“All in good time, dear. Duty before decency—wasn’t it Mr. Chucks said that?” “No; it was Midshipman Easy,” William laughed. “I sometimes wonder how it will feel to dance or listen to a band again, or sit under a roof. I can’t believe I ever wore a ball-frock in my life.” “One minute,” said Mrs. Jim, who was thinking. “If he goes to Khanda, he passes within five miles of us. Of course he’ll ride in.” “Oh, no, he won’t,” said William. “How do you know, dear?” “It will take him off his work. He won’t have time.” “He’ll make it,” said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle. “It depends on his own judgment. There’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t, if he thinks fit,” said Jim. “He won’t see fit,” William replied, without sorrow or emotion. “It wouldn’t be him if he did.” “One certainly gets to know people rather well in times like these,” said Jim, drily; but William’s face was serene as ever, and even as she prophesied, Scott did not appear. The Rains fell at last, late, but heavily; and the dry, gashed earth was red mud, and servants killed snakes in the camp, where every one was weather-bound for a fortnight—all except Hawkins, who took horse and plashed about in the wet, rejoicing. Now the Government decreed that seed-grain should be distributed to the people, as well as advances of money for the purchase of new oxen; and the white men were doubly worked for this new duty, while William skipped from brick to brick laid down on the trampled mud, and dosed her charges with warming medicines that made them rub their little round stomachs; and the milch goats throve on the rank grass. There was never a word from Scott in the Khanda district, away to the southeast, except the regular telegraphic report to Hawkins. The rude country roads had disappeared; his drivers were half mutinous; one of Martyn’s loaned policemen had died of cholera; and Scott was taking thirty grains of quinine a day to fight the fever that comes with the rain: but those were things Scott did not consider necessary to report. He was, as usual, working from a base of supplies on a railway line, to cover a circle of fifteen miles radius, and since full loads were impossible, he took quarter-loads, and toiled four times as hard by consequence; for he did not choose to risk an epidemic which might have grown uncontrollable by assembling villagers in thousands at the relief-sheds. It was cheaper to take Government bullocks, work them to death, and leave them to the crows in the wayside sloughs.