tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to
three o’clock and the machines spun their
fly-wheels two and three times to see that all
was in order, before I said the word that
would set them off, I could have shrieked
aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels
shivered the quiet into little bits. I rose to
go away, but two men in white clothes stood
in front of me. The first one said:—“It’s
him!” The second said —“So it is!” And
they both laughed almost as loudly as the
machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads.
“We see there was a light burning
across the road and we were sleeping in
that ditch there for coolness, and I said to
my friend here, the office is open. Let’s
come along and speak to him as turned us
back from the Degumber State,” said the
smaller of the two. He was the man I had
met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was
the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction.
There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the
one or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go
to sleep, not to squabble with loafers.
“What do you want?” I asked.