smallness of the station, and the uncertain character of the wanderings of the tribes, would probably result in leaving the hospital empty for eleven months out of the year, while if Dick should be transferred to another post, its _raison d’être_ would be gone. The duchess was disappointed, but not crushed. Would Mrs North allow her to send a gift, just one, to the surgery as it stood at present? She could not bear to think of the terrible discomfort the poor sick women must suffer. Georgia consented, and after a time the gift arrived, brought up-country at a vast expenditure of toil and money. It was a regulation hospital bed, the very latest patent, which could be made to roll itself the wrong way like a bucking horse, stand up on end, kneel down like a camel, dislocate itself in unexpected places, and perform other acrobatic feats, all by turning a handle. Rahah sat before it in silent admiration for a whole morning, occasionally pressing the wires gently down for the pleasure of seeing them rise again. When she had drunk in this delight sufficiently, she ventured to put the bedstead through its paces, rushing to summon her mistress in joyful awe at each new trick she discovered. But so far, her enjoyment was incomplete. To be perfect, the bed needed a patient to occupy it, and at last one was brought in by her friends, crippled by some rheumatic affection. Rahah herself laid her on the bed, only to behold her leap from it immediately with the strength of perfect health. There was an evil spirit in the bed, she declared. All other beds sank when you lay down upon them, this one rose up. And in spite of the wonderful cure of this first and only case, the bed was never occupied again. It was talked of all along the frontier, the women came for miles to see it, and watched in shuddering delight while Rahah showed them what it could do; but it was only very rarely that a heroine could be found bold enough even to touch it with a finger. Meanwhile, the patients continued to sleep on their mats or their charpoys, insisting that the bed should be turned out of the room before they would take up their quarters there, lest the evil spirit should seize upon them during the hours of darkness.