"Yes, Madame, I speak English."

One cannot realize how strange it seemed to hear our own language from a
native in this out-of-the-way spot! He was the "compounder," or medical
assistant, and told us that the hundred native troops were in charge of a
white officer whose house was on the opposite side of the river gorge. He
guided us to a temple and, while the mules were being unloaded, in walked a
tall, handsome young British officer who introduced himself as Captain
Clive. He was almost speechless with surprise at seeing me, for he had not
spoken a sentence in English or seen a white person since his arrival at
this lonely post five months before.

He asked us at once to come to his quarters for tiffin and we accepted
gladly. On the way he gave us our first news of the outside world, for we
had been beyond communication of any sort for months, and we learned that
the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Germany.

Captain Clive's bungalow was a two-room bamboo house with a broad veranda
and thatched with straw. It was delightfully cool and dark after the glare
of the yellow sun-baked plains about us, and in perfect order. The care
which Britishers take to keep from "letting down" while guarding the
frontiers of their vast empire is proverbial, and Captain Clive was a
splendid example of the Indian officer. He was as clean-shaved and
well-groomed as though he had been expecting us for days and the tiffin to
which we sat down was as dainty and well served as it could have been in
the midst of civilization.

The great Lord Clive of India was an ancestor of our young officer who had
been temporarily detached from his regiment, the 129th Baluchis, and sent
on border duty. He was very unhappy, for his brother officers were in
active service in East Africa, and he had cried to resign several times,
but the Indian government would not release him. When we reached Rangoon
some months later we were glad to learn that he had rejoined his regiment
and was at the front. Ma-li-pa was a recently established "winter station"
and in May would be abandoned when the troop returned to Lashio, ten days'
journey away. Comfortable barracks, cook houses, and a hospital had been
erected beside a large space which had been cleaned of turf for a parade
ground.

Captain Clive was in communication by heliograph with Lashio, at the end of
the railroad, and received a _resume_ of world news two or three times a
week. With mirror