, and with them
an unofficial telegram from Sir James Hawkins; who was not in the habit
of forgetting good men when he had once met them, 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 this travel before him.
Faiz Ullah, used to the chances of service, plunged into the crowd on
the stone platform, while Scott, a black cheroot between his teeth,
waited till his compartment should be set away. A dozen native
policemen, with their rifles and bundles, shouldered into the press of
Punjabi farmers, Sikh craftsmen, and greasy-locked Afreedee pedlars,
escorting with all pomp Martyn's uniform-case, water-bottles, ice-box,
and bedding-roll. They saw Faiz Ullah's lifted hand, and steered for it.

"My Sahib and your Sahib," said Faiz Ullah to Martyn's man, "will travel
together. Thou and I, O brother, will thus secure the servants' places
close by; and because of our masters' authority none will dare to
disturb us."

When Faiz Ullah reported all things ready, Scott settled down at full
length, coatless and bootless, on the broad leather-covered bunk. The
heat under the iron-arched roof of the station might have been anything
over a hundred degrees. At the last moment Martyn entered, dripping.

"Don't swear," said Scott, lazily; "it's too late to change your
carriage; and we'll divide the ice."

"What are you doing here?" said the police-man.

"I'm lent to the Madras Government, same as you. By Jove, it's a bender
of a night! A