The Day's Work

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ILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

ing, heavy with the smell of the newly watered Mall.
The flowers in the Club gardens were dead and black on
their stalks, the little lotus-pond was a circle of caked
mud, and the tamarisk-trees were white with the dust of
weeks. Most of the men were at the band-stand in the
public gardens— from the Club verandah you could hear
the native Police band hammering stale waltzes— or on
the polo-ground, or in the high- walled fives-court, hotter
than a Dutch oven. Half a dozen grooms, squatted at
the heads of their ponies, waited their masters' return.
From time to time a man would ride at a foot-pace into
the Club compound, and listlessly loaf over to the
whitewashed barracks beside the main building. These
were supposed to be chambers. Men lived in them,
meeting the same white faces night after night at
dinner, and drawing out their office-work till the latest
possible hour, that they might escape that doleful
company.

" What are you going to do? " said Martyn, with a
yawn. " Let 's have a swim before dinner."
" 'Water 's hot. I was at the bath to-day."
" 'Play you game o' billiards— fifty up."
" It 's a hundred and five in the hall now. Sit still
and don't be so abominably energetic."

A grunting camel swung up to the porch, his badged
and belted rider fumbling a leather pouch.

" Kubber-kargaz-ki-yektraaa, " the man whined,
handing down the newspaper extra — a slip printed on
one side only, and damp from the press. It was
pinned up on the green-baize board, between notices
of ponies for sale and fox-terriers missing.
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WILLIAM ;THE CONQUEROR

Martyn rose lazily, read it, and whistled. "It 's de-
clared! " he cried. " One/ two, three— eight districts
go under the operations of the Famine Code ek dum.
They 've put Jimmy Hawkins in charge."

" Good business! " said Scott, with the first sign of
interest he had shown. " When in doubt hire a Pun-
jabi. I worked under Jimmy when I first came out and
he belonged to the Punjab. He has more bundobust
than most men.

"Jimmy 's a Jubilee Knight now," said Martyn.
"He 's a good chap, even though he is a thrice-born
civilian and went to the Benighted Presidency. What
unholy names these Madras districts rejoice in— all
ungas or rungas or pillays or polliums I "

A dog-cart drove up in the dusk, and a man entered,
mopping his head. He was editor of the one daily
paper at the capital of a Province of twenty-five million
natives and a few hundred white men : as his staff
was limited to himself and one assistant, his office-
hours ran variously from ten to twenty a day.

'' Hi, Raines; you 're supposed to know everything,"
said Martyn, stopping him. " How 's this Madras
'scarcity' going to turn out?"

' ' No one knows as yet. There 's a message as long as
your arm coming in on the telephone. I 've left my
cub to fill it out. Madras has owned she can't manage
it alone, and Jimmy seems to have a free hand in get-
ting all the men he needs. Arbuthnot 's warned to hold
himself in readiness."

"* Badger ' Arbuthnot? "

" The Peshawur chap. Yes: and the Pi wires that
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

Ellis and Clay have been moved from the Northwest
already, and they 've taken half a dozen Bombay men,
too. It 's pukka famine, by the looks of it."

u They 're nearer the scene of action than we are;
but if it comes to indenting on the Punjab this early,
there 's more in this than meets the eye," said Martyn.

" Here to-day and gone to-morrow. 'Did n't come to
stay for ever," said Scott, dropping one of Marryat's
novels, and rising to his feet. " Martyn, your sister 's
waiting for you."

A rough grey horse was backing and shifting at the
edge of the verandah, where the light of a kerosene-
lamp fell on a brown-calico habit and a white face
under a grey felt hat.

4 'Right, O!" said Martyn. "I'm ready. Better
come and dine with us, if you 've nothing to do, Scott.
William, is there any dinner in the house? "

"I '11 go home and see," was the rider's answer.
u You can drive him over— at eight, remember."

Scott moved leisurely to his room, and changed into
the evening-dress of the season and the country : spot-
less white linen from head to foot, with a broad silk
cummerbund. Dinner at the Martyns'was a decided
improvement on the goat-mutton, twiney-tough fowl,
and tinned entrees of the Club. But it was a great pity
that Martyn could not afford to send his sister to the
hills for the hot weather. As an Acting District Su-
perintendent of Police, Martyn drew the magnificent
pay of six hundred depreciated silver rupees a month,
and his little four-roomed bungalow said just as much.
There were the usual blue-and- white-striped jail-made
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

rugs on the uneven floor; the usual glass-studded
Amritsar phulkaris draped on nails driven into the flak-
ing whitewash of the walls ; the usual half-dozen chairs
that did not match, picked up at sales of dead men's
effects ; and the usual streaks of black grease where the
leather punka- thong ran through the wall. It was
as though everything had been unpacked the night
before to be repacked next morning. Not a door in the
house was true on its hinges. The little windows, fif-
teen feet up, were darkened with wasp-nests, and
lizards hunted flies between the beams of the wood-
ceiled roof. But all this was part of Scott's life. Thus
did people live who had such an income ; and in a land
where each man's pay, age, and position are printed in
a book, that all may read, it is hardly worth while to
play at pretence in word or deed. Scott counted eight
years' service in the Irrigation Department, and drew
eight hundred rupees a month, on the understanding
that if he served the State faithfully for another twenty-
two years he could retire on a pension of some four hun-
dred rupees a month. His working-life, which had been
spent chiefly under canvas or in temporary shelters
where a man could sleep, eat, and write letters, was
bound up with the opening and guarding of irrigation
canals, the handling of two or three thousand workmen
of all castes and creeds, and the payment of vast sums
of coined silver. He had finished that spring, not
without credit, the last section of the great Mosuhl
Canal, and— much against his will, for he hated office-
work— had been sent in to serve during the hot weather
on the accounts and supply side of the Department, with
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

sole charge of the sweltering sub-office at the capital
of the Province. Martyn knew this; William, his sis-
ter, knew it; and everybody knew it. Scott knew, too,
as well as the rest of the world, that Miss Martyn had
come out to India four years ago to keep house for
her brother, who, as every one knew, had borrowed the
money to pay for her passage, and that she ought, as
all the world said, to have married at once. Instead
of this, she had refused some half a dozen subalterns, a
Civilian twenty years her senior, one Major, and a man
in the Indian Medical Department. This, too, was com-
mon property. She had ' ' stayed down three hot
weathers," as the saying is, because her brother was in
debt and could not afford the expense of her keep at
even a cheap hill-station. Therefore her face was
white as bone, and in the centre of her forehead was a
big silvery scar about the size of a shilling— the mark
of a Delhi sore, which is the same as a " Bagdad date."
This comes from drinking bad water, and slowly eats
into the flesh till it is ripe enough to be burned out.

None the less William had enjoyed herself hugely in
her four years. Twice she had been nearly drowned
while fording a river; once she had been run away
with on a camel; had witnessed a midnight attack
of thieves on her brother's camp; had seen justice
administered, with long sticks, in the open under trees;
could speak Urdu and even rough Punjabi with a flu-
ency that was envied by her seniors; had entirely
fallen out of the habit of writing to her aunts in Eng-
land, or cutting the pages of the English magazines,
had been through a very bad cholera year, seeing
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

sights unfit to be told ; and had wound up her experi-
ences by six weeks of typhoid fever, during which her
head had been shaved— and hoped to keep her twenty-
third birthday that September. It is conceivable that
the aunts would not have approved of a girl who never
set foot on the ground if a horse were within hail ; who
rode to dances with a shawl thrown over her skirt;
who wore her hair cropped and curling all over her
head ; who answered indifferently to the name of Wil-
liam or Bill ; whose speech was heavy with the flowers
of the vernacular; who could act in amateur theatri-
cals, play on the banjo, rule eight servants and two
horses, their accounts and their diseases, and look men
slowly and deliberately between the eyes— even after
they had proposed to her and been rejected.

" I like men who do things," she had confided to a
man in the Educational Department, who was teaching
the sons of cloth-merchants and dyers the beauty of
Wordsworth's " Excursion" in annotated cram-books;
and when he grew poetical, William explained that she
"did n't understand poetry very much; it made her
head ache," and another broken heart took refuge at
the Club. But it was all William's fault. She delighted
in hearing men talk of their own work, and that is the
most fatal way of bringing a man to your feet.

Scott had known her for some three years, meet-
ing her, as a rule, under canvas, when his camp and
her brother's joined for a day on the edge of the Indian
Desert. He had danced with her several times at the
big Christmas gatherings, when as many as five hun-
dred white people came in to the station; and had
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

always a great respect for her housekeeping and her
dinners.

She looked more like a boy than ever when, the meal
ended, she sat, rolling cigarettes, her low forehead
puckered beneath the dark curls as she twiddled the
papers and stuck out her rounded chin when the
tobacco stayed in place, or, with a gesture as true as
a school-boy's throwing a stone, tossed the finished
article across the room to Martyn, who caught it with
one hand, and continued his talk with Scott. It was
all " shop,"— canals and the policing of canals; the
sins of villagers who stole more water than they had
paid for, and the grosser sin of native constables who
connived at the thefts ; of the transplanting bodily of
villages to newly irrigated ground, and of the coming
fight with the desert in the south when the Provincial
funds should warrant the opening of the long-sur-
veyed Luni Protective Canal System. And Scott
spoke openly of his great desire to be put on one par-
ticular section of the work where he knew the land
and the people ; and Martyn sighed for a billet in the
Himalayan foot-hills, and said his mind of his superi-
ors, and William rolled cigarettes and said nothing, but
smiled gravely on her brother because he was happy.

At ten Scott's horse came to the door, and the even-
ing was ended.

The lights of the two low bungalows in which the
daily paper was printed showed bright across the road.
It was too early to try to find sleep, and Scott drifted
over to the editor. Raines, stripped to the waist like a
sailor at a gun, lay half asleep in a long chair, waiting
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mm.

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WILLIAM ,T HE CONQUEROR

for night telegrams. He had a theory that if a man did
not stay by his work all day and most of the night he
laid himself open to fever : so he ate and slept among
his files.

" Can you do it? " he said drowsily. " I did n't mean
to bring you over."

" About what? I 've been dining at the MartynsV

" The Madras famine, of course. Martyn 's warned,
too. They 're taking men where they can find 'em. I
sent a note to you at the Club just now, asking if you
could do us a letter once a week from the south—
between two and three columns, say. Nothing sen-
sational, of course, but just plain facts about who is
doing what, and so forth. Our regular rates— ten
rupees a column."

'"Sorry, but it 's out of my line," Scott answered,
staring absently at the map of India on the wall. "It 's
rough on Martyn— very. ' Wonder what he 11 do with
his sister? ' Wonder what the deuce they '11 do with
me? I 've no famine experience. This is the first I 've
heard of it. Am I ordered? "

" Oh, yes. Here 's the wire. They '11 put you on to
relief-works," Raines said, " with a horde of Madrassis
dying like flies ; one native apothecary and half a pint
of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand of you. It
comes of your being idle for the moment. Every man
who is n't doing two men's work seems to have been
called upon. Hawkins evidently believes in Punjabis.
It 's going to be quite as bad as anything they have had
in the last ten years."

"It 's all in the day's work, worse luck. I suppose
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

I shall get my orders officially some time to-morrow.
I 'm awfully glad I happened to drop in. 'Better go
and pack my kit now. Who relieves me here— do you
know?"

Raines turned over a sheaf of telegrams. ' * McEuan, ' '
said he, "from Murree."

Scott chuckled. " He thought he was going to be
cool all summer. He '11 be very sick about this. Well,
no good talking. ' Night. ' '

Two hours later, Scott, with a clear conscience, laid
himself down to rest on a string cot in a bare room.
Two worn bullock trunks, a leather water-bottle, a tin
ice-box, and his pet saddle sewed up in sacking were
piled at the door, and the Club secretary's receipt for
last month' s bill was under his pillow. His orders came
next morning, and with them an unofficial telegram
from Sir James Hawkins, who was not in the habit of
forgetting good men when he had once met them, bid-
ding him report himself with all speed at some unpro-
nounceable place fifteen hundred miles to the south, for
the famine was sore in the land, and white men were
needed.

A pink and fattish youth arrived in the red-hot
noonday, whimpering a little at fate and famines, which
never allowed any one three months' peace. He was
Scott's successor— another cog in the machinery, moved
forward behind his fellow whose services, as the official
announcement ran, " were placed at the disposal of the
Madras Government for famine duty until further
orders." Scott handed over the funds in his charge,
showed him the coolest corner in the office, warned him
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

against excess of zeal, and, as twilight fell, departed
from the Club in a hired carriage, with his faithful
body-servant, Faiz Ullah, and a mound of disordered
baggage atop, to catch the southern mail at the loop-
holed and bastioned railway-station. The heat from
the thick brick walls struck him across the face as
if it had been a hot towel ; and he reflected that there
were at least five nights and four days of this travel be-
fore him. Faiz Ullah, used to the chances of service,
plunged into the crowd on the stone platform, while
Scott, a black cheroot between his teeth, waited till his
compartment should be set away. A dozen native
policemen, with their rifles and bundles, shouldered
into the press of Punjabi farmers, Sikh craftsmen,
and greasy-locked Afreedee pedlars, escorting with all
pomp Martyn's uniform-case, water-bottles, ice-box,
and bedding-roll. They saw Faiz Ullah's lifted hand,
and steered for it.

" My Sahib and your Sahib," said Faiz Ullah to Mar-
tyn's man, "will travel together. Thou and I, O
brother, will thus secure the servants' places close by ;
and because of our masters' authority none will dare to
disturb us."

When Faiz Ullah reported all things ready, Scott
settled down at full length, coatless and bootless, on
the broad leather-covered bunk. The heat under the
iron-arched roof of the station might have been any-
thing over a hundred degrees. At the last moment
Martyn entered, dripping.

" Don't swear," said Scott, lazily; " it 's too late to
change your carriage; and we '11 divide the ice."
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

" What are you doing here? " said the policeman.

" I 'm lent to the Madras Government, same as you.
By Jove, it 's a bender of a night! Are you taking
any of your men down? "

" A dozen. I suppose I shall have to superintend
relief distributions. 'Did n't know you were under
orders too."

" I did n't till after I left you'last night. Raines had
the news first. My orders came this morning. McEuan
relieved me at four, and I got off at once. 'Should n't
wonder if it would n't be a good thing— this famine— if
we come through it alive. ' '

' ' Jimmy ought to put you and me to work together, ' '
said Martyn; and then, after a pause: " My sister 's
here."

' ' Good business, ' ' said Scott, heartily. ' ' Going to get
off at Umballa, I suppose, and go up to Simla. Who '11
she stay with there? "

" No-o; that 's just the trouble of it. She 's going
down with me."

Scott sat bolt upright under the oil lamps as the train
jolted past Tarn-Taran. ' ' What ! You don't mean you
could n't afford—"

" Tain't that. I 'd have scraped up the money
somehow."

" You might have come to me, to begin with," said
Scott, stiffly; " we are n't altogether strangers."

" Well, you need n't be stuffy about it. I might, but

—you don't know my sister. I ' ve been explaining and

exhorting and all the rest of it all day— lost my temper

since seven this morning, and have n't got it back yet—

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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

but she would n't hear of any compromise. A woman 's
entitled to travel with her husband if she wants to;
and William says she 's on the same footing. You see,
we 've been together all our lives, more or less, since
my people died. It is n't as if she were an ordinary
sister. ' '

"All the sisters I 've ever heard of would have stayed
where they were well off. ' '

" She 's as clever as a man, confound her," Martyn
went on. " She broke up the bungalow over my head
while I was talking at her. 'Settled the whole thing
in three hours— servants, horses, and all. I did n't get
my orders till nine."

4 ' Jimmy Hawkins won't be pleased, ' ' said Scott. * * A
famine 's no place for a woman."

u Mrs. Jim— I mean Lady Jim 's in camp with him.
At any rate, she says she will look after my sister.
William wired down to her on her own responsibility,
asking if she could come, and knocked the ground from
under me by showing me her answer. ' '

Scott laughed aloud. " If she can do that she can
take care of herself, and Mrs. Jim won't let her run
into any mischief. There are n't many women, sisters
or wives, who would walk into a famine with their eyes
open. It is n't as if she did n't know what these
things mean. She was through the Jaloo cholera last
year."

The train stopped at Amritsar, and Scott went back
to the ladies' compartment, immediately behind their
carriage. William, with a cloth riding-cap on her curls,
nodded affably.

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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

"Come in and have some tea," she said. "'Best
thing in the world for heat-apoplexy."

" Do I look as if I were going to have heat-apo-
plexy?"

'"Never can tell," said William, wisely. "It 's
always best to be ready."

She had arranged her compartment with the know-
ledge of an old campaigner. A felt-covered water-bottle
hung in the draught of one of the shuttered windows ;
a tea-set of Russian china, packed in a wadded bas-
ket, stood on the seat ; and a travelling spirit-lamp was
clamped against the woodwork above it.

William served them generously, in large cups, hot
tea, which saves the veins of the neck from swelling
inopportunely on a hot night. It was characteristic of
the girl that, her plan of action once settled, she asked
for no comments on it. Life among men who had a
great deal of work to do, and very little time to do it
in, had taught her the wisdom of effacing, as well as
of fending for, herself. She did not by word or deed
suggest that she would be useful, comforting, or beau-
tiful in their travels, but continued about her business
serenely : put the cups back without clatter when tea
was ended, and made cigarettes for her guests.

" This time last night," said Scott, "we did n't expect
— er— this kind of thing, did we? "

"I 've learned to expect anything," said William.
" You know, in our service, we live at the end of the
telegraph ; but, of course, this ought to be a good thing
for us all, departmentally— if we live."

" It knocks us out of the running in our own Prov-
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

ince," Scott replied, with equal gravity. " I hoped to
be put on the Luni Protective Works this cold weather,
but there 's no saying how long the famine may keep
us."

"Hardly beyond October, I should think," said
Martyn. " It will be ended, one way or the other,
then."

" And we 've nearly a week of this," said William.
" Sha'n't we be dusty when it 's over? "

For a night and a day they knew their surroundings,
and for a night and a day, skirting the edge of the great
Indian Desert on a narrow-gauge railway, they remem-
bered how in the days of their apprenticeship they had
come by that road from Bombay. Then the languages
in which the names of the stations were written
changed, and they launched south into a foreign land,
where the very smells were new. Many long and
heavily laden grain-trains were in front of them, and
they could feel the hand of Jimmy Hawkins from far
off. They waited in extemporised sidings while proces-
sions of empty trucks returned to the north, and
were coupled on to slow, crawling trains, and dropped
at midnight, Heaven knew where ; but it was furiously
hot, and they walked to and fro among sacks, and dogs
howled. Then they came to an India more strange to
them than to the untravelled Englishman— the flat, red
India of palm-tree, palmyra-palm, and rice— the India
of the picture-books, of " Little Harry and His Bearer "
—all dead and dry in the baking heat. They had left
the incessant passenger-traffic of the north and west
far and far behind them. Here the people crawled
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

to the side of the train, holding their little ones in their
arms; and a loaded truck would be left behind, the
men and women clustering round it like ants by spilled
honey. Once in the twilight they saw on a dusty plain
a regiment of little brown men, each bearing a body
over his shoulder ; and when the train stopped to leave
yet another truck, they perceived that the burdens
were not corpses, but only foodless folk picked up be-
side dead oxen by a corps of Irregular troops. Now
they met more white men, here one and there two,
whose tents stood close to the line, and who came
armed with written authorities and angry words to cut
off a truck. They were too busy to do more than nod
at Scott and Martyn, and stare curiously at William,
who could do nothing except make tea, and watch how
her men staved off the rush of wailing, walking skele-
tons, putting them down three at a time in heaps, with
their own hands uncoupling the marked trucks, or tak-
ing receipts from the hollow-eyed, weary white men,
who spoke another argot than theirs. They ran out of
ice, out of soda-water, and out of tea; for they were
six days and seven nights on the road, and it seemed
to them like seven times seven years.

At last, in a dry, hot dawn, in a land of death, lit by
long red fires of rail way- sleepers, where they were
burning the dead, they came to their destination, and
were met by Jim Hawkins, the Head of the Famine,
unshaven, unwashed, but cheery, and entirely in com-
mand of affairs.

Martyn, he decreed then and there, was to live on
trains till further orders; was to go back with empty
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

trucks, filling them with starving people as he found
them, and dropping them at a famine-camp on the edge
of the Eight Districts. He would pick up supplies and
return, and his constables would guard the loaded grain-
cars, also picking up people, and would drop them at a
camp a hundred miles south . Scott — Hawkins was very
glad to see Scott again— would that same hour take
charge of a convoy of bullock-carts, and would go
south, feeding as he went, to yet another famine-camp,
where he would leave his starving— there would be no
lack of starving on the route— and wait for orders by
telegraph. Generally, Scott was in all small things to
act as he thought best.

William bit her under lip. There was no one in the
wide world like her one brother, but Martyn's orders
gave him no discretion. She came out on the platform,
masked with dust from head to foot, a horse-shoe
wrinkle on her forehead, put here by much thinking
during the past week, but as self-possessed as ever.
Mrs. Jim— who should have been Lady Jim but that no
one remembered the title— took possession of her with
a little gasp.

44 Oh, I 'm so glad you 're here," she almost sobbed.
44 You ought n't to, of course, but there— there is n't
another woman in the place, and we must help each
other, you know ; and we ' ve all the wretched people and
the little babies they are selling."

" I 've seen some," said William.

44 Is n't it ghastly? I 've bought twenty; they 're in
our camp; but won't you have something to eat first?
We 've more than ten people can do here; and I 've
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

got a horse for you. Oh, I 'm so glad you 've come,
dear. You 're a Punjabi, too, you know."

"Steady, Lizzie," said Hawkins, over his shoulder.
" We '11 look after you, Miss Martyn. 'Sorry I can't
ask you to breakfast, Martyn. You '11 have to eat as
you go. Leave two of your men to help Scott. These
poor devils can't stand up to load carts. Saunders "
(this to the engine-driver, who was half asleep in the
cab) , * ' back down and get those empties away. You ' ve
' line clear ' to Anundrapillay ; they '11 give you orders
north of that. Scott, load up your carts from that
B. P. P. truck, and be off as soon as you can. The
Eurasian in the pink shirt is your interpreter and guide.
You '11 find an apothecary of sorts tied to the yoke of
the second wagon. He 's been trying to bolt; you '11
have to look after him. Lizzie, drive Miss Martyn to
camp, and tell them to send the red horse down here
forme."

Scott, with FaizUllah and two policemen, was already
busied with the carts, backing them up to the truck
and unbolting the sideboards quietly, while the others
pitched in the bags of millet and wheat. Hawkins
watched him for as long as it took to fill one cart.

" That 's a good man," he said. " If all goes well I
shall work him hard. ' ' This was Jim Hawkins's notion
of the highest compliment one human being could pay
another.

An hour later Scott was under way ; the apothecary

threatening him with the penalties of the law for that

he, a member of the Subordinate Medical Department.

had been coerced and bound against his will and all

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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

laws governing the liberty of the subject; the pink-
shirted Eurasian begging leave to see his mother, who
happened to be dying some three miles away: " Only
verree, verree short leave of absence, and will presently
return, sar— "; the two constables, armed with staves,
bringing up the rear; and Faiz Ullah, a Mohammedan's
contempt for all Hindoos and foreigners in every line
of his face, explaining to the drivers that though Scott
Sahib was a man to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz
Ullah, was Authority Itself.

The procession creaked past Hawkins's camp— three
stained tents under a clump of dead trees, behind them
the famine-shed, where a crowd of hopeless ones tossed
their arms around the cooking-kettles.

" 'Wish to Heaven William had kept out of it," said
Scott to himself, after a glance. " We '11 have cholera,
sure as a gun, when the Rains break."

But William seemed to have taken kindly to the
operations of the Famine Code, which, when famine is
declared, supersede the workings of the ordinary law.
Scott saw her, the centre of a mob of weeping women,
in a calico riding-habit, and a blue-grey felt hat with
a gold puggaree.

" I want fifty rupees, please. I forgot to ask Jack
before he went away. Can you lend it me? It 's for
condensed-milk for the babies," said she.

Scott took the money from his belt, and handed it
over without a word. " For goodness sake, take care
of yourself," he said.

* * Oh, I shall be all right. We ought to get the milk in
two days. By the way, the orders are, I was to tell you,
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

that you 're to take one of Sir Jim's horses. There 's
a grey Cabuli here that I thought would be just your
style, so I 've said you 'd take him. Was that right? "

" That 's awfully good of you. We can't either of
us talk much about style, I am afraid."

Scott was in a weather-stained drill shooting-kit, very
white at the seams and a little frayed at the wrists.
William regarded him thoughtfully, from his pith hel-
met to his greased ankle-boots. " You look very nice,
I think. Are you sure you 've everything you '11 need
—quinine, chlorodyne, and so on? "

" 'Think so," said Scott, patting three or four of his
shooting-pockets as he mounted and rode alongside his
convoy.

"Good-bye, "he cried.

" Good-bye, and good luck," said William. " I 'm
awfully obliged for the money." She turned on a
spurred heel and disappeared into the tent, while the
carts pushed on past the famine-sheds, past the roaring
lines of the thick, fat fires, down to the baked Gehenna
of the South.

[212]

PART H

So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move ;

7T were profanation of our joys
To tell the Laity our love.

A VALEDICTION.

IT was punishing work, even though he travelled by
night and camped by day ; but within the limits of his
vision there was no man whom Scott could call master.
He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins— freer, in fact, for
the Government held the Head of the Famine tied
neatly to a telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever
regarded telegrams seriously, the death-rate of that
famine would have been much higher than it was.

At the end of a few days' crawling Scott learned
something of the size of the India which he served, and
it astonished him. His carts, as you know, were
loaded with wheat, millet, and barley, good food-grains
needing only a little grinding. But the people to whom
he brought the life-giving stuffs were rice-eaters. They
could hull rice in their mortars, but they knew
nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North, and
less of the material that the white man convoyed so la-
boriously, They clamoured for rice— unhusked paddy,
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

such as they were accustomed to— and, when they
found that there was none, broke away weeping from
the sides of the cart. What was the use of these strange
hard grains that choked their throats? They would
die. And then and there very many of them kept their
word. Others took their&llowance, and bartered enough
millet to feed a man through a week for a few handf uls
of rotten rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few
put their shares into the rice-mortars, pounded it, and
made a paste with foul water ; but they were very few.
Scott understood dimly that many people in the India
of the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his
service in a grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the
blade or ear, and least of all would have believed
that in time of deadly need men could die at arm's
length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not
know. In vain the interpreters interpreted; in vain
his two policemen showed in vigorous pantomime what
should be done. The starving crept away to their bark
and weeds, grubs, leaves, and clay, and left the open
sacks untouched. But sometimes the women laid their
phantoms of children at Scott's feet, looking back as
they staggered away.

Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these
foreigners should die, and it remained only to give
orders to burn the dead. None the less there was no
reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and
Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up
a few lean goats and had added them to the procession.
That they might give milk for the morning meal, he
was feeding them on the good grain that these imbeciles
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

rejected. "Yes," said Faiz Ullah; "if the Sahib
thought fit, a little milk might be given to some of the
babies"; but, as the Sahib well knew, babies were
cheap, and, for his own part, Faiz Ullah held that there
was no Government order as to babies. Scott spoke
forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and
bade them capture goats where they could find them.
This they most joyfully did, for it was a recreation,
and many ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed,
the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the
carts, and a few days' good food— food such as human
beings died for lack of —set them in milk again.

" But I am no goatherd," said Faiz Ullah. "It is
against my izzat [my honour]."

c ( When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of
izzat," Scott replied. "Till that day thou and the
policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the
order."

"Thus, then, it is done," grunted Faiz Ullah, "if
the Sahib will have it so " ; and he showed how a
goat should be milked, while Scott stood over him.

* ' Now we will feed them, ' ' said Scott ; ' * twice a day
we will feed them ' ' ; and he bowed his back to the
milking, and took a horrible cramp.

When you have to keep connection unbroken between
a restless mother of kids and a baby who is at the point
of death, you suffer in all your system. But the
babies were fed. Each morning and evening Scott
would solemnly lift them out one by one from their
nest of gunny-bags under the cart-tilts. There were
always many who could do no more than breathe, and
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

the milk was dropped into their toothless mouths drop
by drop, with due pauses when they choked. Each
morning, too, the goats were fed ; and since they would
straggle without a leader, and since the natives were
hirelings, Scott was forced to give up riding, and pace
slowly at the head of his flocks, accommodating his step
to their weaknesses. All this was sufficiently absurd,
and he felt the absurdity keenly ; but at least he was
saving life, and when the women saw that their chil-
dren did not die, they made shift to eat a little of the
strange foods, and crawled after the carts, blessing the
master of the goats.

" Give the women something to live for," said Scott
to himself, as he sneezed in the dust of a hundred little
feet, " and they '11 hang on somehow. This beats Wil-
liam's condensed-milk trick all to pieces. I shall never
live it down, though."

He reached his destination very slowly, found that
a rice-ship had come in from Burmah, and that stores
of paddy were available; found also an overworked
Englishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the
carts, set back to cover the ground he had already
passed. He left some of the children and half his goats
at the famine-shed. For this he was not thanked by
the Englishman, who had already more stray babies
than he knew what to do with. Scott's back was sup-
pled to stooping now, and he went on with his wayside
ministrations in addition to distributing the paddy.
More babies and more goats were added unto him ; but
now some of the babies wore rags, and beads round
their wrists or necks. "That," said the interpreter,
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

as though Scott did not know, " signifies that their
mothers hope in eventual contingency to resume them
offeecially."

" The sooner, the better," said Scott; but at the same
time he marked, with the pride of ownership, how this
or that little Ramasawmy was putting on flesh like a
bantam. As the paddy-carts were emptied he headed
for Hawkins's camp by the railway, timing his arrival
to fit in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he
had eaten at a cloth. He had no desire to make any
dramatic entry, but an accident of the sunset ordered
it that when he had taken oif his helmet to get the even-
ing breeze, the low light should fall across his forehead,
and he could not see what was before him; while one
waiting at the tent door beheld with new eyes a young
man, beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust,
walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his
knee ran small naked Cupids. But she laughed— Wil-
liam, in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed consumedly till
Scott, putting the best face he could upon the matter,
halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten.
It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been
left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station,
fifteen hundred miles to the north.

' ' They are coming on nicely, ' ' said William. ' ' We Ve
only five-and-twenty here now. The women are be-
ginning to take them away again."

" Are you in charge of the babies, then? "

" Yes— Mrs. Jim and I. We did n't think of goats,
though. We 've been trying condensed-milk and
water."

T217]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

" Any losses? "

" More than I care to think of," said William, with
a shudder. * ' And you ? ' '

Scott said nothing. There had been many little
burials along his route— one cannot burn a dead baby
—many mothers who had wept when they did not find
again the children they had trusted to the care of the
Government.

Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which
Scott looked hungrily, for he had a beard that he did not
love. And when they sat down to dinner in the tent
he told his tale in few words, as it might have been an
official report. Mrs. Jim snuffled from tune to time,
and Jim bowed his head judicially; but William's
grey eyes were on the clean-shaven face, and it was to
her that Scott seemed to appeal.

" Good for the Pauper Province! " said William, her
chin on her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-
glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her
forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-
turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle
of the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress in
camp.

* * It was awfully absurd at times, ' ' said Scott. ' ' You
see, I did n't know much about milking or babies.
They '11 chaff my head off, if the tale goes up North."

"Let 'em," said William, haughtily. "We Ve all
done coolie- work since we came. I know Jack has."
This was to Hawkins's address, and the big man
smiled blandly.

" Your brother 's a highly efficient officer, William,"
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WILLIAM .THE CONQUEROR

said he, " and I 've done him the honour of treating
him as he deserves. Remember, I write the confiden-
tial reports."

" Then you must say that William 's worth her weight
in gold," said Mrs. Jim. "I don't know what we
should have done without her. She has been every-
thing to us." She dropped her hand upon "William's,
which was rough with much handling of reins, and
"William patted it softly. Jim beamed on the company.
Things were going well with his world. Three of his
more grossly incompetent men had died, and their
places had been filled by their betters. Every day
brought the Rains nearer. They had put out the
famine in five of the Eight Districts, and, after all, the
death-rate had not been too heavy— things considered.
He looked Scott over carefully, as an ogre looks over a
man, and rejoiced in his thews and iron-hard condition.

"He 's just the least bit in the world tucked up,"
said Jim to himself, " but he can do two men's work
yet." Then he was aware that Mrs. Jim was tele-
graphing to him, and according to the domestic code
the message ran: " A clear case. Look at them! "

He looked and listened. All that "William was saying
was: " "What can you expect of a country where they
call a bhistee [a water-carrier] a tunni-cutchf " and all
that Scott answered was: " I shall be glad to get back
to the Club. Save me a dance at the Christmas Ball,
won't you? "

" It 's a far cry from here to the Lawrence Hall,"
said Jim. " Better turn in early, Scott. It 's paddy-
carts to-morrow; you '11 begin loading at five."
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

" Are n't you going to give Mr. Scott a single day's
rest?"

" 'Wish I could, Lizzie, but I 'm afraid I can't. As
long as he can stand up we must use him."

" "Well, I 've had one Europe evening, at least. By
Jove, I 'd nearly forgotten! What do I do about those
babies of mine? "

"Leave them here," said William—" we are in
charge of that— and as many goats as you can spare.
I must learn how to milk now."

" If you care to get up early enough to-morrow I '11
show you. I have to milk, you see. Half of 'em have
beads and things round their necks. You must be care-
ful not to take 'em off, in case the mothers turn up."

" You forget I 've had some experience here."

"I hope to goodness you won't overdo." Scott's
voice was unguarded.

" I '11 take care of her," said Mrs. Jim, telegraphing
hundred-word messages as she carried William off,
while Jim gave Scott his orders for the coming cam-
paign. It was very late— nearly nine o'clock.

" Jim, you 're a brute," said his wife, that night; and
the Head of the Famine chuckled.

' * Not a bit of it, dear. I remember doing the first Jan-
diala Settlement for the sake of a girl in a crinoline, and
she was slender, Lizzie. I 've never done as good a
piece of work since. He '11 work like a demon."

" But you might have given him one day."

" And let things come to a head now? No, dear; it 's
their happiest time."

" I don't believe either of the darlings know what 's
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

the matter with them. Is n't it beautiful? Is n't it
lovely?"

"Getting up at three to learn to milk, bless her
heart ! Oh, ye Gods, why must we grow old and fat? "

" She 's a darling. She has done more work under
me-'7

"Undertow/ The day after she came she was in
charge and you were her subordinate. You 've stayed
there ever since; she manages you almost as well as
you manage me."

" She does n't, and that 's why I love her. She 's as
direct as a man— as her brother."

" Her brother 's weaker than she is. He 's always
coming to me for orders; but he 's honest, and a glut-
ton for work. I confess I 'm rather fond of William,
and if I had a daughter—"

The talk ended. Far away in the Derajat was a
child's grave more than twenty years old, and neither
Jim nor his wife spoke of it any more.

" All the same, you 're responsible," Jim added, after
a moment's silence.

" Bless 'em! " said Mrs. Jim, sleepily.

Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty
cart, waked and went about his work in silence; it
seemed at that hour unkind to rouse Faiz Ullah and the
interpreter. His head being close to the ground, he
did not hear William till she stood over him in the
dingy old riding-habit, her eyes still heavy with sleep,
a cup of tea and a piece of toast in her hands. There was
a baby on the ground, squirming on a piece of blanket,
and a six-year-old child peered over Scott's shoulder.
[221]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

" Hai, you little rip," said Scott, " how the deuce do
you expect to get your rations if you are n't quiet? "

A cool white hand steadied the brat, who forthwith
choked as the milk gurgled into his mouth.

" 'Mornin'," said the milker. " You 've no notion
how these little fellows can wriggle."

"Oh, yes, I have." She whispered, because the
world was asleep. " Only I feed them with a spoon or
a rag. Yours are fatter than mine. . . . And you 've
been doing this day after day? " The voice was almost
lost.

" Yes; it was absurd. Now you try," he said, giv-
ing place to the girl. "Look out! A goat 's not a
cow."

The goat protested against the amateur, and there
was a scuffle, in which Scott snatched up the baby.
Then it was all to do over again, and William laughed
softly and merrily. She managed, however, to feed
two babies, and a third.

" Don't the little beggars take it well?" said Scott.
u I trained 'em."

They were very busy and interested, when lo I it was
broad daylight, and before they knew, the camp was
awake, and they kneeled among the goats, surprised by
the day, both flushed to the temples. Yet all the round
world rolling up out of the darkness might have heard
and seen all that had passed between them.

" Oh," said William, unsteadily, snatching up the tea
and toast, " I had this made for you. It 's stone-cold
now. I thought you might n't have anything ready so
early. ' Better not drink it. It 's— it 's stone-cold."
[222]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

44 That 's awfully kind of you. It 's just right. It 's
awfully good of you, really. I '11 leave my kids and
goats with you and Mrs. Jim, and, of course, any one
in camp can show you about the milking."

44 Of course," said William; and she grew pinker and
pinker and statelier and more stately, as she strode
back to her tent, fanning herself with the saucer.

There were shrill lamentations through the camp
when the elder children saw their nurse move off with-
out them. Faiz Ullah unbent so far as to jest with the
policemen, and Scott turned purple with shame because
Hawkins, already in the saddle, roared.

A child escaped from the care of Mrs. Jim, and, run-
ning like a rabbit, clung to Scott's boot, William pur-
suing with long, easy strides.

" I will not go— I will not go! " shrieked the child,
twining his feet round Scott's ankle. " They will kill
me here. I do not know these people."

44 1 say," said Scott, in broken Tamil, u I say, she will
do you no harm. Go with her and be well fed."

44 Come!" said William, panting, with a wrathful
glance at Scott, who stood helpless and, as it were,
hamstrung.

44 Go back," said Scott quickly to William. 44 1 '11
send the little chap over in a minute."

The tone of authority had its effect, but in a way
Scott did not exactly intend. The boy loosened his
grasp, and said with gravity: 44 1 did not know the
woman was thine. I will go." Then he cried to his
companions, a mob of three-, four-, and five-year-olds
waiting on the success of his venture ere they stain-
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

peded: " Go back and eat. It is our man's woman.
She will obey his orders. ' '

Jim collapsed where he sat ; Faiz Ullah and the two
policemen grinned; and Scott's orders to the cartmen
flew like hail.

" That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is
told in their presence," said Faiz Ullah. "The tune
comes that I must seek new service. Young wives,
especially such as speak our language and have know-
ledge of the ways of the Police, make great trouble for
honest butlers in the matter of weekly accounts."

What William thought of it all she did not say, but
when her brother, ten days later, came to camp for
orders, and heard of Scott's performances, he said,
laughing: " Well, that settles it. He '11 be Bakri Scott
to the end of his days." (Bdkri, in the Northern
vernacular, means a goat.) " What a lark! I 'd have
given a month's pay to have seen him nursing famine
babies. I fed some with conjee [rice-water], but that
was all right."

"It 's perfectly disgusting," said his sister, with
blazing eyes. " A man does something like— like that
—and all you other men think of is to give him an
absurd nickname, and then you laugh and think it 's
funny."

" Ah," said Mrs. Jim, sympathetically.

1 ' Well, you can't talk, William. You christened little
Miss Demby the Button-quail, last cold weather; you
know you did. India 's the land of nicknames."

* * That ' s different, ' ' William replied. * * She was only
a girl, and she had n't done anything except walk like
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

a quail, and she does. But it is n't fair to make fun of
a man."

" Scott won't care," said Martyn. " You can't get
a rise out of old Scotty. I 've been trying for eight
years, and you 've only known him for three. How
does he look? "

" He looks very well," said William, and went away
with a flushed cheek. " Bdkri Scott, indeed! " Then
she laughed to herself, for she knew her country. " But
it will be Bdkri all the same ' ' ; and she repeated it under
her breath several times slowly, whispering it into
favour.

When he returned to his duties on the railway, Mar-
tyn spread the name far and wide among his associates,
so that Scott met it as he led his paddy-carts to war.
The natives believed it to be some English title of honour,
and the cart-drivers used it in all simplicity till Faiz
Ullah, who did not approve of foreign japes, broke their
heads. There was very little time for milking now,
except at the big camps, where Jim had extended Scott's
idea and was feeding large flocks on the useless northern
grains. Sufficient paddy had come now into the Eight
Districts to hold the people safe, if it were only dis-
tributed quickly, and for that purpose no one was better
than the big Canal officer, who never lost his temper,
never gave an unnecessary order, and never questioned
an order given. Scott pressed on, saving his cattle,
washing their galled necks daily, so that no time should
be lost on the road ; reported himself with his rice at the
minor famine-sheds, unloaded, and went back light by
forced night-march to the next distributing centre, to
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

find Hawkins's unvarying telegram: "Do it again."
And he did it again and again, and yet again, while Jim
Hawkins, fifty miles away, marked off on a big map the
tracks of his wheels gridironing the stricken lands.
Others did well— Hawkins reported at the end they all
did well— but Scott was the most excellent, for he kept
good coined rupees by him, settled for his own cart-
repairs on the spot, and ran to meet all sorts of uncon-
sidered extras, trusting to be recouped later on. Theo-
retically, the Government should have paid for every
shoe and linchpin, for every hand employed in the load-
ing; but Government vouchers cash themselves slowly,
and intelligent and efficient clerks write at great length,
contesting unauthorised expenditures of eight annas.
The man who wants to make his work a success must
draw on his own bank- account of money or other
things as he goes.

" I told you he 'd work," said Jimmy to his wife, at
the end of six weeks. "He 's been in sole charge of a
couple of thousand men up north, on the Mosuhl Canal,
for a year ; but he gives less trouble than young Martyn
with his ten constables; and I 'm morally certain— only
Government does n't recognise moral obligations— he 's
spent about half his pay to grease his wheels. Look at
this, Lizzie, for one week's work! Forty miles in two
days with twelve carts; two days' halt building a
famine-shed for young Rogers. (Rogers ought to have
built it himself, the idiot!) Then forty miles back
again, loading six carts on the way, and distributing all
Sunday. Then in the evening he pitches in a twenty-
page Demi-Official to me, saying the people where he is
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

might be ' advantageously employed on relief -work,1
and suggesting that he put 'em to work on some broken-
down old reservoir he 's discovered, so as to have a
good water-supply when the Rains break. 'Thinks he
can cauk the dam in a fortnight. Look at his mar-
ginal sketches— are n't they clear and good? I knew
he was pukka^ but I did n't know he was as pukka, as
this."

"I must show these to William," said Mrs. Jim.
" The child 's wearing herself out among the babies."

" Not more than you are, dear. Well, another two
months ought to see us out of the wood. I 'm sorry
it 's not in my power to recommend you for a V. C."

William sat late in her tent that night, reading through
page after page of the square handwriting, patting the
sketches of proposed repairs to the reservoir, and wrin-
kling her eyebrows over the columns of figures of esti-
mated water-supply.

" And he finds time to do all this," she cried to her-
self, " and— well, I also was present. I 've saved one
or two babies."

She dreamed for the twentieth time of the god in the
golden dust, and woke refreshed to feed loathsome black
children, scores of them, wastrels picked up by the
wayside, their bones almost breaking their skin, terri-
ble and covered with sores.

Scott was not allowed to leave his cart-work, but his
letter was duly forwarded to the Government, and he
had the consolation, not rare in India, of knowing that
another man was reaping where he had sown. That
also was discipline profitable to the soul.
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

"He 's much too good to waste on canals," said
Jimmy. " Any one can oversee coolies. You need n't
be angry, William; he can— but I need my pearl among
bullock-drivers, and I ' ve transferred him to the Khanda
district, where he '11 have it all to do over again. He
should be marching now. ' '

"He 's not a coolie," said William, furiously. " He
ought to be doing his regulation work."

"He 's the best man in his service, and that 's say-
ing a good deal; but if you must use razors to cut
grindstones, why, I prefer the best cutlery."

" Is n't it almost time we saw him again? " said Mrs.
Jim. "I'm sure the poor boy has n't had a respectable
meal for a month. He probably sits on a cart and eats
sardines with his fingers."

"All in good time, dear. Duty before decency—
was n't it Mr. Chucks said that? "

"No; it was Midshipman Easy," William laughed.
' ' I sometimes wonder how it will feel to dance or lis-
ten 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 '11 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 '11 make it," said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle.

" It depends on his own judgment. There 's abso-
lutely no reason why he should n't, if he thinks fit,"
said Jim.

[228]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

u He won't see fit," William, replied, without sorrow
or emotion. " It would n'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 Govern-
ment decreed that seed-grain should be distributed to
the people, as well as advances of money for the pur-
chase 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 Haw-
kins. 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
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

to risk an epidemic which might have grown uncontrol-
lable 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.

That was the time when eight years of clean living
and hard condition told, though a man's head were
ringing like a bell from the cinchona, and the earth
swayed under his feet when he stood and under his bed
when he slept. If Hawkins had seen fit to make him a
bullock-driver, that, he thought, was entirely Hawkins's
own affair. There were men in the North who would
know what he had done ; men of thirty years' service
in his own department who would say that it was ' ' not
half bad' ' ; and above, immeasurably above, all men of
all grades, there was William in the thick of the fight,
who would approve because she understood. He had
so trained his mind that it would hold fast to the
mechanical routine of the day, though his own voice
sounded strange in his own ears, and his hands, when
he wrote, grew large as pillows or small as peas at the
end of his wrists. That steadfastness bore his body to
the telegraph-office at the railway-station, and dictated
a telegram to Hawkins saying that the Khanda district
was, in his judgment, now safe, and he " waited fur-
ther orders."

The Madrassee telegraph-clerk did not approve of a
large, gaunt man falling over him in a dead faint, not
so much because of the weight as because of the names
and blows that Faiz Ullah dealt him when he found
the body rolled under a bench. Then Faiz Ullah took
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

blankets, quilts, and coverlets where he found them,
and lay down under them at his master's side, and
bound his arms with a tent-rope, and filled him
with a horrible stew of herbs, and set the policeman to
fight him when he wished to escape from the intoler-
able heat of his coverings, and shut the door of the
telegraph-office to keep out the curious for two nights
and one day ; and when a light engine came down the
line, and Hawkins kicked in the door, Scott hailed him
weakly but in a natural voice, and Faiz Ullah stood
back and took all the credit.

" For two nights, Heaven-born, he was pagal," said
Faiz Ullah. " Look at my nose, and consider the eye
of the policeman. He beat us with his bound hands;
but we sat upon him, Heaven-born, and though his
words were tez, we sweated him. Heaven-born, never
has been such a sweat ! He is weaker now than a child ;
but the fever has gone out of him, by the grace of God.
There remains only my nose and the eye of the consta-
beel. Sahib, shall I ask for my dismissal because my
Sahib has beaten me ? " And Faiz Ullah laid his long thin
hand carefully on Scott's chest to be sure that the fever
was all gone, ere he went out to open tinned soups and
discourage such as laughed at his swelled nose.

"The district 's all right," Scott whispered. "It
does n't make any difference. You got my wire? I
shall be fit in a week. 'Can't understand how it hap-
pened. I shall be fit in a few days."

" You 're coming into camp with us," said Hawkins.

" But look here-but-"

" It 's all over except the shouting. We sha'n't need
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROK

you Punjabis any more. On my honour, we sha'n't.
Marty n goes back in a few weeks; Arbuthnot 's
returned already ; Ellis and Clay are putting the last
touches to a new feeder-line the Government 's built as
relief -work. Morten 's dead— he was a Bengal man,
thougl ; you would n't know him. 'Pon my word, you
and Will — Miss Martyn— seem to have come through
it as well as anybody."

" Oh, how is she, by-the-way? " The voice went up
and down as he spoke.

" Going strong when I left her. The Roman Catholic
Missions are adopting the unclaimed babies to turn them
into little priests; the Basil Mission is taking some,
and the mothers are taking the rest. You should hear
the little beggars howl when they 're sent away from
William. She 's pulled down a bit, but so are we all.
Now, when do you suppose you '11 be able to move? "

" I can't come into camp in this state. I won't," he
replied pettishly.

" Well, you are rather a sight, but from what I gath-
ered there it seemed to me they 'd be glad to see you
under any conditions. I '11 look over your work here,
if you like, for a couple of days, and you can pull your-
self together while Faiz Ullah feeds you up."

Scott could walk dizzily by the time Hawkins's in-
spection was ended, and he flushed all over when Jim
said of his work that it was " not half bad," and vol-
unteered, further, that he had considered Scott his
right-hand man through the famine, and would feel
it his duty to say as much officially.

So they came back by rail to the old camp; but there
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

were no crowds near it ; the long fires in the trenches
were dead and black, and the famine-sheds were al-
most empty.

" You see! " said Jim. " There is n't much more to
do. 'Better ride up and see the wife. They ' ve pitched
a tent for you. Dinner 's at seven. I 've some work
here."

Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott
came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting
at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white as
ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair. There
did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all
that William could say was : " My word, how pulled
down you look! "

" I 've had a touch of fever. You don't look very
well yourself."

" Oh, I 'm fit enough. We 've stamped it out. I sup-
pose you know?"

Scott nodded. " We shall all be returned in a few
weeks. Hawkins told me. "

"Before Christmas, Mrs. Jim says. Sha'n't you
be glad to go back? I can smell the wood- smoke al-
ready " ; William sniffed. " We shall be in time for all
the Christmas doings. I don't suppose even the Pun-
jab Government would be base enough to transfer Jack
till the new year? "

" It seems hundreds of years ago— the Punjab and all
that— does n't it? Are you glad you came? "

" Now it 's all over, yes. It has been ghastly here,
though. You know we had to sit still and do nothing,
and Sir Jim was away so much."
[233]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

" Do nothing! How did you get on with the milk-
ing? "

' 1 1 managed it somehow— after you taught me. 'Re-
member?"

Then the talk stopped with an almost audible jar.
Still no Mrs. Jim.

"That reminds me, I owe you fifty rupees for the
condensed milk. I thought perhaps you 'd be coming
here when you were transferred to the Khanda district,
and I could pay you then; but you did n't."

" I passed within five miles of the camp, but it was
in the middle of a march, you see, and the carts were
breaking down every few minutes, and I could n't get
'em over the ground till ten o'clock that night. I
wanted to come awfully. You knew I did, did n't you ? ' '

" I— believe— I— did," said William, facing him with
level eyes. She was no longer white.

" Did you understand? "

" Why you did n't ride in? Of course I did."

"Why?"

" Because you could n't, of course. I knew that."

" Did you care?"

" If you had come in— but I knew you would n't—
but if you had, I should have cared a great deal. You
know I should."

"Thank God I did n't! Oh, but I wanted to! I
could n't trust myself to ride in front of the carts, be-
cause I kept edging 'em over here, don't you know? "

" I knew you would n't," said William, contentedly.
"Here 's your fifty."

Scott bent forward and kissed the hand that held the
[234]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

greasy notes. Its fellow patted him awkwardly but
very tenderly on the head.

" And you knew, too, did n't you? " said William, in a
new voice.

" No, on my honour, I did n't. I had n't the— the
cheek to expect anything of the kind, except ... I
say, were you out riding anywhere the day I passed
by to Khanda?"

William nodded, and smiled after the manner of an
angel surprised in a good deed.

' ' Then it was just a speck I saw of your habit in
the-"

' ' Palm-grove on the Southern cart-road. I saw your
helmet when you came up from the nullah by the tem-
ple—just enough to be sure that you were all right.
D' you care? "

This time Scott did not kiss her hand, for they were
in the dusk of the dining-tent, and, because William's
knees were trembling under her, she had to sit down in
the nearest chair, where she wept long and happily, her
head on her arms; and when Scott imagined that it
would be well to comfort her, she needing nothing of the
kind, she ran to her own tent ; and Scott went out into
the world, and smiled upon it largely and idiotically.
But when Faiz Ullah brought him a drink, he found it
necessary to support one hand with the other, or the
good whisky and soda would have been spilled abroad.
There are fevers and fevers.

But it was worse— much worse— the strained, eye-
shirking talk at dinner till the servants had withdrawn,
and worst of all when Mrs. Jim, who had been on the
[235]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

edge of weeping from the soup down, kissed Scott and
William, and they drank one whole bottle of champagne,
hot, because there was no ice, and Scott and William sat
outside the tent in the starlight till Mrs. Jim drove them
in for fear of more fever.

Apropos of these things and some others William said :
"Being engaged is abominable, because, you see, one
has no official position. We must be thankful we 've
lots of things to do. ' '

" Things to do ! " said Jim, when that was reported to
him. * * They 're neither of them any good any more. I
can't get five hours' work a day out of Scott. He 's in
the clouds half the time. ' '

" Oh, but they 're so beautiful to watch, Jimmy. It
will break my heart when they go. Can't you do any-
thing for him?"

' ' I ' ve given the Government the impression— at least,
I hope I have— that he personally conducted the entire
famine. But all he wants is to get on to the Luni Canal
Works, and William 's just as bad. Have you ever
heard 'em talking of barrage and aprons and waste-
water? It 's their style of spooning, I suppose."

Mrs. Jim smiled tenderly. " Ah, that 's in the inter-
vals—bless 'em."

And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad
daylight, while men picked up the pieces and put them
neatly away of the Famine in the Eight Districts.
**********

Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern
December, the layers of wood-smoke, the dusty grey-
blue of the tamarisks, the domes of ruined tombs, and
[236]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the mail-
train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William,
wrapped in a poshteen—a, silk-embroidered sheepskin
jacket trimmed with rough astrakhan— looked out
with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated joyously. The
South of pagodas and palm-trees, the overpopulated
Hindu South, was done with. Here was the land
she knew and loved, and before her lay the good life
she understood, among folk of her own caste and
mind.

They were picking them up at almost every station
now— men and women coming in for the Christmas
Week, with racquets, with bundles of polo-sticks, with
dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers and
saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like
William's, for the Northern cold is as little to be trifled
with as the Northern heat. And William was among
them and of them, her hands deep in her pockets, her
collar turned up over her ears, stamping her feet on
the platforms as she walked up and down to get warm,
visiting from carriage to carriage and everywhere being
congratulated. Scott was with the bachelors at the far
end of the train, where they chaffed him mercilessly
about feeding babies and milking goats; but from time
to tune he would stroll up to William's window, and
murmur: " Good enough, is n't it? " and William would
answer with sighs of pure delight: "Good enough,
indeed." The large open names of the home towns
were good to listen to. Umballa, Ludianah, Phillour,
Jullundur, they rang like the coming marriage-bells in
her ears, and William felt deeply and truly sorry for all
[237]

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

strangers and outsiders— visitors, tourists, and those
fresh-caught for the service of the country.

It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave
the Christmas Ball, William was, unofficially, you might
say, the chief and honoured guest among the Stewards,
who could make things very pleasant for their friends.
She and Scott danced nearly all the dances together, and
sat out the rest in the big dark gallery overlooking the
superb teak floor, where the uniforms blazed, and the
spurs clinked, and the new frocks and four hundred
dancers went round and round till the draped flags on
the pillars flapped and bellied to the whirl of it.

About midnight half a dozen men who did not care
for dancing came over from the Club to play ' ' Waits, ' '
and— that was a surprise the Stewards had arranged—
before any one knew what had happened, the band
stopped, and hidden voices broke into ' ' Good King
Wenceslaus, ' ' and William in the gallery hummed and
beat time with her foot :

" Mark my footsteps well, my page,

Tread thou in them boldly.
Thou shalt feel the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly ! "

' * Oh, I hope they are going to give us another ! Is n't
it pretty, coming out of the dark in that way? Look—
look down. There 's Mrs. Gregory wiping her eyes! "

"It 's like Home, rather," said Scott. "I remem-
ber-"

' ' Hsh ! Listen ! —dear. ' ' And it began again :

" When shepherds watched their flocks by night— "
" A-h-h! " said William, drawing closer to Scott.
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WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

"All seated on the ground,
The Angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
' Fear not,' said he (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind) ;
' Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.' "

This time it was William that wiped her eyes.

[239]

.007

.007

A LOCOMOTIVE is, next to a marine engine, the most
JLJL sensitive thing man ever made; and No. .007, be-
sides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hard-
ly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone
like a fireman's helmet, and his cab might have been a
hard- wood-finish parlour. They had run him into the
round-house after his trial— he had said good-bye to his
best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane—
the big world was just outside; and the other locos
were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle
of bold, unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and
mutter of the steam mounting in the gauges— scornful
hisses of contempt as a slack valve lifted a little— and
would have given a month's oil for leave to crawl
through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit
beneath him. .007 was an eight- wheeled " American "
loco, slightly different from others of his type, and as he
stood he was worth ten thousand dollars on the Com-
pany's books. But if you had bought him at his own
valuation, after half an hour's waiting in the darkish,