King of the Khyber Rifles | Page 6

bruises and indignity merely because understanding looked at them through merry eyes. All crowds are that way, but an Indian crowd more so than all.
Taking his time, and falling foul of nobody, King marked down a native constable--hot and unhappy, leaning with his back against the train. He touched him on the shoulder and the fellow jumped.
"Nay, sahib! I am only constabeel--I know nothing--I can do nothing! The teerain goes when it goes, and then perhaps we will beat these people from the platform and make room again! But there is no authority--no law any more--they are all gone mad!"
King wrote on a pad, tore off a sheet, folded it and gave it to him.
"That is for the Superintendent of Police at the office. Carriage number 1181, eleven doors from here--the one with the shut door and a big Hillman inside sitting three places from the door facing the engine. Get the Hillman! No, there is only one Hillman in the carriage. No, the others are not his friends; they will not help him. He will fight, but he has no friends in that carriage."
The "constabeel" obeyed, not very cheerfully. King stood to watch him with a foot on the step of a first-class coach. Another constable passed him, elbowing a snail's progress between the train and the crowd. He seized the man's arm. "Go and help that man!" he ordered. "Hurry!"
Then he climbed into the carriage and leaned from the window. He grinned as he saw both constables pounce on a third-class carriage door and, with the yell of good huntsmen who have viewed, seize the protesting Northerner by the leg and begin to drag him forth. There was a fight, that lasted three minutes, in the course of which a long knife flashed. But there were plenty to help take the knife away, and the Hillman stood handcuffed and sullen at last, while one of his captors bound a cut forearm. Then they dragged him away; but not before he bad seen King at the window, and had lipped a silent threat.
"I believe you, my son!" King chuckled, half aloud. "I surely believe you! I'll watch! Ham dekta hai!"
"Why was that man arrested?" asked an acid voice behind him; and without troubling to turn his head, he knew that Major Hyde was to be his carriage mate again. To be vindictive, on duty or off it, is foolishness; but to let opportunity slip by one is a crime. He looked glad, not sorry, as be faced about--pleased, not disappointed-- like a man on a desert island who has found a tool.
"Why was that man arrested?" the major asked again.
"I ordered it," said King.
"So I imagined. I asked you why."
King stared at him and then turned to watch the prisoner being dragged away; he was fighting again, striking at his captors' heads with handcuffed wrists.
"Does he look innocent?" asked King.
"Is that your answer?" asked the major. Balked ambition is an ugly horse to ride. He had tried for a command but had been shelved.
"I have sufficient authority," said King, unruffled. He spoke as if he were thinking of something entirely different. His eyes were as if they saw the major from a very long way off and rather approved of him on the whole.
"Show me your authority, please!"
King dived into an inner pocket and produced a card that had about ten words written on its face, above a general's signature. Hyde read it and passed it back.
"So you're one of those, are you!" he said in a tone of voice that would start a fight in some parts of the world and in some services. But King nodded cheerfully, and that annoyed the major more than ever; he snorted, closed his mouth with a snap and turned to rearrange the sheet and pillow on his berth.
Then the train pulled out, amid a din of voices from the left--behind that nearly drowned the panting of overloaded engine. There was a roar of joy from the two coaches full of soldiers in the rear--a shriek from a woman who had missed the train--a babel of farewells tossed back and forth between the platform and the third-class carriages--and Peshawur fell away behind.
King settled down on his side of the compartment, after a struggle with the thermantidote that refused to work. There was heat enough below the roof to have roasted meat, so that the physical atmosphere became as turgid as the mental after a little while.
Hyde all but stripped himself and drew on striped pajamas. King was content to lie in shirt-sleeves on the other berth, with knees raised, so that Hyde could not overlook the general's papers. At his ease he studied them one by one, memorizing a string of names, with details as to their owners' antecedents and probable present