But no other halo appeared behind the one which followed the foot-track of others so closely; and so once again the call was given--
"Oh, masâl! Oh, masâl-jee-ân! Oh, masâl! Oh, masâl-jee!"
"Hâzr, Huzoor!" (Present, sir).
The nearness of the voice made Terence O'Brien look up, for it was the first voice he had heard clearly from the other side against that roar of the river. But as he looked another voice beside him said hurriedly--
"My God! he's coming across!"
He was. Surrounded by the halo of his own light, and keeping religiously to the beaten path, the shâhbâsh wallah, leaving the mud wall of the quarters, had struck the outer brick one as it stood, supported for a few yards by a spit of earth upon which the foot-track showed as the light passed. A spit narrowing to nothing--no! not to nothing, but to a mere ledge of earth and mortar clinging like a swallow's nest to the brick--wider here, narrower there, yet still able to give faint foothold upon the traces of those feet which had passed and repassed so often to their trivial round, their common task. Foothold! Ay! But what of the brain guiding the feet? What of the courage guiding the brain?
And even then, what of the foundation?
A sort of murmur rose above the roar. "He can't do it--impossible--tell him. Call to him, O'Brien. Tell him not to try."
The doctor stood for one second watching the figure centring its circle of light against the background of wall; then, even though there was no need for it, his voice fell to a whisper. "Hush!" he said. "Don't hustle him. By the Lord who made me, he doesn't know; he's feeling his way every inch by the wall! He's blind, and by God! if anybody can do it, he will."
He did. Step by step, slowly, confidently, in the footsteps of others.