"The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult of the soul."—Wordsworth.
"What a frightful row the natives are making in the city," was the fractious comment of one heat-distracted tourist to another through the mosquito netting which divided the two beds.
"Disgraceful!" peevishly assented the other as she turned restlessly upon the thin, hot mattress, and heaved the one thin sheet to the foot of the hot bed.
A sharper note had topped the heavy murmur which, like the rumble of a distant sea, had beaten the air without ceasing throughout the night.
A film operator would have said that a crowd had woken up; a London policeman, that a crowd was turning nasty, as the sharp note went crescendo right along, until it took the definite tone of thousands of human voices upraised in unrest of some kind.
This way and that surged the multitude, bowing unconsciously before the gusts of passion which swept from every quarter.
The fret of the thousands of feet upon the paving sounded a silky accompaniment to the strange throaty murmur of fast rising religious hysteria; sharp, uncontrollable cries stood out like steel pencilling against the velvet monotony of the throbbing drums; the never ceasing tinkle of rings, and clanking of bracelets and holy chains against the blare of the horns sounded as out of place as a child singing in a thunder storm.
The high priest, with the face of Rome, with a beckoning gesture, drew towards him other priests. Some also with the face of Rome, and some with the face of the field labourer; some, gaunt and stern; some, jolly and rotund; well, just like any gathering of clergy, of any creed, you can see any day, in any country of Europe.
The chiming of the silver bell had stopped when the worshippers, upon the peremptory command of the priests, fled pell-mell out of the temple and down the steps to join the frenzied crowd; while from the direction of the Praying Ghats there arose a roar of voices as two slim figures sped swiftly up the narrow lane, which seemed to open of its own accord before them.
The woman, clad from the waist downwards in one linen piece, came running swiftly, lightly, undisturbed, almost hidden in the masses of her hair blown before her by the rising wind.