The Man Who Would Be King | Page 4

darkened to just above
reading light, and the press machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody
writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or
obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because
it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew
intimately, and the prickly-heat covers you as with a garment, and you
sit down and write:—“A slight increase of sickness is reported from the
Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature,
and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District authorities, is now
almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret we record the death,
etc.”
Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and
reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires
and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and
the foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in
twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle
of their amusements say:—“Good gracious! Why can’t the paper be
sparkling? I’m sure there’s plenty going on up here.”
That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, “must
be experienced to be appreciated.”
It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper began

running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to say
Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great
convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed, the dawn
would lower the thermometer from 96° to almost 84° for almost half an
hour, and in that chill—you have no idea how cold is 84° on the grass
until you begin to pray for it—a very tired man could set off to sleep
ere the heat roused him.
One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed
alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was going to
die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on
the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the
latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was a pitchy
black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot
wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and
pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of
almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but
all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler
in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked
and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but
naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called for
water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was, would not
come off, though the loo dropped and the last type was set, and the
whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, with its finger on its
lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered whether the telegraph
was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or struggling people, was
aware of the inconvenience the delay was causing. There was no
special reason beyond the heat and worry to make 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.
“Half an hour’s talk with you cool and comfortable, in the office,” said
the red-bearded man. “We’d like some