rawn and cold, though the eyes were feverish, and a bright
spot burned on his high cheek-bones.

"No, it isn't all, Dicky. The devil's in the whole business. Steady,
sullen opposition meets us at every hand. Norman's been here--rode over
from Abdallah--twenty-five miles. A report's going through the native
villages, started at Abdallah, that our sanitary agents are throwing
yellow handkerchiefs in the faces of those they're going to isolate."

"That's Hoskai Bey's yellow handkerchief. He's a good man, but he blows
his nose too much, and blows it with a flourish.... Has Norman gone
back?"

"No, I've made him lie down in my cabin. He says he can't sleep, says he
can only work. He looks ten years older. Abdallah's an awful place, and
it's a heavy district. The Mamour there's a scoundrel. He has influenced
the whole district against Norman and our men. Norman--you know what
an Alexander-Hannibal baby it is, all the head of him good for the best
sort of work anywhere, all the fat heart of him dripping sentiment--gave
a youngster a comfit the other day. By some infernal accident the child
fell ill two days afterwards--it had been sucking its father's old
shoe--and Norman just saved its life by the skin of his teeth. If the
child had died, there'd have been a riot probably. As it is, there's
talk that we're scattering poisoned sweetmeats to spread the disease.
He's done a plucky thing, though...." He paused. Dicky looked up
inquiringly, and Fielding continued. "There's a fellow called Mustapha
Kali, a hanger-on of the Mudir of the province. He spread a report that
this business was only a scare got up by us; that we poisoned the people
and buried them alive. What does Norman do? He promptly arrests him,
takes him to the Mudir, and says that the brute must be punished or
he'll carry the matter to the Khedive."

"Here's to you, Mr. Norman!" said Dicky, with a little laugh. "What does
the Mudir do?"

"Doesn't know what to do. He tells Norman to say to me that if he puts
the fellow in prison there'll be a riot, for they'll make a martyr of
him. If he fines him it won't improve matters. So he asks me to name
a punishment which'll suit our case. He promises to give it 'his most
distinguished consideration.'"

"And what's your particular poison for him?" asked Dicky, with his eyes
on the Cholera Hospital a few hundred yards away.

"I don't know. If he's punished in the ordinary way it will only make
matters worse, as the Mudi