“Oh, Miss Keeling, it is such a relief to find you here! I want you to come with me at once, to see a poor woman who is most dangerously ill. I will tell you about it while you get your things together. There is not a moment to lose.”
The two ladies vanished round the corner of the verandah, and returned in a few minutes, Georgia wearing her riding-habit and carrying a professional-looking black bag.
“Would you be so kind as to tell them to put my saddle on a fresh horse for me, Major North?” she said, briskly. “I am afraid we are losing time.”
“What is it you are proposing to do?” asked Dick, after calling one of the native servants and giving him the order.
“Miss Keeling is going to ride out with me to our summer station,” explained Miss Guest, volubly. “Missionaries are not permitted to reside in Khemistan except in Bab-us-Sahel itself, you know, but the Government allows us to rent a small house in a village five miles off for the hot weather. This poor young woman is the wife of one of our native converts there, the son of the principal landowner.”
“But do you mean that Miss Keeling is to ride five miles in this heat, when she is tired already?” demanded Dick. “It is preposterous!”
“I should not think of asking her to do it if it was not so important,” said Miss Guest. “You see, I have ridden all the way in, and I am going out again with her.”
“You will be down with sunstroke to-morrow,” said Dick to Georgia. “Wait until it is a little cooler, and I will hunt up some sort of cart and drive you out.”
“We can’t afford the time,” said Georgia.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Guest; “I scarcely dared to come away myself. Happily, I was able to leave dear Miss Jenkins with the poor woman. She has such wonderful nerve! I believe she would have attempted the operation herself if only we had had the proper appliances.”