"Devilish serene sort of thing, don't you think?" Lord Victor managed to put his poetic emotions into that much prose banality.
The driver, not understanding the English words, said in Hindustani: "There will be much war there to-morrow when they fight over their gods."
As if his forecast had wakened evil genii of strife up in the hills, the fierce blare of a conch shell, joined in clamour by clanging temple bells, came across the valley, shattering its holy calm.
"My aunt! What a beastly din!" Lord Victor exclaimed.
"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!"
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.
When they arrived at the temple the battle had reached its climax. The brass Buddha, its yellow face with the sightless eyes of meditation staring up in oblivious quietude to the skies, was lying all alone just within the temple gate. Without, Dharama and his Buddhists battled the smaller force of the mahanta, who led it with fanatical fervour.