is eyeballs worked like
weavers' shuttles.

'And so it was done--not in hot blood, not for a little while, nor yet
with the smell of slaughter and the noise of shouting to sustain, but in
silence, for a very long time, rooted to one place before the Presence
among the most terrible feet of the multitude.'

'Correct!' the Chaplain chuckled.

'But the Goorkhas had the honour,' said the Subadar-Major sadly.

'Theirs was the Honour of His Armies in Hind, and that was Our Honour,'
the nephew replied.

'Yet I would one Sikh had been concerned in it--even one low-caste Sikh.
And after?'

'They endured the burden until the end--until It went out of the Temple
to be laid among the older kings at Wanidza. When all was accomplished
and It was withdrawn under the earth, Forsyth Sahib said to the four,
"The King gives command that you be fed here on meat cooked by your own
cooks. Eat and take ease, my fathers."

'So they loosed their belts and ate. They had not eaten food except by
snatches for some long time; and when the meat had given them strength
they slept for very many hours; and it was told me that the procession
of the unendurable feet ceased to pass before their eyes any more.'

He threw out one hand palm upward to show that the tale was ended.

'We came well and cleanly out of it,' said the Subadar-Major.

'Correct! Correct! Correct!' said the Regimental Chaplain. 'In an evil
age it is good to hear such things, and there is certainly no doubt that
this is a very evil age.'

JOBSON'S AMEN

'Blessed be the English and all their ways and works.
Cursed be the Infidels, Hereticks, and Turks!'
'Amen,' quo' Jobson, 'but where I used to lie
Was neither Candle, Bell nor Book to curse my brethren by:

'But a palm-tree in full bearing, bowing down, bowing down,
To a surf that drove unsparing at the brown-walled town--
Conches in a temple, oil-lamps in a dome--
And a low moon out of Africa said: "This way home!"'

'Blessed be the English and all that they profess.
Cursed be the Savages that prance in nakedness!'
'Amen,' quo' Jobson, 'but where I used to lie
Was neither shirt nor pantaloons to catch my brethren by:

'But a well-wheel slowly creaking, going round, going round,
By a water-channel leaking over drowned, warm ground--
Parrots very busy in the trellised pepper-vine--
And a high sun over Asia shouting: "Rise and shine!"'