There was a nasty outbreak of cholera at Nuddea, and the Bengal
Government, being shorthanded, as usual, had borrowed a Surgeon from the
Punjab.
Dumoise threw the telegram across the table and said:--"Well?"
The other Doctor said nothing. It was all that he could say.
Then he remembered that Dumoise had passed through Simla on his way from Bagi;
and thus might, possibly, have heard the first news of the impending transfer.
He tried to put the question, and the implied suspicion into words, but Dumoise
stopped him with:--"If I had desired THAT, I should never have come back from
Chini. I was shooting there. I wish to live, for I have things to do . . . .
but I shall not be sorry."
The other man bowed his head, and helped, in the twilight, to pack up Dumoise's
just opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the lamps.
"Where is the Sahib going?" he asked.
"To Nuddea," said Dumoise, softly.
Ram Dass clawed Dumoise's knees and boots and begged him not to go.
Ram Dass wept and howled till he was turned out of the room. Then he wrapped up
all his belongings and came back to ask for a character. He was not going to
Nuddea to see his Sahib die, and, perhaps to die himself.
So Dumoise gave the man his wages and went down to Nuddea alone; the other
Doctor bidding him goodbye as one under sentence of death.
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