First of all, by the now ceaseless splash of the thin, glassy curve of water on its way to find out this new road to the sea. It had a sort of dreamy whisper in it, as if it were telling its first impressions, its hopes, its fears, to the river it was leaving behind.
And on this background of ceaseless sound came two others intermittently.
The first--a muffled hammering from the darkness which hid the Viceroy's camp--told of departure, letting the night know that another white-winged tent was flitting, and that the dawn must be prepared to find its place empty, the dream-city in ruins, the Hosts of the Lord-sahib gone.
The second told of arrival. It was a strange cry, soft, almost musical:--
"Hârâ--Hârî--Hârâ--Hârî!"
Then every now and again in a sort of chant: "Râm--Râm--Sita--Râm!"
It was the pilgrims' cry, their call on the Creator, the Destroyer, their appeal to the godhead in man and woman; for the forerunners of the great host to come were already nearing Eshwara on their road to the "Cradle of the Gods."
But there was a fourth sound, inaudible--by reason of that ceaseless noise of water through the chink of the sluice--except to those close by it, like George Dillon, as he stood on the hand-bridge above the closed gates looking down idly into the darkness which prevented him from seeing the cause of the sound. He had been up all night. On his return,--later than he had intended, owing to his determination not to be defied by any woman,--he had found that in his absence cholera had been hard at its work. So he had buckled to his, expecting one of those awful nights which live, even in a doctor's memory, as a horror, as a warning to those best fitted to stem the stream of death, that they are but straws on its surface.
But he had been mistaken. True, for an hour or so, cases had come in quicker than they could be attended to; then, suddenly, they ceased to come in at all. That had been eight hours ago. Too short a respite for certainty, but Dr. Dillon, being no novice in such work, had his hopes; the more so because the disease, from the very outset, had become steadily less and less virulent. Even so, seven dead bodies lay awaiting the first glint of dawn; therefore, as ill-luck would have it, there would be seven columns of smoke on the river's edge for all to see!
It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the open.