The swath through the crowd closed up like water in a ship's wake, but it opened again for King. He smiled so humorously that the angry jostled ones smiled too and were appeased, forgetting haste and bruises and indignity merely because understanding looked at them through merry eyes. All crowds are that way, but an Indian crowd more so than all.
Taking his time, and falling foul of nobody, King marked down a native constable—hot and unhappy, leaning with his back against the train. He touched him on the shoulder and the fellow jumped.
"Nay, sahib! I am only constabeel—I know nothing—I can do nothing! The teerain goes when it goes, and then perhaps we will beat these people from the platform and make room again! But there is no authority—no law any more—they are all gone mad!"
King wrote on a pad, tore off a sheet, folded it and gave it to him.
"That is for the Superintendent of Police at the office. Carriage number 1181, eleven doors from here—the one with the shut door and a big Hillman inside sitting three places from the door facing the engine. Get the Hillman! No, there is only one Hillman in the carriage. No, the others are not his friends; they will not help him. He will fight, but he has no friends in that carriage."
The "constabeel" obeyed, not very cheerfully. King stood to watch him with a foot on the step of a first-class coach. Another constable passed him, elbowing a snail's progress between the train and the crowd. He seized the man's arm.
"Go and help that man!" he ordered. "Hurry!"
Then he climbed into the carriage and leaned from the window. He grinned as he saw both constables pounce on a third-class carriage door and, with the yell of good huntsmen who have viewed, seize the protesting Northerner by the leg and begin to drag him forth. There was a fight, that lasted three minutes, in the course of which a long knife flashed. But there were plenty to help take the knife away, and the Hillman stood handcuffed and sullen at last, while one of his captors bound a cut forearm. Then they dragged him away; but not before he had seen King at the window, and had lipped a silent threat.
"I believe you, my son!" King chuckled, half aloud. "I surely believe you! I'll watch! Ham dekta hai!"
