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 lovely!" answered Will.
Fred overtook us at the door, and whispered:
"Our things have been gone through, but I can't find that anything's missing."
Within the dining-room was new ground for discontent. The British race and its offshoots wash, but disbelieve with almost unanimity in water as a drink. Every guest at either table had left at his place a partly emptied glass of beer, or brandy and soda, or whisky. Each looked for the glass on his return, and found it empty.
"Those Greeks!" exclaimed the Goanese manager, with a fearful air, and shoulders shrugged to disclaim his own responsibility.