Three miles to the east is Bān Pên, the village which has figured in a previous chapter. The Christians there had long been asking for a visit, which my own sickness and want of time on the part of others rendered it impossible to make. On Monday morning I decided to take the risk and visit it. With some misgivings I saw my wife’s boat move off and leave me—burning, so to speak, my bridges behind me. The whole country was flooded. Discarding shoes and stockings, I made my way on foot, weak as I was, through water, across ditches, or along the narrow ridges of rice-fields, and finally reached Bān Pên in safety. And what a week I spent in that neighbourhood! At Nawng Sīu, a village two miles distant from Bān Pên, there were six families of professed believers whom Dr. Dodd and I had visited the season before—almost swimming at times to reach them in their scattered homes. Their admission was postponed at that time until they should have had further instruction. To these I specially addressed myself. During the week our faithful elder, Nān Tā, came down to assist me in the work. On Friday evening the session met at Nawng Sīu to examine and instruct these new converts, and again on Saturday morning, closing finally at two o’clock in the afternoon with baptism and the Lord’s Supper. On counting up the numbers, it was found that twenty adults and seventeen children had been baptized. Among them was an aged couple with their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It was a memorable sight. The Sabbath was spent at Bān Pên, where seven more adults and one child were baptized. On Monday I made my way back to the boat as I had come, and reached home on Tuesday. And now for the strange part of the story. _I reached home well._ My week’s wading in the water, and the hard work, had done what medicine and doctors and a long boat trip had failed to accomplish! But a new disappointment awaited me. Before I reached home, Dr. Cary had resigned. His short career is one of the mysteries to be explained in the great beyond. A consecrated physician, he had given his life to the Lāo people. Crushed by his tragic bereavement on the way out, and with a constitution never strong, he contended manfully for two years against the debilitating effects of a malarial climate. But at last he had to give up the fight. His work had been successful. “He saved others; himself he could not save!” His departure threw on me again the oversight of the medical work. But this time most of the dispensing of medicine to the natives fell on Chanta, a protégé of my own, who had had good training under two physicians. Meanwhile Dr. Cheek looked after the mission families, and, as already stated, was always ready to respond to an urgent call in the hospital. My time was largely given, therefore, to the evangelistic work, to instructing Nān Tā and other elders, and to teaching enquirers and others to read in Siamese, first the Shorter Catechism, and then a Gospel.