ce. 'We'll have cholera, sure as a gun, when the Rains
come.'

But William seemed to have taken kindly to the operations of the
Famine Code, which, when famine is declared, supersede the workings
of the ordinary law. Scott saw her, the centre of a mob of weeping
women, in a calico riding-habit and a blue-gray felt hat with a gold
puggaree.

'I want fifty rupees, please. I forgot to ask Jack before he went
away. Can you lend it me? It's for condensed milk for the babies,'
said she.

Scott took the money from his belt, and handed it over without a
word. 'For goodness sake take care of yourself,' he said.

'Oh, I shall be all right. We ought to get the milk in two days. By
the way, the orders are, I was to tell you, that you're to take one
of Sir Jim's horses. There's a gray Cabuli here that I thought would
be just your style, so I've said you'd take him. Was that right?'

'That's awfully good of you. We can't either of us talk much about
style, I'm afraid.'

Scott was in a weather-stained drill shooting-kit, very white at the
seams and a little frayed at the wrists. William regarded him
thoughtfully, from his pith helmet to his greased ankle-boots. 'You
look very nice, I think. Are you sure you've everything you'll
need--quinine, chlorodyne, and so on?'

'Think so,' said Scott, patting three or four of his shooting pockets
as the horse was led up, and he mounted and rode alongside his
convoy.

'Good-bye,' he cried.

'Good-bye, and good luck,' said William. 'I'm awfully obliged for the
money.' She turned on a spurred heel and disappeared into the tent,
while the carts pushed on past the famine-sheds, past the roaring
lines of the thick, fat fires, down to the baked Gehenna of the
South.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

PART II

So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
A VALEDICTION.

It was punishing work, even though he travelled by night and camped
by day; but within the limits of his vision there was no man whom
Scott could call master. He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins--freer, in
fact, for the Government held the Head of the Famine tied neatly to a
telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever regarded telegrams seriously,
the death-rate of that famine would have been much higher than it
was.

At the end of a few days' crawling Scott learned something of the
size