e and go, and
the nature of the dreams changes, but still Brahm dreams. Krishna has
walked too long upon earth, and yet I love him the more for the tale he
has told. The Gods change, beloved--all save One!"

"Ay, all save one that makes love in the hearts of men," said Krishna,
knotting his girdle. "It is but a little time to wait, and ye shall know
if I lie. Truly it is but a little time, as thou sayest, and we shall
know. Get thee to thy huts again, beloved, and make sport for the young
things, for still Brahm dreams. Go, my children! Brahm dreams and till
he wakes the Gods die not."

"Whither went they?" said the Lascar, awe-struck, shivering a little
with the cold.

"God knows!" said Findlayson. The river and the island lay in full
daylight now, and there was never mark of hoof or pug on the wet earth
under the peepul. Only a parrot screamed in the branches, bringing down
showers of water-drops as he fluttered his wings.

"Up! We are cramped with cold! Has the opium died out. Canst thou move,
Sahib?"

Findlayson staggered to his feet and shook himself. His bead swam
and ached, but the work of the opium was over, and, as he sluiced his
forehead in a pool, the Chief Engineer of the Kashi Bridge was wondering
how he had managed to fall upon the island, what chances the day offered
of return, and, above all, how his work stood.

"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 dark--a 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 upstream, across the blaze of
moving water, till his eyes ached. There was no sign of any bank to the
Ganges, much less of a bridge-line.

"We came down far," he sa