gangs came up from the river-bed and the lights began to
twinkle.

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

"That's all right. He's got something on his mind. You'd think
that ten years in the British India boats would have knocked
most of his religion out of him."

"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 watch a gale out with him, and
see if he could stop a monsoon."

"All the same, if you carried off his guru he'd leave us like a
shot. He was yarning away to me about praying to the dome of St.
Paul's when he was in London."

"He told me that the first time he went into the engine-room of a
steamer, when he was a boy, he prayed to the low-pressure
cylinder."

"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, and a telegram was put into Hitchcock's
hand.