Then the troubled beating of the gong carried the order to take up
everything and bear it beyond high-water mark, and the flare-lamps broke
out by the hundred between the webs of dull iron as the riveters began a
night's work, racing against the flood that was to come. The girders of
the three centre piers--those that stood on the cribs--were all but in
position. They needed just as many rivets as could be driven into them,
for the flood would assuredly wash out their supports, and the ironwork
would settle down on the caps of stone if they were not blocked at the
ends. A hundred crowbars strained at the sleepers of the temporary line
that fed the unfinished piers. It was heaved up in lengths, loaded
into trucks, and backed up the bank beyond flood-level by the groaning
locomotives. The tool-sheds on the sands melted away before the attack
of shouting armies, and with them went the stacked ranks of Government
stores, iron-hound boxes of rivets, pliers, cutters, duplicate parts of
the riveting-machines, spare pumps and chains. The big crane would be
the last to be shifted, for she was hoisting all the heavy stuff up to
the main structure of the bridge. The concrete blocks on the fleet of
stone-boats were dropped overside, where there was any depth of water,
to guard the piers, and the empty boats themselves were poled under the
bridge down-stream. It was here that Peroo's pipe shrilled loudest, for
the first stroke of the big gong had brought the dinghy back at racing
speed, and Peroo and his people were stripped to the waist, working for
the honour and credit which are better than life.

"I knew she would speak," he cried. "I knew, but the telegraph gives us
good warning. O sons of unthinkable begetting--children of unspeakable
shame--are we here for the look of the thing?" It was two feet of
wire-rope frayed at the ends, and it did wonders as Peroo leaped from
gunnel to gunnel, shouting the language of the sea.