"Gunga, I have seen thy bed at Pryag black with the pilgrims,"
said the Ape, leaning forward, "and but for the fire-carriage
they would have come slowly and in fewer numbers. Remember."

"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 to-day? 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 fire carriage serves them well. Bhairon am I -
Bhairon of the Common People, and the chiefest of the Heavenly
Ones to-day. Also my staff says -"

"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." "Yea, I know," said the
Tigress, with lowered head.

"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 fire-carriage 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 fire-carriage. 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 fire-carriages, so that it ran from
one end of the land to the other? Who but Kali? Before the