Findlayson was more troubled for the stoneboats than anything else.
McCartney, with his gangs, was blocking up the ends of the three
doubtful spans, but boats adrift, if the flood chanced to be a high one,
might endanger the girders; and there was a very fleet in the shrunken
channel.

"Get them behind the swell of the guardtower," he shouted down to Peroo.
"It will be dead-water there. Get them below the bridge."

"Accha! [Very good.] I know; we are mooring them with wire-rope," was
the answer. "Heh! Listen to the Chota Sahib. He is working hard."

From across the river came an almost continuous whistling of
locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone. Hitchcock at the last minute
was spending a few hundred more trucks of Tarakee stone in reinforcing
his spurs and embankments.

"The bridge challenges Mother Gunga," said Peroo, with a laugh. "But
when she talks I know whose voice will be the loudest."

For hours the naked men worked, screaming and shouting under the lights.
It was a hot, moonless night; the end of it was darkened by clouds and a
sudden squall that made Findlayson very grave.

"She moves!" said Peroo, just before the dawn. "Mother Gunga is awake!
Hear!" He dipped his hand over the side of a boat and the current
mumbled on it. A little wave hit the side of a pier with a crisp slap.

"Six hours before her time," said Findlayson, mopping his forehead