with. Scott's back was suppled to
stooping now, and he went on with his wayside ministrations in
addition to distributing the paddy. More babies and more goats were
added unto him; but now some of the babies wore rags, and beads round
their wrists or necks. '_That_,' said the interpreter, as though
Scott did not know, 'signifies that their mothers hope in eventual
contingency to resume them offeecially.'

'The sooner the better,' said Scott; but at the same time he marked,
with the pride of ownership, how this or that little Ramasawmy was
putting on flesh like a bantam. As the paddy carts were emptied he
headed for Hawkins's camp by the railway, timing his arrival to fit
in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he had eaten at a
cloth. He had no desire to make any dramatic entry, but an accident
of the sunset ordered it that, when he had taken off his helmet to
get the evening breeze, the low light should fall across his
forehead, and he could not see what was before him; while one
waiting at the tent door beheld, with new eyes, a young man,
beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust, walking slowly
at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran small naked Cupids.
But she laughed--William, in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed
consumedly till Scott, putting the best face he could upon the
matter, halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten. It
was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been left ages ago,
with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, fifteen hundred miles to the
northward.

'They are coming on nicely,' said William. 'We've only
five-and-twenty here now. The women are beginning to take them away
again.'

'Are you in charge of the babies, then?'

'Yes--Mrs. Jim and I. We didn't think of goats, though. We've been
trying condensed milk and water.'

'Any losses?'

'More than I care to think of,' said William, with a shudder. 'And
you?'

Scott said nothing. There had been many little burials along his
route--many mothers who had wept when they did not find again the
children they had trusted to the care of the Government.

Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which Scott looked
hungrily, for he had a beard that he did not love. And when they
sat down to dinner in the tent he told his tale in few words, as it
might have been an official report. Mrs. Jim snuffled from time to
time, and Jim bowed his head judicially; but William's gray eyes were
on the clean-shaven fac