gauge the
significance of those five words.

Lenox straightened himself with an oath. "_Kencho_.[1] . . . you son
of a jackal!" he thundered; at the same time jerking the punkah frill,
an effective means of reanimating the long-suffering punkah coolie, who
has a trick of twisting the rope round his arm, that he may jerk it the
more easily in his dreams.

But Lenox's vigorous pull merely brought a great length of rope through
the wall; and his command was answered by the groans of a man in
torment. Springing up, he wrenched open the glass door; and a blast as
from a furnace struck him across the face. The coolie, a brown,
distorted mass, writhed upon the hot stones in mortal agony. At the
Sahib's approach, he struggled to his knees with a rush of incoherent
detail; while Lenox shouted for Zyarulla, and the dogcart; flung a word
of encouragement to the stricken man, and went in again for his helmet.

Till the trap appeared Lenox paced the verandah; the punkah coolie
groaned; and Zyarulla protested as openly as he dared against his Sahib
being put to personal inconvenience for a base-born--mere dust of the
earth. None the less, at the Sahib's order he gingerly helped the dust
of the earth into the trap, where Lenox put his one available arm round
the writhing body; and the _sais_, who showed small relish for the
situation, was ordered to get up and drive from behind. The which he
did; leaning over the back seat, and keeping ostentatiously clear of
the misbegotten son of a pig who had broken his midday sleep.

In this fashion they journeyed, awkwardly enough, to the temporary
cholera hospital; a handful of tents and grass huts on the outskirts of
the station. Betwixt the clutches of cramp, and the abject humility of
his kind, the coolie slithered from the seat on to the mat; and Lenox
had some ado to prevent his falling headlong from the cart. But in due
time he was handed over safely to a suave, coffee-coloured hospital
assistant, and carried shrieking into a tent crammed with sights unfit
to be told; whence he emerged, two hours later, without protest of
voice or limb, to swell the intermittent stream of fellow-corpses that
flowed from the hospital to the burning ghatt or the Mahommedal
burial-ground outside the station.

When Lenox staggered back into the hall, dizzy with headache, and
half-blinded with glare, he was met by Desmond, who, noticing a slight
lurch as he entered, took hold of his arm.

"Zyarul