Outside each city a cholera camp was formed, with a view to the isolation of the sufferers. The District officers were at work from morning to night. The natives took it all with that slightly wondering acquiescence which is the normal attitude of mind produced by the proceedings of the 'Sahib.' It was the order of God that cholera should come; it was likewise the order of the 'Sirkar'[4] that houses should be whitewashed, cesspools cleared out, and chlorodyne administered gratis to all who liked it. Both visitations were inscrutable, and to be endured with philosophic calm. The English Doctor, however, was, so ran the orthodox belief, a dangerous fellow, and the old 'Hakim,' with his traditional nostrums, no doubt the proper person to be killed or cured by. The right thing therefore, if one became ill, was carefully to conceal the fact, have surreptitious interviews with the native physician, and, if die one must, be returned as having died of some disease which would not involve a visit from the 'Inspector Sahib,' a conflagration of bedsteads and clothes, a general effusion of whitewash and consequent topsy-turveying of all the household. English doctors and native doctors, however, were of much the same avail, for King Cholera has as yet defied science to read his deadly mystery and learn the secret of his rule. All that science can achieve is to narrow the limits of his ravages. May had scarcely begun when two cases occurred in the Hill Camp, and Sutton, for the first time in his life, knew what it was to be afraid. He had given 'hostages to Fortune,' and death and danger for the first time looked really terrible when it was Maud who had to confront them. Fifty times Sutton cursed his folly and selfishness in not having sent her off earlier to the Hills, out of harm's way. While he was harrassing himself with vain regrets and self-reproaches and puzzling his brains as to how the mistake might be even yet repaired, Maud herself added a new item to his perplexities by becoming decidedly unwell. She awoke unrefreshed and wretched; declined the great treat of the day, her morning ride; came shivering and appetiteless to breakfast and confessed to feeling completely miserable. Her husband, the moment that he felt her dry, burning hand, exclaimed that she had got fever, gave her a welcome prescription to go back at once to bed, and sent off for the Doctor.