meter had not
fallen with the sun; and when the faint breeze of their going died down,
there seemed to be no air left to breathe.

Lenox dined regally out of the ice-box: while Desmond and Honor,
silencing his protests by flight, carried off iced soda and a
whisky-flask to the frowsy, airless refreshment room, where they wrestled
undismayed with curried kid, the ubiquitous chicken cutlet, and two
plates of discoloured water,--flavoured with _jharron_,[1]--that
masqueraded as clear soup. Two quarrelsome Eurasians shared their table.
A punkah that may once have been white waggled officiously overhead. But
for all that the flies were lords of the meal; and enjoyed it far better
than those who paid for it.

"Thank God for my good dinner!" Desmond muttered with a wry face as he
put down his money. "_You_ must supplement it out of Lenox's rations,
old lady. _Hukm hai . . . sumja_?" [2]

She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. Having won the victory that
mattered, she could afford to be submissive over trifles.

An hour or so before midnight, they clanked into Lahore station--a
big-bastioned building, whose solid masonry breathed fire, as literally
as any dragon of romance. Within was a great darkness, partially
dispelled by hanging oil-lamps; and babel enough to wake the Seven
Sleepers. The uninitiated arriving at an Indian railway station are apt
to imagine that a riot of some sort must be in progress. But it is only
the third-class passenger, whose name is legion, fighting, tooth and
nail, for the foot of space due to every possessor of the precious morsel
of cardboard tucked into the folds of his belt: because he knows, from
harsh experience, that when the train moves on more than a few will be
left disconsolate, to watch its unwinking eye vanish out of their
ken:--bewildered adventurers, for many of whom the "fire-carriage" still
remains a new-fangled god, who feeds on coal and water, and can only be
propitiated by repeated offerings of that wonder-working hieroglyph--the
tikkut.

At Lahore passengers to Dera change into the night mail for Mooltan: and
almost before the train drew up Desmond was out on the platform, pushing
his way, purposefully, through a mass of jostling, shouting, perspiring
humanity:--Sikhs, Punjabi farmers, moneylenders, 'fat and scant of
breath,' women of all ages, with apathetic babies, in round cap and
necklet, astride upon their hips. In the station-master's office he
found the fat