It was cheaper to take Government
bullocks, work them to death, and leave them to the crows in the
wayside sloughs.
That was the time when eight years of clean living and hard condition
told, though a man's head were ringing like a bell from the cinchona,
and the earth swayed under his feet when he stood and under his bed
when he slept. If Hawkins had seen fit to make him a bullock-driver,
that, he thought, was entirely Hawkins's own affair. There were men
in the North who would know what he had done; men of thirty years'
service in his own department who would say that it was "not half
bad"; and above, immeasurably above, all men of all grades, there
was William in the thick of the fight, who would approve because she
understood. He had so trained his mind that it would hold fast to
the mechanical routine of the day, though his own voice sounded
strange in his own ears, and his hands, when he wrote, grew large
as pillows or small as peas at the end of his wrists. That
steadfastness bore his body to the telegraph-office at the
railway-station, and dictated a telegram to Hawkins saying that
the Khanda district was, in his judgment, now safe, and he "waited
further orders.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279