Part 59 (1/2)

So, for an instant, nothing remained except two kites whirling distractedly at the swift downpull on their strings, until, giving up the battle, giving in to fate, they yielded the Sovereignty of Air and sank slowly into the river.

By this time, however, some of the claimants to that sovereignty had come to the surface again, shrieking for help, and reaching round for anything to support them.

Lateefa, luckily for him, found that bundle of the vanquished close to his hand, and managed with its help to get a grip upon a jag of wall.

Luckily, for something had struck him on the back as he went down.

But there was no sign of Jehan or Burkut Ali; no sign even of those other two whom the river had claimed.

And none came to seek for one; for none knew rightly what had happened or who the bridge-savers had been, save the bridge-wreckers, and they had fled. Most of the crowd, therefore, drifted back to the station or the city. The station that was full of the rattle of rifles being shouldered, of the tramp of feet falling into line.

'How on earth you got here so soon, I can't think,' said a police-officer who had ridden up in hot haste at the news of some disturbance on the bathing-steps. 'The up-mail? By Jove! what luck! It will settle the whole ”biz,” I expect.'

And in the city voices were saying much the same thing.

If the troops were there, ready for the first sign, what was the use of making it? Let the rabble rise if they chose. Let fools commit themselves. Wise men would wait a better opportunity.

CHAPTER XXV

SECRET DESPATCHES

Nushapore, however, was not all wise; very far from it. Out of its two hundred and odd thousand souls, there were some to whom the possibility of disturbances meant a long-looked-for opportunity of indulging--with comparative safety--in criminal habits. And there were many also, who, without any special desire for evil, regretted the diminis.h.i.+ng chance of a night's excitement and amus.e.m.e.nt.

At first some of these found solace in the catastrophe at the kite-flyers' bastion; though, after a time, this proved to be less disastrous than might have been expected, for, out of all those who were known to have been on the building, only two or three were even injured. Jehan Aziz, it is true, had disappeared, but even in the first knowledge of this, the fact brought scarcely a word of regret--especially in the Royal Family. It felt vaguely that it stood a better chance without him, even though the next heir was not close enough to that dead dynasty to hope for the practical recognition of an increased pension from Government!

Neither did the sight of Burkut Ali being carried off to hospital on a stretcher distress it much. But it had a word or two of encouragement and sympathy for Lateefa who, still clinging to his kites, refused all help as he sat propped against a wall waiting for the numbness to pa.s.s from his legs--as it must pa.s.s, since he had no pain.

Of Jan-Ali-shan and Chris no one thought on that side of the bridge; for the simple reason that the disaster to the bastion absorbed all tongues for a time, and, in addition, beyond the fact that there had been some fighting for the bridge, no one knew anything.

In the station, also, there was no one to explain what had happened.

The _baboo_, who might have told what he knew, had, in that interval of suspense, discreetly fled to his lodgings in the city, where he was trying to concoct _alibis_.

It was only on the bathing-steps that anything definite was known, and there a curious consternation had followed immediately on the rapid raid made by those two through the temple. For, when the brief tumult of resistance had pa.s.sed with their pa.s.sage, the only trace of it that remained was fateful, beyond words, to the superst.i.tious eyes which saw it.

Swami Viseshwar Nath, the high priest of s.h.i.+v-_jee_, lay with crushed skull on _Mai_ Kali's very lap! His blood was pouring out upon her altar; yet, despite the blow which all had seen, despite the crash which all had heard, not one of her many widespread arms was injured!

Here was a miracle indeed! For what had been her words on that golden paper which she had flung, in defiance as it were, into the temple of her rival?

'_Yea! though they smite me, there shall be Blood upon Mine Altar_.'

And there was. The blood of the arch-detractor of Her Supremacy.

A miracle indeed! to be affirmed or denied to the exclusion of all other thoughts.

And so, on those wide steps leading down to the river, the newcomers, hastening thither at vague rumours of strange doings--stranger even than fixed bayonets at the city gates--were caught in the conflict of opinions and held captive by the question--

'Would _Mai_ Kali stay the plague now, as She had promised to do when there was blood upon Her altars, or would She not?'

In other words, dare men--mere men--take the remedy into their own hands, and risk offending the Great G.o.ddess by lack of faith?