"It's one I'm very proud of," she answered simply: and leaning out of the open doorway, caught sight of her husband striding down the platform, closely followed by an army of coolies, two bearers, and two pessimistic-looking dogs on chains. "Theo," she called, "do leave that eternal luggage to Amar Singh, and come and be spoilt! We're going to have tea." Before the train jolted out of the station, she had served it to them in large cups, an insubstantial biscuit in each saucer: for it is drink, not food, that a man wants when the thermometer stands at 110 degrees in the shade. At Umritsur the train halted for half an hour. The thermometer had not fallen with the sun; and when the faint breeze of their going died down, there seemed to be no air left to breathe. Lenox dined regally out of the ice-box: while Desmond and Honor, silencing his protests by flight, carried off iced soda and a whisky-flask to the frowsy, airless refreshment room, where they wrestled undismayed with curried kid, the ubiquitous chicken cutlet, and two plates of discoloured water,--flavoured with _jharron_,[1]--that masqueraded as clear soup. Two quarrelsome Eurasians shared their table. A punkah that may once have been white waggled officiously overhead. But for all that the flies were lords of the meal; and enjoyed it far better than those who paid for it. "Thank God for my good dinner!" Desmond muttered with a wry face as he put down his money. "_You_ must supplement it out of Lenox's rations, old lady. _Hukm hai . . . sumja_?" [2] She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. Having won the victory that mattered, she could afford to be submissive over trifles. An hour or so before midnight, they clanked into Lahore station--a big-bastioned building, whose solid masonry breathed fire, as literally as any dragon of romance. Within was a great darkness, partially dispelled by hanging oil-lamps; and babel enough to wake the Seven Sleepers. The uninitiated arriving at an Indian railway station are apt to imagine that a riot of some sort must be in progress. But it is only the third-class passenger, whose name is legion, fighting, tooth and nail, for the foot of space due to every possessor of the precious morsel of cardboard tucked into the folds of his belt: because he knows, from harsh experience, that when the train moves on more than a few will be left disconsolate, to watch its unwinking eye vanish out of their ken:--bewildered adventurers, for many of whom the "fire-carriage" still remains a new-fangled god, who feeds on coal and water, and can only be propitiated by repeated offerings of that wonder-working hieroglyph--the tikkut.