He's taken a couple of nephews with him, and he's lolling in the

"That's all right. He's got something on his mind. You'd think that ten years in the British India boats would

"So it has," said Hitchcock, chuckling. "I overheard him the other day in the middle of a most atheistical talk

with that fat old guru of theirs. Peroo denied the efficacy of prayer; and wanted the guru to go to sea and

"All the same, if you carried off his guru he'd leave us like a shot. He was yarning away to me about praying

"He told me that the first time he went into the engineroom of a steamer, when he was a boy, he prayed to

"Not half a bad thing to pray to, either. He's propitiating his own Gods now, and he wants to know what

Mother Gunga will think of a bridge being run across her. Who's there?" A shadow darkened the doorway,

"She ought to be pretty well used to it by this time. Only a tar. It ought to be Ralli's answer about the new

"What is it?" said the senior, and took the form. "that's what Mother Gunga thinks, is it," he said, reading.

"Keep cool, young 'un. We've got all our work cut out for us. Let's see. Muir wired half an hour ago: 'Floods

on the Ramgunga. Look out.' Well, that gives us one, two nine and a half for the flood to reach Melipur

Ghaut and seven's sixteen and a half to Lataoli say fifteen hours before it comes down to us."

"Curse that hillfed sewer of a Ramgunga! Findlayson, this is two months before anything could have been

expected, and the left bank is littered up with stuff still. Two full months before the time!"

"That's why it comes. I've only known Indian rivers for fiveandtwenty years, and I don't pretend to

understand. Here comes another tar." Findlayson opened the telegram. "Cockran, this time, from the Ganges

Canal: 'Heavy rains here. Bad.' He might have saved the last word. Well, we don't want to know any more.

We've got to work the gangs all night and clean up the riverbed. You'll take the east bank and work out to

meet me in the middle. Get everything that floats below the bridge: we shall have quite enough rivercraft

coming down adrift anyhow, without letting the stoneboats ram the piers. What have you got on the east

"Pontoon one big pontoon with the overhead crane on it. T'other overhead crane on the mended pontoon,

with the cartroad rivets from Twenty to Twentythree piers two construction lines, and a turningspur.

"All right. Roll up everything you can lay hands on. We'll give the gang fifteen minutes more to eat their

Close to the verandah stood a big nightgong, never used except for flood, or fire in the village. Hitchcock

had called for a fresh horse, and was off to his side of the bridge when Findlayson took the clothbound stick

and smote with the rubbing stroke that brings out the full thunder of the metal.

Long before the last rumble ceased every nightgong in the village had taken up the warning. To these were

added the hoarse screaming of conches in the little temples; the throbbing of drums and tomtoms; and, from

the European quarters, where the riveters lived, McCartney's bugle, a weapon of offence on Sundays and

festivals, brayed desperately, calling to "Stables." Engine after engine toiling home along the spurs at the end

of her day's work whistled in answer till the whistles were answered from the far bank. Then the big gong

thundered thrice for a sign that it was flood and not fire; conch, drum, and whistle echoed the call, and the

village quivered to the sound of bare feet running upon soft earth. The order in all cases was to stand by the

day's work and wait instructions. The gangs poured by in the dusk; men stopping to knot a loincloth or

fasten a sandal; gangforemen shouting to their subordinates as they ran or paused by the toolissue sheds

for bars and mattocks; locomotives creeping down their tracks wheeldeep in the crowd; till the brown

torrent disappeared into the dusk of the riverbed, raced over the pilework, swarmed along the lattices,

Then the troubled beating of the gong carried the order to take up everything and bear it beyond highwater

mark, and the flarelamps broke out by the hundred between the webs of dull iron as the riveters began a

night's work, racing against the flood that was to come. The girders of the three centre piers those that stood

on the cribs were all but in position. They needed just as many rivets as could be driven into them, for the

flood would assuredly wash out their supports, and the ironwork would settle down on the caps of stone if

they were not blocked at the ends. A hundred crowbars strained at the sleepers of the temporary line that fed

the unfinished piers. It was heaved up in lengths, loaded into trucks, and backed up the bank beyond

floodlevel by the groaning locomotives. The toolsheds on the sands melted away before the attack of

shouting armies, and with them went the stacked ranks of Government stores, ironhound boxes of rivets,

pliers, cutters, duplicate parts of the rivetingmachines, spare pumps and chains. The big crane would be the

last to be shifted, for she was hoisting all the heavy stuff up to the main structure of the bridge. The concrete

blocks on the fleet of stoneboats were dropped overside, where there was any depth of water, to guard the

piers, and the empty boats themselves were poled under the bridge downstream. It was here that Peroo's

pipe shrilled loudest, for the first stroke of the big gong had brought the dinghy back at racing speed, and

Peroo and his people were stripped to the waist, working for the honour and credit which are better than life.

"I knew she would speak," he cried. "I knew, but the telegraph gives us good warning. O sons of unthinkable

begetting children of unspeakable shame are we here for the look of the thing?" It was two feet of

wirerope frayed at the ends, and it did wonders as Peroo leaped from gunnel to gunnel, shouting the

Findlayson was more troubled for the stoneboats than anything else. McCartney, with his gangs, was

blocking up the ends of the three doubtful spans. but boats adrift, if the flood chanced to be a high one, might

"Get them behind the swell of the guardtower," he shouted down to Peroo. "It will be deadwater there. Get

"Accha! [Very good.] I know; we are mooring them with wirerope," was the answer. "Heh! Listen to the

From across the river came an almost continuous whistling of locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone.

Hitchcock at the last minute was spending a few hundred more trucks of Tarakee stone in reinforcing his

"The bridge challenges Mother Gunga," said Peroo, with a laugh. "But when she talks I know whose voice

For hours the naked men worked, screaming and shouting under the lights. It was a hot, moonless night; the

end of it was darkened by clouds and a sudden squall that made Findlayson very grave.

"She moves!" said Peroo, just before the dawn. "Mother Gunga is awake! Hear!" He dipped his hand over the

side of a boat and the current mumbled on it. A little wave hit the side of a pier with a crisp slap.

"Now we can't depend on anything. We'd better clear all hands out of the riverbed."

Again the big gong beat, and a second time there was the rushing of naked feet on earth and ringing iron; the

clatter of tools ceased. In the silence, men heard the dry yawn of water crawling over thirsty sand.

Foreman after foreman shouted to Findlayson, who had posted himself by the guardtower, that his section of

the riverbed had been cleaned out, and when the last voice dropped Findlayson hurried over the bridge till

the iron plating of the permanent way gave place to the temporary plankwalk over the three centre piers, and

"'All clear your side?" said Findlayson. The whisper rang in the box of lattice work.

"Yes, and the east channel's filling now. We're utterly out of our reckoning. When is this thing down on us?"

"There's no saying. She's filling as fast as she can. Look!" Findlayson pointed to the planks below his feet,

where the sand, burned and defiled by months of work, was beginning to whisper and fizz.

"Call the roll count stores sit on your hunkers and pray for the bridge. That's all I can think of Good night.

"Oh, I'll be as prudent as you are! 'Night. Heavens, how she's filling! Here's the rain in earnest."

Findlayson picked his way back to his bank, sweeping the last of McCartney's riveters before him. The gangs

had spread themselves along the embankments, regardless of the cold rain of the dawn, and there they waited

for the flood. Only Peroo kept his men together behind the swell of the guardtower, where the stoneboats

A shrill wail ran along the line, growing to a yell, half fear and half wonder: the face of the river whitened

from bank to hank between the stone facings, and the faraway spurs went out in spouts of foam. Mother

Gunga had come bankhigh in haste, and a wall of chocolatecoloured water was her messenger. There was

a shriek above the roar of the water, the complaint of the spans coming down on their blocks as the cribs were

whirled out from under their bellies. The stoneboats groaned and ground each other in the eddy that swung

round the abutment, and their clumsy masts rose higher and higher against the dim skyline.

"Before she was shut between these walls we knew what she would do. Now she is thus cramped God only

knows what she will do!" said Peroo, watching the furious turmoil round the guardtower. "Ohe'! Fight, then!

But Mother Gunga would not fight as Peroo desired. After the first downstream plunge there came no more

walls of water, but the river lifted herself bodily, as a snake when she drinks in midsummer, plucking and

fingering along the revetments, and banking up behind the piers till even Findlayson began to recalculate the

When day came the village gasped. "Only last night," men said, turning to each other, "it was as a town in the

And they looked and wondered afresh at the deep water, the racing water that licked the throat of the piers.

The farther bank was veiled by rain, into which the bridge ran out and vanished; the spurs upstream were

marked by no more than eddies and spoutings, and downstream the pent river, once freed of her

guidelines, had spread like a sea to the horizon. Then hurried by, rolling in the water, dead men and oxen

together, with here and there a patch of thatched roof that melted when it touched a pier.

"Big flood," said Peroo, and Findlayson nodded. It was as big a flood as he had any wish to watch. His bridge

would stand what was upon her now, but not very much more, and if by any of a thousand chances there

happened to be a weakness in the embankments, Mother Gunga would carry his honour to the sea with the

other raffle. Worst of all, there was nothing to do except to sit still; and Findlayson sat still under his

macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and his boots were overankle in mire. He took no count

of time, for the river was marking the hours, inch by inch and foot by foot, along the embankment, and he

listened, numb and hungry, to the straining of the stoneboats, the hollow thunder under the piers, and the

hundred noises that make the full note of a flood. Once a dripping servant brought him food, but he could not

eat; and once he thought that he heard a faint toot from a locomotive across the river, and then he smiled. The

bridge's failure would hurt his assistant not a little, hut Hitchcock was a young man with his big work yet to

do. For himself the crash meant everything everything that made a hard life worth the living. They would

say, the men of his own profession . . .he remembered the halfpitying things that he himself had said when

Lockhart's new waterworks burst and broke down in brickheaps and sludge, and Lockhart's spirit broke in

him and he died. He remembered what he himself had said when the Sumao Bridge went out in the big

cyclone by the sea; and most he remembered poor Hartopp's face three weeks later, when the shame had

marked it. His bridge was twice the size of Hartopp's, and it carried the Findlayson truss as well as the new

piershoe the Findlayson bolted shoe. There were no excuses in his service. Government might listen,

perhaps, but his own kind would judge him by his bridge, as that stood or fell. He went over it in his head,

plate by plate, span by span, brick by brick, pier by pier, remembering, comparing, estimating, and

recalculating, lest there should be any mistake; and through the long hours and through the flights of

formulae that danced and wheeled before him a cold fear would come to pinch his heart. His side of the sum

was beyond question; but what man knew Mother Gunga's arithmetic? Even as he was making all sure by the

multiplication table, the river might be scooping a pothole to the very bottom of any one of those

eightyfoot piers that carried his reputation. Again a servant came to him with food, but his mouth was dry,

and he could only drink and return to the decimals in his brain. And the river was still rising. Peroo, in a mat

shelter coat, crouched at his feet, watching now his face and now the face of the river, but saying nothing.

At last the Lascar rose and floundered through the mud towards the village, but he was careful to leave an

Presently he returned, most irreverently driving before him the priest of his creed a fat old man, with a grey

beard that whipped the wind with the wet cloth that blew over his shoulder. Never was seen so lamentable a

"What good are offerings and little kerosene lamps and dry grain," shouted Peroo, "if squatting in the mud is

all that thou canst do? Thou hast dealt long with the Gods when they were contented and wellwishing. Now

"What is a man against the wrath of Gods?" whined the priest, cowering as the wind took him. "Let me go to

"Son of a pig, pray here! Is there no return for salt fish and curry powder and dried onions? Call aloud! Tell

Mother Gunga we have had enough. Bid her be still for the night. I cannot pray, but I have been serving in the

Kumpani's boats, and when men did not obey my orders I " A flourish of the wirerope colt rounded the

"Fat pig!" said Peroo. "After all that we have done for him! When the flood is down I will see to it that we get

a new guru. Finlinson Sahib, it darkens for night now, and since yesterday nothing has been eaten. Be wise,

Sahib. No man can endure watching and great thinking on an empty belly. Lie down, Sahib. The river will do

"Wilt thou hold it up with thy hands, then?" said Peroo, laughing. "I was troubled for my boats and sheers

before the flood came. Now we are in the hands of the Gods. The Sahib will not eat and lie down? Take

these, then. They are meat and good toddy together, and they kill all weariness, besides the fever that follows

He took a small tin tobaccobox from his sodden waistbelt and thrust it into Findlayson's hand, saying:

Findlayson shook two or three of the darkbrown pellets into his hand, and hardly knowing what he did,

swallowed them. The stuff was at least a good guard against fever the fever that was creeping upon him out

of the wet mud and he had seen what Peroo could do in the stewing mists of autumn on the strength of a

Peroo nodded with bright eyes. "In a little in a little the Sahib will find that he thinks well again. I too will

" He dived into his treasurebox, resettled the raincoat over his head, and squatted down to watch the

boats. It was too dark now to see beyond the first pier, and the night seemed to have given the river new

strength. Findlayson stood with his chin on his chest, thinking. There was one point about one of the piers

the seventh that he had not fully settled in his mind. The figures would not shape themselves to the eye

except one by one and at enormous intervals of time. There was a sound rich and mellow in his ears like the

deepest note of a doublebass an entrancing sound upon which he pondered for several hours, as it seemed.

Then Peroo was at his elbow, shouting that a wire hawser had snapped and the stoneboats were loose.

Findlayson saw the fleet open and swing out fanwise to a longdrawn shriek of wire straining across gunnels.

"A tree hit them. They will all go," cried Peroo. "The main hawser has parted. What does the Sahib do?"

An immensely complex plan had suddenly flashed into Findlayson's mind. He saw the ropes running from

boat to boat in straight lines and angles each rope a line of white fire. But there was one rope which was the

master rope. He could see that rope. If he could pull it once, it was absolutely and mathematically certain that

the disordered fleet would reassemble itself in the backwater behind the guardtower. But why, he wondered,

was Peroo clinging so desperately to his waist as he hastened down the bank? It was necessary to put the

Lascar aside, gently and slowly, because it was necessary to save the boats, and, further, to demonstrate the

extreme ease of the problem that looked so difficult. And then but it was of no conceivable importance a

wirerope raced through his hand, burning it, the high bank disappeared, and with it all the slowly dispersing

factors of the problem. He was sitting in the rainy darkness sitting in a boat that spun like a top, and Peroo

"I had forgotten," said the Lascar, slowly, "that to those fasting and unused, the opium is worse than any

wine. Those who die in Gunga go to the Gods. Still, I have no desire to present myself before such great ones.

"He is mad!" muttered Peroo, under his breath. "And he threw me aside like a bundle of dungcakes. Well,

he will not know his death. The boat cannot live an hour here even if she strike nothing. It is not good to look

He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted down in the bows of the reeling, pegged, and stitched

craft, staring through the mist at the nothing that was there. A warm drowsiness crept over Findlayson, the

Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his bridge. The heavy raindrops struck him with a thousand tingling

little thrills, and the weight of all time since time was made hung heavy on his eyelids. He thought and

perceived that he was perfectly secure, for the water was so solid that a man could surely step out upon it,

and, standing still with his legs apart to keep his balance this was the most important point would be

borne with great and easy speed to the shore. But yet a better plan came to him. It needed only an exertion of

will for the soul to hurl the body ashore as wind drives paper, to waft it kitefashion to the bank. Thereafter

the boat spun dizzily suppose the high wind got under the freed body? Would it tower up like a kite and

pitch headlong on the faraway sands, or would it duck about, beyond control, through all eternity?

Findlayson gripped the gunnel to anchor himself, for it seemed that he was on the edge of taking the flight

before he had settled all his plans. Opium has more effect on the white man than the black. Peroo was only

comfortably indifferent to accidents. "She cannot live," he grunted. "Her seams open already. If she were

even a dinghy with oars we could have ridden it out; but a box with holes is no good. Finlinson Sahib, she

"Accha! I am going away. Come thou also." In his mind, Findlayson had already escaped from the boat, and

was circling high in air to find a rest for the sole of his foot. His body he was really sorry for its gross

"How very ridiculous!" he said to himself from his eyrie " that is Findlayson chief of the Kashi Bridge.

The poor beast is going to be drowned, too. Drowned when it's close to shore. I'm I'm on shore already.

To his intense disgust, he found his soul back in his body again, and that body spluttering and choking in

deep water. The pain of the reunion was atrocious, but it was necessary, also, to fight for the body. He was

conscious of grasping wildly at wet sand, and striding prodigiously, as one strides in a dream, to keep

foothold in the swirling water, till at last he hauled himself clear of the hold of the river, and dropped,

"Not this night," said Peroo, in his ear. "The Gods have protected us." The Lascar moved his feet cautiously,

and they rustled among dried stumps. "This is some island of last year's indigocrop," he went on. "We shall

find no men here; but have great care, Sahib; all the snakes of a hundred miles have been flooded out. Here

comes the lightning, on the heels of the wind. Now we shall be able to look; but walk carefully."

Findlayson was far and far beyond any fear of snakes, or indeed any merely human emotion. He saw, after he

had rubbed the water from his eyes, with an immense clearness, and trod, so it seemed to himself with

worldencompassing strides. Somewhere in the night of time he had built a bridge a bridge that spanned

illimitable levels of shining seas; but the Deluge had swept it away, leaving this one island under heaven for

An incessant lightning, forked and blue, showed all that there was to be seen on the little patch in the flood

a clump of thorn, a clump of swaying creaking bamboos, and a grey gnarled peepul overshadowing a Hindoo

shrine, from whose dome floated a tattered red flag. The holy man whose summer restingplace it was had

long since abandoned it, and the weather had broken the reddaubed image of his god. The two men

stumbled, heavylimbed and heavyeyed, over the ashes of a brickset cookingplace, and dropped down

The stumps of the indigo crackled, and there was a smell of cattle, as a huge and dripping Brahminee bull

shouldered his way under the tree. The flashes revealed the trident mark of Shiva on his flank, the insolence

of head and hump, the luminous staglike eyes, the brow crowned with a wreath of sodden marigold blooms,

and the silky dewlap that almost swept the ground. There was a noise behind him of other beasts coming up

from the floodline through the thicket, a sound of heavy feet and deep breathing.

"Here be more beside ourselves," said Findlayson, his head against the treepole, looking through halfshut

"Ah, true! The Gods surely the Gods." Findlayson smiled as his head fell forward on his chest. Peroo was

eminently right. After the Flood, who should be alive in the land except the Gods that made it the Gods to

whom his village prayed nightly the Gods who were in all men's mouths and about all men's ways. He

could not raise his head or stir a finger for the trance that held him, and Peroo was smiling vacantly at the

The Bull paused by the shrine, his head lowered to the damp earth. A green Parrot in the branches preened his

wet wings and screamed against the thunder as the circle under the tree filled with the shifting shadows of

beasts. There was a black Buck at the Bull's heelssuch a Buck as Findlayson in his faraway life upon earth

might have seen in dreams a Buck with a royal head, ebon back, silver belly, and gleaming straight horns.

Beside him, her head bowed to the ground, the green eyes burning under the heavy brows, with restless tail

The Bull crouched beside the shrine, and there leaped from the darkness a monstrous grey Ape, who seated

himself manwise in the place of the fallen image, and the rain spilled like jewels from the hair of his neck

and shoulders. Other shadows came and went behind the circle, among them a drunken Man flourishing staff

and drinkingbottle. Then a hoarse bellow broke out from near the ground. "The flood lessens even now," it

"My bridge," said Findlayson to himself "That must be very old work now. What have the Gods to do with

His eyes rolled in the darkness following the roar. A Mugger the bluntnosed, fordhaunting Mugger of

the Ganges draggled herself before the beasts, lashing furiously to right and left with her tail.

"They have made it too strong for me. In all this night I have only torn away a handful of planks. The walls

stand. The towers stand. They have chained my flood, and the river is not free any more. Heavenly Ones, take

this yoke away! Give me clear water between bank and bank! It is I, Mother Gunga, that speak. The Justice of

"What said I?" whispered Peroo. "This is in truth a Punchayet of the Gods. Now we know that all the world is

The Parrot screamed and fluttered again, and the Tigress, her ears flat to her head, snarled wickedly.

Somewhere in the shadow, a great trunk and gleaming tusks swayed to and fro, and a low gurgle broke the

"We be here," said a deep voice, "the Great Ones. One only and very many. Shiv, my father, is here, with

"Kashi is without her Kotwal tonight," shouted the Man with the drinkingbottle, flinging his staff to the

ground, while the island rang to the baying of hounds. "Give her the Justice of the Gods."

"Ye were still when they polluted my waters," the great Crocodile bellowed. "Ye made no sign when my

river was trapped between the walls. I had no help save my own strength, and that failed the strength of

Mother Gunga failed before their guardtowers. What could I do? I have done everything. Finish now,

"I brought the death; I rode the spotted sickness from hut to hut of their workmen, and yet they would not

cease." A noseslitten, hideworn Ass, lame, scissorlegged, and galled, limped forward. "I cast the death at

"Bah!" he said, spitting. "Here is Sitala herself; Mata the smallpox. Has the Sahib a handkerchief to put

"Little help! They fed me the corpses for a month, and I flung them out on my sandbars, but their work went

forward. Demons they are, and sons of demons! And ye left Mother Gunga alone for their firecarriage to

The Bull turned the cud in his mouth and answered slowly: "If the Justice of the Gods caught all who made a

"But this goes beyond a mock," said the Tigress, darting forward a griping paw. "Thou knowest, Shiv, and ye,

too, Heavenly Ones; ye know that they have defiled Gunga. Surely they must come to the Destroyer. Let

"Does Mother Gunga die, then, in a year, that she is so anxious to see vengeance now? The deep sea was

where she runs but yesterday, and tomorrow the sea shall cover her again as the Gods count that which men

call time. Can any say that this their bridge endures till tomorrow?" said the Buck.

There was a long hush, and in the clearing of the storm the full moon stood up above the dripping trees.

"Judge ye, then," said the River, sullenly. "I have spoken my shame. The flood falls still. I can do no more."

"For my own part " it was the voice of the great Ape seated within the shrine " it pleases me well to watch

these men, remembering that I also builded no small bridge in the world's youth."

"They say, too," snarled the Tiger, "that these men came of the wreck of thy armies, Hanuman, and therefore

"They toil as my armies toiled in Lanka, and they believe that their toil endures. Indra is too high, but Shiv,

"Their Gods! What should their Gods know? They were born yesterday, and those that made them are

"Ho!" said Peroo. "Mother Gunga talks good talk. I told that to the padresahib who preached on the

Mombassa, and he asked the Burra Malum to put me in irons for a great rudeness."

"Not altogether," the Elephant rolled forth. "It is for the profit of my mahajuns my fat moneylenders that

worship me at each new year, when they draw my image at the head of the accountbooks. I, looking over

their shoulders by lamplight, see that the names in the books are those of men in far places for all the towns

are drawn together by the firecarriage, and the money comes and goes swiftly, and the accountbooks grow

"They have changed the face of the landwhich is my land. They have killed and made new towns on my

"It is but the shifting of a little dirt. Let the dirt dig in the dirt if it pleases the dirt," answered the Elephant.

"But afterwards?" said the Tiger. "Afterwards they will see that Mother Gunga can avenge no insult, and they

fall away from her first, and later from us all, one by one. In the end, Ganesh, we are left with naked altars."

"Kali lies. My sister lies. Also this my stick is the Kotwal of Kashi, and he keeps tally of my pilgrims. When

the time comes to worship Bhaironand it is always time the firecarriages move one by one, and each

bears a thousand pilgrims. They do not come afoot any more, but rolling upon wheels, and my honour is

"Gunga, I have seen thy bed at Pryag black with the pilgrims," said the Ape, leaning forward, "and but for the

"They come to me always," Bhairon went on thickly. "By day and night they pray to me, all the Common

People in the fields and the roads. Who is like Bhairon today? What talk is this of changing faiths? Is my

staff Kotwal of Kashi for nothing? He keeps the tally, and he says that never were so many altars as today,

and the firecarriage serves them well. Bhairon am I Bhairon of the Common People, and the chiefest of the

"Peace, thou" lowed the Bull. "The worship of the schools is mine, and they talk very wisely, asking whether

I be one or many, as is the delight of my people, and ye know what I am. Kali, my wife, thou knowest also."

"Greater am I than Gunga also. For ye know who moved the minds of men that they should count Gunga holy

among the rivers. Who die in that water ye know how men say come to us without punishment, and

Gunga knows that the firecarriage has borne to her scores upon scores of such anxious ones; and Kali knows

that she has held her chiefest festivals among the pilgrimages that are fed by the firecarriage. Who smote at

Pooree, under the Image there, her thousands in a day and a night, and bound the sickness to the wheels of the

firecarriages, so that it ran from one end of the land to the other? Who but Kali? Before the firecarriage

came it was a heavy toil. The firecarriages have served thee well, Mother of Death. But I speak for mine

own altars, who am not Bhairon of the Common Folk, but Shiv. Men go to and fro, making words and telling

talk of strange Gods, and I listen. Faith follows faith among my people in the schools, and I have no anger;

for when all words are said, and the new talk is ended, to Shiv men return at the last."

"True. It is true," murmured Hanuman. "To Shiv and to the others, mother, they return. I creep from temple to

temple in the North, where they worship one God and His Prophet; and presently my image is alone within

"Small thanks," said the Buck, turning his head slowly. "I am that One and His Prophet also."

"Even so, father," said Hanuman. "And to the South I go who am the oldest of the Gods as men know the

Gods, and presently I touch the shrines of the New Faith and the Woman whom we know is hewn

"Even so, sister; and I go West among the firecarriages, and stand before the bridgebuilders in many

shapes, and because of me they change their faiths and are very wise. Ho! ho! I am the builder of bridges,

indeed bridges between this and that, and each bridge leads surely to Us in the end. Be content, Gunga.

"Am I alone, then, Heavenly Ones? Shall I smooth out my flood lest unhappily I bear away their walls? Will

Indra dry my springs in the hills and make me crawl humbly between their wharfs? Shall I bury me in the

"And all for the sake of a little iron bar with the firecarriage atop. Truly, Mother Gunga is always young!"

said Ganesh the Elephant. "A child had not spoken more foolishly. Let the dirt dig in the dirt ere it return to

the dirt. I know only that my people grow rich and praise me. Shiv has said that the men of the schools do not

forget; Bhairon is content for his crowd of the Common People; and Hanuman laughs."

"Surely I laugh," said the Ape. "My altars are few beside those of Ganesh or Bhairon, but the firecarriages

bring me new worshippers from beyond the Black Water the men who believe that their God is toil. I run

"Give them the toil that they desire, then," said the River. "Make a bar across my flood and throw the water

back upon the bridge. Once thou wast strong in Lanka, Hanuman. Stoop and lift my bed."

"Who gives life can take life." The Ape scratched in the mud with a long forefinger. "And yet, who would

There came up from the water a snatch of a lovesong such as the boys sing when they watch their cattle in

the noon heats of late spring. The Parrot screamed joyously, sidling along his branch with lowered head as

the song grew louder, and in a patch of clear moonlight stood revealed the young herd, the darling of the

Gopis, the idol of dreaming maids and of mothers ere their children are born Krishna the Wellbeloved. He

"Fleeting and singing, and singing and fleeting," hiccupped Bhairon. "Those make thee late for the council,

"And then?" said Krishna, with a laugh, throwing back his head. "Ye can do little without me or Karma here."

He fondled the Parrot's plumage and laughed again. "What is this sitting and talking together? I heard Mother

Gunga roaring in the dark, and so came quickly from a hut where I lay warm. And what have ye done to

Karma, that he is so wet and silent? And what does Mother Gunga here? Are the heavens full that ye must

"Gunga has prayed for a vengeance on the bridgebuilders, and Kali is with her. Now she bids Hanuman

whelm the bridge, that her honour may be made great," cried the Parrot. "I waited here, knowing that thou

"And the Heavenly Ones said nothing? Did Gunga and the Mother of Sorrows outtalk them? Did none

"Nay," said Ganesh, moving uneasily from foot to foot; "I said it was but dirt at play, and why should we

"I am Bhairon of the Common Folk, and this my staff is Kotwal of all Kashi. I spoke for the Common

"Am I not the first of the Gods in their mouths today?" returned Bhairon, unabashed. "For the sake of the

Common People I said very many wise things which I have now forgotten, but this my staff"

Krishna turned impatiently, saw the Mugger at his feet, and kneeling, slipped an arm round the cold neck.

"Mother," he said gently, "get thee to thy flood again. The matter is not for thee. What harm shall thy honour

take of this live dirt? Thou hast given them their fields new year after year, and by thy flood they are made

strong. They come all to thee at the last. What need to slay them now? Have pity, mother, for a little and it

"Are they Gods, then?" Krishna returned with a laugh, his eyes looking into the dull eyes of the River. "Be

certain that it is only for a little. The Heavenly Ones have heard thee, and presently justice will be done. Go

now, mother, to the flood again. Men and cattle are thick on the waters the banks fall the villages melt

"But the bridge the bridge stands." The Mugger turned grunting into the undergrowth as Krishna rose.

"It is ended," said the Tigress, viciously. "There is no more justice from the Heavenly Ones. Ye have made

"Of my people who lie under the leafroofs of the village yonder of the young girls, and the young men

who sing to them in the dark of the child that will be born next morn of that which was begotten

tonight," said Krishna. "And when all is done, what profit? Tomorrow sees them at work. Ay, if ye swept

the bridge out from end to end they would begin anew. Hear me! Bhairon is drunk always. Hanuman mocks

"Shiv hears the talk of the schools and the dreams of the holy men; Ganesh thinks only of his fat traders; but I

I live with these my people, asking for no gifts, and so receiving them hourly."

"They are my own. The old women dream of me turning in their sleep; the maids look and listen for me when

they go to fill their lotahs by the river. I walk by the young men waiting without the gates at dusk, and I call

over my shoulder to the whitebeards. Ye know, Heavenly Ones, that I alone of us all walk upon the earth

continually, and have no pleasure in our heavens so long as a green blade springs here, or there are two

voices at twilight in the standing crops. Wise are ye, but ye live far off; forgetting whence ye came. So do I

not forget. And the firecarriage feeds your shrines, ye say? And the fire carriages bring a thousand

"Peace!" said the Bull, as Hanuman leaned forward again. "And tomorrow, beloved what of tomorrow?"

"This only. A new word creeping from mouth to mouth among the Common Folk a word that neither man

nor God can lay hold of an evil word a little lazy word among the Common Folk, saying (and none know

"And to cover that weariness they, my people, will bring to thee, Shiv, and to thee, Ganesh, at first greater

offerings and a louder noise of worship. But the word has gone abroad, and, after, they will pay fewer dues to

your fat Brahmins. Next they will forget your altars, but so slowly that no man can say how his forgetfulness

"I knew I knew! I spoke this also, but they would not hear," said the Tigress. "We should have slainwe

"It is too late now. Ye should have slain at the beginning when the men from across the water had taught our

folk nothing. Now my people see their work, and go away thinking. They do not think of the Heavenly Ones

altogether. They think of the firecarriage and the other things that the bridgebuilders have done, and when

your priests thrust forward hands asking alms, they give a little unwillingly. That is the beginning, among one

or two, or five or ten for I, moving among my people, know what is in their hearts."

"The end shall be as it was in the beginning, O slothful son of Shiv! The flame shall die upon the altars and

the prayer upon the tongue till ye become little Gods again Gods of the jungle names that the hunters of

rats and noosers of dogs whisper in the thicket and among the caves ragGods, pot Godlings of the tree, and

the villagemark, as ye were at the beginning. That is the end, Ganesh, for thee, and for Bhairon Bhairon of

"Many women have kissed Krishna. They told him this to cheer their own hearts when the grey hairs came,

"Their Gods came, and we changed them. I took the Woman and made her twelvearmed. So shall we twist

"Their Gods! This is no question of their Gods one or three man or woman. The matter is with the people.

"So be it. I have made a man worship the firecarriage as it stood still breathing smoke, and he knew not that

he worshipped me," said Hanuman the Ape. "They will only change a little the names of their Gods. I shall

lead the builders of the bridges as of old; Shiv shall be worshipped in the schools by such as doubt and

despise their fellows; Ganesh shall have his mahajuns, and Bhairon the donkeydrivers, the pilgrims, and the

sellers of toys. Beloved, they will do no more than change the names, and that we have seen a thousand

"Surely they will do no more than change the names," echoed Ganesh; but there was an uneasy movement

"They will change more than the names. Me alone they cannot kill, so long as a maiden and a man meet

together or the spring follows the winter rains. Heavenly Ones, not for nothing have I walked upon the earth.

My people know not now what they know; but I, who live with them, I read their hearts. Great Kings, the

beginning of the end is born already. The firecarriages shout the names of new Gods that are not the old

under new names. Drink now and eat greatly! Bathe your faces in the smoke of the altars before they grow

cold! Take dues and listen to the cymbals and the drums, Heavenly Ones, while yet there are flowers and

songs. As men count time the end is far off; but as we who know reckon it is today. I have spoken."

"This I have not heard before," Peroo whispered in his companion's ear. "And yet sometimes, when I oiled

the brasses in the engineroom of the Goorkha, I have wondered if our priests were so wise so wise. The

A yellow light broadened in the sky, and the tone of the river changed as the darkness withdrew.

"Let Indra judge. Father of all, speak thou! What of the things we have heard? Has Krishna lied indeed? Or

"Ye know," said the Buck, rising to his feet. "Ye know the Riddle of the Gods. When Brahm ceases to dream,

the Heavens and the Hells and Earth disappear. Be content. Brahm dreams still. The dreams come and go,

and the nature of the dreams changes, but still Brahm dreams. Krishna has walked too long upon earth, and

yet I love him the more for the tale he has told. The Gods change, beloved all save One!"

"Ay, all save one that makes love in the hearts of men," said Krishna, knotting his girdle. "It is but a little

time to wait, and ye shall know if I lie. Truly it is but a little time, as thou sayest, and we shall know. Get thee

to thy huts again, beloved, and make sport for the young things, for still Brahm dreams. Go, my children!

"Whither went they?" said the Lascar, awestruck, shivering a little with the cold.

"God knows!" said Findlayson. The river and the island lay in full daylight now, and there was never mark of

hoof or pug on the wet earth under the peepul. Only a parrot screamed in the branches, bringing down

Findlayson staggered to his feet and shook himself. His bead swam and ached, but the work of the opium was

over, and, as he sluiced his forehead in a pool, the Chief Engineer of the Kashi Bridge was wondering how he

had managed to fall upon the island, what chances the day offered of return, and, above all, how his work

"Peroo, I have forgotten much I was under the guardtower watching the river; and then Did the flood

"No. The boats broke loose, Sahib, and" (if the Sahib had forgotten about the opium, decidedly Peroo would

not remind him) "in striving to retie them, so it seemed to me but it was dark a rope caught the Sahib and

threw him upon a boat. Considering that we two, with Hitchcock Sahib, built, as it were, that bridge, I came

also upon the boat, which came riding on horseback, as it were, on the nose of this island, and so, splitting,

cast us ashore. I made a great cry when the boat left the wharf and without doubt Hitchcock Sahib will come

for us. As for the bridge, so many have died in the building that it cannot fall." A fierce sun, that drew out all

the smell of the sodden land, had followed the storm, and in that clear light there was no room for a man to

think of the dreams of the dark. Findlayson stared upstream, across the blaze of moving water, till his eyes

"We came down far," he said. "It was wonderful that we were not drowned a hundred times."

"That was the least of the wonder, for no man dies before his time. I have seen Sydney, I have seen London,

and twenty great ports, but" Peroo looked at the damp, discoloured shrine under the peepul "never man

"There was a fever upon me." Findlayson was still looking uneasily across the water. "It seemed that the

island was full of beasts and men talking, but I do not remember. A boat could live in this water now, I

"Oho! Then it is true. 'When Brahm ceases to dream, the Gods die.' Now I know, indeed, what he meant.

Once, too, the guru said as much to me; but then I did not understand. Now I am wise."

Peroo went on as if he were talking to himself "Six seven ten monsoons since, I was watch on the fo'c'sle

of the Rewah the Kumpani's big boat and there was a big tufan; green and black water beating, and I held

fast to the lifelines, choking under the waters. Then I thought of the Gods of Those whom we saw

tonight " he stared curiously at Findlayson's back, but the white man was looking across the flood. "Yes, I

say of Those whom we saw this night past, and I called upon Them to protect me. And while I prayed, still

keeping my lookout, a big wave came and threw me forward upon the ring of the great black bowanchor,

and the Rewah rose high and high, leaning towards the lefthand side, and the water drew away from beneath

her nose, and I lay upon my belly, holding the ring, and looking down into those great deeps. Then I thought,

even in the face of death: If I lose hold I die, and for me neither the Rewah nor my place by the galley where

the rice is cooked, nor Bombay, nor Calcutta, nor even London, will be any more for me. 'How shall I be

sure,' I said, 'that the Gods to whom I pray will abide at all?' This I thought, and the Rewah dropped her nose

as a hammer falls, and all the sea came in and slid me backwards along the fo'c'sle and over the break of the

fo'c'sle, and I very badly bruised my shin against the donkeyengine: but I did not die, and I have seen the

Gods. They are good for live men, but for the dead. . . . They have spoken Themselves. Therefore, when I

come to the village I will beat the guru for talking riddles which are no riddles. When Brahm ceases to dream

Peroo shaded his eyes with his hands. "He is a wise man and quick. Hitchcock Sahib would not trust a

rowboat. He has borrowed the Rao Sahib's steamlaunch, and comes to look for us. I have always said that

The territory of the Rao of Baraon lay within ten miles of the bridge; and Findlayson and Hitchcock had spent

a fair portion of their scanty leisure in playing billiards and shooting blackbuck with the young man. He had

been bearled by an English tutor of sporting tastes for some five or six years, and was now royally wasting

the revenues accumulated during his minority by the Indian Government. His steamlaunch, with its

silverplated rails, striped silk awning, and mahogany decks, was a new toy which Findlayson had found

"It's great luck," murmured Findlayson, but he was none the less afraid, wondering what news might be of the

The gaudy blueandwhite funnel came downstream swiftly. They could see Hitchcock in the bows, with a

pair of operaglasses, and his face was unusually white. Then Peroo hailed, and the launch made for the tail

of the island. The Rao Sahib, in tweed shootingsuit and a sevenhued turban, waved his royal hand, and

Hitchcock shouted. But he need have asked no questions, for Findlayson's first demand was for his bridge.

"All serene! 'Gad, I never expected to see you again, Findlayson. You're seven koss downstream. Yes; there's

not a stone shifted anywhere; but how are you? I borrowed the Rao Sahib's launch, and he was good enough

to come along. Jump in. "Ah, Finlinson, you are very well, eh? That was most unprecedented calamity last

night, eh? My royal palace, too, it leaks like the devil, and the crops will also be short all about my country.

Now you shall back her out, Hitchcock. I I do not understand steamengines. You are wet? You are cold,

"I'm immensely grateful, Rao Sahib. I believe you've saved my life. How did Hitchcock "

"Oho! His hair was upon end. He rode to me in the middle of the night and woke me up in the arms of

Morpheus. I was most truly concerned, Finlinson, so I came too. My headpriest he is very angry just now.

We will go quick, Mister Hitchcock. I am due to attend at twelve fortyfive in the state temple, where we

sanctify some new idol. If not so I would have asked you to spend the day with me. They are dambore, these

Peroo, well known to the crew, had possessed himself of the inlaid wheel, and was taking the launch craftily

upstream. But while he steered he was, in his mind, handling two feet of partially untwisted wirerope; and