officer s face.
Is it so very bad? Oh, is it? Mary heard her say.
Awfully, the young man answered in a trembling voice. 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.
Someone 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.
During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid
herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought of
her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew
nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only
knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and frightening
sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though
a partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as
if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for
some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty
4