The Babu halted and looked round with an air of pained astonishment.
"Sir," he said, "it is as safe as eggs. Planks are held firm by my own avoirdupois. I have worked it out."
Still holding the rope with one hand, with the other he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper on which he had made his last calculation.
"The weight which these planks will tolerate," he continued, "is eleven hundred and eighty-six pounds fifteen point eight ounces gross. My weight is two hundred and forty-four pounds and a fraction nett, by which I mean my own corpus without togs. Q.E.D. Suppose I jump, even then energy I develop is innocuous. I demonstrate the quod."
He replaced the paper in his pocket, took the rope in both hands, and lifting his feet, to the boys' horror came down ponderously on the planks. The result was alarming. One of the planks was jerked off the beams on which it rested, and fell with a splash into the swirling river below. The other turned up on its edge; Ditta Lal sought to keep his footing, but his feet slid off, the plank fell, and he was left hanging on the rope alone, which sagged deeply under the tremendous strain.
The boys shivered as they saw the portly man dangling over the river. They expected every moment that the rope would break and plunge him into the depths, carrying with him the workmen on their platform below. It seemed impossible to give him any aid, for a gap of sixteen feet, now unbridged, separated them from him. But luckily there was lying near them a plank intended for use farther on. They caught it up, and pushed it within reach of the workmen, who hastily threw it across the gap in such a way that the Babu could just reach it with his knees.
The description of his appearance which the boys afterwards gave made their uncle laugh heartily.
"His face was positively green," said Lawrence, "and his eyes were rolling like the eyes of a giant in one of those moving magic lantern slides. He was yelling at the top of his voice--invoking strange gods by the sound of it. When he felt the plank beneath his knees he began to shuffle along sideways, but away from us instead of towards us; he was in such an awful state of funk that he didn't know which way he was going. When he got to the beam he threw his legs across it and sat there shaking, with the rope under his arms. We couldn't get him to budge even when we had laid another plank across, so that the way back was perfectly safe. He looked just like a 'varsity stroke pumped out at the end of a race--bar the complexion, of course. We tried to persuade him to get up and walk back, but he did nothing but shake his head and moan. He wouldn't speak for a bit; at last he said that he must wait till morning light. 'Buck up!' I said: 'make an effort!' but he only rolled his eyes and groaned and sighed. You can't do anything with a chump like that."
Ditta Lal indeed refused all entreaties, and kept his perch through the cold night. Lawrence sent him a bowl of soup, but he declined to unwreathe his arms from the rope. Only when, early next day, the planks had been firmly nailed to their supports did he allow himself to be wheeled in a trolley--for his limbs were numbed and useless--back to the mine. For the rest of the day he was not seen. For a week he avoided the boys, and made no more calculations except the elementary addition and subtraction of his store book-keeping.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH