In all her life, the youngest Miss Gordon had never felt so utterly solitary or forsaken as now, when she stood alone on the line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Before her the party of natives, with their twinkling lanterns, were gradually reaching vanishing point; behind her was a long, still procession of trucks and waggons, that looked like some dreadful black monster waiting for its prey; on either hand stretched the greyish unknown mysterious landscape, from which strange unfamiliar sounds, in the shape of croakings and cries, were audible. Oh! when would her nameless companion return? She glanced anxiously towards the hut, it was beyond the gate, and down a steep bank, away from the road; animated figures seemed to pass to and fro against the lighted open door. Ah! here came one of them, her escort, who had in point of fact been only absent five minutes, and not, as she imagined, half an hour. “It is a stoker who has been cut about the head and badly scalded,” he explained breathlessly. “They are waiting for an apothecary from Okara, and meanwhile they are trying a native herb and a charm. They don’t seem to do the poor chap much good. I think I might be able to do something better for him, though I have no experience, beyond seeing accidents at football and out hunting; but I cannot leave you here like this, and yet I cannot well ask you inside the hut, the heat is like a furnace--and--altogether--it--it would be too much for you, but if you would not mind waiting outside just for a few minutes, I’d get you something to sit on.” “Thank you, but I would rather go in--I have attended an ambulance class--‘first aid,’ you know, and perhaps I may be of some little use; there is sticking-plaster, eau-de-Cologne, and a pair of scissors in my bag.” “Well, mind; you must brace up your nerves,” he answered, as he pushed open the gate, and led her down the crumbling sandy incline. The heat within the hut was almost suffocating; as the girl, following her guide, entered, every eye was instantly fixed upon her in wide surprise. By the light of a small earthen lamp, which smoked horribly, she distinguished the figure of a man crouching on the edge of a charpoy; he was breathing in hard hoarse gasps, and bleeding from a great gash above his eye.