Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished.  Kim tore back down the ditch till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled himself in the blanket.

‘At least Mahbub knows,’ he thought contentedly.  ’And certainly he spoke as one expecting it.  I do not think those two men will profit by tonight’s watch.’

An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake all night, he slept deeply.  Now and again a night train roared along the metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental’s indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream through his slumber.

Mahbub was anything but asleep.  It annoyed him vehemently that people outside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should pursue him for the life.  His first and natural impulse was to cross the line lower down, work up again, and, catching his well-wishers from behind, summarily slay them.  Here, he reflected with sorrow, another branch of the Government, totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton, might demand explanations which would be hard to supply; and he knew that south of the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse or so.  He had not been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to Umballa with the message, and hoped that suspicion had been finally diverted.

Then a most brilliant notion struck him.

‘The English do eternally tell the truth,’ he said, ’therefore we of this country are eternally made foolish.  By Allah, I will tell the truth to an Englishman!  Of what use is the Government police if a poor Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks.  This is as bad as Peshawur!  I should lay a complaint at the station.  Better still, some young Sahib on the Railway!  They are zealous, and if they catch thieves it is remembered to their honour.’

He tied up his horse outside the station, and strode on to the platform.

‘Hullo, Mahbub Ali’ said a young Assistant District Traffic Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line — a tall, tow-haired, horsey youth in dingy white linen.  ’What are you doing here?  Selling weeds — eh?’

’No; I am not troubled for my horses.  I come to look for Lutuf Ullah.  I have a truck-load up the line.  Could anyone take them out without the Railway’s knowledge?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, Mahbub.  You can claim against us if they do.’

’I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucks nearly all night.  Fakirs do not steal horses, so I gave them no more thought.  I would find Lutuf Ullah, my partner.’

’The deuce you did?  And you didn’t bother your head about it?  ’Pon my word, it’s just almost as well that I met you.  What were they like, eh?’

’They were only fakirs.  They will no more than take a little grain, perhaps, from one of the trucks.  There are many up the line.  The State will never miss the dole.  I came here seeking for my partner, Lutuf Ullah.’