oulders.

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?"

His eyes rolled in the darkness following the roar. A Crocodile--the
blunt-nosed, ford-haunting Mugger of the Ganges--draggled herself
before the beasts, lashing furiously to right and left with her tail.

"They have made it too strong for me. In all this night I have only
torn away a handful of planks. The walls stand! The towers stand! They
have chained my flood, and my river is not free any more. Heavenly
Ones, take this yoke away! Give me clear water between bank and bank!
It is I, Mother Gunga, that speak. The Justice of the Gods! Deal me
the Justice of the Gods!"

"What said I?" whispered Peroo. "This is in truth a Punchayet of the
Gods. Now we know that all the world is dead, save you and I, Sahib."

The Parrot screamed and fluttered again, and the Tigress, her ears
flat to her head, snarled wickedly.

Somewhere in the shadow a great trunk and gleaming tusks swayed to
and fro, and a low gurgle broke the silence that followed on the
snarl.

"We be here," said a deep voice, "the Great Ones. One only and very
many. Shiv, my father, is here, with Indra. Kali has spoken already.
Hanuman listens also."

"Kashi is without her Kotwal to-night," shouted the Man with the
drinking-bottle, flinging his staff to the ground, while the island
rang to the baying of hounds. "Give her the Justice of the Gods."

"Ye were still when they polluted my waters," the great Crocodile
bellowed. "Ye made no sign when my river was trapped between the
walls. I had no help save my own strength, and that failed--the
strength of Mother Gunga failed--before their guard-towers. What could
I do? I have done everything. Finish now, Heavenly Ones!"

"I brought the death; I rode the spotted sickness from hut to hut of
their workmen, and yet they would not cease." A nose-slitten,
hide-worn Ass, lame, scissor-legged, and galled, limped forward. "I
cast the death at them out of my nostrils, but they would not cease."

Peroo would have moved, but the opium lay heavy upon him.

"Bah!" he said, spitting. "Here is Sitala herself; Mata--the
small-pox. Has