"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
ached. There was no sign of any bank to the Ganges, much less of
a bridge-line.

"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 has seen that we saw here."

What?"

"Has the Sahib forgotten; or do we black men only see the Gods?"