made it - the Gods to whom his village prayed nightly - the Gods
who were in all men's mouths and about all men's ways. He could
not raise his head or stir a finger for the trance that held him,
and Peroo was smiling vacantly at the lightning.

The Bull paused by the shrine, his head lowered to the damp earth.
A green Parrot in the branches preened his wet wings and screamed
against the thunder as the circle under the tree filled with the
shifting shadows of beasts. There was a black Buck at the Bull's
heels - such a Buck as Findlayson in his far-away life upon earth
might have seen in dreams - a Buck with a royal head, ebon back,
silver belly, and gleaming straight horns. Beside him, her head
bowed to the ground, the green eyes burning under the heavy brows,
with restless tail switching the dead grass, paced a Tigress,
full-bellied and deep-jowled.

The Bull crouched beside the shrine, and there leaped from the
darkness a monstrous grey Ape, who seated himself man-wise in the
place of the fallen image, and the rain spilled like jewels from
the hair of his neck and shoulders.

Other shadows came and went behind the circle, among them a drunken
Man flourishing staff and drinking-bottle. Then a hoarse bellow
broke out from near the ground. "The flood lessens even now," it
cried. "Hour by hour the water falls, and their bridge still
stands!"

"My bridge," said Findlayson to himself. "That must be very old
work now. What have the Gods to do with my bridge?"