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 pier-shoe - 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 pot-hole to the very bottom of any one
of those eighty-foot 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 ally to watch the
boats.

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.