"Oh yes, but Abdul Buk is ill, and her tenants are giving her a good deal of trouble."
"Aha! you see, the hot weather again! Please God the rains come before long."
The rains came at last. For dreary and hopeless months, the country had lain bare and brown; now, almost in a night, the heat-cracked plains were clothed with grass, and the fainting trees and plants were lit up with young leaves; everywhere was the sound of running water! The ducks quacked triumphantly, as they swam on the former drive; frogs hopped hilariously about the verandah, and even invaded the bedrooms, whilst their relations in the marshes made an uproar that murdered sleep! Jurra river, flooded to the brim, brought down on its breast all manner of strange things, including stranded, sand-embedded charpoys, that had been the last resting-place of corpses—for Jurra was a holy river—and Verona and Pussy, who had languidly rowed about its shrunken, hot-weather dimensions, now went farther than before. One evening as the two girls were passing below the little white house where the police wallah lived, they descried him and his dog "Chum" sitting together in the verandah.
He signalled to them immediately, and came running down the steep steps which led through the garden to the water's edge.
"Hullo! So you are back," called Pussy from her nest among red cushions in the stern.
"Yes; how are you?" But as he spoke, he looked at Verona. "The weather is getting a little cooler."
"It is not particularly cool yet," she replied, resting on her oars and raising a colourless face.
"Won't you come up and see my diggings, and have some iced lemonade or tea?"
"Oh, do let's go, Rona?" pleaded Pussy, with outstretched fingers, every joint of which was eloquent. "I've often been."
"Yes, come along," he urged, fastening the boat; and he held out his hand to Pussy, who sprang ashore with alacrity, saying: