to be seen on the little patch in the flood - a clump of thorn, a
clump of swaying creaking bamboos, and a grey gnarled peepul
overshadowing a Hindoo shrine, from whose dome floated a tattered
red flag. The holy man whose summer resting-place it was had long
since abandoned it, and the weather had broken the red-daubed image
of his god. The two men stumbled, heavy limbed and heavy-eyed, over
the ashes of a brick-set cooking-place, and dropped down under the
shelter of the branches, while the rain and river roared together.

The stumps of the indigo crackled, and there was a smell of cattle,
as a huge and dripping Brahminee bull shouldered his way under the
tree. The flashes revealed the trident mark of Shiva on his flank,
the insolence of head and hump, the luminous stag-like eyes, the
brow crowned with a wreath of sodden marigold blooms, and the silky
dewlap that almost swept the ground. There was a noise behind him
of other beasts coming up from the floodline through the thicket,
a sound of heavy feet and deep breathing.

"Here be more beside ourselves," said Findlayson, his head against
the tree-pole, looking through half-shut eyes, wholly at ease.

" Truly," said Peroo, thickly, "and no small ones."

"What are they, then? I do not see clearly."

"The Gods. Who else? Look!"

"Ah, true! The Gods surely - the Gods." Findlayson smiled as his
head fell forward on his chest. Peroo was eminently right. After
the Flood, who should be alive in the land except the Gods that