Jogi Gorakh-nâth, with a scowl, gathered up his skulls to a bundle and followed hastily. He would at least be out of hearing of that chanting voice.
It had reached the last verse of its Psalm now, and faltered a little over the words:--
"Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum:
ex hoc et usque in saeculum."
But the echo of the footsteps behind filled up the blanks.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
FOILED
On the gaol or the Pool of Immortality lay the hopes of those whom Pidar Narâyan had so far discomfited by his arrogant claim to stand between heaven and earth; in other words, to be in personal relations with the Great Awarder of gaols and immortalities, forgivenesses, and punishments.
But the stars in their courses, hidden though they had been by the storm-darkness, had used that very darkness to the due maintenance of law and order as they wheeled serenely to meet the coming dawn.
When Lance, for instance--his heart torn in twain by his desire to follow Erda's fate at all costs and his knowledge that, if he was to do the best for others he must leave her to face it alone--had struck down stream on Am-ma's strange craft, his sole intention had been to rouse the police camp, and secure what help he could for the gaol.
But the darkness set him another task. For, after drifting past the spit, whence he had meant to cut across by land to the bridge of boats, and so, creeping past the city, find the camp beyond it, he had lost himself absolutely in the maze of sand-banks and shallow channels which, when the river was low, as it was now, lay like a network between the deep stream of the Hara, and the deep stream of the Hari. Lost himself so utterly that, realizing his own bewilderment, he had called himself a fool for having lost himself!