“No—not cholera anywhere. Let us go into your own room, sir——”
“You go sit down somewhere else, and have a drink. I’ll see you after I’ve finished a dispatch—to catch the home mail—if it’s as important as that,” Agnew told him.
“I’m sorry, Colonel Agnew,” Traherne said respectfully, “but I must speak to you before you send anything to the out post.”
The old soldier’s thick white eyebrows gathered themselves into storm clouds, and he cleared his throat with an oath. But he was weakening.
“You seem to think yourself in command,” he blustered.
“No,” Traherne denied, “or I’d not need to disturb you, sir.”
“You’ll have to be damned quick,” Agnew said surlily as he turned back to his room.
“As damned quick as you like,” the doctor assented, following him.
Colonel Agnew threw an order at the old khansamah over Traherne’s shoulder. “Throw that bally thing out to the crows!” he commanded. Halim took the gong up in one trembling hand, the mallet in his other. But he gathered his courage to say, “The Miss-Sahib think very great deal of it, sir.”
“You heard my order!” Colonel Agnew thundered. “Hide the damned things, or give them to one of your wives, or your grandmother.”