"Not this night," said Peroo, in his ear. "The Gods have protected
us." The Lascar moved his feet cautiously, and they rustled among dried
stumps. "This is some island of last year's indigo-crop," he went on.
"We shall find no men here; but have great care, Sahib; all the snakes
of a hundred miles have been flooded out. Here comes the lightning,
on the heels of the wind. Now we shall be able to look; but walk
carefully."
Findlayson was far and far beyond any fear of snakes, or indeed any
merely human emotion. He saw, after he had rubbed the water from his
eyes, with an immense clearness, and trod, so it seemed to himself with
world-encompassing strides. Somewhere in the night of time he had built
a bridge--a bridge that spanned illimitable levels of shining seas; but
the Deluge had swept it away, leaving this one island under heaven for
Findlayson and his companion, sole survivors of the breed of Man.
An incessant lightning, forked and blue, showed all that there was to
be seen on the little patch in the flood--a clump of thorn, a clump
of swaying creaking bamboos, and a grey gnarled peepul overshadowing a
Hindoo shrine, from whose dome floated a tattered red flag. The holy man
whose summer resting-place it was had long since abandoned it, and
the weather had broken the red-daubed image of his god.
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