There was a pause.
"Many ways, doubtless. Here and there different ways. But here, one way. Forty years ago, brothers! Yea, forty years ago, these eyes saw the 'squaring of the gods.' In this wise ..."
There was another dreamful pause, and then, from the shadow, came the old thin voice once more.
"Yonder, where the bridge stands now, was Broon-sahib's house--"
"Broon-sahib?" echoed a curious listener. "Dost mean Broon-sahib who built the bridge?"
"Who built the bridge?" hesitated the tale-teller. "God knows! More like his son; for the years pass--they pass, Mai Gunga! and I grow old. Grant me this last cleansing, Mother! Wash me from sin ere I go hence ..."
"Lo! thou hast made him forget the rest," reproved another listener, "as if there were not Broon-sahibs ever! Even now, here in Benares! Yes! Baba-jee, of a certainty, Broon-sahib's house stood here, where the bridge stands now."
The old memory, started afresh, went on.
"It was a boy, the child. A toddler, but with the temper of tigers. Lo! it would scream and yell in the ayah's arms, and beat her face to be let crawl down the steps to pull the spent bosses of the marigolds out of the water and fling them back like balls. A mite of a boy; white as jasmine in the face, yellow as the marigolds themselves in hair. The mem, its mother, had the like face and hair. I used to see her in the verandah over the river, and driving above the steps. There were many sahibs came and went to the house, after their fashion, and she smiled and spoke to them all. There was one of them--so young, he might have been a son almost--who came often; and she smiled on him, too, as he played, like a boy, with the child. He was one of the sahibs who have eyes; so, after a time, he would nod to me and say 'Râm! Râm!' with a laugh as he passed above me, sitting here in the shadow, selling my garlands.
"So, one day, as he came by, there was the baby screaming in its ayah's arms to be let crawl to the water, and she was denying it by the mem's orders. What the young sahib said at first I know not; but after a bit he came running down the steps, the child in his arms, calling back to the woman, in her tongue, 'Trouble not, ayah! I'll square it, never fear!'