"Peroo, I have forgotten much. I was under the guard-tower watching
the river; and then . . . . Did the flood sweep us away?"

"No. The boats broke loose, Sahib, and" (if the Sahib had forgotten
about the opium, decidedly Peroo would not remind him) "in striving
to retie them, so it seemed to me - but it was darka rope caught the
Sahib and threw him upon a boat. Considering that we two, with
Hitchcock Sahib, built, as it were, that bridge, I came also upon
the boat, which came riding on horseback, as it were, on the nose of
this island, and so, splitting, cast us ashore. I made a great cry
when the boat left the wharf, and without doubt Hitchcock Sahib will
come for us. As for the bridge, so many have died in the building
that it cannot fall."

A fierce sun, that drew out all the smell of the sodden land, had
followed the storm, and in that clear light there was no room for
a man to think of the dreams of the dark. Findlayson stared
up-stream, across the blaze of moving water, till his eyes ached.
There was no sign of any bank to the Ganges, much less of a
bridgeline.

"We came down far," he said. "It was wonderful that we were not
drowned a hundred times."

"That was the least of the wonder, for no man dies before his time.
I have seen Sydney, I have seen London, and twenty great ports, but"
- Peroo looked at the damp, discoloured shrine under the "peopul -"
never man has seen that we saw here."