'Isn't it ghastly? I've bought twenty; they're in our camp; but won't
you have something to eat first? We've more than ten people can do
here; and I've got a horse for you. Oh, I'm so glad you've come!
You're a Punjabi too, you know.'

'Steady, Lizzie,' said Hawkins, over his shoulder. 'We'll look after
you, Miss Martyn. Sorry I can't ask you to breakfast, Martyn. You'll
have to eat as you go. Leave two of your men to help Scott. These
poor devils can't stand up to load carts. Saunders' (this to the
engine-driver, half asleep in the cab), 'back down and get those
empties away.' You've 'line clear' to Anundrapillay; they'll give you
orders north of that. Scott, load up your carts from that B.P.P.
truck, and be off as soon as you can. The Eurasian in the pink shirt
is your interpreter and guide. You'll find an apothecary of sorts
tied to the yoke of the second wagon. He's been trying to bolt;
you'll have to look after him. Lizzie, drive Miss Martyn to camp, and
tell them to send the red horse down here for me.'

Scott, with Faiz Ullah and two policemen, was already busy on the
carts, backing them up to the truck and unbolting the sideboards
quietly, while the others pitched in the bags of millet and wheat.
Hawkins watched him for as long as it took to fill one cart.

'That's a good man,' he said. 'If all goes well I shall work
him--hard.' This was Jim Hawkins's notion of the highest compliment
one human being could pay another.

An hour later Scott was under way; the apothecary threatening him
with the penalties of the law for that he, a member of the
Subordinate Medical Department, had been coerced and bound against
his will and all laws governing the liberty of the subject; the
pink-shirted Eurasian begging leave to see his mother, who happened
to be dying some three miles, away: 'Only verree, verree short leave
of absence, and will presently return, sar--'; the two constables,
armed with staves, bringing up the rear; and Faiz Ullah, a
Mohammedan's contempt for all Hindoos and foreigners in every line of
his face, explaining to the drivers that though Scott Sahib was a man
to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz Ullah, was Authority itself.

The procession creaked past Hawkins's camp--three stained tents under
a clump of dead trees; behind them the famine-shed where a crowd of
hopeless ones tossed their arms around the cooking-kettles.

'Wish to Heaven William had kept out of it,' said Scott to himself,
after a glan