“Surely you can guess! Because I cannot hold my tongue. I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. If I think a thing wrong, or odd, I must say so; I cannot help it, I am incurable. People at home are used to me, and don’t mind. Also, I have a frightful and wholly unconscious habit of selecting the most uncomfortable topics, and an extremely bad memory for the names and faces of people with whom I have but a slight acquaintance; so you see that I am not likely to be a social success!”
“Let us hope that you take a gloomy view of yourself. For instance, what is your idea of an uncomfortable topic?”
“If I am talking to a person with a cast in the eye, I am positively certain ere long to find myself conversing volubly about squints; or, if my partner wears a wig, I am bound to bring wigs on the tapis. I believe I am possessed by some mischievous imp, who enjoys my subsequent torture.”
“Pray how do you know that I have not a squint, or a wig, or both? A wig would not be half a bad thing in this hot climate; to take off your hair as you do your hat would often be a great relief! Ah, here we are coming to the scene of the collision at last,” and presently they passed by a long row of waggons, and then two huge engines, one across the line, the other reared up against it; an immense bonfire burnt on the bank, and threw the great black monsters into strong outline. Further on they came to a gate and level crossing. The gate of the keeper’s hut stood wide open, and on the threshold a grey-haired old woman sat with her head between her knees, sobbing; within were moans, as if wrung from a sufferer in acute anguish. Honor’s unknown companion suddenly halted, and exclaimed impulsively—
“I’m afraid some one has been badly hurt; if you don’t mind, I’ll just go and see.”
Almost ere she had nodded a quick affirmative, he had vaulted over the gate, and left her.
CHAPTER XII.
TWO GOOD SAMARITANS.
In all her life, the youngest Miss Gordon had never felt so utterly solitary or forsaken as now, when she stood alone on the line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Before her the party of natives, with their twinkling lanterns, were gradually reaching vanishing point; behind her was a long, still procession of trucks and waggons, that looked like some dreadful black monster waiting for its prey; on either hand stretched the greyish unknown mysterious landscape, from which strange unfamiliar sounds, in the shape of croakings and cries, were audible. Oh! when would her nameless companion return? She glanced anxiously towards the hut, it was beyond the gate, and down a steep bank, away from the road; animated figures seemed to pass to and fro against the lighted open door. Ah! here came one of them, her escort, who had in point of fact been only absent five minutes, and not, as she imagined, half an hour.
“It is a stoker who has been cut about the head and badly scalded,” he explained breathlessly. “They are waiting for an apothecary from Okara, and meanwhile they are trying a native herb and a charm. They don’t seem to do the poor chap much good. I think I might be able to do something better for him, though I have no experience, beyond seeing accidents at football and out hunting; but I cannot leave you here like this, and yet I cannot well ask you inside the hut, the heat is like a furnace—and—altogether—it—it would be too much for you, but if you would not mind waiting outside just for a few minutes, I’d get you something to sit on.”
“Thank you, but I would rather go in—I have attended an ambulance class—‘first aid,’ you know, and perhaps I may be of some little use; there is sticking-plaster, eau-de-Cologne, and a pair of scissors in my bag.”