s, and although I hunted up and down and in and
out I could find her nowhere.

When I returned to our car Brown of Lumbwa was out on the platform with
his hair all tousled and a wild eye. The guard was wiping a bloody
nose and everybody was inventing an account of what nobody had seen.

"Scrag him!" advised some expert on etiquette.

"What the hell right has anybody got," demanded Brown with querulous
ferocity, "to interfere between me and a lady? Eh? Whose compartment
was she in? Me in hers or her in mine? Eh? Me. I'm sleeping.
Hasn't a gent a right to sleep? Next thing I know she's fingerin' my
whiskers. How should I know she's not balmy on red beards an' makin'
love to me? What right's she got in my compartment anyhow? Who let
her in? Who asked her? What if I did frighten her? What then?"

"Who was she?" demanded the official. "Had anybody seen her before?"

"The maid attending the lady in the next compartment," said I.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Very well. Guard! See who is in there!"

The guard wiped blood from his nose and obeyed orders. We clustered
round the steps to hear.

"'Ow many's in here?" he demanded.

There was no answer. He tried the door and it opened 'readily.

"'Scuse me, but is there two of you? I can't see in the dark."

"Oh, is that our dinner?" said Lady Saffren Waldon's Voice.

"No ma'am, not the dinner yet."

"Why not, pray?"

"There's folks accusin' your maid o' enterin' the next compartment
an'--an'--"

"Nonsense! My maid is here! You kept us so long waiting for dinner we
were both asleep! Ah! There's light at last, thank heaven!"

Two native porters running along the roofs were dropping lamps into the
holes appointed for them, and the train that had been a block of
darkness hewn out of the night was now a monster, many-eyed.

"They're both in there, so 'elp me!" the guard reported, retreating
backward through the door and leering at us.

There remained nobody, except the still indignant Brown of Lumbwa to
levy charges, and the crowd remembered its dinner (not that anything
could be expected to grow cold in that temperature).

"The train will start on time!" announced the babu station master, and
everybody hurried to the dining-room. Brown came with us, bewildered.

"How did it happen?" he demanded. "When did we get here? Why wasn't I
called for dinner? How did she get in? Where did she go to?"

"Oh, come and eat curried cow, it's l