In the little wooden bungalow over against, the water-works a light had been kindled and gleamed out in a red streak across the Plain. Other lights were beginning to flicker also from all points of the compass, save only where a long strip of jungle lay like a blot upon the face of the earth. But the red light burned the steadiest of them all.
It came from the shaded lamp of an Englishman, and beneath it with stubborn, square-jawed determination the Englishman sat at work.
Very steadily his hand moved over the white paper, and the face that was bent above it never varied—a face that still possessed something of the freshness of youth though the set of the lips was firm even to sternness and the line of the chin was hard. He never raised his eyes as he worked except to refer to the notebook at his elbow. The passage of time seemed of no moment to him.
Yet at the soft opening of the door, he did look up for an instant, a gleam of expectancy upon his face that died immediately.
"All right, Sammy, directly," he said, returning without pause to his work.
Sammy, butler, bearer, and general factotum, irreproachable from his snowy turban to his white-slippered feet, did not take the hint to retire, but stood motionless just inside the room, waiting with statuesque patience till his master should deign to bestow upon him the favour of his full attention.
After a little Will Musgrave realised this, and with an abrupt sigh sat back in his chair and rubbed his hand across his forehead.
"Well?" he said then. "You needn't trouble to tell me that the mail has passed, for I heard the fellow half an hour ago. Of course there were no letters?"
The man shook his head despondingly. "No letters, sahib."
"Then what do you want?" asked Will, beginning to eye his work again.