g was ended. The
lights of the two low bungalows in which the daily paper was printed
showed bright across the road. It was too early to try to find sleep,
and Scott drifted over to the editor. Raines, stripped to the waist like
a sailor at a gun, lay half asleep in a long chair, waiting for night
telegrams. He had a theory that if a man did not stay by his work all
day and most of the night he laid himself open to fever: so he ate and
slept among his files.

"Can you do it?" he said drowsily. "I didn't mean to bring you over."

"About what? I've been dining at the Martyns'."

"The Madras famine, of course. Martyn's warned, too. They're taking
men where they can find 'em. I sent a note to you at the Club just now,
asking if you could do us a letter once a week from the south--between
two and three columns, say. Nothing sensational, of course, but
just plain facts about who is doing what, and so forth. Our regular
rates--ten rupees a column."

"'Sorry, but it's out of my line," Scott answered, staring absently at
the map of India on the wall. "It's rough on Martyn--very. 'Wonder what
he'll do with his sister? 'Wonder what the deuce they'll do with me?
I've no famine experience. This is the first I've heard of it. Am I
ordered?"

"Oh, yes. Here's the wire. They'll put you on to relief-works," Raines
said, "with a horde of Madrassis dying like flies; one native apothecary
and half a pint of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand of you. It
comes of your being idle for the moment. Every man who isn't doing two
men's work seems to have been called upon. Hawkins evidently believes in
Punjabis. It's going to be quite as bad as anything they have had in the
last ten years."

"It's all in the day's work, worse luck. I suppose I shall get my orders
officially some time to-morrow. I'm awfully glad I happened to drop in.
Better go and pack my kit now. Who relieves me here--do you know?"

Raines turned over a sheaf of telegrams. "McEuan," said he, "from
Murree."

Scott chuckled. "He thought he was going to be cool all summer. He'll be
very sick about this. Well, no good talking. 'Night."

Two hours later, Scott, with a clear conscience, laid himself down to
rest on a string cot in a bare room. Two worn bullock trunks, a leather
water-bottle, a tin ice-box, and his pet saddle sewed up in sacking were
piled at the door, and the Club secretary's receipt for last month's
bill was under his pillow. His orders came next morning