The world is wet as when first parted from the waters; and the firmament above, uncertain in its new position, seems slipping bodily down to join the waters below. The sound of falling rain, unformed, continuous, seems to have come from the time before Time was; while the tiny squelch of liquid mud oozing up between the bare toes of the _kurumaya_ alone marks the present. It is dark. The paper lantern, swinging at the end of the shaft, lights up the pools of the roadway with a transient gleam. For the rest, alone in my miniature hansom, with the apron up to my eyes, and the roof down to my eyebrows, the world, with the rushing swish of falling rain, seems dissolving slowly into the waters, and the history of creation marching backwards. A splash of wheels behind me, and the black mushroom hat of my _kurumaya_ bobs up above the apron, for the hill is steep. A shout, and the _’ricksha_ behind me stops. My _kurumaya_ stands still, holding the thin lacquered shafts in his hands and shouts back. Then he drags me to the roadside, and, putting the shafts on the ground, steps over them and disappears with his lantern. Balancing in my _kuruma_ like the monks on the miserere seats I am left all alone. What is the matter? A splash of wheels, the heavy panting of two men. They are pulling the other _kuruma_ up the steep hill, and will come back for me. So I wait, rigid; for the hill is steep, the mud slippery and the angle of the seat precarious. I strain my eyes to see--a corner of muddy road, half the blurred outline of a hedge. And not all the light in all the world could show me more, for the roof above my head is as a hand on my eyelids pressing them downwards. The wheels have splashed their way up the hill, and I can hear them no longer. Only the sound of the falling rain, driven momentarily away by the sharper splash of the moving wheels, comes back, slowly, steadily, irresistibly, submerging the world and me. I am all alone, a stranger in a strange land, behind me an unknown road, in front--I strain my eyes to see. Even the hedge has grown unfamiliar. It is no hedge, nothing but impenetrable undergrowth. I am on the edge of a forest. And the road? For the first time I notice how strange even the mud of a road can be. This is trodden all over with the prints of naked human feet, and the endless knife cuts of the _gheta_. The loneliness is wrapping itself around me as a pall. The dull swish of the rushing raindrops goes on and on. How long have they left me in a dissolving world alone. No sound above, no sound below. And the rush of the falling rain is drumming in my ears. A hideous nightmare possesses me. Surely the trickling pools are carrying away the mud from under my wheels. I shall slip down, down into nothingness with the falling rain. I dare not move. My eyes are fixed on the narrow strip of muddy road in front of me. The shafts are surely slipping---- Then the rush of the falling raindrops drowns the world.