Henry and His Bearer_--all dead and dry in the baking heat. They had
left the incessant passenger-traffic of the north and west far and
far behind them. Here the people crawled to the side of the train,
holding their little ones in their arms; and a loaded truck would
be left behind, men and women clustering round and above it like ants
by spilled honey. Once in the twilight they saw on a dusty plain a
regiment of little brown men, each bearing a body over his shoulder;
and when the train stopped to leave yet another truck, they perceived
that the burdens were not corpses, but only foodless folk picked up
beside their dead oxen by a corps of Irregular troops. Now they met
more white men, here one and there two, whose tents stood close to
the line, and who came armed with written authorities and angry words
to cut off a truck. They were too busy to do more than nod at Scott
and Martyn, and stare curiously at William, who could do nothing
except make tea, and watch how her men staved off the rush of
wailing, walking skeletons, putting them down three at a time in
heaps, with their own hands uncoupling the marked trucks, or taking
receipts from the hollowed-eyed, weary white men, who spoke another
argot than theirs.

They ran out of ice, out of soda-water, and out of tea; for they were
six days and seven nights on the road, and it seemed to them like
seven times seven years.

At last, in a dry, hot dawn, in a land of death, lit by long red
fires of railway sleepers, where they were burning the dead, they
came to their destination, and were met by Jim Hawkins, the Head of
the Famine, unshaven, unwashed, but cheery, and entirely in command
of affairs.