’Within that next hour they hired a large and strong mota-kahar for the journey from the Temple to Wanidza, which is twenty koss or more, and they promised expedition.  But he who took their guards said, “It is not seemly that we should for any cause appear to be in haste.  There are eighteen medals with eleven clasps and three Orders to consider.  Go at leisure.  I can endure.”

’So the three with the offerings were absent three hours and a half, and having delivered the offering at Wanidza in the correct manner they returned and found the lad on guard, and they did not break his guard till his full hour was ended.  So he endured four hours in the Presence, not stirring one hair, his eyes abased, and the river of feet, from the knee down, passing continually before his eyes.  When he was relieved, it was seen that his eyeballs worked like weavers’ shuttles.

’And so it was done—­not in hot blood, not for a little while, nor yet with the smell of slaughter and the noise of shouting to sustain, but in silence, for a very long time, rooted to one place before the Presence among the most terrible feet of the multitude.’

‘Correct!’ the Chaplain chuckled.

‘But the Goorkhas had the honour,’ said the Subadar-Major sadly.

‘Theirs was the Honour of His Armies in Hind, and that was Our Honour,’ the nephew replied.

’Yet I would one Sikh had been concerned in it—­even one low-caste Sikh.  And after?’

’They endured the burden until the end—­until It went out of the Temple to be laid among the older kings at Wanidza.  When all was accomplished and It was withdrawn under the earth, Forsyth Sahib said to the four, “The King gives command that you be fed here on meat cooked by your own cooks.  Eat and take ease, my fathers.”

’So they loosed their belts and ate.  They had not eaten food except by snatches for some long time; and when the meat had given them strength they slept for very many hours; and it was told me that the procession of the unendurable feet ceased to pass before their eyes any more.’

He threw out one hand palm upward to show that the tale was ended.

‘We came well and cleanly out of it,’ said the Subadar-Major.

‘Correct!  Correct!  Correct!’ said the Regimental Chaplain.  ’In an evil age it is good to hear such things, and there is certainly no doubt that this is a very evil age.’

JOBSON’S AMEN

     ’Blessed be the English and all their ways and works. 
     Cursed be the Infidels, Hereticks, and Turks!’
     ‘Amen,’ quo’ Jobson, ’but where I used to lie
     Was neither Candle, Bell nor Book to curse my brethren by: 

     ’But a palm-tree in full bearing, bowing down, bowing down,
     To a surf that drove unsparing at the brown-walled town—­
     Conches in a temple, oil-lamps in a dome—­
     And a low moon out of Africa said:  “This way home!"’