to check
it before it gets out of hand. It will only be local.'

Martyn picked up the _Pioneer_ from the table, read through the
telegrams once more, and put up his feet on the chair-rests. It was a
hot, dark, breathless evening, heavy with the smell of the
newly-watered Mall. The flowers in the Club gardens were dead and
black on their stalks, the little lotus-pond was a circle of caked
mud, and the tamarisk-trees were white with the dust of days. Most of
the men were at the bandstand in the public gardens--from the Club
verandah you could hear the native Police band hammering stale
waltzes--or on the polo-ground or in the high-walled fives-court,
hotter than a Dutch oven. Half a dozen grooms, squatted at the heads
of their ponies, waited their masters' return. From time to time a
man would ride at a foot-pace into the Club compound, and listlessly
loaf over to the whitewashed barracks beside the main building. These
were supposed to be chambers. Men lived in them, meeting the same
faces night after night at dinner, and drawing out their office-work
till the latest possible hour, that they might escape that doleful
company.

'What are you going to do?' said Martyn, with a yawn. 'Let's have a
swim before dinner.'

'Water's hot,' said Scott. 'I was at the bath to-day.'

'Play you game o' billiards--fifty up.'

'It's a hundred and five in the hall now. Sit still and don't be so
abominably energetic.'

A grunting camel swung up to the porch, his badged and belted rider
fumbling a leather pouch.

'_Kubber-kargaz--ki--yektraaa_,' the man whined, handing down the
newspaper extra--a slip printed on one side only, and damp from the
press. It was pinned on the green baize-board, between notices of
ponies for sale and fox-terriers missing.

Martyn rose lazily, read it, and whistled. 'It's declared!' he cried.
'One, two, three--eight districts go under the operation of the
Famine Code _ek dum_. They've put Jimmy Hawkins in charge.'

'Good business!' said Scott, with the first sign of interest he had
shown. 'When in doubt hire a Punjabi. I worked under Jimmy when I
first came out and he belonged to the Punjab. He has more _bundobust_
than most men.'

'Jimmy's a Jubilee Knight now,' said Martyn. 'He was a good chap,
even though he is a thrice-born civilian and went to the Benighted
Presidency. What unholy names these Madras districts rejoice in--all
_ungas_ or _rungas_ or _pillays_ or _polliums_.'

A dog-cart drove