WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
were no crowds near it; the long fires in the trenches were dead and black, and the famine-sheds were almost empty.
"You see! " said Jim. "There isn'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 suppose 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 already"; William sniffed. "We shall be in time for all the Christmas doings. I don't suppose even the Punjab 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."
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