’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 subchiz [outfit] in three hours—­servants, horses, and all.  I didn’t get my orders till nine.

‘Jimmy Hawkins won’t be pleased,’ said Scott.  ’A famine’s no place for a woman.’

’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 aren’t many women, sisters or wives, who would walk into a famine with their eyes open.  It isn’t as if she didn’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, a cloth riding-cap on her curls, nodded affably.

‘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-apoplexy?’

‘Never can tell,’ said William, wisely.  ’It’s always best to be ready.’

She had arranged her belongings with the knowledge 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 basket, stood ready 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 with 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 beautiful 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 didn’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 Province,’ 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.’