"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.

During the confusion and bewilderment of the
second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and
was forgotten by every one. 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

[[5]]

p004 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p005w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p006

v?