Major Hyde was dressed, having performed that military evolution in something less than record time.
“Who was that you were talking to?” he demanded. But King continued to look out the door.
Hyde came and tapped on his shoulder impatiently, but King did not seem to understand until the native sergeant had quite vanished into the shadows.
“Let me pass, will you!” Hyde demanded. “I'll have that thief caught if the train has to wait a week while they do it!”
He pushed past, but he was scarcely on the step when the station-master blew his whistle, and his colored minion waved a lantern back and forth. The engine shrieked forthwith of death and torment; carriage doors slammed shut in staccato series; the heat relaxed as the engine moved--loosened--let go--lifted at last, and a trainload of hot passengers sighed thanks to an unresponsive sky as the train gained speed and wind crept in through the thermantidotes.
Only through the broken thermantidote in King's compartment no wet air came. Hyde knelt on King's berth and wrestled with it like a caged animal, but with no result except that the sweat poured out all over him and he was more uncomfortable than before.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded at last, sitting on King's berth. His head swam. He had to wait a few seconds before he could step across to his own side.
“Only a knife,” said King. He was standing under the dim gas lamp that helped make the darkness more unbearable.
“Not that robber's knife? Did he drop it?”
“It's my knife,” said King.
“Strange time to stand staring at it, if it's yours! Didn't you ever see it before?”
King stowed the knife away in his bosom, and the major crossed to his own side.
“I'm thinking I'll know it again, at all events!” King answered, sitting down. “Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
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