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Updated: May 16, 2025
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.
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 before 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.
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 But it was worse much worse the strained, eye-shirking talk at dinner till the servants had withdrawn, and worst of all when Mrs.
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.
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 Martyn's man, "will travel together.
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, running like a rabbit, clung to Scott's boot, William pursuing 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.
"But I am no goatherd," said Faiz Ullah. "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.
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.
"Fixing bayonets!" exclaimed one and all; "then it is indeed necessary that we should depart, so that, by the grace of God, we may be ready to fight with renewed vigour on another day." "That is well spoken, brethren," said Faiz Talab, and added with considerable pathos, "but as for me, I shall remain and die at my post."
Scott, with Faiz Ullah 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."
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