Day and night the rain rattled incessantly on the iron roofs
of the bungalows--six or eight inches in twenty-four hours being not
unusual. Thunderstorms roared and echoed among the hills for twenty or
thirty hours at a stretch. All outdoor work or exercise was impossible.
The outpost was nearly always shrouded in dense mist. Insect pests
abounded. Scorpions and snakes invaded the buildings. Outside, from
every blade of grass, every leaf and twig, a thin and hungry leech waved
its worm-like, yellow-striped body in the air, seeming to scent any
approaching man or beast on which it could fasten and gorge itself fat
with blood. Certainly a small station on the face of the Himalayas is
not a desirable place of residence during the rains, and to persons
of melancholy temperament would be conducive to suicide or murder.
Fortunately for themselves the two white men in Ranga Duar took life
cheerily and were excellent friends.
* * * * *
By this time Noreen considered herself quite an old resident of Darjeeling.
But she had felt the greatest reluctance to go when her brother had helped
her into the dogcart for the long drive to the railway. Fred was unable to
take her even as far as the train, for his manager had one of his periodic
attacks of what was euphemistically termed his "illness.
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