From the distant hills resounds the shrill blast of the locomotive; every once in a while the contour of gently rolling land permits a glimpse of a curious looking behatted smokestack, copied after the model of early Pacific days, belching soot and smoke, and pulling noisily amidst groans and creaks their little dingy cars. Along the highway the ungainly telegraph poles with their odd crosspieces copied after the favorite gallows-construction of remote rural England, bear witness to the encroaching hand of western civilization on the land. Even India is now but another source of supply for trade and commerce.
Near this native structure, in the shade of a clump of hybiscus and a few doleful fig trees, some saddle-horses and donkeys are tethered; sprawling in the deep weed-like grass and scrubby undergrowth a number of natives with swathed limbs and streaky, greasy turbans are contemplating with expressionless mien the cloudless sky in which float and soar buzzards and vultures upon seeming motionless wings. At some distance from this group and seated on a well-filled saddle-bag, a European is smoking a cigarette, as if unaware of the proximity of his humbler companions.
The stilted building itself, containing two compartments separated by a narrow hallway, is made accessible from the tangle of weeds and caked mud by a crude ladder-like few steps of filth-covered boards.
Even the bounty of the tropics and wealth of vegetation in this favored clime have not succeeded in hiding the unattractive nakedness of the mean dwelling. Straggling, unkempt brush and creepers but emphasize the wild condition of its near surroundings. Rough weathered beams, decaying boards, cracked dirty bamboo and sunbaked grayish clay afford the only protection against burning sun, heating wind and drifting rain.
In the larger of the two compartments, which hardly justify the appellation of rooms, two men are seated upon a low, rough-hewn bench. In the middle of the space an irregular heap of straw, covered with a torn and unclean sheet of unbleached muslin, serves as a couch upon which a man is lying prostrate—pale and evidently very ill.
One of the two seated men, a dark-skinned, bright-eyed native, heavily bearded and dressed in garments denoting a position of high standing, rises from the bench to kneel before the prostrate form. He holds the unresisting wrist in his capable brown hand and feels carefully with long prehensile fingers the pulse of the invalid.
The eyes of the sick man are covered by silky lashes; the features are calm and resigned; the nostrils expand and contract while the native physician, machine-like, listens and counts. Then the hand he holds is laid gently down on the coverlet and slowly rising he beckons to the other figure in the room to follow as he moves towards the door.
This other figure, until now silent and rigid in its vigil on the bench, sends a look of deep concern and pity upon the recumbent young man, and follows his companion into the adjoining space, where both retire to the wall farthest removed from the sick youth.
“There is no hope for your young friend, my lord. The ague has weakened his frame, the drug and excess have sapped his strength. He will die before the setting of the sun. I shall give him a draught that will ease his pain and hold the spirit to the last. Help I cannot; he is beyond the power of man.”
His companion, a tall, lean man of fine features, and even in his begrimed linens and dusty pith helmet a man of importance, gave the speaker a searching look and then bowed his head in evident grief.