'Isn't it almost time we saw him again?' said Mrs. Jim. 'I'm sure the
poor boy hasn't had a respectable meal for a month. He probably sits
on a cart and eats sardines with his fingers.'

'All in good time, dear. Duty before decency--wasn't it Mr. Chucks
said that?'

'No; it was Midshipman Easy,' William laughed. 'I sometimes wonder
how it will feel to dance or listen to a band again, or sit under a
roof. I can't believe that I ever wore a ball-frock in my life.'

'One minute,' said Mrs. Jim, who was thinking. 'If he goes to Khanda,
he passes within five miles of us. Of course he'll ride in.'

'Oh, no, he won't,' said William.

'How do you know, dear?'

'It'll take him off his work. He won't have time.'

'He'll make it,' said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle.

'It depends on his own judgment. There's absolutely no reason why he
shouldn't, if he thinks fit,' said Jim.

'He won't see fit,' William replied, without sorrow or emotion. 'It
wouldn't be him if he did.'

'One certainly gets to know people rather well in times like these,'
said Jim, drily; but William's face was serene as ever, and, even as
she prophesied, Scott did not appear.

The Rains fell at last, late, but heavily; and the dry, gashed earth
was red mud, and servants killed snakes in the camp, where every one
was weather-bound for a fortnight--all except Hawkins, who took horse
and splashed about in the wet, rejoicing. Now the Government decreed
that seed-grain should be distributed to the people, as well as
advances of money for the purchase of new oxen; and the white men
were doubly worked for this new duty, while William skipped from
brick to brick laid down on the trampled mud, and dosed her charges
with warming medicines that made them rub their little round
stomachs; and the milch-goats throve on the rank grass. There was
never a word from Scott in the Khanda district, away to the
south-east, except the regular telegraphic report to Hawkins. The
rude country roads had disappeared; his drivers were half mutinous;
one of Martyn's loaned policemen had died of cholera; and Scott was
taking thirty grains of quinine a day to fight the fever that comes
if one works hard in heavy rain; but those were things he did not
consider necessary to report. He was, as usual, working from a base
of supplies on a railway line, to cover a circle of fifteen miles
radius, and since full loads were impossible, he took quarter-loads,
and toiled four times as hard by con