There was a shriek above the roar of the water,
the complaint of the spans coming down on their blocks as the cribs were
whirled out from under their bellies. The stone-boats groaned and ground
each other in the eddy that swung round the abutment, and their clumsy
masts rose higher and higher against the dim sky-line.
"Before she was shut between these walls we knew what she would do.
Now she is thus cramped God only knows what she will do!" said Peroo,
watching the furious turmoil round the guard-tower. "Ohe'! Fight, then!
Fight hard, for it is thus that a woman wears herself out."
But Mother Gunga would not fight as Peroo desired. After the first
down-stream plunge there came no more walls of water, but the river
lifted herself bodily, as a snake when she drinks in midsummer, plucking
and fingering along the revetments, and banking up behind the piers till
even Findlayson began to recalculate the strength of his work.
When day came the village gasped. "Only last night," men said, turning
to each other, "it was as a town in the river-bed! Look now!"
And they looked and wondered afresh at the deep water, the racing water
that licked the throat of the piers. The farther bank was veiled by
rain, into which the bridge ran out and vanished; the spurs up-stream
were marked by no more than eddies and spoutings, and down-stream the
pent river, once freed of her guide-lines, had spread like a sea to
the horizon.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32