work of four men for over two months, and, like most large men, his
nerves had given in before Dicky's, who had done six men's work at least,
and, by his power of organisation and his labour-saving intelligence,
conserved the work of another fifty.

The three were sitting silent, having arranged certain measures, when
Norman sprang to his feet excitedly and struck the table with his hand.

"It's no use, sir," he said to Fielding, "I'll have to go. I'm no good.
I neglect my duty. I was to be back at Abdallah at five. I forgot all
about it. A most important thing. A load of fessikh was landed at
Minkari, five miles beyond Abdallah. We've prohibited fessikh. I was
going to seize it. . . . It's no good. It's all so hopeless here."

Dicky knew now that the beginning of the end had come for Norman. There
were only two things to do: get him away shooting somewhere, or humour
him here. But there was no chance for shooting till things got very much
better. The authorities in Cairo would never understand, and the
babbling social-military folk would say that they had calmly gone
shooting while pretending to stay the cholera epidemic. It wouldn't be
possible to explain that Norman was in a bad way, and that it was done to
give him half a chance of life.

Fielding also ought to have a few days clear away from this constant
pressure and fighting, and the sounds and the smells of death; but it
could not be yet. Therefore, to humour them both was the only thing,
and Norman's was the worse case. After all, they had got a system of
sanitary supervision, they had the disease by the throat, and even in
Cairo the administration was waking up a little. The crisis would soon
pass perhaps, if a riot could be stayed and the natives give up their