and tried to the uttermost. No consideration of family or kin
allowed Peroo to keep weak hands or a giddy head on the
pay-roll. "My honour is the honour of this bridge," he would
say to the about-to-be-dismissed. "What do I care for your
honour? Go and work on a steamer. That is all you are fit for."

The little cluster of huts where he and his gang lived centred
round the tattered dwelling of a sea-priest - one who had never
set foot on black water, but had been chosen as ghostly
counsellor by two generations of sea-rovers 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
says."

Finlinson Sahib had that day given orders to clear the
scaffolding from the guard-tower on the right bank, and Peroo
with his mates was casting loose and lowering down the bamboo
poles and planks as swiftly as ever they had whipped the cargo
out of a coaster.

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