I drowsed, and wondered
whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man,
or struggling people, might be 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 seed 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 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.
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