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Speaker 1: By word of mouth by Rudyard Kipling. Not though you

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die to night, oh sweet and wail a specter at

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my door, shall mortal fear make love immortal fail? I

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shall but love you more, who, from death's arms returning,

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give me still one moment's comfort in my matchless ill

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shadow houses. This tale may be explained by those who

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know how souls are made and where the bounds of

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the possible are put down. I have lived long enough

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in this country to know that it is best to

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know nothing, and can only write the story as it happened.

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Demoise was our civil surgeon at Meridki, and we called

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him Dormouse because he was a round, little, sleepy little man.

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He was a good doctor and never quarreled with any one,

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not even with the deputy commissioner, who had the manners

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of a bargee and the tact of a horse. He

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married a girl as round and as sleepy looking as himself.

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She was a miss Hillardyce, daughter of Squash Hillardce of

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the Burroughs, who married his chief's daughter by mistake. But

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that is another story. A honeymoon in India is seldom

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more than a week long, but there is nothing to

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hinder a couple from extending it over two or three years.

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This is a delightful country for married folk who were

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wrapped up in one another. They can live absolutely alone

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and without interruption, just as the dor mice did. Those

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two little people retired from the world after their marriage

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and were very happy. They were forced, of course, to

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give occasional dinners, but they made no friends hereby, and

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the station went its own way and forgot them, only

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saying occasionally that Dormouse was the best of good fellows.

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Though dull. A civil surgeon who never quarrels, is a

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rarity and appreciated as such. Few people can afford to

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play Robinson Crusoe anywhere, least of all in India, where

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we are few in the land and very much dependent

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on each other's kind offices. Dumoise was wrong in shutting

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himself from the world for a year, and he discovered

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his mistake when an epidemic of typhoid broke out in

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the station in the heart of the cold weather, and

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his wife went down. He was a shy little man,

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and five days were wasted before he realized that Missus

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Dumoise was burning with something worse than simple fever, and

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three days more passed before he ventured to call on

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Missus Chute, the engineer's wife, and timidly speak about his trouble.

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Nearly every household in India knows that doctors are very

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helpless in typhoid. The battle must be fought out between

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death and the nurses, minute by minute and degree by degree.

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Missus Shute almost boxed demoises Ears for what she called

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his criminal delay, and went off at once to look

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after the poor girl. We had seven cases of typhoid

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and the station that winter, and as the average of

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death is about one in every five cases, we felt

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certain that we should have to lose somebody. But all

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did their best. The women sat up nursing the women,

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and the men turned too and tended the bachelors who

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were down. And we wrestled with those typhoid cases for

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fifty two days and brought them through the Valley of

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the Shadow in triumph. But just when we thought all

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was over and were going to give us Cinderella to

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celebrate the victory, little Missus Dumoills got a relapse and

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died in three days, and the station went to the funeral.

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Dumois broke down utterly at the brink of the grave,

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and had to be taken away. After the death, Dumoise

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crept into his own house and refused to be comforted.

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He did his duties perfectly, but we all felt that

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he should go on leave, and the other men in

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his own service told him so. Doumois was very thankful

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for this suggestion. He was thankful for anything in those days,

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and went to Chini on a wocking turn. Chini is

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some twenty marches from Simla, in the heart of the hills,

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and the scenery is good if you are in trouble.

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You pass through big still deodar forests and under big

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still cliffs, and over big still grass downs swelling like

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a woman's breast, and the wind across the grass, and

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the rain among the deadores says hush, hush, hush. So

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little Dumois was packed off to Chini to wear down

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his grief with a full plate camera and a rifle.

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He took also a useless purbier bearer, because the man

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had been his wife's favorite servant. That bearer was idle

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and a thief, but Dumois trusted everything implicitly to him.

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On his way back from Chini, Dumois turned aside to

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Balgi through the forest reserve, which is on the spur

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of Mount Hottu. Some men who have traveled more than

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a little say that the march from Kotgar to Bagi

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is one of the finest in creation. It runs through dark,

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wet forest and ends suddenly in bleak nipped hillside and

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black rocks. Barkie Dock Bungalow is open to all the

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winds and is bitterly cold. Few people go to Barkie.

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Perhaps that was the reason why Dumors went there. He

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halted at seven in the evening, and his bearer went

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down the hillside to the village to engage Coolie's for

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the next day's march. The sun had set and the

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night winds were beginning to sing among the rocks. Dumoise

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leaned on the railing of the Verandah, waiting for his

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barrow to return. The man came back almost immediately after

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he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise

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fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running

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as hard as he could up the face of the hill,

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but there was no bear to account for his terror.

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He raced to the verandah and fell down, the blood

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spurting from his nose and his face iron gray. Then

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he gurgled, I have seen the maem Sob. I have

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seen the mem sob. Where, asked Doumoise, down there walking

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on the road to the village. She was in a

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blue dress, and she lifted the poda of her bonnet

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and said, ram Das, give my salaams to the sob

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and tell him that I shall meet him next month

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at Nudia. Then I ran away because I was afraid

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what Dumoise said or did I do not know? Ram

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Das declares that he said nothing, but walked up and

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down the verandah all the cold night, waiting for the

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Memsb to come up the hill, and stretching out his

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arms into the dark like a madman. But no mem

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Sob came, And next day he went on to Simla Cross,

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questioning the bearer every hour, ram Das could only say

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that he had met missus Dumoise, and that she had

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lifted up her veil and given him the message which

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he had faithfully repeated to Dumoise. To this statement, ram

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Das adhered he did not know where Nadiah was, had

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no friends at Nadia and would most certainly never go

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to Nadia, even though his pay were doubled. Nadia is

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in Bengal and has nothing whatever to do with a

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doctor serving in the Punjab. It must be more than

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twelve hundred miles from Meridki. Dumoise went through Similar without

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halting and returned to Meridki, there to take overcharge from

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the man who had been officiating for him during his tour.

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There were some dispensary accounts to be explained, and some

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recent orders of the Surgeon General to be noted, and

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altogether the taking over was a full day's work. In

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the evening, Dumoirs told his locum Tenens, who was an

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old friend of his bachelor days, what had happened at Bargi,

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and the man said that ram Das might as well

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have chosen Tutti Korin while he was about it. At

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that moment a telegraph peon came in with a telegram

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from Similar, ordering Dumoirs not to take over charge at Meridki,

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but to go at once to Nadia on special duty.

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There was a nasty outbreak of cholera at Nadea, and

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the Bengal government being shorthanded as usual, had borrowed a

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surgeon from the Punjab. Dumoirs threw the telegram across the

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table and said, well, the other doctor said nothing. It

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was all that he could say. Then he remembered that

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Doumoise had passed through Simla on his way from Bargie,

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and thus might possibly have heard first news of the

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impending transfer. He tried to put the question and the

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implied suspicion into words, but Dumoise stopped him with if

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I had desired that, I should never have come back

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from CHINNI I was shooting there. I wished to live,

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for I have things to do, but I shall not

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be sorry. The other man bowed his head and helped

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in the twilight to pack up. Dumoises just opened trunks.

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Ramdas entered with the lamps. Where is the sob going?

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He asked to Nadier, said Demoise softly. Ramdas clawed Domoises

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knees and boots and begged him not to go. Ramdas

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wept and howled till he was turned out of the room.

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Then he wrapped up all his belongings and came back

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to ask for a character. He was not going to

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Nadir to see his sob die and perhaps to die himself.

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So Doumirs gave the man his chit and went down

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to Nadir alone, the other doctor bidding him good bye

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as one under sentence of death. Eleven days later he

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had joined his memsb and the Bengal government had to

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borrow a fresh doctor to cope with that epidemic at Nada.

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The first importation was dead at Tuidanga Dark Bungalow, and

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of by word of mouth by RODGERD. Kipling