`` Leave none behind ! We follow ! '' Then the people ran as only Hill folk can run , for they knew that in a landslip you must climb for the highest ground across the valley . They fled , splashing through the little river at the bottom , and panted up the terraced fields on the far side , while the Bhagat and his brethren followed . Up and up the opposite mountain they climbed , calling to each other by name -- the roll-call of the village -- and at their heels toiled the big barasingh , weighted by the failing strength of Purun Bhagat . At last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pinewood , five hundred feet up the hillside . His instinct , that had warned him of the coming slide , told him he would he safe here . Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side , for the chill of the rain and that fierce climb were killing him ; but first he called to the scattered torches ahead , `` Stay and count your numbers '' ; then , whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster : `` Stay with me , Brother . Stay -- till -- I -- go ! '' There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter , and a mutter that grew to a roar , and a roar that passed all sense of hearing , and the hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness , and rocked to the blow . Then a note as steady , deep , and true as the deep C of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes , while the very roots of the pines quivered to it . It died away , and the sound of the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled drum of water on soft earth . That told its own tale . Never a villager -- not even the priest -- was bold enough to speak to the Bhagat who had saved their lives . They crouched under the pines and waited till the day . When it came they looked across the valley and saw that what had been forest , and terraced field , and track-threaded grazing-ground was one raw , red , fan-shaped smear , with a few trees flung head-down on the scarp . That red ran high up the hill of their refuge , damming back the little river , which had begun to spread into a brick-coloured lake . Of the village , of the road to the shrine , of the shrine itself , and the forest behind , there was no trace . For one mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain-side had come away bodily , planed clean from head to heel . And the villagers , one by one , crept through the wood to pray before their Bhagat .
They saw the XXXXX standing over him , who fled when they came near , and they heard the langurs wailing in the branches , and Sona moaning up the hill ; but their Bhagat was dead , sitting cross-legged , his back against a tree , his crutch under his armpit , and his face turned to the north-east .
Brother Hill barasingh drowned fainting first grazing-ground mountain-side pinewood scarp