n of
Uncleanliness.

But the first April rainfall would turn the dry ditch into an open
sewer--a vast trough of muddy water--in which draggled women would paddle
for submerged household gods. Many would prefer to tramp back to the town
at night and sleep in their own shrapnel-riddled homes. But the majority
stayed, of choice or of necessity, incubating sickness in that fetid place
where nothing would thrive but fierce social and political hatreds, and
petty grudges, and rankling jealousies, and shrieking quarrels that burst
out and raged a hundred times in a day.

From one of the dug-out refuges Saxham now saw Lynette Mildare coming,
making her swift way between the knots of frowsy refugees, the negro
women-servants squatting over the little cooking-fires, the pallid
children swarming on the narrow pathways.

"Dr. Saxham." Her simple brown holland skirt and thin linen blouse hung
loosely upon her. Her face, too, had grown thinner, and looked tired. But
the eyes were no longer unnaturally dilated, and the face had a more
healthful pallor. "Mrs. Greening begged me to look out for you. She is so
anxious about Berta. We have been doing everything we can, but I am afraid
the child is seriously ill. It is the third shelter from the end, south
side." She pointed out the place.

He had lifted his hat with his short, brusque salute. His vivid eyes wore
a preoccupied look, his mobile nostrils angrily sniffed the villainous
air.

"I'll come directly, Miss Mildare. But--who can expect children to keep
healthy under conditions as insanitary as these?"

"It is--horrible!" Disgust was in her face. "But many of the women are as
ignorant as the Kaffirs and Cape boys, and they and the coolie sweepers
won't carry away refuse any more unless they're paid."

"You are sure of this?" His tone was curt and official.

"I am almost certain," she told him. "I have heard some of the women
complaining that the charges grew higher every day. And, when I asked one
of the boys why he did not do the work properly, he was--rude.... Oh,
don't punish him!"

He had not said a word, but a white-hot spark had darted from his blue
eye, and his grim jaws had clamped ominously together.

"It is my duty to put down insubordination, and chastise inefficiency
where I encounter it. May I ask you to point out the fellow who behaved
insolently?"

She said: "I--I think he is head of the carting-gang. A Kaffir boy they
call Jim Gubo."

"That will do, th