The Bull crouched beside the shrine, and there leaped from the darkness a monstrous grey Ape, who seated himself man-wise in the place of the fallen image, and the rain spilled like jewels from the hair of his neck and shoulders.  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 Mugger—­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 the 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 sick-ness 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 the Sahib a handkerchief to put over his face?”

“Little help!  They fed me the corpses for a month, and I flung them out on my sand-bars, but their work went forward.  Demons they are, and sons of demons!  And ye left Mother Gunga alone for their fire-carriage to make a mock of The Justice of the Gods on the bridge-builders!”