"True!" came another passive voice; "but the time is not past. There is to-morrow yet."
The absolutely unrepresentable chuck! made by the tongue against the roof of the mouth, which is the most emphatic denial of India, echoed suddenly, aggressively, into the peaceful air.
It came from the blackness of a low masonry abutment which, traversing the last three steps, projected a few feet into the river, like a pier. A yard maybe above the water, some three long, and perhaps a couple broad, there was just room on its outer end for a small square temple with a rude spiked spire--the plainest of temples, guiltless of ornament, looking out over the Ganges blankly. For its only aperture, a low arched doorway, faced the steps and showed now as a blot of utter darkness.
"Not She, brethren!" said a cracked voice following on the denial. "She or Her like will never harm the Huzoors! They have paid their toll, see you, they have squared the gods."
A dozen or more faces turned to the voice, the figures belonging to them remaining immovable, as if carved in stone.
"Dost think so really, Baha-jee?" came a question. "I have heard that tale before--and that 'tis done in the 'Magic-houses.'"[[2]]
The emphatic denial rose again. "Not so! These eyes saw it done--here, in this very place, forty years ago! here, at Mai Kâli's shrine!"
In the pause that followed, a pair of claw-like hands could be seen above the bar of shadow, wavering salaams to the little temple, in the perfunctory manner of priesthood all over the world.
"'Tis old Bishen, the flower-seller," said a yawning voice. "He was here in the Time of Trouble,[[3]] and he tells tales of it--when he remembers!"
"Then let him tell," yawned another, "since the night is long and the dawn lingers. How was't done, Baha-jee?"