So the attention of all had reverted to the two kites which now remained overhead among the faint stars. They were Jehân's and--since little Sa'adut had resigned his claim--that of the next Heir to All Things or Nothingness; a coincidence which, by its hint of fatefulness, had kept interest keener than usual. Even Lateefa, beside his balloonlike bundle of the vanquished, was beginning to wonder if Aunt Khôjee had been true prophet, and Jehân's Creator meant to give him back his honour?
But at that rifle-shot, all else was forgotten and all crowded to the parapet.
'Back, sir! back!' shouted Jân-Ali-shân, roused beyond silence, as he grasped a fresh danger; and the crowd, recognising the new turn of affairs, broke silence also in a deep-toned murmur, on which a shriller sound rose sharply--the distant whistle of an engine. And Chris, as he dashed back to shelter, felt a faint quiver in the linked ribbon of steel beneath his feet.
'She's on the bridge, sir!' said Jân-Ali-shân--there was breathless hurry in his voice, but absolute certainty, as he felt hurriedly in his pocket for a match--'but we must wait a bit: if we looses off till the last minute, them Kusseyes'll swarm over. Oh! jes' wait till I gets a holt of them--sneakin' cold chisels won't be in this job!' He had the match lit, his watch out. ''Arf a minute gone, say, an' it takes a cool four minute on the bridge slowin' her off, an' she'--he laid his hand on the lever crank of the hydraulic lift--'kin do it in fifty seconds; two and a 'arf left, say, for it won't do to miss the train this journey--but you look 'ere, sir--you give the time-creep round to the back and keep your h'eye on the distance-signal-when she falls sing out, and I'll'--he clasped the crank tighter-'do Sandow! And,' he added to himself as Chris disappeared, 'you can talk your ikbally rot all you know, to-night, you can, you fools! for it won't come up to sample--no! it won't.'
Then, as if the reminiscence had brought another with it, he began softly on the song which he had sung that day on the bridge. The song of surplice-choir days. He had learned it with an organ accompaniment; and a sound was to be heard now, growing louder and louder, that like a deep organ note seemed to set the whole world a-quivering, even the very ground beneath his feet--a rumble and a roar, with a rhythmic pulse in it.
'They are trying to get a rope over,' shouted Chris. 'In two places--from the bastion as well.'
Jân-Ali-shân's hand left the crank for a second. He was out at the door looking, not citywards, but bridgewards. And then he laughed, laughed in the very face of a monstrous form with red eyes and a flaming mane coming steadily at him.
'They'll 'ave to be nippier than they is general,' he called back, his hand once more waiting for its task, as he continued his song--
'Trees where you sit----
Shall crowd into a sha----a----a----'
The dainty little runs, mellow, perfect, paused when the wire connecting the distance-signal with the station thrilled like a fiddle-string as the signal fell, and Chris Davenant's 'Now!' followed sharply, but they went on again in the darkness, backed by that growing rumble and roar.