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In the assistant engineer's bungalow Spurstow and Hummil smoked the pipe of silence together, each narrowly watching the other. The capacity of a bachelor's establishment is as elastic as its arrangements are simple.
Call the servants. They came, eight or ten of them, whispering and peering over each other's shoulders. 'When did your Sahib go to bed? said Spurstow. 'At eleven or ten, we think, said Hummil's personal servant. 'He was well then? But how should you know? 'He was not ill, as far as our comprehension extended. But he had slept very little for three nights.
Let go of my arm, and I'll see if there's anything in my cigarette-case to suit your complaint. Spurstow hunted among his day-clothes, turned up the lamp, opened a little silver cigarette-case, and advanced on the expectant Hummil with the daintiest of fairy squirts. 'The last appeal of civilisation, said he, 'and a thing I hate to use. Hold out your arm.
Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert since the night before; Lowndes of the Civil Service, on special duty in the political department, had come as far to escape for an instant the miserable intrigues of an impoverished native State whose king alternately fawned and blustered for more money from the pitiful revenues contributed by hard-wrung peasants and despairing camel-breeders; Spurstow, the doctor of the line, had left a cholera-stricken camp of coolies to look after itself for forty-eight hours while he associated with white men once more.
The man who looks on can talk about the light hand; but you can't clean a pig-stye with a pen dipped in rose-water. I know my risks; but nothing has happened yet. My servant's an old Pathan, and he cooks for me. They are hardly likely to bribe him, and I don't accept food from my true friends, as they call themselves. Oh, but it's weary work! I'd sooner be with you, Spurstow.
You couldn't sleep; but what was all the rest of the nonsense? 'A place, a place down there, said Hummil, with simple sincerity. The drug was acting on him by waves, and he was flung from the fear of a strong man to the fright of a child as his nerves gathered sense or were dulled. 'Good God! I've been afraid of it for months past, Spurstow.
By Jove! the buckle of my bridle is hot in my hand! Trot out a bit, and 'ware rat-holes. Ten minutes' trotting jerked out of Lowndes one very sage remark when he pulled up, sweating from every pore ''Good thing Spurstow's with him to-night. 'Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads turn here. See you again next Sunday, if the sun doesn't bowl me over.
Spurstow packed his pillows craftily so that he reclined rather than lay, his head at a safe elevation above his feet. It is not good to sleep on a low pillow in the hot weather if you happen to be of thick-necked build, for you may pass with lively snores and gugglings from natural sleep into the deep slumber of heat-apoplexy.
You like to talk, don't you? 'Yes, sometimes. Not when I'm frightened. THEN I want to run. Don't you? 'Always. Before I give you your second dose try to tell me exactly what your trouble is. Hummil spoke in broken whispers for nearly ten minutes, whilst Spurstow looked into the pupils of his eyes and passed his hand before them once or twice.
Even a native can't last long at that, said Spurstow. 'He'll go out. 'And a good thing, too. Then I suppose we'll have a council of regency, and a tutor for the young prince, and hand him back his kingdom with ten years' accumulations.
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