at a stroke, like a poisoned arrow; in another she
will play with a tortured body as a cat plays with a mouse. And it was
thus that she dealt with Eldred Lenox.

For two days and nights Desmond and the Pathan wrestled against the
evil thing, and against that deadly apathy as to the result, which
kills more surely than the disease itself. And since the regiment
claimed many hours of the Englishman's day, the brunt of the nursing
devolved upon Zyarulla, who scorned suggestions of sleep, and appeared
to live on pellets of opium, and a hookah, which inhabited the verandah
outside his master's room.

There were moments when they were tempted to despair. But they fought
on doggedly, and without comment; and as the second night wore towards
morning, they knew that they had conquered. The gong at the police
station down the road had just clanged three times. Every door and
window-slit stood open at their widest; and through them entered in the
familiar, unforgettable smell of the Indian Empire under her yearly
baptism of fire; a smell of dust, and baked brick work, and stale
native tobacco. A hand-lamp on the mantelpiece diffused a yellow
twilight through the room; a twilight flavoured with kerosine: and
across the twilight the shadow of the punkah flitted, like a whispering
ghost.

Zyarulla, crouching at the bedside, slid a cautious knotted hand
between the buttons of the sleeping-coat, and laid it lightly on his
master's heart. The flutter within was feeble, but regular; though the
face, grey and shrunken almost past recognition, still bore the impress
of death.

"God is great," the Pathan muttered into his beard. "The strength of
the Heaven-born is as that of mine own hills; and my Sahib will live.
It is enough."

On the farther side of the bed, Desmond, in gauze vest, and belted
trousers, mopped his forehead, and drew a long breath. Then, measuring
out a tablespoonful of raw-meat soup, he slipped a hand under the dark
head on the pillow.

"Lenox, dear chap, drink this, will you?" he said, speaking as
persuasively as a mother to a child.

Lenox obeyed automatically. For a mere instant his lids lifted, and
recognition gleamed in the eyes that seemed to have retreated half-way
into his head. Then, with an incoherent murmur, he settled himself
into a more natural attitude of rest; and the two men watching him
intently, exchanged a nod of satisfaction.

The Pathan, sitting back on his heels, fumbled at his