of it.
_Am_ I ordered?'

'Oh, yes. Here's the wire. They'll put you on relief-works,' Raines
went on, 'with a horde of Madrassis dying like flies; one native
apothecary and half a pint of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand
of you. It comes of your being idle for the moment. Every man who
isn't doing two men's work seems to have been called upon. Hawkins
evidently believes in Punjabis. It's going to be quite as bad as
anything they have had in the last ten years.'

'It's all in the day's work, worse luck. I suppose I shall get my
orders officially some time to morrow. I'm glad I happened to drop
in. Better go and pack my kit now. Who relieves me here--do you
know?'

Raines turned over a sheaf of telegrams. 'McEuan,' said he, 'from
Murree.'

Scott chuckled. 'He thought he was going to be cool all summer. He'll
be very sick about this. Well, no good talking. Night.'

Two hours later, Scott, with a clear conscience, laid himself down to
rest on a string cot in a bare room. Two worn bullock-trunks, a
leather water-bottle, a tin ice-box, and his pet saddle sewed up in
sacking were piled at the door, and the Club secretary's receipt for
last month's bill was under his pillow. His orders came next morning,
and with them an unofficial telegram from Sir James Hawkins, who did
not forget good men, bidding him report himself with all speed at
some unpronounceable place fifteen hundred miles to the south, for
the famine was sore in the land, and white men were needed.

A pink and fattish youth arrived in the red-hot noonday, whimpering a
little at fate and famines, which never allowed any one three months'
peace. He was Scott's successor--another cog in the machinery, moved
forward behind his fellow, whose services, as the official
announcement ran, 'were placed at the disposal of the Madras
Government for famine duty until further orders.' Scott handed over
the funds in his charge, showed him the coolest corner in the office,
warned him against excess of zeal, and, as twilight fell, departed
from the Club in a hired carriage, with his faithful body servant,
Faiz Ullah, and a mound of disordered baggage atop, to catch the
Southern Mail at the loopholed and bastioned railway-station. The
heat from the thick brick walls struck him across the face as if it
had been a hot towel, and he reflected that there were at least five
nights and four days of travel before him. Faiz Ullah, used to the
chances of service, plunged into