'Give the women something to live for,' said Scott to himself, as
he sneezed in the dust of a hundred little feet, 'and they'll hang
on somehow. But this beats William's condensed milk trick all to
pieces. I shall never live it down, though.'

He reached his destination very slowly, found that a rice-ship had
come in from Burmah, and that stores of paddy were available; found
also an overworked Englishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the
carts, set back to cover the ground he had already passed. He left
some of the children and half his goats at the famine-shed. For this
he was not thanked by the Englishman, who had already more stray
babies than he knew what to do with. Scott's back was suppled to
stooping now, and he went on with his wayside ministrations in
addition to distributing the paddy. More babies and more goats were
added unto him; but now some of the babies wore rags, and beads round
their wrists or necks. '_That_,' said the interpreter, as though
Scott did not know, 'signifies that their mothers hope in eventual
contingency to resume them offeecially.'

'The sooner the better,' said Scott; but at the same time he marked,
with the pride of ownership, how this or that little Ramasawmy was
putting on flesh like a bantam. As the paddy carts were emptied he
headed for Hawkins's camp by the railway, timing his arrival to fit
in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he had eaten at a
cloth. He had no desire to make any dramatic entry, but an accident
of the sunset ordered it that, when he had taken off his helmet to
get the evening breeze, the low light should fall across his
forehead, and he could not see what was before him; while one
waiting at the tent door beheld, with new eyes, a young man,
beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust, walking slowly