"War," the driver announced indifferently.
Human voices pitched to the acute scale of contending demons now sat astride the sound waves.
"Gad! Dharama has stolen a march on the mahanta and is sneaking in his Buddha by moonlight," Swinton declared.
The tumult grew in intensity; torches flashed and dimmed in and out about the temple like evil eyes.
"Shall we take a peep, old top?" Lord Victor asked, eagerness in his voice.
Swinton spoke to the driver, asking about the road, and learned that, turning off to the right at that point, it wound down the mountainside and up the other hill to the temple.
Just at that instant there came from down the road the clatter of galloping hoofs and the whirling bang of reckless wheels. In seconds the keddah sahib's dogcart swirled into view; he reined up, throwing his horse almost on his haunches.
"That mongrel Buddhist, Dharama, is up to his deviltry; I've got to stop him!"
He was gone.
At a sharp order from Swinton the tonga followed, the driver, eager to see the fray, carrying them along at perilous speed. At each sharp turn, with its sheer drop of a hundred feet or more on the outside, the tonga swung around, careening to one of its two wheels, the other spinning idly in the air. The little ruby eyes in the back of the dogcart's lamps twinkling ahead seemed to inspire their driver with reckless rivalry.