"An omen—an omen!"
"Vishnu has spoken!"
"The gods are against us!"
"The flood—the flood——!"
The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still.
Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom.
"I believe it's true—the animal was bolting for her life—the water must have burst its banks at Bjura—if it has, it's coming twenty miles an hour—we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi."
The Hindu shrugged his shoulders.
"There is no high ground——"
Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes.