It may have been midnight. I told them to set
me down, to make up a fire and to go to sleep around it, but keeping
watch, turn and turn about, each for an hour. Matters being thus
disposed, I shut and hooked the palanquin doors, readjusting my
blankets, and was soon dreaming of another hemisphere. At sunrise no
new bearers had yet shown themselves. My men belonged to the region we
were in, and I learned from them that the nearest European dwelt only
eight miles distant. I bargained with them to take me to his bungalow.
The unexpected wages which they were promised being liberal, they
trotted off with unwonted briskness. In due course the bungalow loomed
in sight, and as I approached it a burly figure, in shirt-sleeves and
with arms akimbo, appeared in the verandah, his eyes turned in the
direction of his unlooked-for visitor. "God bless you, Hugh Maxwell!
I'm devilish glad to see you," shouted the burly figure, benedictory,
but even in benediction not oblivious of the Old Teaser. "I wish to
Goodness I was Hugh Maxwell!" I returned, stepping to the ground. "Oh,
never mind," rejoined the hearty indigo-planter, perceiving his
mistake and offering me his hand. "There is just time for a bath
before breakfast," he added; and a good tubbing, in sufficient light
to see and evade creeping things by, was far from unacceptable.
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