"Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills
two weeks ago."

The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go
to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!"

At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke
out from the servants' quarters that she clutched the young
man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot.
The wailing grew wilder and wilder. "What is it? What is it?"
Mrs. Lennox gasped.

"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You did
not say it had broken out among your servants."

"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me!
Come with me!" and she turned and ran into the house.

After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness
of the morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had
broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying
like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night,
and it was because she had just died that the servants
had wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other
servants were dead and others had run away in terror.
There was panic on every side, and dying people in all
the bungalows.