No More Learning

People were grateful for small things to interest them.

About the beginning of May, and just before the final exodus of
Hill-goers, when the weather was very hot and there were not more than
twenty people in the Station, Saumarez gave a moonlight riding-picnic at
an old tomb, six miles away, near the bed of the river. It was a "Noah's
Ark" picnic; and there was to be the usual arrangement of quarter-mile
intervals between each couple, on account of the dust. Six couples came
altogether, including chaperons. Moonlight picnics are useful just at
the very end of the season, before all the girls go away to the Hills.
They lead to understandings, and should be encouraged by chaperones;
especially those whose girls look sweetish in riding habits. I knew a
case once. But that is another story. That picnic was called the "Great
Pop Picnic," because every one knew Saumarez would propose then to the
eldest Miss Copleigh; and, beside his affair, there was another which
might possibly come to happiness.

The social atmosphere was heavily charged and wanted clearing.

We met at the parade-ground at ten: the night was fearfully hot.

The horses sweated even at walking-pace, but anything was better than
sitting still in our own dark houses. When we moved off under the full
moon we were four couples, one triplet, and Mr. Saumarez rode with the
Copleigh girls, and I loitered at the tail of the procession, wondering
with whom Saumarez would ride home. Every one was happy and contented;
but we all felt that things were going to happen.
We rode slowly: and
it was nearly midnight before we reached the old tomb, facing the ruined
tank, in the decayed gardens where we were going to eat and drink. I
was late in coming up; and before I went into the garden, I saw that the
horizon to the north carried a faint, dun-colored feather. But no one
would have thanked me for spoiling so well-managed an entertainment as
this picnic--and a dust-storm, more or less, does no great harm.

We gathered by the tank. Some one had brought out a banjo--which is a
most sentimental instrument--and three or four of us sang.

You must not laugh at this. Our amusements in out-of-the-way Stations
are very few indeed. Then we talked in groups or together, lying under
the trees, with the sun-baked roses dropping their petals on our feet,
until supper was ready. It was a beautiful supper, as cold and as iced
as you could wish; and we stayed long over it.

I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter; but nobody
seemed to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind began
lashing the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of the sea. Before
we knew where we were, the dust-storm was on us, and everything was
roaring, whirling darkness. The supper-table was blown bodily into the
tank. We were afraid of staying anywhere near the old tomb for fear it
might be blown down. So we felt our way to the orange-trees where the
horses were picketed and waited for the storm to blow over. Then the
little light that was left vanished, and you could not see your hand
before your face. The air was heavy with dust and sand from the bed
of the river, that filled boots and pockets and drifted down necks and
coated eyebrows and moustaches.