"Not before the monsoon breaks. It is due any day now, any hour. Till ten days after it has broken, no sane man will take train."
"I want to get back. I think I will risk it."
"You will pardon me, you are not allowed."
The tone was perfect authority. The eyes smouldered, but the lips smiled.
"You are not used to be in any way conditioned, I understand that; but I am not willing to be responsible to my only sister for the smashed body of her one man. Oh, I assure you not! And you may one day grant that the guardianship of an elder brother is not a bad thing to have. Why—I beg your pardon, but of course you are not here long enough to know the situation."
He stopped abruptly and looked away, considering.
"I will put it in one word and tell you that one moment any train, on any track, may be perfectly safe; and the next moment, it may be going down the khud with half a mountain. Again, we exercise the utmost care in all bridge-building—with no reservation of resources; but almost every year a bridge or more goes with the crash."
"The crash?"
"The reason why we say the great monsoon 'breaks' is not because itself breaks, but because—whatever happens to be underneath, you understand."
The floor of protest had dropped away. Skag's face said as much.