that did not come; then, after she had taken hold of things and the evasive Presidente, suddenly alacritous at the stamp of her foot, like a magician produced animals and vehicles by the dozen, the long ride to her station—the bumping and creaking of the ox-cart; the mud, the fearful bottomless mud; the miring in the rice lands, beneath the leaden sun, in the pestilential swamp; the miles paced slow as the crawl of an hour-hand while time slid by and the day died in gloomy splendour. And then the entry into the pueblo at midnight, amid the howl of dogs, the croak of frogs, the shrill concert of katydids; the dinner at the Presidente's, with this people of alien race, of dark skins, of incomprehensible tongue; the appalling lack of comfort, of cleanliness—and then the night: she would never forget it, that first night in Barang. Her cot had been placed in a big bare room. Through the torn roof she could see a lone star. There was rice stored in the corner of the room, and giant rats thundered over the loose planking, squealed and fought, while outside in the scum of the ditches the beasts of humidity shrilled in rasping clamour. Then the arising in the morning, weary to death, shrinking in fear at the thought of the first survey, in the inexorable sunlight, of the place which was to be her abode for twelve long months at least; and that first look—the wide, grass-dishevelled plaza with
