Part 58 (1/2)

So, stealthily, they were on the bridge in the rear of the tower.

'Like a thief in the night, sir,' whispered Jan-Ali-shan approvingly.

'Of that day an' hour, as it say in 'Oly Writ--that's the ticket. An'

you lay a holt on somethin' 'andy, sir; even a broken brick's better nor trustin' to Providence--there's a biggish bit on the track, sir.

An'--an' don't waste time killin'; it's the bridge we want, not the butchers. Now for it!'

Were there four or five of them, or fifty, in the almost pitch darkness of the little inner room? Chris never knew. It was a confused struggle, short, sharp, silent; till, suddenly, John Ellison's voice called--

'That'll do, sir! I've bagged three on 'em, and can't find no more. Now to business!'

He was out as he spoke in the dim light to lay his ear to the rails.

And as he listened, he smiled to see a couple of figures scudding for bare life along the single rails as only coolies can do, in hope of shelter from the coming train in the safety, half-way across the bridge.

''Ave to be nippy, my sons,' he remarked affably as he rose, more leisurely, and, from habit, dusted the knees of his trousers as he turned to look stationwards.

But what he saw there made him stop the dusting and swear under his breath.

A little crowd had gathered on the farther side of the gap; a hostile crowd armed with sticks and stones. And with more!

For a bullet whizzed past between him and Chris, who had followed him out, and the sharp report of a rifle roused the echoes of the city wall; and roused, also, a sudden sense of strain, of anxiety, in thousands within the wall; thousands till then ignorant that disturbance was in the air, or at least that it _could_ come so soon!

Even on the turret, amid the schemers and plotters ready--perhaps inevitably--to fall in with any quarrel, this was so; for something else had been in the air, absorbing the attention. Some of those there had remarked, it is true, on the raising of the drawbridge, but others had been ready to tell of the day, not long ago, when it had been so raised and lowered many times without cause, and without result.

So the attention of all had reverted to the two kites which now remained overhead among the faint stars. They were Jehan's and--since little Sa'adut had resigned his claim--that of the next Heir to All Things or Nothingness; a coincidence which, by its hint of fatefulness, had kept interest keener than usual. Even Lateefa, beside his balloonlike bundle of the vanquished, was beginning to wonder if Aunt Khojee had been true prophet, and Jehan's Creator meant to give him back his honour?

But at that rifle-shot, all else was forgotten and all crowded to the parapet.

'Back, sir! back!' shouted Jan-Ali-shan, roused beyond silence, as he grasped a fresh danger; and the crowd, recognising the new turn of affairs, broke silence also in a deep-toned murmur, on which a shriller sound rose sharply--the distant whistle of an engine. And Chris, as he dashed back to shelter, felt a faint quiver in the linked ribbon of steel beneath his feet.

'She's on the bridge, sir!' said Jan-Ali-shan--there was breathless hurry in his voice, but absolute certainty, as he felt hurriedly in his pocket for a match--'but we must wait a bit: if we looses off till the last minute, them Kusseyes'll swarm over. Oh! jes' wait till I gets a holt of them--sneakin' cold chisels won't be in this job!' He had the match lit, his watch out. ''Arf a minute gone, say, an' it takes a cool four minute on the bridge slowin' her off, an' _she_'--he laid his hand on the lever crank of the hydraulic lift--'kin do it in fifty seconds; two and a 'arf left, say, for it won't do to miss the train this journey--but you look 'ere, sir--you give the time-creep round to the back and keep your h'eye on the distance-signal-when she falls sing out, and I'll'--he clasped the crank tighter-'do Sandow! And,' he added to himself as Chris disappeared, 'you can talk your _ikbally_ rot all you know, to-night, you can, you fools! for it won't come up to sample--no! it won't.'

Then, as if the reminiscence had brought another with it, he began softly on the song which he had sung that day on the bridge. The song of surplice-choir days. He had learned it with an organ accompaniment; and a sound was to be heard now, growing louder and louder, that like a deep organ note seemed to set the whole world a-quivering, even the very ground beneath his feet--a rumble and a roar, with a rhythmic pulse in it.

'They are trying to get a rope over,' shouted Chris. 'In two places--from the bastion as well.'

Jan-Ali-shan's hand left the crank for a second. He was out at the door looking, not citywards, but bridgewards. And then he laughed, laughed in the very face of a monstrous form with red eyes and a flaming mane coming steadily at him.

'They'll 'ave to be nippier than they is general,' he called back, his hand once more waiting for its task, as he continued his song--

'Trees where you sit---- Shall crowd into a sha----a----a----'

The dainty little runs, mellow, perfect, paused when the wire connecting the distance-signal with the station thrilled like a fiddle-string as the signal fell, and Chris Davenant's 'Now!' followed sharply, but they went on again in the darkness, backed by that growing rumble and roar.

'Is it working? I can't hear the water! My G.o.d! if it isn't--what is to be done?'

The brown hand that had found a place on the crank also trembled against the white one.