Certainly, none that morning. He showed clear, first against the rosy flush of dawn, afterwards like a dark stain on the red ribbon.
"I'll run up close to him to-day, sir," said Craddock, "so as you shall see wot 'e's made of."
The whistle rang shrill over the desert of sand, which lay empty of all save that streak of red with the dark stain upon it; but the stain never moved, never stirred, though the snorting demon from the west came racing up to it full speed.
"Have a care, man! Have a care!" I shouted; but my words were almost lost in the jar of the brake put on to the utmost. Even then I could only crane round the cab with my eyes fixed on that bronze image straight ahead of us. Could we stop in time--would it move? Yes! no! yes! Slower and slower--how many turns of the flywheel to so many yards?--I felt as if I were working the sum frantically in my head, when, with a little backward shiver, the great circle of steel stopped dead, and Craddock's voice came in cheerful triumph.
"There! didn't I tell you, sir? Ain't 'e stiddy? Ain't 'e a-subdooin' of mortality beautiful?" The next instant he was out, and as he stooped to his task he flung me back a look.
"Now, sonny, you'll 'ave to move. You're in the way--the permanent way, my dear."
That was the last I saw of him for some time, for I fell sick and went home. When I returned to work I found, much to my surprise, that Craddock was in the same appointment; in fact, he had been promoted to drive the solitary passenger train which now ran daily across the desert. He had not been on the spree once, I was told; indeed, the R.E., who was of the Methodist division of that gallant regiment, took great pride in a reformation which, he informed me, was largely due to his religious teaching combined with Departmental Discipline.
"And how is Meditations?" I asked, when the great rough hand had shaken mine vehemently.
Craddock's face seemed to me to grow redder than ever. "'E's very well, sir, thanking you kindly. There's a native driver on the Goods now. 'E's a Shiver-Martha Davy lot, so I pays 'im five rupee a month to nip out sharp with the stoker an' shovel 'is old saint to one side. I'm gettin' good pay now, you know, sir."
I told him there was no reason to apologise for the fact, and that I hoped it might long continue; whereat he gave a sheepish kind of laugh, and said he hoped so too.