He turned and shook his fist at the church; then plunging recklessly through the garden, sought silence and solitude. He needed calm before he could even begin his revenge. There was no doubt about the coming of the rains now. More than one heavy, curiously round drop fell on the dust through which he strode; but all was still--very still as yet. By-and-by twinkling carriage-lights, like fireflies, began to sparkle among the straight row of trees leading to the prison camp. Yet the rain kept off, and it had not even begun to fall when the _ayah's_ twinkling light roused Boy for his robing. But half awake, the child grew fractious, calling all things "shkittles," save the killing of Viljeon, who, he asserted, was hiding in the garden. To all of which _Ayah_, awaiting the carriage, agreed, until her charge, seated on his little bed, grew drowsy once more, and she stole off for a last pull at her forbidden pipe. But Kunder's light went on twinkling in the farther room, where he was conscientiously finishing his old domestic duties, and preparing for new ones. So after a time the carriage arrived, bringing with it a smell of damp dust. "Hurry up, woman!" called the coachman. "It has begun down the road like the storm of God. Bring the child; it were best he was soon in safety." Bring the child! How? When Boy, with his little pretence wings sewn on to his nightgown behind, his little sword that was not all pretence, was not to be found! The twinkling lights--Kunder's among them--were all over the garden, accompanied by endearments, threats, promises. "_Shiv-jee_ save him!" muttered Kunder, as suddenly the rain began to fall in torrents, quenching his light, and washing him from head to foot. The child with the red-gold curls of his race might well drown on a night like this! The Colonel felt the same fear, as, waiting at the camp-gate to pass the child in, he heard the news first; then, with a brief order that the boy's mother was only to be told that the carriage had been unable to return, owing to the violent storm, and that therefore the gift-giving must go on without the little giver, started to join the search. Hirabul also, who, waiting his opportunity for revenge, had dogged the Colonel's footsteps all that evening, heard the tale as he skulked in the crowd, put up his revolver, and with a sob at the thought of his far-away _sahib_, unconscious of his wife's treachery or his son's danger, set himself another task. So the rain fell, and the wayfarers, keeping by the flare of incessant lightning to the raised roads, said to each other: "This is the deluge of God! Repent, while there is time!" * * * * * "What a terrific noise it makes on this iron roof," said Boy's mother, when the gift-giving was nearly over. "I'm glad Boy didn't come--he might have been frightened." * * * * *