Angel by B.M. Croker

IT was the middle of March in the North-West Provinces, and the hot weather had despatched several heralds to Ramghur, announcing its imminent approach. Punkahs were swinging lazily in barrack rooms, the annual ice notice had made a round of the station, many families had quitted the sweltering cantonments for the misty Himalayas, and the brain fever bird had arrived! Moreover, the red-capped tennis boys were on half-pay, the polo ground was abandoned, the club reading-room had cancelled all the ladies' papers, and its long dim verandah presented a melancholy vista of empty chairs.

Outside in the gardens, and all over the district, cork trees, acacias, and stately teak upheld their naked branches, as if in agonised appeal to a pitiless blue sky, whilst their leaves, crisp and shrivelled, choked the neighbouring nullahs, or were chased up and down the dusty plains and roads by a howling hot wind.