e,
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 aback the dinghy 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 gave
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.

Findlayson was more troubled for the stone-boats 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 channels.

"Get them behind the swell of the guard-tower," 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. "Hah! 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
savagely. "Now we can't depend on anything. We'd better clear all
hands out of the river-bed."

Again the big gong beat, and a second time there was the rushing of
naked feet on earth and ringing iron; the clatter of tools ceased. In
the silence, men heard the dry yawn of water crawling over thirsty
sand.

Foreman after foreman shouted to Fi