and these are true words; on the head of my eldest born I
swear I have repeated it just as it was told to me."

[Footnote 15: Earthen receptacle.]

"It is a fable; believe it not. More likely he is dead and his body
already cremated."

"Not so. I was told I could see him, if I willed, with mine own eyes.
Many have journeyed to the Station so that they might with their own
eyes behold him. The doctor Sahib may be unfeeling, even bloodthirsty,
but he is devil-possessed with cunning to work magic."

"Even so, he is a danger and should be removed. Who knows what excuse he
might take to use the knife on thee and me and the little ones of our
households? _Tobah!_ he is a wolf, not a man. And this one the _Sarcar_
has sent among us to mutilate, kill, and rob us of our comforts and
rights. Soon, he will take away the _jhil_ from Panipara _busti_ so that
the people will be put to the labour of dragging water out of deep
wells, and for the washing of their garments, they will have to walk
many _kos_ to the river!"

Mr. Meek had learned a great deal more from his converts of the sayings
of the villagers and their feeling against Captain Dalton, all of which
Mrs. Meek recounted to Honor in order that she might put the doctor on
his guard. The latter, however, gave her no opportunity to speak to him,
so she left it to Joyce to tell him of his growing unpopularity.

This Joyce did on one of their outings in the Rolls-Royce and only
succeeded in bringing a smile of amusement to the doctor's lips. He had
no apprehensions whatever for his safety and the subject, therefore, was
speedily forgotten. Joyce learned how to drive, and one afternoon in
December had the supreme satisfaction of motoring out to camp and back
again in the doctor's car. Her pleasure in his surprise was so childlike
and exuberant that Meredith had not the heart to show his disapproval of
the means by which she had attained this end, and smothered his own
feelings that they should not damp her spirits.

"It was very charming indeed of him to spare so much of his time to
you," he said with reference to the doctor's tutelage. "But why should
he take all that trouble, do you think?"

"Because he likes me, of course," she replied ingenuously. "People don't
usually do things for those for whom they care nothing," she said
perching on his knee and lighting his cigarette for him. Her engaging
impulses of affection were most disarming to Meredith's suspicions.

"Bu