midday
At the Sahib 's approach , he struggled to his knees with a rush of incoherent detail ; while Lenox shouted for Zyarulla , and the dogcart ; flung a word of encouragement to the stricken man , and went in again for his helmet . Till the trap appeared Lenox paced the verandah ; the punkah coolie groaned ; and Zyarulla protested as openly as he dared against his Sahib being put to personal inconvenience for a base-born -- mere dust of the earth . None the less , at the Sahib 's order he gingerly helped the dust of the earth into the trap , where Lenox put his one available arm round the writhing body ; and the _ sais _ , who showed small relish for the situation , was ordered to get up and drive from behind . The which he did ; leaning over the back seat , and keeping ostentatiously clear of the misbegotten son of a pig who had broken his midday sleep . In this fashion they journeyed , awkwardly enough , to the temporary cholera hospital ; a handful of tents and grass huts on the outskirts of the station . Betwixt the clutches of cramp , and the abject humility of his kind , the coolie slithered from the seat on to the mat ; and Lenox had some ado to prevent his falling headlong from the cart . But in due time he was handed over safely to a suave , coffee-coloured hospital assistant , and carried shrieking into a tent crammed with sights unfit to be told ; whence he emerged , two hours later , without protest of voice or limb , to swell the intermittent stream of fellow-corpses that flowed from the hospital to the burning ghatt or the Mahommedal burial-ground outside the station .