In the Permanent Way

The church-gong hung from the level branch of a spreading sirus tree, whence the slight breeze of dawn, rustling the dry pods of a past summer and stirring the large soft puff-blossoms of the present, seemed to gather up a faint whisper and a fainter perfume to be upborne into space--further and further and further--by the swelling sound-waves of the gong as it vibrated to old Deen Mahomed's skilful stroke.