textfiles/etext/FICTION/kipling-kim-149.txt

                                      1901

                                      KIM

                               by Rudyard Kipling

                                  1

                  "Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way

                   By Tophet-flare to Judgement Day,

                   Be gentle when the heathen pray

                     To Buddha at Kamakura!"

  He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun
Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher- the
Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold
Zam-Zammah, that "fire-breathing dragon," hold the Punjab, for the
great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.

  There was some justification for Kim- he had kicked Lala
Dinanath's boy off the trunnions- since the English held the Punjab
and Kim was English. Though he was burned black as any native;
though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in
a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect
equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white- a poor white
of the very poorest. The half-caste woman who looked after him (she
smoked opium, and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by
the square where the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she
was Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a
colonels family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young
colour-sergeant the Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took a
post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi railway, and his regiment went
home without him. The wife died of cholera in Ferozepore, and O'Hara
fell to drink and loafing up and down the line with the keen-eyed
three-year-old baby. Societies and chaplains, anxious for the child,
tried to catch him, but O'Hara drifted away, till he came across the
woman who took opium and learned the taste from her, and died as
poor whites die in India. His estate at death consisted of three
papers- one he called his "ne varietur" because those words were
written below his signature thereon, and another his
"clearance-certificate." The third was Kim's birth-certificate.
Those things, he was used to say, in his glorious opium-hours, would
yet make little Kimball a man. On no account was Kim to part with
them, for they belonged to a great piece of magic- such magic as men
practised over yonder behind the Museum, in the big blue and white
Jadoo-Gher- the Magic House, as we name the Masonic Lodge. It would,
he said, all come right some day, and Kim's horn would be exalted
between pillars- montrous pillars- of beauty and strength. The Colonel
himself, riding on a horse, at the head of the finest regiment in
the world, would attend to Kim- little Kim that should have been
better off than his father. Nine hundred first-class devils, whose god
was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim, if they had
not forgotten O'Hara- poor O'Hara that was gangforeman on the
Ferozepore line. Then he would weep bitterly in the broken rush
chair on the veranda. So it came about after his death that the
woman sewed parchment, paper, and birth-certificate into a leather
amulet-case which she strung round Kim's neck.

  "And some day," she said, confusedly remembering O'Hara's
prophecies, "there will come for you a great Red Bull on a green
field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and"- dropping
into English- "nine hundred devils."

  "Ah," said Kim, "I shall remember. A Red Bull and a Colonel on a
horse will come, but first, my father said, will come the two men
making ready the ground for these matters. That is how, my father
said, they always did; and it is always so when men work magic."

  If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those
papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial
Lodge and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had
heard of magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held views of his own. As
he reached the years of indiscretion, he learned to avoid missionaries
and white men of serious aspect who asked who he was, and what he did.
For Kim did nothing with an immense success. True, he knew the
wonderful walled city of Lahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer
Fort Ditch; was hand in glove with men who led lives stranger than
anything Haroun al Raschid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild
as that of the Arabian Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of
charitable societies could not see the beauty of it. His nickname
through the wards was "Little Friend of all the World"; and very
often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night
on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion.
It was intrigue, of course- he knew that much, as he had known all
evil since he could speak- but what he loved was the game for its
own sake- the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the
crawl up a water-pipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on
the flat roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop
under cover of the hot dark. Then there were holy men, ash-smeared
faquirs by their brick shrines under the trees at the riverside,
with whom he was quite familiar- greeting them as they returned from
begging-tours, and, when no one was by, eating from the same dish. The
woman who looked after him insisted with tears that he should wear
European clothes- trousers, a shirt, and a battered hat. Kim found
it easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged on
certain businesses. One of the young men of fashion- he who was
found dead at the bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake- had
once given him a complete suit of Hindu kit, the costume of a
low-caste street boy, and Kim stored it in a secret place under some
baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the Punjab High Court,
where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after they have driven
down the Ravee. When there was business or frolic afoot, Kim would use
his properties, returning at dawn to the veranda, all tired out from
shouting at the heels of a marriage procession, or yelling at a
Hindu festival. Sometimes there was food in the house, more often
there was not, and then Kim went out again to eat with his native
friends.

  As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and again
from his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal, and
Abdullah, the sweetmeat-seller's son, to make a rude remark to the
native policeman on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door. The
big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So did the
water-carrier, sluicing water on the dry road from his goat-skin
bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Museum carpenter, bent over new
packing-cases. So did everybody in sight except the peasants from
the country, hurrying up to the Wonder House to view the things that
men made in their own Province and elsewhere. The Museum was given
up to Indian arts and manufactures, and anybody who sought wisdom
could ask the curator to explain.

  "Off! Off! Let me up!" cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's
wheel.

  "Thy father was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi," sang
Kim. "All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!"

  "Let me up!" shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered
cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but India
is the only democratic land in the world.

  "The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them off.
Thy father was a pastry-cook- "

  He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring
Motee Bazar, such a man as Kim, who thought he knew all castes, had
never seen. He was nearly six feet high, dressed in fold upon fold
of dingy stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it could Kim
refer to any known trade or profession. At his belt hung a long
open-work iron pencase and a wooden rosary such as holy men wear. On
his head was a gigantic sort of tam-o'-shanter. His face was yellow
and wrinkled, like that of Fook Shing, the Chinese bootmaker in the
bazar. His eyes turned up at the corners and looked like little
slits of onyx.

  "Who is that?" said Kim to his companions.

  "Perhaps it is a man," said Abdullah, finger in mouth, staring.

  "Without doubt," returned Kim; "but he is no man of India that I
have ever seen."

  "A priest, perhaps," said Chota Lal, spying the rosary. "See! He
goes into the Wonder House!"

  "Nay, nay," said the policeman, shaking his head. "I do not
understand your talk." The constable spoke Punjabi. "Oh, Friend of all
the World, what does he say?"

  "Send him hither," said Kim, dropping from Zam-Zammah, flourishing
his bare heels. "He is a foreigner, and thou art a buffalo."

  The man turned helplessly and drifted towards the boys. He was
old, and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of the stinking
artemisia of the mountain passes.

  "O Children, what is that big house?" he said in very fair Urdu.

  "The Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!" Kim gave him no title- such as
Lala or Mian. He could not divine the man's creed.

  "Ah! The Wonder House! Can any enter?"

  "It is written above the door- all can enter."

  "Without payment?"

  "I go in and out. I am no banker," laughed Kim.

  "Alas! I am an old man. I did not know." Then, fingering his rosary,
he half turned to the Museum.

  "What is your caste? Where is your house? Have you come far?" Kim
asked.

  "I came by Kulu- from beyond the Kailas- but what know you? From the
hills where" he sighed- "the air and water are fresh and cool."

  "Aha! Khitai" (Chinaman), said Abdullah proudly. Fook Shing had once
chased him out of his shop for spitting at the joss above the boots.

  "Pahari?" (a hillman), said little Chota Lal.

  "Ay, child- a hillman from hills thou'lt never see. Didst hear of
Bhotiyal (Tibet)? I am no Khitai, but a Bhotiya (Tibetan), since you
must know- a lama- or, say a guru in your tongue."

  "A guru from Tibet," said Kim. "I have not seen such a man. They
be Hindus in Tibet, then?"

  "We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our
lamasseries, and I go to see the Four Holy Places before I die. Now do
you, who are children, know as much as I do who am old?" He smiled
benignantly on the boys.

  "Hast thou eaten?"

  He fumbled in his bosom and drew forth a worn wooden begging-bowl.
The boys nodded. All priests of their acquaintance begged.

  "I do not wish to eat yet." He turned his head like an old
tortoise in the sunlight. "Is it true that there are many images in
the Wonder House of Lahore?" He repeated the last words as one
making sure of an address.

  "That is true," said Abdullah. "It is full of heathen buts. Thou
also art an idolater."

  "Never mind him," said Kim. "That is the Government's house and
there is no idolatry in it, but only a Sahib with a white beard.
Come with me and I will show."

  "Strange priests eat boys," whispered Chota Lal.

  "And he is a stranger and a but-parast" (idolater), said Abdullah,
the Mohammedan.

  Kim laughed. "He is new. Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe.
Come!"

  Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man
followed and halted amazed. In the entrance-hall stood the larger
figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how long
since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not
unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch. There
were hundreds of pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of
statues and slabs crowded with figures that had encrusted the brick
walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of the North Country and now,
dug up and labelled, made the pride of the Museum. In open-mouthed
wonder the lama turned to this and that, and finally checked in rapt
attention before a large alto-relief representing a coronation or
apotheosis of the Lord Buddha. The Master was represented seated on
a lotus the petals of which were so deeply undercut as to show
almost detached. Round Him was an adoring hierarchy of kings,
elders, and old-time Buddhas. Below were lotus-covered waters with
fishes and water-birds. Two butterfly-winged dewas held a wreath
over His head; above them another pair supported an umbrella
surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat.

  "The Lord! The Lord! It is Sakya Muni himself," the lama half
sobbed; and under his breath began the wonderful Buddhist invocation:

  "To Him the Way- the Law- Apart-

  Whom Maya held beneath her heart

  Ananda's Lord- the Bodhisat.

  "And He is Here! The Most Excellent Law is here also! My
pilgrimage is well begun. And what work! What work!"

  "Yonder is the Sahib," said Kim, and dodged sideways among the cases
of the arts and manufacture wing. A white-bearded Englishman was
looking at the lama, who gravely turned and saluted him and after some
fumbling drew forth a note-book and a scrap of paper.

  "Yes, that is my name," smiling at the clumsy, childish print.

  "One of us who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places- he is now
Abbot of the Lung-Cho Monastery- gave it me, stammered the lama. "He
spoke of these." His lean hand moved tremulously round.

  "Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am
here"- he glanced at the lama's face- "to gather knowledge. Come to my
office awhile." The old man was trembling with excitement.

  The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from
the sculpture-lined gallery. Kim laid himself down, his ear against
a crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following his instinct,
stretched out to listen and watch.

  Most of the talk was altogether above his head. The lama,
haltingly at first, spoke to the curator of his own lamassery, the
Suchzen, opposite the Painted Rocks, four months' march away. The
curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed him that very
place, perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley of
many-hued strata.

  "Ay, ay!" The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of
Chinese work. "Here is the little door through which we bring wood
before winter. And thou- the English know of these things? He who is
now Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe. The Lord- the
Excellent One- He has honour here too? And His life is known?"

  "It is all carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art
rested."

  Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the curator beside him,
went through the collection with the reverence of a devotee and the
appreciative instinct of a craftsman.

  Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the unfamiliar Greek
convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove. Where the
sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the curator supplied it
from his mound of books- French and German, with photographs and
reproductions.

  Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian
story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while mother and father
listened; and here were incidents in the legend of the cousin
Devadatta. Here was the wicked woman who accused the Master of
impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park;
the miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here was the Bodhisat
in royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth; the death at
Kusinagara, where the weak disciple fainted; while there were almost
countless repetitions of the meditation under the Bodhi tree; and
the adoration of the alms-bowl was everywhere. In a few minutes the
curator saw that his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a
scholar of parts. And they went at it all over again, the lama
taking snuff, wiping his spectacles, and talking at railway speed in a
bewildering mixture of Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the travels
of the Chinese pilgrims, Fo-Hian and Hwen-Thiang, and was anxious to
know if there was any translation of their record. He drew in his
breath as he turned helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas
Julien. "'Tis all here. A treasure locked." Then he composed himself
reverently to listen to fragments, hastily rendered into Urdu. For the
first time he heard of the labours of European scholars, who by the
help of these and a hundred other documents have identified the Holy
Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted and traced
with yellow. The brown finger followed the curator's pencil from point
to point. Here was Kapilavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here
Mahabodi, the Mecca of Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of
the Holy One's death. The old man bowed his head over the sheets in
silence for a while, and the curator lit another pipe. Kim had
fallen asleep. When he waked, the talk, still in spate, was more
within his comprehension.

  "And thus it was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go to
the Holy Places which His foot had trod- to the Birthplace, even to
Kapila; then to Maha Bodhi, which is Buddh Gaya- to the Monastery-
to the Deer-park- to the place of His death."

  The lama lowered his voice. "And I come here alone. For five- seven-
eighteen- forty years it was in my mind that the Old Law was not
well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms,
and idolatry. Even as the child outside said but now. Ay, even as
the child said, with but-parasti."

  "So it comes with all faiths."

  "Thinkest thou? The books of my lamassery I read, and they were
dried pith; and the later ritual with which we of the Reformed Law
have cumbered ourselves- that, too, had no worth to these old eyes.
Even the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud with one
another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya, illusion. But I have another
desire"- the seamed yellow face drew within three inches of the
curator, and the long forefinger nail tapped on the table. "Your
scholars, by these books, have followed the Blessed Feet in all
their wanderings; but there are things which they have not sought out.
I know nothing- nothing do I know- but I go to free myself from the
Wheel of Things by a broad and open road." He smiled with most
simple triumph. "As a pilgrim to the Holy Places I acquire merit.
But there is more. Listen to a true thing. When our gracious Lord,
being as yet a youth, sought a mate, men said, in His father's
court, that He was too tender for marriage. Thou knowest?"

  The curator nodded, wondering what would come next.

  "So they made the triple trial of strength against all comers. And
at the test of the Bow, our Lord first breaking that which they gave
Him, called for such a bow as none might bend. Thou knowest?"

  "It is written. I have read."

  "And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far and far
beyond sight. At the last it fell; and, where it touched earth,
there broke out a stream which presently became a River, whose nature,
by our Lord's beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere He freed
himself, is that whoso bathes in it washes away all taint and
speckle of sin."

  "So it is written," said the curator sadly.

  The lama drew a long breath. "Where is that River? Fountain of
Wisdom, where fell the arrow?"

  "Alas, my brother, I do not know," said the curator.

  "Nay, if it please thee to forget- the one thing only that thou hast
not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I ask with
my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We know He drew the
bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the stream gushed! Where, then,
is the River? My dream told me to find it. So I came. I am here. But
where is the River?"

  "If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?"

  "By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things," the lama
went on, unheeding. "The River of the Arrow! Think again! Some
little stream, may be- dried in the heats? But the Holy One would
never so cheat an old man."

  "I do not know. I do not know."

  The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a handsbreadth
from the Englishman's. "I see thou dost not know. Not being of the
Law, the matter is hid from thee."

  "Ay- hidden- hidden."

  "We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I"- he rose with a
sweep of the soft thick drapery- "I go to cut myself free. Come also!"

  "I am bound," said the curator. "But whither goest thou?"

  "First to Kashi (Benares): where else? There I shall meet one of the
pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker in
secret, and from him haply I may learn. May be he will go with me to
Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there will I
seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go- for the place
is not known where the arrow fell."

  "And how wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares."

  "By road and the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I
came hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first I was amazed to
see those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and
snatching up their threads"- he illustrated the stoop and whirl of a
telegraph-pole flashing past the train. "But later, I was cramped
and desired to walk, as I am used."

  "And thou art sure of thy road?" said the curator.

  "Oh, for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the
appointed persons despatch all to the appointed place. That much I
knew in my lamassery from sure report," said the lama proudly.

  "And when dost thou go?" The curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India to-day.

  "As soon as may be. I follow the places of His life till I come to
the River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a written paper of the
hours of the trains that go south."

  "And for food?" Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money somewhere
about them, but the curator wished to make sure.

  "For the journey, I take up the Master's begging-bowl. Yes. Even
as He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my monastery. There was with
me when I left the hills a chela (disciple) who begged for me as the
Rule demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a fever took him and he died.
I have now no chela, but I will take the alms-bowl and thus enable the
charitable to acquire merit." He nodded his head valiantly.

  Learned doctors of a lamassery do not beg, but the lama was an
enthusiast in this quest.

  "Be it so," said the curator, smiling. "Suffer me now to acquire
merit. We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is a new book of
white English paper: here be sharpened pencils two and three- thick
and thin, all good for a scribe. Now lend me thy spectacles."

  The curator looked through them. They were heavily scratched, but
the power was almost exactly that of his own pair, which he slid
into the lama's hand, saying: "Try these."

  "A feather! A very feather upon the face!" The old man turned his
head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose. "How scarcely do I feel
them! How clearly do I see!"

  "They be bilaur- crystal and will never scratch. May they help
thee to thy River, for they are thine."

  "I will take them and the pencils and the white note-book," said the
lama, "as a sign of friendship between priest and priest- and now"- he
fumbled at his belt, detached the open iron-work pencase, and laid
it on the curator's table. "That is for a memory between thee and
me- my pencase. It is something old- even as I am."

  It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not
smelted these days; and the collector's heart in the curator's bosom
had gone out to it from the first. For no persuasion would the lama
resume his gift.

  "When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a
written picture of the Padma Samthora- such as I used to make on
silk at the lamassery. Yes- and of the Wheel of Life," he chuckled,
"for we be craftsmen together, thou and I."

  The curator would have detained him: they are few in the world who
still have the secret of the conventional brushpen Buddhist pictures
which are, as it were, half written and half drawn. But the lama
strode out, head high in air, and pausing an instant before the
great statue of a Bodhisat in meditation, brushed through the
turnstiles.

  Kim followed like a shadow. What he had overheard excited him
wildly. This man was entirely new to all his experience, and he
meant to investigate further: precisely as he would have
investigated a new building or a strange festival in Lahore city.
The lama was his trove, and he purposed to take possession. Kim's
mother had been Irish too.

  The old man halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his eye
fell on Kim. The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for a
while, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty.

  "Do not sit under that gun," said the policeman loftily.

  "Huh! Owl!" was Kim's retort on the lama's behalf. "Sit under that
gun if it please thee. When didst thou steal the milk-woman's
slippers, Dunnoo?"

  That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the
moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim's clear yell could
call up legions of bad bazar boys if need arose.

  "And whom didst thou worship within?" said Kim affably, squatting in
the shade beside the lama.

  "I worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent Law."

  Kim accepted this new god without emotion. He knew already a few
score.

  "And what dost thou do?"

  "I beg. I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk.
What is the custom of charity in this town? In silence, as we do of
Tibet, or speaking aloud?"

  "Those who beg in silence starve in silence," said Kim, quoting a
native proverb. The lama tried to rise, but sank back again, sighing
for his disciple, dead in faraway Kulu. Kim watched- head to one side,
considering and interested.

  "Give me the bowl. I know the people of this city- all who are
charitable. Give, and I will bring it back filled."

  Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl.

  "Rest thou. I know the people."

  He trotted off to the open shop of a kunjri, a low-caste
vegetable-seller, which lay opposite the belt-tramway line down the
Motee Bazar. She knew Kim of old.

  "Oho, hast thou turned yogi with thy begging-bowl?" she cried.

  "Nay," said Kim proudly. "There is a new priest in the city- a man
such as I have never seen."

  "Old priest- young tiger," said the woman angrily. "I am tired of
new priests! They settle on our wares like flies. Is the father of
my son a well of charity to give to all who ask?"

  "No," said Kim. "Thy man is rather yagi (bad-tempered) than yogi
(a holy man). But this priest is new. The Sahib in the Wonder House
has talked to him like a brother. O my mother, fill me this bowl. He
waits."

  "That bowl indeed! That cow-bellied basket! Thou hast as much
grace as the holy bull of Shiv. He has taken the best of a basket of
onions already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy bowl. He
comes here again."

  The huge, mouse-coloured Brahminee bull of the ward was
shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen plantain
hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the shop, well
knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his head, and puffed
heavily along the line of baskets ere making his choice. Up flew Kim's
hard little heel and caught him on his moist blue nose. He snorted
indignantly, and walked away across the tram rails, his hump quivering
with rage.

  "See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now,
mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop- yes, and some
vegetable curry."

  A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.

  "He drove away the bull," said the woman in an undertone. "It is
good to give to the poor." She took the bowl and returned it full of
hot rice.

  "But my yogi is not a cow," said Kim gravely, making a hole with his
fingers in the top of the mound. "A little curry is good, and a
fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think."

  "It is a hole as big as thy head," said the woman fretfully. But she
filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable curry, clapped
a dried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake,
dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side; and Kim looked at
the load lovingly.

  "That is good. When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come to
this house. He is a bold beggarman."

  "And thou?" laughed the woman. "But speak well of bulls. Hast thou
not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a field to
help thee? Now hold all straight and ask for the holy man's blessing
upon me. Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my daughter's sore eyes.
Ask him that also, O thou Little Friend of all the World."

  But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging pariah
dogs and hungry acquaintances.

  "Thus do we beg who know the way of it," said he proudly to the
lama, who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl. "Eat now and- I
will eat with thee. Ohe bhistie!" he called to the water-carrier,
sluicing the crotons by the Museum. "Give water here. We men are
thirsty."

  "We men!" said the bhistie, laughing. "Is one skinful enough for
such a pair? Drink then, in the name of the Compassionate."

  He loosed a thin stream into Kim's hands, who drank native
fashion; but the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible
upper draperies and drink ceremonially.

  "Pardesi" (a foreigner), Kim explained, as the old man delivered
in an unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.

  They ate together in great content, clearing the beggar's bowl. Then
the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd, fingered his
rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the
shadow of Zam-Zammah grew long.

  Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively young
Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that they
sell to students of the Punjab University who copy English customs.
Then he smoked and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the gun,
and the outcome of his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in
the direction of Nila Ram's timber-yard.

  The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun
with lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed clerks and
subordinates from the Government offices. He stared dizzily in all
directions, but none looked at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty
turban and Isabella-coloured clothes. Suddenly he bowed his head on
his knees and wailed.

  "What is this?" said the boy, standing before him. "Hast thou been
robbed?"

  "It is my new chela (my disciple) that is gone away from me, and I
know not where he is."

  "And what like of man was thy disciple?"

  "It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of
the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within
there." He pointed towards the Museum. "He came upon me to show me a
road which I had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by his
talk emboldened to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was
cheered and made strong. And when I was faint with hunger he begged
for me, as would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent.
Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have taught him the
Law upon the road to Benares."

  Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the
Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a
thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.

  "But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I know
that I shall find a certain River for which I seek."

  "The River of the Arrow?" said Kim, with a superior smile.

  "Is this yet another Sending?" cried the lama. "To none have I
spoken of my search, save to the Priest of the Images. Who art thou?"

  "Thy chela," said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. "I have never
seen anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to
Benares. And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the
truth to chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple."

  "But the River- the River of the Arrow?"

  "Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I lay
against the door."

  The lama sighed. "I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted.
Such things fall sometimes- but I am not worthy. Thou dost not,
then, know of the River?"

  "Not I." Kim laughed uneasily. "I go to look for- for a bull- a
Red Bull on a green field who shall help me." Boy-like, if an
acquaintance had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his own;
and, boy-like, he had really thought for as much as twenty minutes
at a time of his father's prophecy.

  "To what, child?" said the lama.

  "God knows, but so my father told me. I heard thy talk in the Wonder
House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if one so
old and so little- so used to truth-telling- may go out for the
small matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must go
a-travelling. If it is our fate to find those things we shall find
them- thou, thy River; and I, my Bull, and the strong Pillars and some
other matters that I forget."

  "It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free," said the
lama.

  "That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king," said Kim,
serenely prepared for anything.

  "I will teach thee other and better desires upon the road," the lama
replied in the voice of authority. "Let us go to Benares."

  "Not by night. Thieves are abroad. Wait till the day."

  "But there is no place to sleep." The old man was used to the
order of his monastery, and though he slept on the ground, as the Rule
decrees, preferred a decency in these things.

  "We shall get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai," said Kim, laughing
at his perplexity. "I have a friend there. Come!"

  The hot and crowded bazars blazed with light as they made their
way through the press of all the races in Upper India, and the lama
mooned through it like a man in a dream. It was his first experience
of a large manufacturing city, and the crowded tram-car with its
continually squealing brakes frightened him. Half pushed, half
towed, he arrived at the high gate of the Kashmir Serai: that huge
open square over against the railway station, surrounded with arched
cloisters where the camel and horse caravans put up on their return
from Central Asia. Here were all manner of Northern folk, tending
tethered ponies and kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales and
bundles; drawing water for the evening meal at the creaking
well-windlasses; piling grass before the shrieking, wild-eyed
stallions; cuffing the surly caravan dogs; paying off camel-drivers;
taking on new grooms; swearing, shouting, arguing, and chaffering in
the packed square. The cloisters, reached by three or four masonry
steps, made a haven of refuge around this turbulent sea. Most of
them were rented to traders, as we rent the arches of a viaduct; the
space between pillar and pillar being bricked or boarded off into
rooms, which were guarded by heavy wooden doors and cumbrous native
padlocks. Locked doors showed that the owner was away, and a few rude-
sometimes very rude- chalk or paint scratches told where he had
gone. Thus: "Lutuf Ullah is gone to Kurdistan." Below, in coarse
verse; "O Allah, who sufferest lice to live on the coat of a Kabuli,
why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to live so long?"

  Kim, fending the lama between excited men and excited beasts, sidled
along the cloisters to the far end, nearest the railway station, where
Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader, lived when he came in from that
mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North.

  Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life- especially
between his tenth and his thirteenth year- and the big burly Afghan,
his beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not
wish his gray hairs to show), knew the boy's value as a gossip.
Sometimes he would tell Kim to watch a man who had nothing whatever to
do with horses: to follow him for one whole day and report every
soul with whom he talked. Kim would deliver himself of his tale at
evening, and Mahbub would listen without a word or gesture. It was
intrigue of some kind, Kim knew; but its worth lay in saying nothing
whatever to anyone except Mahbub, who gave him beautiful meals all hot
from the cookshop at the head of the serai, and once as much as
eight annas in money.

  "He is here," said Kim, hitting a bad-tempered camel on the nose.
"Ohe, Mahbub Ali!" He halted at a dark arch and slipped behind the
bewildered lama.

  The horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed, was
lying on a pair of silk carpet saddle-bags, pulling lazily at an
immense silver hookah. He turned his head very slightly at the cry;
and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in his deep chest.

  "Allah! A lama! A Red Lama! It is far from Lahore to the Passes.
What dost thou do here?"

  The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.

  "God's curse on all unbelievers!" said Mahbub. "I do not give to a
lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels. They
may value your blessings. Oh, horse-boys, here is a countryman of
yours. See if he be hungry."

  A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and
who was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the
priest, and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the
horse-boys' fire.

  "Go!" said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away,
leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister.

  "Go!" said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. "Little Hindu, run
away. God's curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my tail who
are of thy faith."

  "Maharaj," whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and
thoroughly enjoying the situation; "my father is dead- my mother is
dead- my stomach is empty."

  "Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There must be some
Hindus in my tail."

  "Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am I a Hindu?" said Kim in English.

  The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy
eyebrows.

  "Little Friend of all the World," said he, "what is this?"

  "Nothing. I am now that holy man's disciple; and we go a
pilgrimage together- to Benares, he says. He is quite mad, and I am
tired of Lahore city. I wish new air and water."

  "But for whom dost thou work? Why come to me?" The voice was harsh
with suspicion.

  "To whom else should I come? I have no money. It is not good to go
about without money. Thou wilt sell many horses to the officers.
They are very fine horses, these new ones: I have seen them. Give me a
rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give thee a
bond and pay."

  "Um," said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. "Thou hast never before
lied to me. Call that lama- stand back in the dark."

  "Oh, our tales will agree," said Kim laughing.

  "We go to Benares," said the lama, as soon as he understood the
drift of Mahbub Ali's questions. "The boy and I. I go to seek for a
certain River."

  "Maybe- but the boy?"

  "He is my disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River.
Sitting under a gun was I when he came suddenly. Such things have
befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remember
now, he said he was of this world- a Hindu."

  "And his name?"

  "That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?"

  "His country- his face- his village? Mussalman- Sikh- Hindu- Jain-
low caste or high?"

  "Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle
Way. If he is my chela- does- will- can anyone take him from me?
For, look you, without him I shall not find my River." He wagged his
head solemnly.

  "None shall take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis," said
Mahbub Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.

  "Is he not quite mad?" said Kim, coming forward to the light
again. "Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?"

  Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost
whispering: "Umballa is on the road to Benares- if indeed ye two go
there."

  "Tck! Tck! I tell thee he does not know how to lie- as we two know."

  "And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I will
give thee money. It concerns a horse- a white stallion which I have
sold to an officer upon the last time I returned from the Passes.
But then- stand nearer and hold up hands as begging- the pedigree of
the white stallion was not fully established, and that officer, who is
now at Umballa, bade me make it clear." (Mahbub here described the
horse and the appearance of the officer.) "So the message to that
officer will be: 'The pedigree of the white stallion is fully
established.' By this will he know that thou comest from me. He will
then say 'What proof has thou?' and thou wilt answer: 'Mahbub Ali
has given me the proof.'"

  "And all for the sake of a white stallion," said Kim, with a giggle,
his eyes aflame.

  "That pedigree I will give thee now- in my own fashion- and some
hard words as well." A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding
camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.

  "Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead.
Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well-" he
turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft,
greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. "Go and lie among my horse-boys for
to-night- thou and the lama. Tomorrow I may give thee service."

  Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he
found a small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with
three silver rupees- enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust money and
paper into his leather amulet-case. The lama, sumptuously fed by
Mahbub's Baltis, was already asleep in a corner of one of the
stalls. Kim lay down beside him and laughed. He knew he had rendered a
service to Mahbub Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe
the tale of the stallion's pedigree.

  But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best
horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader,
whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was
registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey
Department as C.25.1B. Twice or thrice yearly C.25 would send in a
little story, badly told but most interesting, and generally- it was
checked by the statements of R.17 and M.4- quite true. It concerned
all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities, explorers of
nationalities other than English, and the gun-trade- was, in brief,
a small portion of that vast mass of "information received" on which
the Indian Government acts. But, recently, five confederated Kings,
who had no business to confederate, had been informed by a kindly
Northern Power that there was a leakage of news from their territories
into British India. So those Kings' prime ministers were seriously
annoyed and took steps, after the Oriental fashion. They suspected,
among many others, the bullying red-bearded horse-dealer whose
caravans ploughed through their fastnesses belly deep in snow. At
least, his caravan that season had been ambushed and shot at twice
on the way down, when Mahbub's men accounted for three strange
ruffians who might, or might not, have been hired for the job.
Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city of
Peshawur, and had come through without stop to Lahore, where,
knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious developments.

  And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an
hour longer than was necessary- a wad of closely folded
tissue-paper, wrapped in oilskin- an impersonal, unaddressed
statement, with five microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most
scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic
Northern Power, a Hindu banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in
Belgium, and an important, semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the
south. This last was R.17's work, which Mahbub had picked up beyond
the Dora Pass and was carrying in for R.17, who, owing to
circumstances over which he had no control, could not leave his post
of observation. Dynamite was milky and innocuous beside that report of
C.25; and even an Oriental, with an Oriental's views of the value of
time, could see that the sooner it was in the proper hands the better.
Mahbub had no particular desire to die by violence, because two or
three family blood-feuds across the border hung unfinished on his
hands, and when these scores were cleared he intended to settle down
as a more or less virtuous citizen. He had never passed the serai gate
since his arrival two days ago, but had been ostentatious in sending
telegrams to Bombay, where be banked some of his money; to Delhi,
where a sub-partner of his own clan was selling horses to the agent of
a Rajputana state; and to Umballa, where an Englishman was excitedly
demanding the pedigree of a white stallion. The public
letter-writer, who knew English, composed excellent telegrams, such
as:- "Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa- Horse is Arabian as already
advised. Sorrowful delayed-pedigree which am translating." And later
to the same address: "Much sorrowful delay. Will forward pedigree." To
this sub-partner at Delhi he wired: "Lutuf Ullah- Have wired two
thousand rupees your credit Luchman Narain's bank." This was
entirely in the way of trade, but every one of those telegrams was
discussed and re-discussed by parties who conceived themselves to be
interested, before they went over to the railway station in charge
of a foolish Balti, who allowed all sorts of people to read them on
the road.

  When, in Mahbub's own picturesque language, he had muddied the wells
of inquiry with the stick of precaution, Kim had dropped on him,
sent from heaven; and, being as prompt as he was unscrupulous,
Mahbub Ali, used to taking all sorts of gusty chances, pressed him
into service on the spot.

  A wandering lama with a low-caste boy-servant might attract a
moment's interest as they wandered about India, the land of
pilgrims; but no one would suspect them or, what was more to the
point, rob.

  He called for a new light-ball to his hookah, and considered the
case. If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm, the
paper would incriminate nobody. And he would go up to Umballa
leisurely and- at a certain risk of exciting fresh suspicion- repeat
his tale by word of mouth to the people concerned.

  But R.17's report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it would
be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand. However,
God was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he could for the
time being. Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a
lie. That would have been a fatal blot on Kim's character if Mahbub
had not known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub's business,
Kim could lie like an Oriental.

  Then Mahbub Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the Harpies
who paint their eyes and trap the stranger, and was at some pains to
call on the one girl who, he had reason to believe, was a particular
friend of a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had waylaid his simple
Balti in the matter of the telegrams. It was an utterly foolish
thing to do; because they fell to drinking perfumed brandy against the
Law of the Prophet, and Mahbub grew wonderfully drunk, and the gates
of his mouth were loosened, and he pursued the Flower of Delight
with the feet of intoxication till he fell flat among the cushions,
where the Flower of Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri
pundit, searched him from head to foot most thoroughly.

  About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub's deserted
stall. The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left his door unlocked,
and his men were busy celebrating their return to India with a whole
sheep of Mahbub's bounty. A sleek young gentleman from Delhi, armed
with a bunch of keys which the Flower had unshackled from the
senseless one's belt, went through every single box, bundle, mat,
and saddlebag in Mahbub's possession even more systematically than the
Flower and the pundit were searching the owner.

  "And I think," said the Flower scornfully an hour later, one rounded
elbow on the snoring carcase, "that he is no more than a pig of an
Afghan horse-dealer, with no thought except women and horses.
Moreover, he may have sent it away by now- if ever there were such a
thing."

  "Nay- in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black
heart," said the pundit. "Was there nothing?"

  The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered. "I
searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched
his clothes. This is not the man but another. I leave little unseen."

  "They did not say he was the very man," said the pundit
thoughtfully. "They said, 'Look if he be the man, since our councils
are troubled.'"

  "That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of lice.
There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah- all heads of
Kafilas- who deal there," said the Flower.

  "They have not yet come in," said the pundit. "Thou must ensnare
them later."

  "Phew!" said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head
from her lap. "I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan- yaie! Go! I sleep now. This swine
will not stir till dawn."

  When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt, and
staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very near to
it.

  "What a colt's trick," said he to himself. "As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done. Now God He knows how
many more there be upon the road who have orders to test me- perhaps
with the knife. So it stands that the boy must go to Umballa- and by
rail- for the writing is somthing urgent. I abide here, following
the Flower and drinking wine as an Afghan coper should."

  He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

  "Up!" He stirred a sleeper. "Whither went those who lay here last
even- the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?"

  "Nay," grunted the man; "the old madman rose at second cockcrow
saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away."

  "The curse of Allah on all unbelievers," said Mahbub heartily, and
climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.

  But it was Kim who had wakened the lama- Kim with one eye laid
against a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man's
search through the boxes. This was no common thief that turned over
letters, bills, and saddles- no mere burglar who ran a little knife
sideways into the soles of Mahbub's slippers, or picked the seams of
the saddle-bags so deftly. At first Kim had been minded to give the
alarm- the long-drawn "cho-or- choor!" (thief! thief!) that sets the
serai ablaze of nights; but he looked more carefully, and, hand on
amulet, drew his own conclusions.

  "It must be the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie," said he, "the
thing that I carry to Umballa. Better that we go now. Those who search
bags with knives may presently search bellies with knives. Surely
there is a woman behind this. Hai! Hai!" in a whisper to the
light-sleeping old man. "Come. It is time- time to go to Benares."

  The lama rose obediently, and they passed out of the serai like
shadows.

                                   2

                 "For whoso will, from Pride released,

                  Contemning neither creed nor priest,

                  May hear the Soul of all the East

                    About him at Kamakura."

  They entered the fort-like raIlway station, black in the end of
night; the electrics sizzling over the goods yard where they handle
the heavy Northern grain-traffic.

  "This is the work of devils!" said the lama, recoiling from the
hollow echoing darkness, the glimmer of rails between the masonry
platforms, and the maze of girders above. He stood in a gigantic stone
hall paved, it seemed, with the sheeted dead- third-class passengers
who had taken their tickets overnight and were sleeping in the
waiting-rooms. All hours of the twenty-four are alike to Orientals,
and their passenger traffic is regulated accordingly.

  "This is where the fire-carriages come. One stands behind that
hole"- Kim pointed to the ticket-office- "who will give thee a paper
to take thee to Umballa.

  "But we go to Benares," he replied petulantly.

  "All one. Benares then. Quick: she comes!"

  "Take thou the purse."

  The lama, not so well used to trains as he had pretended, started as
the 3.25 a.m. south bound roared in. The sleepers sprang to life,
and the station filled with clamour and shoutings, cries of water
and sweetmeat vendors, shouts of native policemen, and shrill yells of
women gathering up their baskets, their families, and their husbands.

  "It is the train- only the te-rain. It will come here. Wait!" Amazed
at the lama's immense simplicity (he had handed him a small bag full
of rupees), Kim asked and paid for a ticket to Umballa. A sleepy clerk
grunted and flung out a ticket to the next station, just six miles
distant.

  "Nay," said Kim, scanning it with a grin. "This may serve for
farmers, but I live in the city of Lahore. It was cleverly done, babu.
Now give the ticket to Umballa."

  The babu scowled and dealt the proper ticket.

  "Now another to Amritzar," said Kim, who had no notion of spending
Mahbub Ali's money on anything so crude as a paid ride to Umballa.
"The price is so much. The small money in return is just so much. I
know the ways of the te-rain.... Never did yogi need chela as thou
dost," he went on merrily to the bewildered lama. "They would have
flung thee out at Mian Mir but for me. This way! Come." He returned
the money, keeping only one anna in each rupee of the price of the
Umballa ticket as his commission- the immemorial commission of Asia.

  The lama jibbed at the open door of a crowded third-class
carriage. "Were it not better to walk?" said he weakly.

  A burly Sikh artisan thrust forth his bearded head. "Is he afraid?
Do not be afraid. I remember the time when I was afraid of the
te-rain. Enter! This thing is the work of the Government."

  "I do not fear," said the lama. "Have ye room within for two?"

  "There is no room even for a mouse," shrilled the wife of a
well-to-do cultivator- a Hindu Jat from the rich Jullundur district.
"Our night trains are not as well looked after as the day ones,
where the sexes are very strictly kept to separate carriages."

  "Oh, mother of my son, we can make space," said the blue-turbaned
husband. "Pick up the child. It is a holy man, see'st thou?"

  "And my lap full of seventy times seven bundles! Why not bid him sit
on my knee, Shameless? But men are ever thus!" She looked round for
approval. An Amritzar courtesan near the window sniffed behind her
head drapery.

  "Enter! Enter!" cried a fat Hindu money-lender, his folded
account-book in a cloth under his arm. With an oily smirk: "It is well
to be kind to the poor."

  "Ay, at seven per cent a month with a mortgage on the unborn
calf," said a young Dogra soldier going south on leave; and they all
laughed.

  "Will it travel to Benares?" said the lama.

  "Assuredly. Else why should we come? Enter, or we are left," cried
Kim.

  "See!" shrilled the Amritzar girl. "He has never entered a train. Oh
see!"

  "Nay, help," said the cultivator, putting out a large brown hand and
hauling him in. "Thus is it done, father."

  "But- but- I sit on the floor. It is against the Rule to sit on a
bench," said the lama. "Moreover, it cramps me."

  "I say," began the money-lender, pursing his lips, "that there is
not one rule of right living which these te-rains do not cause us to
break. We sit, for example, side by side with all castes and peoples."

  "Yea, and with most outrageously shameless ones," said the wife,
scowling at the Amritzar girl making eyes at the young sepoy.

  "I said we might have gone by cart along the road," said the
husband, "and thus have saved some money."

  "Yes- and spent twice over what we saved on food by the way. That
was talked out ten thousand times."

  "Ay, by ten thousand tongues," grunted he.

  "The Gods help us poor women if we may not speak. Oho! He is of that
sort which may not look at or reply to a woman." For the lama,
constrained by his Rule, took not the faintest notice of her. "And his
disciple is like him?"

  "Nay, mother," said Kim most promptly. "Not when the woman is
well-looking and above all charitable to the hungry."

  "A beggar's answer," said the Sikh, laughing. "Thou hast brought
it on thyself, sister!" Kim's hands were crooked in supplication.

  "And whither goest thou?" said the woman, handing him the half of
a cake from a greasy package.

  "Even to Benares."

  "Jugglers belike?" the young soldier suggested. "Have ye any
tricks to pass the time? Why does not that yellow man answer?"

  "Because," said Kim stoutly, "he is holy, and thinks upon matters
hidden from thee."

  "That may be well. We of the Loodhiana Sikhs," he rolled it out
sonorously, "do not trouble our heads with doctrine. We fight."

  "My sister's brother's son is naik (corporal) in that regiment,"
said the Sikh craftsman quietly. "There are also some Dogra
companies there." The soldier glared, for a Dogra is of other caste
than a Sikh, and the banker tittered.

  "They are all one to me," said the Amritzar girl.

  "That we believe," snorted the cultivator's wife malignantly.

  "Nay, but all who serve the Sirkar with weapons in their hands
are, as it were, one brotherhood. There is one brotherhood of the
caste, but beyond that again"- she looked round timidly- "the bond
of the Pulton- the Regiment- eh?"

  "My brother is in a Jat regiment," said the cultivator. "Dogras be
good men."

  "Thy Sikhs at least were of that opinion," said the soldier, with
a scowl at the placid old man in the corner. "Thy Sikhs thought so
when our two companies came to help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the
face of eight Afreedee standards on the ridge not three months gone."

  He told the story of a border action in which the Dogra companies of
the Loodhiana Sikhs had acquitted themselves well. The Amritzar girl
smiled; for she knew the tale was to win her approval.

  "Alas!" said the cultivator's wife at the end. "So their villages
were burnt and their little children made homeless?"

  "They had marked our dead. They paid a great payment after we of the
Sikhs had schooled them. So it was. Is this Amritzar?"

  "Ay, and here they cut our tickets," said the banker, fumbling at
his belt.

  The lamps were paling in the dawn when the half-caste guard came
round. Ticket-collecting is a slow business in the East, where
people secrete their tickets in all sorts of curious places. Kim
produced his and was told to get out.

  "But I go to Umballa," he protested. "I go with this holy man."

  "Thou canst go to Jehannum for aught I care. This ticket is only
to Amritzar. Out!

  Kim burst into a flood of tears, protesting that the lama was his
father and his mother, that he was the prop of the lama's declining
years, and that the lama would die without his care. All the
carriage bade the guard be merciful- the banker was specially eloquent
here- but the guard hauled Kim on to the platform. The lama blinked,
he could not overtake the situation and Kim lifted up his voice and
wept outside the carriage window.

  "I am very poor. My father is dead- my mother is dead. Oh,
charitable ones, if I am left here, who shall tend that old man?"

  "What- what is this?" the lama repeated. "He must go to Benares.
He must come with me. He is my chela. If there is money to be paid-"

  "Oh, be silent," whispered Kim; "are we Rajahs to throw away good
silver when the world is so charitable?"

  The Amritzar girl stepped out with her bundles, and it was on her
that Kim kept his watchful eye. Ladies of that persuasion, he knew,
were generous.

  "A ticket- a little tikkut to Umballa- O Breaker of Hearts!" She
laughed. "Hast thou no charity?"

  "Does the holy man come from the North?"

  "From far and far in the North he comes," cried Kim. "From among the
hills."

  "There is snow among the pine trees in the North- in the hills there
is snow. My mother was from Kulu. Get thee a ticket. Ask him for a
blessing."

  "Ten thousand blessings," shrilled Kim. "O Holy One, a woman has
given us in charity so that I can come with thee- a woman with a
golden heart. I run for the tikkut."

  The girl looked up at the lama, who had mechanically followed Kim to
the platform. He bowed his head that he might not see her, and
muttered in Tibetan as she passed on with the crowd.

  "Light come- light go," said the cultivator's wife viciously.

  "She has acquired merit," returned the lama. "Beyond doubt it was
a nun."

  "There be ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar alone. Return, old man,
or the train may depart without thee," cried the banker.

  "Not only was it sufficient for the ticket, but for a little food
also," said Kim, leaping to his place. "Now eat, Holy One. Look. Day
comes!"

  Golden, rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists smoked away
across the flat green levels. All the rich Punjab lay out in the
splendour of the keen sun. The lama flinched a little as the
telegraph-posts swung by.

  "Great is the speed of the train," said the banker, with a
patronising grin. "We have gone farther since Lahore than thou couldst
walk in two days: at even, we shall enter Umballa."

  "And that is still far from Benares," said the lama wearily,
mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered. They all unloosed their
bundles and made their morning meal. Then the banker, the
cultivator, and the soldier prepared their pipes and wrapped the
compartment in choking, acrid smoke, spitting and coughing and
enjoying themselves. The Sikh and the cultivator's wife chewed pan;
the lama took snuff and told his beads, while Kim, cross-legged,
smiled over the comfort of a full stomach.

  "What rivers have ye by Benares?" said the lama of a sudden to the
carriage at large.

  "We have Gunga," returned the banker, when the little titter had
subsided.

  "What others?"

  "What other than Gunga?"

  "Nay, but in my mind was the thought of a certain River of healing."

  "That is Gunga. Who bathes in her is made clean and goes to the
Gods. Thrice have I made pilgrimage to Gunga." He looked round
proudly.

  "There was need," said the young sepoy drily, and the travellers'
laugh turned against the banker.

  "Clean- to return again to the Gods," the lama muttered. "And to
go forth on the round of lives anew- still tied to the Wheel." He
shook his head testily. "But maybe there is a mistake. Who, then, made
Gunga in the beginning?"

  "The Gods. Of what known faith art thou?" the banker said appalled.

  "I follow the Law- the Most Excellent Law. So it was the Gods that
made Gunga. What like of Gods were they?"

  The carriage looked at him in amazement. It was inconceivable that
anyone should be ignorant of Gunga.

  "What- what is thy God?" said the money-lender at last.

  "Hear!" said the lama, shifting the rosary to his hand. "Hear: for I
speak of Him now! O people of Hind, listen!"

  He began in Urdu the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his
own thoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned texts from a Chinese
book of the Buddha's life. The gentle, tolerant folk looked on
reverently. All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in
strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal;
dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning
and will continue to the end.

  "Um!" said the soldier of the Loodhiana Sikhs. 'There was a
Mohammedan regiment lay next to us at the Pirzai Kotal, and a priest
of theirs- he was, as I remember, a naik- when the fit was on him,
spake prophecies. But the mad all are in God's keeping. His officers
overlooked much in that man."

  The lama fell back on Urdu, remembering that he was in a strange
land. "Hear the tale of the Arrow which our Lord loosed from the bow,"
he said.

  This was much more to their taste, and they listened curiously while
he told it. "Now, O people of Hind, I go to seek that River. Know ye
aught that may guide me, for we be all men and women in evil case."

  "There is Gunga- and Gunga alone- who washes away sin," ran the
murmur round the carriage.

  "Though past question we have good Gods Jullundur-way," said the
cultivator's wife, looking out of window. "See how they have blessed
the crops."

  "To search every river in the Punjab is no small matter," said her
husband. "For me, a stream that leaves good silt on my land
suffices, and I thank Bhumia, the God of the Homestead." He shrugged
one knotted, bronzed shoulder.

  "Think you our Lord came so far north?" said the lama, turning to
Kim.

  "It may be," Kim replied soothingly, as he spat red pan-juice on the
floor.

  "The last of the Great Ones," said the Sikh with authority, "was
Sikander Julkarn (Alexander the Great). He paved the streets of
Jullundur and built a great tank near Umballa. That pavement holds
to this day; and the tank is there also. I never heard of thy God."

  "Let thy hair grow long and talk Punjabi," said the young soldier
jestingly to Kim, quoting a Northern proverb. That is all that makes a
Sikh." But he did not say this very loud.

  The lama sighed and shrank into himself, a dingy, shapeless mass. In
the pauses of their talk they could hear the low droning- "Om mane
pudme hum! Om mane pudme hum!"- and the thick click of the wooden
rosary beads.

  "It irks me," he said at last. "The speed and the clatter irk me.
Moreover, my chela, I think that may be we have overpassed that
River."

  "Peace, peace," said Kim. "Was not the River near Benares? We are
yet far from the place."

  "But- if our Lord came north, it may be any one of these little ones
that we have run across.

  "I do not know."

  "But thou wast sent to me- wast thou sent to me?- for the merit I
had acquired over yonder at Suchzen. From beside the cannon didst thou
come- bearing two faces- and two garbs."

  "Peace. One must not speak of these things here," whispered Kim.
"There was but one of me. Think again and thou wilt remember. A boy- a
Hindu boy- by the great green cannon."

  "But was there not also an Englishman with a white beard- holy-
among images- who himself made more sure my assurance of the River
of the Arrow?"

  "He- we- went to the Ajaib-Gher in Lahore to pray before the Gods
there," Kim explained to the openly listening company. "And the
Sahib of the Wonder House talked to him- yes, this is truth- as a
brother. He is a very holy man from far beyond the hills. Rest thou.
In time we come to Umballa."

  "But my River- the River of my healing?"

  "And then, if it please thee, we will go hunting for that River on
foot. So that we miss nothing- not even a little rivulet in a
fieldside."

  "But thou hast a Search of thine own?" The lama- very pleased that
he remembered so well- sat bolt upright.

  "Ay," said Kim, humouring him. The boy was entirely happy to be
out chewing pan and seeing new people in the great good-tempered
world.

  "It was a Bull- a Red Bull that shall come and help thee- and
carry thee- whither? I have forgotten. A Red Bull on a green field,
was it not?"

  "Nay, it will carry me nowhere," said Kim. "It is but a tale I
told thee."

  "What is this?" the cultivator's wife leaned forward, her
bracelets clinking on her arm. "Do ye both dream dreams? A Red Bull on
a green field, that shall carry thee to the Heavens- or what? Was it a
vision? Did one make a prophecy? We have a Red Bull in our village
behind Jullundur city, and he grazes by choice in the very greenest of
our fields!"

  "Give a woman an old wife's tale and a weaver-bird a leaf and a
thread, they will weave wonderful things," said the Sikh. "All holy
men dream dreams, and by following holy men their disciples attain
that power."

  "A Red Bull on a green field, was it?" the lama repeated. "In a
former life it may be thou hast acquired merit, and the Bull will come
to reward thee."

  "Nay- nay- it was but a tale one told to me- for a jest belike.
But I will seek the Bull about Umballa, and thou canst look for thy
River and rest from the clatter of the train."

  "It may be that the Bull knows- that he is sent to guide us both,"
said the lama, hopefully as a child. Then to the company, indicating
Kim: "This one was sent to me but yesterday. He is not, I think, of
this world."

  "Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to boot, but never such a
yogi nor such a disciple," said the woman.

  Her husband touched his forehead lightly with one finger and smiled.
But the next time the lama would eat they took care to give him
their best.

  And at last- tired, sleepy, and dusty- they reached Umballa City
Station.

  "We abide here upon a law-suit," said the cultivator's wife to
Kim. "We lodge with my man's cousin's younger brother. There is room
also in the courtyard for thy yogi and for thee. Will- will he give me
a blessing?"

  "O holy man! A woman with a heart of gold gives us lodging for the
night. It is a kindly land, this land of the South. See how we have
been helped since the dawn!"

  The lama bowed his head in benediction.

  "To fill my cousin's younger brother's house with wastrels-" the
husband began, as he shouldered his heavy bamboo staff.

  "Thy cousin's younger brother owes my father's cousin something
yet on his daughter's marriage-feast," said the woman crisply. "Let
him put their food to that account. The yogi will beg, I doubt not."

  "Ay, I beg for him," said Kim, anxious only to get the lama under
shelter for the night, that he might seek Mahbub Ali's Englishman
and deliver himself of the white stallion's pedigree.

  "Now," said he, when the lama had come to an anchor in the inner
courtyard of a decent Hindu house behind the cantonments, "I go away
for a while- to- to buy us victual in the bazar. Do not stray abroad
till I return."

  "Thou wilt return? Thou wilt surely return?" The old man caught at
his wrist. "And thou wilt return in this very same shape? Is it too
late to look to-night for the River?"

  "Too late and too dark. Be comforted. Think how far thou art on
the road- an hundred kos from Lahore already."

  "Yea- and farther from my monastery. Alas! It is a great and
terrible world."

  Kim stole out and away, as unremarkable a figure as ever carried his
own and a few score thousand other folks fate slung round his neck.
Mahbub Ali's directions left him little doubt of the house in which
his Englishman lived; and a groom, bringing a dog-cart home from the
Club, made him quite sure. It remained only to identify his man, and
Kim slipped through the garden hedge and hid in a clump of plumed
grass close to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants
moved about tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver.
Presently forth came an Englishman, dressed in black and white,
humming a tune. It was too dark to see his face, so Kim,
beggar-wise, tried an old experiment.

  "Protector of the Poor!"

  The man backed towards the voice.

  "Mahbub Ali says-"

  "Hah! What says Mahbub Ali?" He made no attempt to look for the
speaker, and that showed Kim that he knew.

  "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established."

  "What proof is there?" The Englishman switched at the rose-hedge
in the side of the drive.

  "Mahbub Ali has given me this proof." Kim flipped the wad of
folded paper into the air, and it fell on the path beside the man, who
put his foot on it as a gardener came round the corner. When the
servant passed he picked it up, dropped a rupee- Kim could hear the
clink- and strode into the house, never turning round. Swiftly Kim
took up the money; but, for all his training, he was Irish enough by
birth to reckon silver the least part of any game. What he desired was
the visible effect of action; so, instead of slinking away, he lay
close in the grass and wormed nearer to the house.

  He saw- Indian bungalows are open through and through- the
Englishman return to a small dressing-room, in a corner of the
veranda, that was half-office, littered with papers and
despatch-boxes, and sit down to study Mahbub Ali's message. His
face, by the full ray of the kerosene lamp, changed and darkened,
and Kim, used as every beggar must be to watching countenances, took
good note.

  "Will! Will, dear!" called a woman's voice. "You ought to be in
the drawing-room. They'll be here in a minute."

  The man still read intently.

  "Will!" said the voice, five minutes later. "He's come. I can hear
the troopers in the drive."

  The man dashed out bareheaded as a big landau with four native
troopers behind it halted at the veranda, and a tall, black-haired
man, erect as an arrow, swung out, preceded by a young officer who
laughed pleasantly.

  Flat on his belly lay Kim, almost touching the high wheels. His
man and the black stranger exchanged two sentences.

  "Certainly, sir," said the young officer promptly. "Everything waits
while a horse is concerned."

  "We shan't be more than twenty minutes," said Kim's man. "You can do
the honours- keep 'em amused, and all that."

  "Tell one of the troopers to wait," said the tall man, and they both
passed into the dressing-room together as the landau rolled away.
Kim saw their heads bent over Mahbub Ali's message, and heard the
voices- one low and deferential the other sharp and decisive.

  "It isn't a question of weeks. It is a question of days- hours
almost," said the elder. "I'd been expecting it for some time, but
this"- he tapped Mahbub Ali's paper- "clinches it. Grogan's dining
here to-night, isn't he?"

  "Yes, sir, and Macklin too."

  "Very good. I'll speak to them myself. That matter will be
referred to the Council, of course, but this is a case where one is
justified in assuming that we take action at once. Warn the Pindi
and Peshawur brigades. It will disorganise all the summer reliefs, but
we can't help that. This comes of not smashing them thoroughly the
first time. Eight thousand should be enough."

  "What about artillery, sir?"

  "I must consult Macklin."

  "Then it means war?"

  "No. Punishment. When a man is bound by the action of his
predecessor- "

  "But C.25 may have lied."

  "He bears out the other's information. Practically, they showed
their hand six months back. But Devenish would have it there was a
chance of peace. Of course they used it to make themselves stronger.
Send off those telegrams at once- the new code, not the old- mine
and Wharton's. I don't think we need keep the ladies waiting any
longer. We can settle the rest over the cigars. I thought it was
coming. It's punishment- not war."

  As the trooper cantered off Kim crawled round to the back of the
house, where, going on his Lahore experiences, he judged there would
be food- and information. The kitchen was crowded with excited
scullions, one of whom kicked him.

  "Aie," said Kim, feigning tears. "I came only to wash dishes in
return for a bellyful."

  "All Umballa is on the same errand. Get hence. They go in now with
the soup. Think you that we who serve Creighton Sahib need strange
scullions to help us through a big dinner?"

  "It is a very big dinner," said Kim, looking at the plates.

  "Small wonder. The guest of honour is none other than the Jang-i-Lat
Sahib" (the Commander-in-Chief).

  "Ho!" said Kim, with the correct guttural note of wonder. He had
learned what he wanted, and when the scullion turned he was gone.

  "And all that trouble," said he to himself, thinking as usual in
Hindustanee, "for a horse's pedigree! Mahbub Ali should have come to
me to learn a little lying. Every time before that I have borne a
message it concerned a woman. Now it is men. Better. The tall man said
that they will loose a great army to punish some one- somewhere- the
news goes to Pindi and Peshawur. There are also guns. Would I had
crept nearer. It is big news!"

  He returned to find the cultivator's cousin's younger brother
discussing the family lawsuit in all its bearings with the
cultivator and his wife and a few friends, while the lama dozed. After
the evening meal some one passed him a water-pipe; and Kim felt very
much of a man as he pulled at the smooth cocoanut-shell, his legs
spread abroad in the moonlight, his tongue clicking in remarks from
time to time. His hosts were most polite; for the cultivator's wife
had told them of his vision of the Red Bull and of his probable
descent from another world. Moreover, the lama was a great and
venerable curiosity. The family priest, an old, tolerant Sarsut
Brahmin, dropped in later, and naturally started a theological
argument to impress the family. By creed, of course, they were all
on their priest's side, but the lama was the guest and the novelty.
His gentle kindliness, and his impressive Chinese quotations, that
sounded like spells, delighted them hugely; and in this sympathetic,
simple air he expanded like the Bodhisat's own lotus, speaking of
his life in the great hills of Suchzen, before, as he said, "I rose up
to seek enlightenment."

  Then it came out that in those worldly days he had been a
master-hand at casting horoscopes and nativities; and the family
priest led him on to describe his methods; each giving the planets
names that the other could not understand, and pointing upwards as the
big stars sailed across the dark. The children of the house tugged
unrebuked at his rosary, and he clean forgot the Rule which forbids
looking at women as he talked of euduring snows, landslips, blocked
passes, the remote cliffs where men find sapphires and turquoise,
and that wonderful upland road that leads at last into Great China
itself.

  "How thinkest thou of this one?" said the cultivator aside to the
priest.

  "A holy man- a holy man indeed. His Gods are not the Gods, but his
feet are upon the Way," was the answer. "And his methods of
nativities, though that is beyond thee, are wise and sure."

  "Tell me," said Kim lazily, "whether I find my Red Bull on a green
field, as was promised me."

  "What knowledge hast thou of thy birth-hour?" the priest asked,
swelling with importance.

  "Between first and second cockcrow of the first night in May."

  "Of what year?"

  "I do not know; but upon the hour that I cried first fell the
great earthquake in Srinagur which is in Kashmir." This Kim had from
the woman who took care of him, and she again from Kimball O'Hara. The
earthquake had been felt in India, and for long stood a leading date
in the Punjab.

  "Ai!" said a woman excitedly. This seemed to make Kim's supernatural
origin more certain. "Was not such an one's daughter born then- "

  "And her mother bore her husband four sons in four years- all likely
boys," cried the cultivator's wife, sitting outside the circle in
the shadow.

  "None reared in the knowledge," said the family priest, "forget
how the planets stood in their Houses upon that night." He began to
draw in the dust of the courtyard. "At least thou hast good claim to a
half of the House of the Bull. How runs thy prophecy?"

  "Upon a day," said Kim, delighted at the sensation he was
creating, "I shall be made great by means of a Red Bull on a green
field, but first there will enter two men making all things ready."

  "Yes: thus ever at the opening of a vision. A thick darkness that
clears slowly; anon one enters with a broom making ready the place.
Then begins the Sight. Two men- thou sayest? Ay, ay. The Sun,
leaving the House of the Bull, enters that of the Twins. Hence the two
men of the prophecy. Let us now consider. Fetch me a twig, little
one."

  He knitted his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and scratched again
in the dust mysterious signs- to the wonder of all save the lama, who,
with fine instinct, forbore to interfere.

  At the end of half an hour he tossed the twig from him with a grunt.

  "Hm. Thus say the stars. Within three days come the two men to
make all things ready. After them follows the Bull; but the sign
over against him is the sign of War and armed men."

  "There was indeed a man of the Loodhiana Sikhs in the carriage
from Lahore," said the cultivator's wife hopefully.

  "Tck! Armed men- many hundreds. What concern hast thou with war?"
said the priest to Kim. "Thine is a red and an angry sign of War to be
loosed very soon."

  "None- none," said the lama earnestly. "We seek only peace and our
River."

  Kim smiled, remembering what he had overheard in the
dressing-room. Decidedly he was a favourite of the stars.

  The priest brushed his foot over the rude horoscope. "More than this
I cannot see. In three days comes the Bull to thee, boy."

  "And my River, my River," pleaded the lama. I had hoped his Bull
would lead us both to the River."

  "Alas, for that wondrous River, my brother," the priest replied.
"Such things are not common."

  Next morning, though they were pressed to stay, the lama insisted on
departure. They gave Kim a large bundle of good food and nearly
three annas in copper money for the needs of the road, and with many
blessings watched the two go southward in the dawn.

  "Pity it is that these and such as these could not be freed from the
Wheel of Things," said the lama.

  "Nay, then would only evil people be left on the earth, and who
would give us meat and shelter?" quoth Kim, stepping merrily under his
burden.

  "Yonder is a small stream. Let us look," said the lama, and he led
from the white road across the fields; walking into a very
hornets'-nest of pariah dogs.

                                  3

                "Yea, voice of every Soul that clung

                 To Life that strove from rung to rung

                 When Devadatta's rule was young,

                   The warm wind brings Kamakura."

  Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a
market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for
Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.

  "Such an one," said the lama, disregarding the dogs, "is impolite to
strangers, intemperate of speech and uncharitable. Be warned by his
demeanour, my disciple."

  "Ho, shameless beggars!" shouted the farmer. "Begone! Get hence!"

  "We go," the lama returned, with quiet dignity. "We go from these
unblessed fields."

  "Ah," said Kim, sucking in his breath. "If the next crop fails, thou
canst only blame thy own tongue."

  The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. "The land is full of
beggars," he began, half apologetically.

  "And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O
Mali?" said Kim tartly, using the name that a market-gardener least
likes. "All we sought was to look at that river beyond the field
there."

  "River, forsooth!" the man snorted. "What city do ye hail from not
to know a canal-cut? It runs as straight as an arrow, and I pay for
the water as though it were molten silver. There is a branch of a
river beyond. But if ye need water I can give that- and milk."

  "Nay, we will go to the river," said the lama, striding out.

  "Milk and a meal," the man stammered, as he looked at the strange
tall figure. "I- I would not draw evil upon myself- or my crops; but
beggars are so many in these hard days."

  "Take notice," the lama turned to Kim. "He was led to speak
harshly by the Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he
becomes courteous and of an affable heart. May his fields be
blessed. Beware not to judge men too hastily, O farmer."

  "I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone to
byre," said Kim to the abashed man. "Is he not wise and holy? I am his
disciple."

  He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the
narrow field-borders with great dignity.

  "There is no pride," said the lama, after a pause, "there is no
pride among such as follow the Middle Way."

  "But thou hast said he was low caste and discourteous."

  "Low caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not?
Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offense.
Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does
not tread the way of deliverance." He halted at a little runlet
among the fields, and considered the hoof-pitted bank.

  "Now, how wilt thou know thy River?" said Kim, squatting in the
shade of some tall sugar-cane.

  "When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I
feel, is not the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou
couldst tell me where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the
fields bear!"

  "Look! Look!" Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A
yellow and brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the
bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still- a big
cobra with fixed, lidless eyes.

  "I have no stick- I have no stick," said Kim. "I will get me one and
break his back."

  "Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are- a life ascending or
descending- very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have
done that is cast into this shape."

  "I hate all snakes," said Kim. No native training can quench the
white man's horror of the Serpent.

  "Let him live out his life." The coiled thing hissed and half opened
its hood. "May thy release come soon, brother," the lama continued
placidly. "Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?"

  "Never have I seen such a man as thou art," Kim whispered,
overwhelmed. "Do the very snakes understand thy talk?"

  "Who knows?" He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head.
It flattened itself among the dusty coils.

  "Come thou!" he called over his shoulder.

  "Not I," said Kim. "I go round."

  "Come. He does no hurt."

  Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned
Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded
across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.

  "Never have I seen such a man." Kim wiped the sweat from his
forehead. "And now, whither go we?"

  "That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger- far from my
own place. But that the rel-carriage fills my head with noises of
devil-drums I would go in it to Benares now.... Yet by so going we may
miss the River. Let us find another river."

  Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a year-
through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, and
nol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse
of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; the
lama replying to the vollied questions with an unswerving
simplicity. They sought a River- a River of miraculous healing. Had
any one knowledge of such a stream? Sometimes men laughed, but more
often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the
shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and
the little children as children are the world over, alternately shy
and venturesome. Evening found them at rest under the village tree
of a mud-walled, mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the headman as the
cattle came in from the grazing-grounds and the women prepared the
day's last meal. They had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens
round hungry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green of the staple
crops.

  He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertaining
strangers. He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warm
cooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening
ceremonies being finished in the village temple, sent for the
village priest.

  Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of
Lahore, of railway travel, and such-like city things, while the men
talked, slowly as their cattle chew the cud.

  "I cannot fathom it," said the headman at last to the priest. "How
readest thou this talk?" The lama, his tale told, was silently telling
his beads.

  "He is a Seeker," the priest answered. "The land is full of such.
Remember him who came only last month- the faquir with the tortoise?"

  "Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared
in a vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he
journeyed to Prayag. This man seeks no god who is within my
knowledge."

  "Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad," the
smooth-shaven priest replied. "Hear me." He turned to the lama. "Three
kos (six miles) to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta."

  "But I would go to Benares- to Benares."

  "And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of Hind.
Now my word to thee, Holy One, is rest here till tomorrow. Then take
the road" (it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant) "and test each stream
that it overpasses; for, as I understand the virtue of thy River
lies neither in one pool nor place, but throughout its length. Then,
if thy Gods will, be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom."

  "That is well said." The lama was much impressed by the plan. "We
will begin to-morrow, and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such
a near road." A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the
sentence. Even the priest was impressed, and the headman feared an
evil spell: but none could look at the lama's simple, eager face and
doubt him long.

  "Seest thou my chela?" he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with
an important sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy.

  "I see- and hear." The headman rolled his eye where Kim was chatting
to a girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a fire.

  "He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a Red
Bull on a green field will some day raise him to honour. He is, I
think, not altogether of this world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me
in this search, and his name is Friend of all the World."

  The priest smiled. "Ho there, Friend of all the World," he cried
across the sharp-smelling smoke, "what art thou?"

  "This Holy One's disciple," said Kim.

  "He says thou art a but" (a spirit).

  "Can buts eat?" said Kim, with a twinkle. "For I am hungry."

  "It is no jest," cried the lama. "A certain astrologer of that
city whose name I have forgotten-"

  "That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last
night," Kim whispered to the priest.

  "Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my
chela should find his desire within two days. But what said he of
the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?"

  Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village graybeards.

  "The meaning of my Star is War," he replied pompously.

  Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the
brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have
lain down, Kim's white blood set him upon his feet.

  "Ay, War," he answered.

  "That is a sure prophecy," rumbled a deep voice. "For there is
always war along the Border- as I know."

  It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the
days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry
regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the
village, and though the demands of his sons, now gray-bearded officers
on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of
consequence. English officials- Deputy Commissioners even- turned
aside from the main road to visit him, and on those occasions he
dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a
ramrod.

  "But this shall be a great war- a war of eight thousand," Kim's
voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.

  "Redcoats or our own regiments?" the old man snapped, as though he
were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.

  "Redcoats," said Kim at a venture. "Redcoats and guns."

  "But- but the astrologer said no word of this," cried the lama,
snuffing prodigiously in his excitement.

  "But I know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One's
disciple. There will rise a war- a war of eight thousand redcoats.
From Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is sure."

  "The boy has heard bazar-talk," said the priest.

  "But he was always by my side," said the lama. How should he know? I
did not know."

  "He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead," muttered
the priest to the headman. "What new trick is this?"

  "A sign. Give me a sign," thundered the old soldier suddenly. "If
there were war my sons would have told me."

  "When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a
long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie."
Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the
letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended
to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things-
the sheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath
and went on.

  "Old man, give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight
thousand redcoats- with guns?"

  "No." Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.

  "Dost thou know who He is then that gives the order?"

  "I have seen Him."

  "To know again?"

  "I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana" (the
Artillery).

  "A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?" Kim took a
few paces in a stiff, wooden style.

  "Ay. But that anyone may have seen." The crowd were breathless-still
through all this talk.

  "That is true," said Kim. "But I will say more. Look now. First
the great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus. (Kim drew a
forefinger over his forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the
angle of the jaw.) Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He
thrusts his hat under his left armpit." Kim illustrated the motion and
stood like a stork.

  The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd
shivered.

  "So- so- so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?"

  "He rubs the skin at the back of his neck- thus. Then falls one
finger on the table and he makes a small sniffing noise through his
nose. Then He speaks, saying: 'Loose such and such a regiment. Call
out such guns.'"

  The old man rose stiffly and saluted.

  "'For'"- Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching
sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa- "'For,' says
He, 'we should have done this long ago. It is not war- it is a
chastisement. Snff!'"

  "Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles.
Seen and heard. It is He!"

  "I saw no smoke"- Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the
wayside fortune-teller. "I saw this in darkness. First came a man to
make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He, standing in a
ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I
spoken truth?"

  "It is He. Past all doubt it is He."

  The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at
the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple
twilight.

  "Said I not- said I not he was from the other world?" cried the lama
proudly. "He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the
Stars!"

  "At least it does not concern us," a man cried."O thou young
soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a
red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know- "

  "Or I care," said Kim. "My Stars do not concern themselves with
thy cattle."

  "Nay, but she is very sick," a woman struck in. "My man is a
buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she
recover?"

  Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the
play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the
faquirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing
human nature.

  The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly- a dry and
blighting smile.

  "Is there no priest then in the village? I thought I had seen a
great one even now," cried Kim.

  "Ay- but- " the woman began.

  "But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful
of thanks." The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted
couple in the village. "It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a
young calf to thy own priest, and, unless thy gods are angry past
recall, she will give milk within a month."

  "A master-beggar art thou," purred the priest approvingly. "Not
the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast
made the old man rich?"

  "A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms," Kim
retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious- "does one
grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me
while I learn the road at least."

  He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they
talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their
lewd disciples.

  "Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be
treasure."

  "He is mad- many times mad. There is nothing else."

  Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his
hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but
insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the
temple- at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one
face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.

  "Where is the money?" he whispered, beckoning the old man off into
the darkness.

  "In my bosom. Where else?"

  "Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me."

  "But why? Here is no ticket to buy."

  "Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet
about the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it." He
slipped his hand above the lama's girdle and brought away the purse.

  "Be it so- be it so." The old man nodded his head. "This is a
great and terrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in
it."

  Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was
quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the
old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his
dry knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in
their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep.

  "Certainly the air of this country is good," said the lama. "I sleep
lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broad
day. Even now I am heavy."

  "Drink a draught of hot milk," said Kim, who had carried not a few
such remedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. "It is time to
take the road again."

  "The long road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind," said the
lama gaily. "Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense
these people, and especially the priest, for their great kindness?
Truly they are but-parast, but in other lives, may be, they will
receive enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is no
more than stone and red paint, but the heart of man we must
acknowledge when and where it is good."

  "Holy One, hast thou ever taken the road alone?" Kim looked up
sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the fields.

  "Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot- from Kulu, where my first
chela died. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men
were well-disposed throughout all the Hills."

  "It is otherwise in Hind," said Kim drily. "Their Gods are
many-armed and malignant. Let them alone."

  "I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the World-
thou and thy yellow man." The old soldier ambled up the village
street, all shadowy in the dawn, on a gaunt, scissor-hocked pony.
"Last night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried
heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in
the air. I smell it. See! I have brought my sword."

  He sat long-legged on the little beast, with his big sword at his
side- hand dropped on the pommel- staring fiercely over the flat lands
towards the north. "Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come up
and sit behind me. The beast will carry two."

  "I am this Holy One's disciple," said Kim, as they cleared the
village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, but
the priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium
on a man who carried no money.

  "That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is
always good. There is no respect in these days- not even when a
Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star
leads him to war follow a holy man?"

  "But he is a holy man," said Kim earnestly. "In truth, and in talk
and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an
one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars."

  "Thou art not, that I can see; but I do not know that other. He
marches well, though."

  The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long,
easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically
clicking his rosary.

  They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the
flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the
snow-capped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work
in the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of
ploughmen behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even
the pony felt the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim
laid a hand on the stirrup-leather.

  "It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine," said
the lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.

  The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first
time was aware of him.

  "Seekest thou the River also?" said he, turning.

  "The day is new," was the reply. "What need of a river save to water
at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road."

  "That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will; but why
the sword?"

  The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game
of make-believe.

  "The sword," he said, fumbling it." Oh, that was a fancy of mine- an
old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear
weapons throughout Hind, but"- he cheered up and slapped the hilt-
"all the constabeels hereabout know me."

  "It is not a good fancy," said the lama. "What profit to kill men?"

  "Very little- as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain
it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak
without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with
blood."

  "What madness was that, then?"

  "The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate
into all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was
the first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands.
But they chose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then came the
Sahibs from over the sea and called them to most strict account."

  "Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They
called it the Black Year, as I remember."

  "What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumour
indeed! All earth knew, and trembled."

  "Our earth never shook but once- upon the day that the Excellent One
received Enlightenment."

  "Umph! I saw Delhi shake at least; and Delhi is the navel of the
world."

  "So they turned against women and children? That was a bad deed, for
which the punishment cannot be avoided."

  "Many strove to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in a
regiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and eighty sabres
stood fast to their salt- how many think you? Three. Of whom I was
one."

  "The greater merit."

  "Merit! We did not consider it merit in those days. My people, my
friends, my brothers fell from me. They said: 'The time of the English
is accomplished. Let each strike out a little holding for himself.'
But I had talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chillianwallah, of
Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: 'Abide a little and the wind turns.
There is no blessing in this work.' those days I rode seventy miles
with an English mem-sahib and her babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow! That
was a horse fit for a man!) I placed them in safety, and back came I
to my officer- the one that was not killed of our five. 'Give me
work,' said I, 'for I am an outcast among my own kin, and my
cousin's blood is wet on my sabre.' 'Be content.' said he. 'There is
great work forward. When this madness is over there is a recompense.'"

  "Ay, there is a recompense when the madness is over, surely?" the
lama muttered half to himself.

  "They did not hang medals in those days on all who by accident had
heard a gun fired. No! In nineteen pitched battles was I; in
six-and-forty skirmishes of horse; and in small affairs without
number. Nine wounds I bear; a medal and four clasps and the medal of
an Order, for my captains who are now generals, remembered me when the
Kaiser-i-Hind had accomplished fifty years of her reign, and all the
land rejoiced. They said: 'Give him the order of Berittish India.' I
carry it upon my neck now. I have also my jaghir (holding) from the
hands of the State- a free gift to me and mine. The men of the old
days- they are now Commissioners- come riding to me through the crops-
high upon horses so that all the village sees- and we talk out the old
skirmishes, one dead man's name leading to another."

  "And after?" said the lama.

  "Oh, afterwards they go away, but not before my village has seen."

  "And at the last what wilt thou do?"

  "At the last I shall die."

  "And after?"

  "Let the Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with prayers: I
do not think they will pester me. Look you, I have noticed in my
long life that those who eternally break in upon Those Above with
complaints and reports and bellowings and weepings are presently
sent for in haste, as our colonel used to send for slack-jawed
down-country men who talked too much. No, I have never wearied the
Gods. They will remember this, and give me a quiet place where I can
drive my lance in the shade, and wait to welcome my sons: I have no
less than three- ressaldar-majors all- in the regiments."

  "And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life to
life- from despair to despair," said the lama below his breath,
"hot, uneasy, snatching."

  Ay," the old soldier chuckled. "Three ressaldar-majors in three
regiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I. They must be well
mounted; and one cannot take the horses as in the old days one took
women. Well, well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It
is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask
save at the lance's point. Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and
they feign penitence, but behind my back I know they call me a
toothless old ape."

  "Hast thou never desired any other thing?"

  "Yes- yes- a thousand times! A straight back and a close-clinging
knee once more; a quick wrist and a keen eye; and the marrow that
makes a man. Oh, the old days- the good days of my strength!"

  "That strength is weakness."

  "It has turned so; but fifty years since I could have proved it
otherwise," the old soldier retorted, driving his stirrup-edge into
the pony's lean flank.

  "But I know a River of great healing."

  "I have drunk Gunga-water to the edge of dropsy. All she gave me was
a flux, and no sort of strength."

  "It is not Gunga. The River that I know washes from all taint of
sin. Ascending the far bank one is assured of Freedom. I do not know
thy life, but thy face is the face of the honourable and courteous.
Thou hast clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was hard to
give, in that Black Year of which I now remember other tales. Enter
now upon the Middle Way, which is the path to Freedom. Hear the Most
Excellent Law, and do not follow dreams."

  "Speak then, old man," the soldier smiled, half saluting. "We be all
babblers at our age."

  The lama squatted under the shade of a mango tree, whose shadow
played checkerwise over his face; the soldier sat stiffly on the pony;
and Kim, making sure that there were no snakes, lay down in the crotch
of the twisted roots.

  There was a drowsy buzz of small life in hot sunshine, a cooing of
doves, and a sleepy drone of well-wheels across the fields. Slowly and
impressively the lama began. At the end of ten minutes the old soldier
slid from his pony, to hear better as he said, and sat with the
reins round his wrist. The lama's voice faltered- the periods
lengthened. Kim was busy watching a gray squirrel. When the little
scolding bunch of fur, close pressed to the branch, disappeared,
preacher and audience were fast asleep, the old officer's strong-cut
head pillowed on his arm, the lama's thrown back against the tree
bole, where it showed like yellow ivory. A naked child toddled up,
stared, and, moved by some quick impulse of reverence made a solemn
little obeisance before the lama- only the child was so short and
fat that it toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the sprawling,
chubby legs. The child, seared and indignant, yelled aloud.

  "Hai! Hai!" said the soldier leaping to his feet. "What is it?
What orders?... It is... a child! I dreamed it was an alarm. Little
one- little one- do not cry. Have I slept? That was discourteous
indeed!"

  "I fear! I am afraid!" roared the child.

  "What is it to fear? Two old men and a boy? How wilt thou ever
make a soldier, Princeling?"

  The lama had waked too, but, taking no direct notice of the child,
clicked his rosary.

  "What is that?" said the child, stopping a yell midway. "I have
never seen such things. Give them me."

  "Aha," said the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop of it on the
grass:

       "This is a handful of cardamoms,

          This is a lump of ghi.

        This is millet and chillies and rice,

          A supper for thee and me!"

  The child shrieked with joy, and snatched at the dark, glancing
beads.

  "Oho!" said the old soldier. "Whence had thou that song, despiser of
this world?"

  "I learned it in Pathankot- sitting on a door-step," said the lama
shyly. "It is good to be kind to babes."

  "As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst told me that
marriage and bearing were darkeners of the true light,
stumbling-blocks upon the way. Do children drop from heaven in thy
country? Is it the Way to sing them songs?"

  "No man is all perfect," said the lama gravely, recoiling the
rosary. "Run now to thy mother, little one."

  "Hear him!" said the soldier to Kim. "He is ashamed for that he
has made a child happy. There was a very good householder lost in
thee, my brother. Hai, child!" He threw it a pice. "Sweetmeats are
always sweet." And as the little figure capered away into the
sunshine: "They grow up and become men. Holy One, I grieve that I
slept in the midst of thy preaching. Forgive me."

  "We be two old men," said the lama." The fault is mine. I listened
to thy talk of the world and its madness, and one fault led to the
next."

  "Hear him! What harm do thy Gods suffer from play with a babe? And
that song was very well sung. Let us go on and I will sing thee the
song of Nikal Seyn before Delhi- the old song."

  And they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's
high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn
wail he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn (Nicholson)- the song that
men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama
listened with deep interest.

  "Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead- he died before Delhi! Lances of North take
vengeance for Nikal Seyn." He quavered it out to the end, marking
the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump.

  "And now we come to the Big Road," said he, after receiving the
compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. "It is long
since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, Holy
One- the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For the most
part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle road-
all hard- takes the quick traffic. In the days before rail-carriages
the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now there are
only country-carts and such like. Left and right is the rougher road
for the heavy carts- grain and cotton and timber, bhoosa, lime and
hides. A man goes in safety here- for at every few kos is a
police-station. The police are thieves and extortioners (I myself
would patrol it with cavalry- young recruits under a strong
captain), but at least they do not suffer any rivals. All castes and
kinds of men move here. Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and
tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters- all the world
going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn
like a log after a flood."

  And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs
straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred
miles- such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world.
They looked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length of it, the white
breadth speckled with slow-pacing folk; and the two-roomed
police-station opposite.

  "Who bears arms against the law?" a constable called out laughingly,
as he caught sight of the soldier's sword. "Are not the police
enough to destroy evil-doers?"

  "It was because of the police I bought it," was the answer. "Does
all go well in Hind?"

  "Ressaldar Sahib, all goes well."

  "I am like an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out from the
bank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the road of Hindustan. All men
come by this way...."

  "Son of a swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee to
scratch thy back upon? Father of all the daughters of shame and
husband of ten thousand virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted to a
devil, being led thereto by her mother; thy aunts have never had a
nose for seven generations! Thy sister- What owl's folly told thee
to draw thy carts across the road? A broken wheel? Then take a
broken head and put the two together at leisure!"

  The voice and a venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of
dust fifty yards away, where a cart had broken down. A thin, high
Kattiwar mare, with eyes and nostrils aflame, rocketed out of the jam,
snorting and wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of
a shouting man. He was tall and gray-bearded, sitting the almost mad
beast as a piece of her, and scientifically lashing his victim between
plunges.

  The old man's face lit with pride. "My child!" said he briefly,
and strove to rein the pony's neck to a fitting arch.

  "Am I to be beaten before the police?" cried the carter. "Justice! I
will have Justice- "

  "Am I to be blocked by a shouting ape who upsets ten thousand
sacks under a young horse's nose? That is the way to ruin a mare."

  "He speaks truth. He speaks truth. But she follows her man close,"
said the old man. The carter ran under the wheels of his cart and
thence threatened all sorts of vengeance.

  "They are strong men, thy sons," said the policeman serenely,
picking his teeth.

  The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and came
on at a canter.

  "My father!" He reined back ten yards and dismounted.

  The old man was off his pony in an instant, and they embraced as
do father and son in the East.

                                   4

                 Good Luck, she is never a lady,

                 But the cursedest quean alive.

                 Tricksy, wincing, and jady-

                 Kittle to lead or drive.

                 Greet her- she hailing a stranger!

                 Meet her- she's busking to leave!

                 Let her alone for a shrew to the bone

                 And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve!

                   Largesse! Largesse, O Fortune!

                   Give or hold at your will

                   If I've no care for Fortune,

                   Fortune must follow me still!

                                    " THE  WISHING  CAPS "

  Then, lowering their voices, they spoke together. Kim came to rest
under a tree, but the lama tugged impatiently at his elbow.

  "Let us go on. The River is not here."

  "Hai mai? Have we not walked enough for a little? Our River will not
run away. Patience, and he will give us a dole."

  "That," said the old soldier suddenly, "is the Friend of the
Stars. He brought me the news yesterday. Having seen the very man
Himself, in a vision, giving orders for the war."

  "Hm!" said his son, all deep in his broad chest. "He came by a
bazar-rumour and made profit of it."

  His father laughed. "At least he did not ride to me begging for a
new charger and the Gods know how many rupees. Are thy brothers'
regiments also under orders?"

  "I do not know. I took leave and came swiftly to thee in case- "

  "In case they ran before thee to beg. O gamblers and spendthrifts
all! But thou hast never yet ridden in a charge. A good horse is
needed there, truly. A good follower and a good pony also for the
marching. Let us see- let us see." He thrummed on the pommel.

  "This is no place to cast thy accounts in, my father. Let us go to
thy house."

  "At least pay the boy then: I have no pice with me, and he brought
auspicious news. Ho! Friend of all the World, a war is toward as
thou hast said."

  "Nay, as I know, the war," returned Kim composedly.

  "Eh?" said the lama, fingering his beads, all eager for the road.

  "My master does not trouble the Stars for hire. We brought the news-
bear witness we brought the news, and now we go." Kim half-crooked his
hand at his side.

  The son tossed a silver coin through the sunlight, grumbling
something about beggars and jugglers. It was a four-anna piece, and
would feed them well for some days. The lama, seeing the flash of
the metal, droned a blessing.

  "Go thy way, Friend of all the World," piped the old soldier,
wheeling his scrawny mount. "For once in all my days I have met a true
prophet- who was not in the Army."

  Father and son swung round together: the old man sitting as erect as
the younger.

  A Punjabi constable in yellow linen trousers slouched across the
road. He had seen the money pass.

  "Halt!" he cried in impressive English. "Know ye not that there is a
takkus of two annas a head, which is four annas, on those who enter
the road from this side-road. It is the order of the Sirkar, and the
money is spent for the planting of trees and the beautification of the
ways."

  "And the bellies of the police," said Kim, skipping out of arm's
reach. "Consider for a while, man with a mud head. Think you we came
from the nearest pond like the frog, thy father-in-law. Hast thou ever
heard the name of thy brother?"

  "And who was he? Leave the boy alone," cried a senior constable,
immensely delighted, as he squatted down to smoke his pipe in the
veranda.

  "He took a label from a bottle of belaitee-pani (soda-water), and,
affixing it to a bridge, collected taxes for a month from those who
passed, saying that it was the Sirkar's order. Then came an Englishman
and broke his head. Ah, brother, I am a town-crow, not a
village-crow!"

  The policeman drew back abashed, and Kim hooted at him all down
the road.

  "Was there ever such a disciple as I?" he cried merrily to the lama.
"All earth would have picked thy bones within ten mile of Lahore
city if I had not guarded thee."

  "I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit, sometimes,
or sometimes an evil imp," said the lama, smiling slowly.

  "I am thy chela." Kim dropped into step at his side- that
indescribable gait of the long-distance tramp all the world over.

  "Now let us walk," muttered the lama, and to the click of his rosary
they walked in silence mile upon mile. The lama, as usual, was deep in
meditation, but Kim's bright eyes were open wide. This broad,
smiling river of life, he considered, was a vast improvement on the
cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There were new people and new
sights at every stride- castes he knew and castes that were altogether
out of his experience.

  They met a troop of long-haired, strong-scented Sansis with
baskets of lizards and other unclean food on their backs, their lean
dogs sniffing at their heels. These people kept their own side of
the road, moving at a quick, furtive jog-trot, and all other castes
gave them ample room; for the Sansi is deep pollution. Behind them,
walking wide and stiffly across the strong shadows, the memory of
his leg-irons still on him, strode one newly released from the jail;
his full stomach and shiny skin to prove that the Government fed its
prisoners better than most honest men could feed themselves. Kim
knew that walk well, and made broad jest of it as they passed. Then an
Akali, a wild-eyed, wild-haired Sikh devotee in the blue-checked
clothes of his faith, with polished-steel quoits glistening on the
cone of his tall blue turban, stalked past, returning from a visit
to one of the independent Sikh States, where he had been singing the
ancient glories of the Khalsa to College-trained princelings in
top-boots and white-cord breeches. Kim was careful not to irritate
that man; for the Akali's temper is short and his arm quick. Here
and there they met or were overtaken by the gaily dressed crowds of
whole villages turning out to some local fair; the women, with their
babes on their hips, walking behind the men, the older boys prancing
on sticks of sugar-cane, dragging rude brass models of locomotives
such as they sell for a halfpenny, or flashing the sun into the eyes
of their betters from cheap toy mirrors. One could see at a glance
what each had bought; and if there were any doubt it needed only to
watch the wives comparing, brown arm against brown arm, the newly
purchased dull glass bracelets that come from the North-West. These
merry-makers stepped slowly, calling one to the other and stopping
to haggle with sweetmeat-sellers, or to make a prayer before one of
the wayside shrines- sometimes Hindu, sometimes Mussalman- which the
low caste of both creeds share with beautiful impartiality. A solid
line of blue, rising and falling like the back of a caterpillar in
haste, would swing up through the quivering dust and trot past to a
chorus of quick cackling. That was a gang of changars- the women who
have taken all the embankments of all the Northern railways under
their charge- a flat-footed, big-bosomed, strong-limbed,
blue-petticoated clan of earth-carriers, hurrying north on news of a
job, and wasting no time by the road. They belong to the caste whose
men do not count, and they walked with squared elbows, swinging
hips, and heads on high, as suits women who carry heavy weights. A
little later a marriage procession would strike into the Grand Trunk
with music and shoutings, and a smell of marigold and jasmine stronger
even than the reek of the dust. One could see the bride's litter, a
blur of red and tinsel, staggering through the haze, while the
bridegroom's bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful from
a passing fodder-cart. Then Kim would join the Kentish-fire of good
wishes and bad jokes, wishing the couple a hundred sons and no
daughters, as the saying is. Still more interesting and more to be
shouted over it was when a strolling juggler with some half-trained
monkeys, or a panting, feeble bear, or a woman who tied goats' horns
to her feet, and with these danced on a slack-rope, set the horses
to shying and the women to shrill, long-drawn quavers of amazement.

  The lama never raised his eyes. He did not note the money-lender
on his goose-rumped pony, hastening along to collect the cruel
interest; or the long-shouting, deep-voiced little mob- still in
military formation- of native soldiers on leave, rejoicing to be rid
of their breeches and puttees, and saying the most outrageous things
to the most respectable women in sight. Even the seller of
Ganges-water he did not see, and Kim expected that he would at least
buy a bottle of that precious stuff. He looked steadily at the ground,
and strode as steadily hour after hour, his soul busied elsewhere. But
Kim was in the seventh heaven of joy. The Grand Trunk at this point
was built on an embankment to guard against winter floods from the
foothills, so that one walked, as it were, a little above the country,
along a stately corridor, seeing all India spread out to left and
right. It was beautiful to behold the many-yoked grain and cotton
waggons crawling over the country-roads: one could hear their axles,
complaining a mile away, coming nearer, till with shouts and yells and
bad words they climbed up the steep incline and plunged on to the hard
main road, carter reviling carter. It was equally beautiful to watch
the people, little clumps of red and blue and pink and white and
saffron, turning aside to go to their own villages, dispersing and
growing small by twos and threes across the level plain. Kim felt
these things, though he could not give tongue to his feelings, and
so contented himself with buying peeled sugar-cane and spitting the
pith generously about his path. From time to time the lama took snuff,
and at last Kim could endure the silence no longer.

  "This is a good land- the land of the South!" said he. "The air is
good; the water is good. Eh?"

  "And they are all bound upon the Wheel," said the lama. "Bound
from life after life. To none of these has the Way been shown." He
shook himself back to this world.

  "And now we have walked a weary way," said Kim. "Surely we shall
soon come to a parao (a resting-place). Shall we stay there? Look, the
sun is sloping."

  "Who will receive us this evening?"

  "That is all one. This country is full of good folk. Besides"- he
sunk his voice beneath a whisper- "we have money."

  The crowd thickened as they neared the resting-place which marked
the end of their day's journey. A line of stalls selling very simple
food and tobacco, a stack of firewood, a police-station, a well, a
horse-trough, a few trees, and, under them, some trampled ground
dotted with the black ashes of old fires, are all that mark a parao on
the Grand Trunk; if you except the beggars and the crows- both hungry.

  By this time the sun was driving broad golden spokes through the
lower branches of the mango trees; the parakeets and doves were coming
home in their hundreds; the chattering, gray-backed Seven Sisters,
talking over the day's adventures, walked back and forth in twos and
threes almost under the feet of the travellers; and shufflings and
scufflings in the branches showed that the bats were ready to go out
on the night-picket. Swiftly the light gathered itself together,
painted for an instant the faces and the cart-wheels and the bullocks'
horns as red as blood. Then the night fell, changing the touch of
the air, drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer veil of blue,
across the face of the country, and bringing out, keen and distinct,
the smell of wood-smoke and cattle and the good scent of wheaten cakes
cooked on ashes. The evening patrol hurried out of the
police-station with important coughings and reiterated orders; and a
live charcoal ball in the cup of a wayside carter's hookah glowed
red while Kim's eye mechanically watched the last flicker of the sun
on the brass tweezers.

  The life of the parao was very like that of the Kashmir Serai on a
small scale. Kim dived into the happy Asiatic disorder which, if you
only allow time, will bring you everything that a simple man needs.

  His wants were few, because, since the lama had no caste scruples,
cooked food from the nearest stall would serve; but, for luxury's
sake, Kim bought a handful of dung-cakes to build a fire. All about,
coming and going round the little flames, men cried for oil, or grain,
or sweetmeats, or tobacco, jostling one another while they waited
their turn at the well; and under the men's voices you heard from
halted, shuttered carts the high squeals and giggles of women whose
faces should not be seen in public.

  Nowadays, well-educated natives are of opinion that when their
womenfolk travel- and they visit a good deal- it is better to take
them quickly by rail in a properly screened compartment; and that
custom is spreading. But there are always those of the old rock who
hold by the use of their forefathers; and, above all, there are always
the old women- more conservative than the men- who toward the end of
their days go a pilgrimage. They, being withered and undesirable, do
not, under certain circumstances, object to unveiling. After their
long seclusion, during which they have always been in business touch
with a thousand outside interests, they love the bustle and stir of
the open road, the gatherings at the shrines, and the infinite
possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits
a long-suffering family that a strong-tongued, iron-willed old lady
should disport herself about India in this fashion; for certainly
pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the most
remote places, as in the most public, you find some knot of grizzled
servitors in nominal charge of an old lady who is more or less
curtained and hid away in a bullock-cart. Such men are staid and
discreet, and when a European or a high-caste native is near will
net their charge with most elaborate precautions; but in the
ordinary haphazard chances of pilgrimage the precautions are not
taken. The old lady is, after all, intensely human, and lives to
look upon life.

  Kim marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock-cart, with
a broidered canopy of two domes, like a double-humped camel, which had
just been drawn into the parao. Eight men made its retinue, and two of
the eight were armed with rusty sabres- sure signs that they
followed a person of distinction, for the common folk do not bear
arms. An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and
what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind
the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command.

  Kim looked over the retinue critically. Half of them were
thin-legged, gray-bearded Ooryas from down country. The other half
were duffle-clad, felt-hatted hillmen of the North: and that mixture
told its own tale, even if he had not overheard the incessant sparring
between the two divisions. The old lady was going south on a visit-
probably to a rich relative, most probably to a son-in-law, who had
sent up an escort as a mark of respect. The hillmen would be of her
own people- Kulu or Kangra folk. It was quite clear that she was not
taking her daughter down to be wedded, or the curtains would have been
laced home and the guard would have allowed no one near the car. A
merry and a high-spirited dame, thought Kim, balancing the dung-cake
in one hand, the cooked food in the other, and piloting the lama
with a nudging shoulder. Something might be made out of the meeting.
The lama would give him no help, but, as a conscientious chela, Kim
was delighted to beg for two.

  He built his fire as close to the cart as he dared, waiting for
one of the escort to order him away. The lama dropped wearily to the
ground, much as a heavy fruit-eating bat cowers, and returned to his
rosary.

  "Stand farther off, beggar!" The order was shouted in broken
Hindustanee by one of the hillmen.

  "Huh! It is only a pahari" (a hillman), said Kim over his
shoulder. "Since when have the hill-asses owned all Hindustan?"

  The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim's pedigree for
three generations.

  "Ah!" Kim's voice was sweeter than ever, as he broke the dung-cake
into fit pieces. "In my country we call that the beginning of
love-talk."

  A harsh, thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on his
mettle for a second shot.

  "Not so bad- not so bad," said Kim with calm. "But have a care, my
brother, lest we- we, I say- be minded to give a curse or so in
return. And our curses have the knack of biting home."

  The Ooryas laughed; the hillman sprang forward threateningly; the
lama suddenly raised his head, bringing his huge tam-o'-shanter cap
into the full light of Kim's new-started fire.

  "What is it?" said he.

  The man halted as though struck to stone. "I- I- am saved from a
great sin," he stammered.

  "The foreigner has found him a priest at last," whispered one of the
Ooryas.

  "Hai! Why is that beggar-brat not well beaten?" the old woman cried.

  The hillman drew back to the cart and whispered something to the
curtain. There was dead silence, then a muttering.

  "This goes well," thought Kim, pretending neither to see nor hear.

  "When- when- he has eaten?"- the hillman fawned on Kim -"it- it is
requested that the Holy One will do the honour to talk to one who
would speak to him."

  "After he has eaten he will sleep," Kim returned loftily. He could
not quite see what new turn the game had taken, but stood resolute
to profit by it. "Now, I will get him his food." The last sentence,
spoken loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness.

  "I- I myself and the others of my people will look to that- if it is
permitted."

  "It is permitted," said Kim, more loftily than ever. "Holy One,
these people will bring us food."

  "The land is good. All the country of the South is good- a great and
a terrible world," mumbled the lama drowsily.

  "Let him sleep," said Kim, "but look to it that we are well fed when
he wakes. He is a very holy man."

  Again one of the Ooryas said something contemptuously.

  "He is not a faquir. He is not a down-country beggar," Kim went on
severely, addressing the stars. "He is the most holy of holy men. He
is above all castes. I am his chela."

  "Come here!" said the flat thin voice behind the curtain; and Kim
came, conscious that eyes he could not see were staring at him. One
skinny brown finger heavy with rings lay on the edge of the cart,
and the talk went this way:

  "Who is that one?"

  "An exceedingly holy one. He comes from far off. He comes from
Tibet."

  "Where in Tibet?"

  "From behind the snows- from a very far place. He knows the stars;
he makes horoscopes; he reads nativities. But he does not do this
for money. He does it for kindness and great charity. I am his
disciple. I am called also the Friend of the Stars."

  "Thou art no hillman."

  "Ask him. He will tell thee I was sent to him from the stars to show
him an end to his pilgrimage."

  "Humph! Consider, brat, that I am an old woman and not altogether
a fool. Lamas I know, and to these I give reverence, but thou art no
more a lawful chela than this my finger is the pole of this waggon.
Thou art a casteless Hindu- a bold and unblushing beggar, attached,
belike, to the Holy One for the sake of gain."

  "Do we not all work for gain?" Kim changed his tone promptly to
match that altered voice. "I have heard"- this was a bow drawn at a
venture- "I have heard-"

  "What hast thou heard?" she snapped, rapping with the finger.

  "Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars, which is
doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs- small hill Rajahs- "

  "But none the less of good Rajput blood."

  "Assuredly of good blood. That these even sell the more comely of
their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them- to zemindars
and such-all of Oudh."

  If there be one thing in the world that the small hill Rajahs deny
it is just this charge; but it happens to be one thing that the bazars
believe, when they discuss the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The
old lady explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whisper, precisely
what manner and fashion of malignant liar he was. Had Kim hinted
this when she was a girl, he would have been pommelled to death that
same evening by an elephant. This was perfectly true.

  "Ahai! I am only a beggar's brat, as the Eye of Beauty has said," he
wailed in extravagant terror.

  "Eye of Beauty, forsooth! Who am I that thou shouldst fling
beggar-endearments at me?" And yet she laughed at the long-forgotten
word. "Forty years ago that might have been said, and not without
truth. Ay, thirty years ago. But it is the fault of this gadding up
and down Hind that a king's widow must jostle all the scum of the
land, and be made a mock by beggars."

  "Great Queen," said Kim promptly, for he heard her shaking with
indignation, "I am even what the Great Queen says I am; but none the
less is my master holy. He has not yet heard the Great Queen's order
that- "

  "Order? I order a Holy One- a Teacher of the Law- to come and
speak to a woman? Never!"

  "Pity my stupidity. I thought it was given as an order- "

  "It was not. It was a petition. Does this make all clear?"

  A silver coin clicked on the edge of the cart. Kim took it and
salaamed profoundly. The old lady recognised that, as the eyes and the
ears of the lama, he was to be propitiated.

  "I am but the Holy One's disciple. When he has eaten perhaps he will
come."

  "Oh, villain and shameless rogue!" The jewelled forefinger shook
itself at him reprovingly; but he could hear the old lady's chuckle.

  "Nay, what is it?" he said, dropping into his most caressing and
confidential tone- the one, he well knew, that few could resist.
"Is- is there any need of a son in thy family? Speak freely, for we
priests-" That last was a direct plagiarism from a faquir by the
Taksali Gate.

  "We priests! Thou art not yet old enough to- " She checked the
joke with another laugh. "Believe me, now and again, we women, O
priest, think of other matters than sons. Moreover, my daughter has
borne her man-child."

  "Two arrows in the quiver are better than one; and three are
better still." Kim quoted the proverb with a meditative cough, looking
discreetly earthward.

  "True- oh, true. But perhaps that will come. Certainly those
down-country Brahmins are utterly useless. I sent gifts and monies and
gifts again to them and they prophesied."

  "Ah," drawled Kim, with infinite contempt, "they prophesied!" A
professional could have done no better.

  "And it was not till I remembered my own Gods that my prayers were
heard. I chose an auspicious hour, and- perhaps thy Holy One has heard
of the Abbot of the Lung-Cho lamassery. It was to him I put the
matter, and behold in the due time all came about as I desired. The
Brahmin in the house of the father of my daughter's son has since said
that it was through his prayers- which is a little error that I will
explain to him when we reach our journey's end. And so afterwards I go
to Buddh Gaya, to make shraddha for the father of my children."

  "Thither go we."

  "Doubly auspicious," chirruped the old lady. "A second son at
least!"

  "O Friend of all the World!" The lama had waked, and, simply as a
child bewildered in a strange bed, called for Kim.

  "I come! I come, Holy One!" He dashed to the fire, where he found
the lama already surrounded by dishes of food, the hillmen visibly
adoring him and the Southerners looking sourly.

  "Go back! Withdraw!" Kim cried. "Do we eat publicly like dogs?" They
finished the meal in silence, each turned a little from the other, and
Kim topped it with a native-made cigarette.

  "Have I not said an hundred times that the South is a good land?
Here is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill Rajah on
pilgrimage, she says, to Buddh Gaya. She it is sends us those
dishes; and when thou art well rested she would speak to thee."

  "Is this also thy work?" The lama dipped deep into his snuff-gourd.

  "Who else watched over thee since our wonderful journey began?"
Kim's eyes danced in his head as he blew the rank smoke through his
nostrils and stretched himself on the dusty ground. "Have I failed
to oversee thy comforts, Holy One?"

  "A blessing on thee." The lama inclined his solemn head. "I have
known many men in my so long life, and disciples not a few. But to
none among men, if so be thou art woman-born, has my heart gone out as
it has to thee- thoughtful, wise, and courteous, but something of a
small imp."
f  "And I have never seen such a priest as thou." Kim considered the
benevolent yellow face wrinkle by wrinkle. "It is less than three days
since we took road together, and it is as though it were a hundred
years."

  "Perhaps in a former life it was permitted that I should have
rendered thee some service. May be"- he smiled- "I freed thee from a
trap; or, having caught thee on a hook in the days when I was not
enlightened, cast thee back into the river."

  "May be," said Kim quietly. He had heard this sort of speculation
again and again, from the mouths of many whom the English would not
consider imaginative. "Now, as regards that woman in the bullock-cart,
I think she needs a second son for her daughter."

  "That is not part of the Way," sighed the lama. "But at least she is
from the Hills. Ah, the Hills, and the snow of the Hills!"

  He rose and stalked to the cart. Kim would have given his ears to
come too, but the lama did not invite him; and the few words he caught
were in an unknown tongue, for they spoke some common speech of the
mountains. The woman seemed to ask questions which the lama turned
over in his mind before answering. Now and again he heard the
sing-song cadence of a Chinese quotation. It was a strange picture
that Kim watched between drooped eyelids. The lama, very straight
and erect, the deep folds of his yellow clothing slashed with black in
the light of the parao fires precisely as a knotted tree-trunk is
slashed with the shadow of the long sun, addressed a tinsel and
lacquered ruth which burned like a many-coloured jewel in the same
uncertain light. The patterns on the gold-worked curtains ran up and
down, melting and re-forming as the folds shook and quivered to the
night wind; and when the talk grew more earnest the jewelled
forefinger snapped out little sparks of light between the
embroideries. Behind the cart was a wall of uncertain darkness
speckled with little flames and alive with half-caught forms and faces
and shadows. The voices of early evening had settled down to one
soothing hum whose deepest note was the steady chumping of the
bullocks above their chopped straw, and whose highest was the tinkle
of a Bengali dancing-girl's sitar. Most men had eaten and pulled
deep at their gurgling, grunting hookahs, which in full blast sound
like bull-frogs.

  At last the lama returned. A hillman walked behind him with a wadded
cotton-quilt and spread it carefully by the fire.

  "She deserves ten thousand grandchildren," thought Kim. "None the
less, but for me, these gifts would not have come."

  "A virtuous woman- and a wise one." The lama slackened off, joint by
joint, like a slow camel. "The world is full of charity to those who
follow the Way." He flung a fair half of the quilt over Kim.

  "And what said she?" Kim rolled up in his share of it.

  "She asked me many questions and propounded many problems- the
most of which were idle tales which she had heard from devil-serving
priests who pretend to follow the Way. Some I answered, and some I
said were foolish. Many wear the Robe, but few keep the Way."

  "True. That is true." Kim used the thoughtful, conciliatory tone
of those who wish to draw confidences.

  "But by her lights she is most right-minded. She desires greatly
that we should go with her to Buddh Gaya; her road being ours, as I
understand, for many days' journey to the southward."

  "And?"

  "Patience a little. To this I said that my Search came before all
things. She had heard many foolish legends, but this great truth of my
River she had never heard. Such are the priests of the lower hills!
She knew the Abbot of Lung-Cho, but she did not know of my River-
nor the tale of the Arrow."

  "And?"

  "I spoke therefore of the Search, and of the Way, and of matters
that were profitable; she desiring only that I should accompany her
and make prayer for a second son."

  "Aha! 'We women' do not think of anything save children," said Kim
sleepily.

  "Now, since our roads run together for a while, I do not see that we
in any way depart from our Search if so be we accompany her- at
least as far as- I have forgotten the name of the city."

  "Ohe!" said Kim, turning and speaking in a sharp whisper to one of
the Ooryas a few yards away. "Where is your master's house?"

  "A little behind Saharunpore, among the fruit gardens." He named the
village.

  "That was the place," said the lama. "So far, at least, we can go
with her."

  "Flies go to carrion," said the Oorya, in an abstracted voice.

  "For the sick cow a crow; for the sick man a Brahmin." Kim
breathed the proverb impersonally to the shadow-tops of the trees
overhead.

  The Oorya grunted and held his peace.

  "So then we go with her, Holy One?"

  "Is there any reason against? I can still step aside and try all the
rivers that the road overpasses. She desires that I should come. She
very greatly desires it."

  Kim stifled a laugh in the quilt. When once that imperious old
lady had recovered from her natural awe of a lama he thought it
probable that she would be worth listening to.

  He was nearly asleep when the lama suddenly quoted a proverb: "The
husbands of the talkative have a great reward hereafter." Then Kim
heard him snuff thrice, and dozed off, still laughing.

  The diamond-bright dawn woke men and crows and bullocks together.
Kim sat up and yawned, shook himself, and thrilled with delight.
This was seeing the world in real truth; this was life as he would
have it- bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and beating
of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting of fires and cooking of
food, and new sights at every turn of the approving eye. The morning
mist swept off in a whorl of silver, the parrots shot away to some
distant river in shrieking green hosts: all the well-wheels within
earshot went to work. India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of
it, more awake and more excited than any one, chewing on a twig that
he would presently use as a toothbrush; for he borrowed right- and
left-handedly from all the customs of the country he knew and loved.
There was no need to worry about food- no need to spend a cowrie at
the crowded stalls. He was the disciple of a holy man annexed by a
strong-willed old lady. All things would be prepared for them, and
when they were respectfully invited so to do they would sit and eat.
For the rest- Kim giggled here as he cleaned his teeth- his hostess
would rather heighten the enjoyment of the road. He inspected her
bullocks critically, as they came up grunting and blowing under the
yokes. If they went too fast- it was not likely- there would be a
pleasant seat for himself along the pole; the lama would sit beside
the driver. The escort, of course, would walk. The old lady, equally
of course, would talk a great deal, and by what he had heard that
conversation would not lack salt. She was already ordering,
haranguing, rebuking, and, it must be said, cursing her servants for
delays.

  "Get her her pipe. In the name of the Gods, get her her pipe and
stop her ill-omened mouth," cried an Oorya, tying up his shapeless
bundles of bedding. "She and the parrots are alike. They screech in
the dawn."

  "The lead-bullocks! Hai! Look to the lead-bullocks!" They were
backing and wheeling as a grain-cart's axle caught them by the
horns. "Son of an owl, where dost thou go?" This to the grinning
carter.

  "Ai! Yai! Yai! That within there is the Queen of Delhi going to pray
for a son," the man called back over his high load. "Room for the
Queen of Delhi and her prime minister the gray monkey climbing up
his own sword!" Another cart loaded with bark for a down-country
tannery followed close behind, and its driver added a few
compliments as the ruth-bullocks backed and backed again.

  From behind the shaking curtains came one volley of invective. It
did not last long, but in kind and quality, in blistering, biting
appropriateness, it was beyond anything that even Kim had heard. He
could see the carter's bare chest collapse with amazement, as the
man salaamed reverently to the voice, leaped from the pole, and helped
the escort haul their volcano on to the main road. Here the voice told
him truthfully what sort of wife he had wedded, and what she was doing
in his absence.

  "Oh, shabash!" murmured Kim, unable to contain himself, as the man
slunk away.

  "Well done, indeed? It is a shame and a scandal that a poor woman
may not go to make prayer to her Gods except she be jostled and
insulted by all the refuse of Hindustan- that she must eat gali
(abuse) as men eat ghi. But I have yet a wag left to my tongue- a word
or two well spoken that serves the occasion. And still am I without my
tobacco! Who is the one-eyed and luckless son of shame that has not
yet prepared my pipe?"

  It was hastily thrust in by a hillman, and a trickle of thick
smoke from each corner of the curtains showed that peace was restored.

  If Kim had walked proudly the day before, disciple of a holy man,
to-day he paced with tenfold pride in the train of a semi-royal
procession, with a recognised place under the patronage of an old lady
of charming manners and infinite resource. The escort, their heads
tied up native fashion, fell in on either side the cart, shuffling
enormous clouds of dust.

  The lama and Kim walked a little to one side; Kim chewing his
stick of sugar-cane, and making way for no one under the status of a
priest. They could hear the old lady's tongue clack as steadily as a
rice-husker. She bade the escort tell her what was going on on the
road; and so soon as they were clear of the parao she flung back the
curtains and peered out, her veil a third across her face. Her men did
not eye her directly when she addressed them, and thus the proprieties
were more or less observed.

  A dark, sallowish District Superintendent of Police, faultlessly
uniformed, an Englishman, trotted by on a tired horse, and, seeing
from her retinue what manner of person she was, chaffed her.

  "O mother," he cried, "do they do this in the zenanas? Suppose an
Englishman came by and saw that thou hadst no nose?"

  "What?" she shrilled back. "Thy own mother has no nose? Why say
so, then, on the open road?"

  It was a fair counter. The Englishman threw up his hand with the
gesture of a man hit at sword-play. She laughed and nodded.

  "Is this a face to tempt virtue aside?" She withdrew all her veil
and stared at him.

  It was by no means lovely, but as the man gathered up his reins he
called it a Moon of Paradise, a Disturber of Integrity, and a few
other fantastic epithets which doubled her up with mirth.

  "That is a nut-cut" (rogue), she said. "All police-constables are
nut-cuts; but the police-wallahs are the worst. Hai, my son, thou hast
never learned all that since thou camest from Belait (Europe). Who
suckled thee?"

  "A pahareen- a hillwoman of Dalhousie, my mother. Keep thy beauty
under a shade- O Dispenser of Delights," and he was gone.

  "These be the sort"- she took a fine judicial tone, and stuffed
her mouth with pan. "These be the sort to oversee justice. They know
the land and the customs of the land. The others, all new from Europe,
suckled by white women and learning our tongues from books, are
worse than the pestilence. They do harm to Kings." Then she told a
long, long tale to the world at large, of an ignorant young
policeman who had disturbed some small Hill Rajah, a ninth cousin of
her own, in the matter of a trivial land-case, winding up with a
quotation from a work by no means devotional.

  Then her mood changed, and she bade one of the escort ask whether
the lama would walk alongside and discuss matters of religion. So
Kim dropped back into the dust and returned to his sugar-cane. For
an hour or more the lama's tam-o'-shanter showed like a moon through
the haze; and, from all he heard, Kim gathered that the old woman
wept. One of the Ooryas half apologised for his rudeness overnight,
saying that he had never known his mistress of so bland a temper,
and he ascribed it to the presence of the strange priest.
Personally, he believed in Brahmins, though, like all natives, he
was acutely aware of their cunning and their greed. Still, when
Brahmins but irritated with begging demands the mother of his master's
wife, and when she sent them away so angry that they cursed the
whole retinue (which was the real reason of the second off-side
bullock going lame, and of the pole breaking the night before), he was
prepared to accept any priest of any other denomination in or out of
India. To this Kim assented with wise nods, and bade the Oorya observe
that the lama took no money, and that the cost of his and Kim's food
would be repaid a hundred times in the good luck that would attend the
caravan henceforward. He also told stories of Lahore city, and sang
a song or two which made the escort laugh. As a town-mouse well
acquainted with the latest songs by the most fashionable composers-
they are women for the most part- Kim had a distinct advantage over
men from a little fruit-village behind Saharunpore, but he let that
advantage be inferred.

  At noon they turned aside to eat, and the meal was good,
plentiful, and well served on plates of clean leaves, in decency,
out of drift of the dust. They gave the scraps to certain beggars,
that all requirements might be fulfilled, and sat down to a long,
luxurious smoke. The old lady had retreated behind her curtains, but
mixed most freely in the talk, her servants arguing with and
contradicting her as servants do throughout the East. She compared the
cool and the pines of the Kangra and Kulu hills with the dust and
the mangoes of the South; she told a tale of some old local Gods at
the edge of her husband's territory; she roundly abused the tobacco
which she was then smoking, reviled all Brahmins, and speculated
without reserve on the coming of many grandsons.

                                  5

                  Here come I to my own again-

                  Fed, forgiven, and known again-

                  Claimed by bone of my bone again,

                    And sib to flesh of my flesh!

                  The fatted calf is dressed for me,

                  But the husks have greater zest for me...

                  I think my pigs will be best for me,

                    So I'm off to the styes afresh.

                                     " THE  PRODIGAL  SON "

  Once more the lazy, string-tied, shuffling procession got under way,
and she slept till they reached the next halting-stage. It was a
very short march, and time lacked an hour to sundown, so Kim cast
about for means of amusement.

  "But why not sit and rest?" said one of the escort. "Only the devils
and the English walk to and fro without reason."

  "Never make friends with the Devil, a monkey, or a boy. No man knows
what they will do next," said his fellow.

  Kim turned a scornful back- he did not want to hear the old story
how the Devil played with the boys and repented of it- and walked idly
across country.

  The lama strode after him. All that day, whenever they passed a
stream, he had turned aside to look at it, but in no case had he
received any warning that he had found his River. Insensibly too the
comfort of speaking to some one in a reasonable tongue, and of being
properly considered and respected as her spiritual adviser by a
well-born woman, had weaned his thoughts a little from the Search. And
further, he was prepared to spend serene years in his quest; having
nothing of the white man's impatience, but a great faith.

  "Where goest thou?" he called after Kim.

  "No whither-it was a small march, and all this"- Kim waved his hands
abroad- "is new to me."

  "She is beyond question a wise and a discerning woman. But it is
hard to meditate when- "

  "All women are thus." Kim spoke as might have Solomon.

  "Before the lamassery was a broad platform," the lama muttered,
looping up the well-worn rosary, "of stone. On that I have left the
marks of my feet- pacing to and fro with these."

  He clicked the beads, and began the "Om mane pudme hum" of his
devotion; grateful for the cool, the quiet, and the absence of dust.

  One thing after another drew Kim's idle eye across the plain.
There was no purpose in his wanderings, except that the build of the
huts near by seemed new, and he wished to investigate.

  They came out on a broad tract of grazing-ground, brown and purple
in the afternoon light, with a heavy clump of mangoes in the centre.
It struck Kim as curious that no shrine stood in so eligible a spot:
the boy was observing as any priest for these things. Far across the
plain walked side by side four men, made small by the distance. He
looked intently under his curved palms and caught the sheen of brass.

  "Soldiers. White soldiers!" said he. "Let us see."

  "It is always soldiers when thou and I go out alone together. But
I have never seen the white soldiers."

  "They do no harm except when they are drunk. Keep behind this tree."

  They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the
mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two came forward
uncertainly. They were the advance-party of a regiment on the march,
sent out, as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot sticks
with fluttering flags, and called to each other as they spread over
the flat earth.

  At last they entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.

  "It's here or hereabouts- officers' tents under the trees, I take
it, an' the rest of us can stay outside. Have they marked out for
the baggage-waggons behind?"

  They cried again to their comrades in the distance, and the rough
answer came back faint and mellowed.

  "Shove the flag in here, then," said one.

  "What do they prepare?" said the lama, wonder-struck. "This is a
great and terrible world. What is the device on the flag?"

  A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted
discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion,
who looked up and down the shaded cave of greenery, and returned it.

  Kim stared with all his eyes, his breath coming short and sharp
between his teeth. The soldiers stamped off into the sunshine.

  "O Holy One," he gasped, "my horoscope! The drawing in the dust by
the priest at Umballa! Remember what he said. First come two-
ferashes- to make all things ready- in a dark place, as it is always
at the beginning of a vision."

  "But this is not vision," said the lama. "It is the world's
Illusion, and no more."

  "And after them comes the Bull- the Red Bull on the green field.
Look! It is he!"

  He pointed to the flag that was snap-snapping in the evening
breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an ordinary camp
marking-flag; but the regiment, always punctilious in matters of
millinery, had charged it with the regimental device, the Red Bull,
which is the crest of the Mavericks- the great Red Bull on a
background of Irish green.

  "I see, and now I remember," said the lama. "Certainly it is thy
Bull. Certainly, also, the two men came to make all ready."

  "They are soldiers- white soldiers. What said the priest? 'The
sign over against the Bull is the sign of War and armed men.' Holy
One, this thing touches my Search.

  "True. It is true." The lama stared fixedly at the device that
flamed like a ruby in the dusk. "The priest at Umballa said that thine
was the sign of War."

  "What is to do now?"

  "Wait. Let us wait."

  "Even now the darkness clears," said Kim. It was only natural that
the descending sun should at last strike through the tree-trunks,
across the grove, filling it with mealy gold light for a few
minutes; but to Kim it was the crown of the Umballa Brahmin's
prophecy.

  "Hark!" said the lama. "One beats a drum- far off!"

  At first the sound, carrying diluted through the still air,
resembled the beating of an artery in the head. Soon a sharpness was
added.

  "Ah! The music," Kim explained. He knew the sound of a regimental
band, but it amazed the lama.

  At the far end of the plain a heavy, dusty column crawled in
sight. Then the wind brought the tune:-

     "We crave your condescension

      To tell you what we know

    Of marching in the Mulligan Guards

      To Sligo Port below."

  Here broke in the shrill tongued fifes:-

     "We shouldered arms,

      We marched- we marched away

      From Phoenix Park

      We marched to Dublin Bay.

      The drums and the fifes,

      Oh, sweetly they did play,

      As we marched- marched- marched- with the Mulligan Guards!"

  It was the band of the Mavericks playing the regiment to camp; for
the men were route-marching with their baggage. The rippling column
swung into the level- carts behind it- divided left and right, ran
about like an ant-hill, and...

  "But this is sorcery!"- said the lama.

  The plain dotted itself with tents that seemed to rise, all
spread, from the carts. Another rush of men invaded the grove, pitched
a huge tent in silence, ran up yet eight or nine more by the side of
it, unearthed cooking-pots, pans, and bundles, which were taken
possession of by a crowd of native servants; and behold the mango-tope
turned into an orderly town as they watched!

  "Let us go," said the lama, sinking back afraid, as the fires
twinkled and white officers with jingling swords stalked into the
mess-tent.

  "Stand back in the shadow. No one can see beyond the light of a
fire," said Kim, his eyes still on the flag. He had never before
watched the routine of a seasoned regiment pitching camp in thirty
minutes.

  "Look! look! look!" clucked the lama. "Yonder comes a priest."

  It was Bennett, the Church of England chaplain of the regiment,
limping in dusty black. One of his flock had made some rude remarks
about the chaplain's mettle; and to abash him Bennett had marched step
by step with the men that day. The black dress, gold cross on the
watch-chain, the hairless face, and the soft, black wide-awake hat
would have marked him as a holy man anywhere in all India. He
dropped into a camp-chair by the door of the mess-tent and slid off
his boots. Three or four officers gathered round him, laughing and
joking over his exploit.

  "The talk of white men is wholly lacking in dignity," said the lama,
who judged only by tone. "But I have considered the countenance of
that priest, and I think he is learned. Is it likely that he will
understand our talk? I would talk to him of my Search."

  "Never speak to a white man till he is fed," said Kim, quoting a
well-known proverb. "They will eat now, and- and I do not think they
are good to beg from. Let us go back to the resting-place. After we
have eaten we will come again. It certainly was a Red Bull- my Red
Bull."

  They were both noticeably absent-minded when the old lady's
retinue set their meal before them; so none broke their reserve, for
it is not lucky to annoy guests.

  "Now," said Kim, picking his teeth, we will return to that place;
but thou, O Holy One, must wait a little way off, because thy feet are
heavier than mine and I am anxious to see more of that Red Bull."

  "But how canst thou understand the talk? Walk slowly. The road is
dark," the lama replied uneasily.

  Kim put the question aside. "I marked a place near to the trees,"
said he, "where thou canst sit till I call. Nay," as the lama made
some sort of protest, "remember this is my Search- the Search for my
Red Bull. The sign in the Stars was not for thee. I know a little of
the customs of white soldiers, and I always desire to see some new
things.

  "What dost thou not know of this world?" The lama squatted
obediently in a little hollow of the ground not a hundred yards from
the hump of the mango trees dark against the star-powdered sky.

  "Stay till I call." Kim flitted into the dusk. He knew that in all
probability there would be sentries round the camp, and smiled to
himself as he heard the thick boots of one. A boy who can dodge over
the roofs of Lahore city on a moonlight night, using every little
patch and corner of darkness to discomfit his pursuer, is not likely
to be checked by a line of well-trained soldiers. He paid them the
compliment of crawling between a couple, and, running and halting,
crouching and dropping flat, worked his way toward the lighted
mess-tent where, close pressed behind the mango tree, he waited till
some chance word should give him a returnable lead.

  The one thing in his mind now was further information as to the
Red Bull. For aught he knew, and Kim's limitations were as curious and
sudden as his expansions, the men, the nine hundred thorough devils of
his father's prophecy, might pray to the beast after dark, as Hindus
pray to the Holy Cow. That at least would be entirely right and
logical, and the Padre with the gold cross would be therefore the
man to consult in the matter. On the other hand, remembering
sober-faced padres whom he had avoided in Lahore city, the priest
might be an inquisitive nuisance who would bid him learn. But had it
not been proven at Umballa that his sign in the high heavens portended
war and armed men? Was he not the Friend of the Stars as well as of
all the world, crammed to the teeth with dreadful secrets? Lastly- and
firstly as the undercurrent of all his quick thoughts- this adventure,
though he did not know the English word, was a stupendous lark- a
delightful continuation of his old flights across the housetops, as
well as the fulfilment of sublime prophecy. He lay belly-flat and
wriggled towards the mess-tent door, a hand on the amulet round his
neck.

  It was as he suspected. The Sahibs prayed to their God; for in the
centre of the mess-table- its sole ornament when they were on the line
of march- stood a golden bull fashioned from old-time loot of the
Summer Palace at Pekin- a red-gold bull with lowered head, ramping
upon a field of Irish green. To him the Sahibs held out their
glasses and cried aloud confusedly.

  Now the Reverend Arthur Bennett always left mess after that toast,
and being rather tired by his march his movements were more abrupt
than usual. Kim, with slightly raised head, was still staring at his
totem on the table, when the chaplain stepped on his right
shoulder-blade. Kim flinched under the leather, and, rolling sideways,
brought down the chaplain, who, ever a man of action, caught him by
the throat and nearly choked the life out of him. Kim then kicked
him desperately in the stomach. Mr. Bennett gasped and doubled up
but without relaxing his grip, rolled over again, and silently
hauled Kim to his own tent. The Mavericks were incurable practical
jokers; and it occurred to the Englishman that silence was best till
he had made complete inquiry.

  "Why, it's a boy!" he said, as he drew his prize under the light
of the tent-pole lantern, then shaking him severely cried: "What
were you doing? You're a thief. Choor? Mallum?" His Hindustanee was
very limited, and the ruffled and disgusted Kim intended to keep to
the character laid down for him. As he recovered his breath he was
inventing a beautifully plausible tale of his relations to some
mess-scullion, and at the same time keeping a keen eye on and a little
under the chaplain's left armpit. The chance came; he ducked for the
doorway, but a long arm shot out and clutched at his neck, snapping
the amulet string and closing on the amulet.

  "Give it me. O give it me. Is it lost? Give me the papers."

  The words were in English- the tinny, saw-cut English of the
native-bred, and the chaplain jumped.

  "A scapular," said he, opening his hand. "No, some sort of heathen
charm. Why- why, do you speak English? Little boys who steal are
beaten. You know that?"

 "I do not- I did not steal." Kim danced in agony like a terrier at
a lifted stick. "O give it me. It is my charm. Do not thieve it from
me."

  The chaplain took no heed, but, going to the tent door, called
aloud. A fattish, clean-shaven man appeared.

  "I want your advice, Father Victor," said Bennett. "I found this boy
in the dark outside the mess-tent. Ordinarily, I should have chastised
him and let him go, because I believe him to be a thief. But it
seems he talks English, and he attaches some sort of value to a
charm round his neck. I thought perhaps you might help me."

  Between himself and the Roman Catholic chaplain of the Irish
contingent lay, as Bennett believed, an unbridgeable gulf, but it
was noticeable that whenever the Church of England dealt with a
human problem she was likely to call in the Church of Rome.
Bennett's official abhorrence of the Scarlet Woman and all her ways
was only equalled by his private respect for Father Victor.

  "A thief talking English is it? Let's look at his charm. No, it's
not a scapular, Bennett." He held out his hand.

  "But have we any right to open it? A sound whipping- "

  "I did not thieve," protested Kim. "You have hit me kicks all over
my body. Now give me my charm and I will go away."

  "Not quite so fast; we'll look first," said Father Victor, leisurely
rolling out poor Kimball O'Hara's "ne varietur" parchment, his
clearance-certificate, and Kim's baptismal certificate. On this last
O'Hara- with some confused idea that he was doing wonders for his son-
had scrawled scores of times: "Look after the boy. Please look after
the boy,"- signing his name and regimental number in full.

  "Powers of Darkness below!" said Father Victor, passing all over
to Mr. Bennett. "Do you know what these things are?"

  "Yes," said Kim. "They are mine, and I want to go away."

  "I do not quite understand," said Mr. Bennett. "He probably
brought them on purpose. It may be a begging trick of some kind."

  "I never saw a beggar less anxious to stay with his company, then.
There's the makings of a gay mystery here. Ye believe in Providence,
Bennett?"

  "I hope so."

  "Well, I believe in miracles, so it comes to the same thing.
Powers of Darkness! Kimball O'Hara! And his son! But then he's a
native, and I saw Kimball married myself to Annie Shott. How long have
you had these things, boy?

  "Ever since I was a little baby." Father Victor stepped forward
quickly and opened the front of Kim's upper garment. "You see,
Bennett, he's not very black. What's your name?"

  "Kim."

  "Or Kimball?"

  "Perhaps. Will you let me go away?"

  "What else?"

  "They call me Kim Rishti ke. That is Kim of the Rishti."

  "What is that- 'Rishti'?"

  "Eye-rishti- that was the regiment- my father's."

  "Irish, oh I see."

  "Yess. That was how my father told me. My father, he has lived."

  "Has lived where?"

  "Has lived. Of course he is dead- gone-out."

  "Oh. That's your abrupt way of putting it, is it?"

  Bennett interrupted. "It is possible I have done the boy an
injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am
sure I must have bruised him. I do not think spirits- "

  "Get him a glass of sherry, then, and let him squat on the cot. Now,
Kim," continued Father Victor, "no one is going to hurt you. Drink
that down and tell us about yourself. The truth, if you've no
objection."

  Kim coughed a little as he put down the empty glass, and considered.
This seemed a time for caution and fancy. Small boys who prowl about
camps are generally turned out after a whipping. But he had received
no stripes; the amulet was evidently working in his favour, and it
looked as though the Umballa horoscope and the few words that he could
remember of his father's maunderings fitted in most miraculously. Else
why did the fat padre seem so impressed, and why the glass of hot
yellow wine from the lean one?

  "My father, he is dead in Lahore city since I was very little. The
woman, she kept kabarri-shop near where the hire-carriages are." Kim
began with a plunge, not quite sure how far the truth would serve him.

  "Your mother?"

  "No"- with a gesture of disgust. "She went out when I was born. My
father, he got these papers from the Jadoo-Gher- what do you call
that?" (Bennett nodded) "because he was in- good-standing. What do you
call that?" (again Bennett nodded). "My father told me that. He said
too, and also the Brahmin who made the drawing in the dust at
Umballa two days ago, he said, that I shall find a Red Bull on a green
field and that the Bull shall help me."

  "A phenomenal little liar," muttered Bennett.

  "Powers of Darkness below, what a country!" murmured Father
Victor. "Go on, Kim."

  "I did not thieve. Besides, I am just now disciple of a very holy
man. He is sitting outside. We saw two men come with flags, making the
place ready. That is always so in a dream, or on account of a- a-
prophecy. So I knew it was come true. I saw the Red Bull on the
green field, and my father he said: 'Nine hundred pukka devils and the
Colonel riding on a horse will look after you when you find the Red
Bull!' I did not know what to do when I saw the Bull, but I went
away and I came again when it was dark. I wanted to see the Bull
again, and I saw the Bull again with the- the Sahibs praying to it.
I think the Bull shall help me. The holy man said so too. He is
sitting outside. Will you hurt him, if I call him a shout now? He is
very holy. He can witness to all the things I say, and he knows I am
not a thief."

  "'Officers praying to a bull!' What in the world do you make of
that?" said Bennett. "'Disciple of a holy man!' Is the boy mad?"

  "It's O'Hara's boy, sure enough. O'Hara's boy leagued with all the
Powers of Darkness. It's very much what his father would have done- if
he was drunk. We'd better invite the holy man. He may know something."

  "He does not know anything," said Kim. "I will show you him if you
come. He is my master. Then afterwards we can go."

  "Powers of Darkness!" was all that Father Victor could say, as
Bennett marched off, with a firm hand on Kim's shoulder.

  They found the lama where he had dropped.

  "The Search is at an end for me," shouted Kim in the vernacular.
"I have found the Bull, but God knows what comes next. They will not
hurt you. Come to the fat priest's tent with this thin man and see the
end. It is all new, and they cannot talk Hindi. They are only
uncurried donkeys."

  "Then it is not well to make a jest of their ignorance," the lama
returned. "I am glad if thou art rejoiced, chela."

  Dignified and unsuspicious, he strode into the little tent,
saluted the Churches as a Churchman, and sat down by the open charcoal
brazier. The yellow lining of the tent reflected in the lamplight made
his face red-gold.

  Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed
that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of "heathen."

  "And what was the end of the search? What gift has the Red Bull
brought?" The lama addressed himself to Kim.

  "He says, 'What are you going to do?'" Bennett was staring
uneasily at Father Victor, and Kim, for his own ends, took upon
himself the office of interpreter.

  "I do not see what concern this faquir has with the boy, who is
probably his dupe or his confederate," Bennett began. "We cannot allow
an English boy- Assuming that he is the son of a Mason, the sooner
he goes to the Masonic Orphanage the better."

  "Ah! That's your opinion as Secretary to the Regimental Lodge," said
Father Victor; "but we might as well tell the old man what we are
going to do. He doesn't look like a villain."

  "My experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental mind.
Now, Kimball, I wish you to tell this man what I say- word for word."

  Kim gathered the import of the next few sentences and began thus:

  "Holy One, the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the
son of a Sahib."

  "But how?"

  "Oh, it is true. I knew it since my birth, but he could only find it
out by rending the amulet from my neck and reading all the papers.
He thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib, and between the two
of them they purpose to keep me in this regiment or to send me to a
madrissah (a school). It has happened before. I have always avoided
it. The fat fool is of one mind and the camel-like one of another. But
that is no odds. I may spend one night here and perhaps the next. It
has happened before. Then I will run away and return to thee."

  "But tell them that thou art my chela. Tell them how thou didst come
to me when I was faint and bewildered. Tell them of our Search, and
they will surely let thee go now."

  "I have already told them. They laugh, and they talk of the Police."

  "What are you saying?" asked Mr. Bennett.

  "Oah. He only says that if you do not let me go it will stop him
in his business- his ur-gent private affairs." This last was a
reminiscence of some talk with a Eurasian clerk in the Canal
Department, but it only drew a smile, which nettled him. "And if you
did know what his business was you would not be in such a beastly
hurry to interfere."

  "What is it then?" said Father Victor, not without feeling, as he
watched the lama's face.

  "There is a River in this country which he wishes to find so
verree much. It was put out by an Arrow which- " Kim tapped his foot
impatiently as he translated in his own mind from the vernacular to
his clumsy English. "Oah, it was made by our Lord God Buddha, you
know, and if you wash there you are washed away from all your sins and
made as white as cotton-wool." (Kim had heard mission-talk in his
time.) "I am his disciple, and we must find that River. It is so
verree valuable to us."

  "Say that again," said Bennett. Kim obeyed, with amplifications.

  "But this is gross blasphemy!" cried the Church of England.

  "Tck! Tck!" said Father Victor sympathetically. "I'd give a good
deal to be able to talk the vernacular. A river that washes away
sin! And how long have you two been looking for it?"

  "Oh, many days. Now we wish to go away and look for it again. It
is not here, you see."

  "I see," said Father Victor gravely. "But he can't go on in that old
man's company. It would be different, Kim, if you were not a soldier's
son. Tell him that the regiment will take care of you and make you
as good a man as your- as good a man as can be. Tell him that if he
believes in miracles he must believe that- "

  "There is no need to play on his credulity," Bennett interrupted.

  "I'm doing no such thing. He must believe that the boy's coming
here- to his own regiment- in search of his Red Bull is in the
nature of a miracle. Consider the chances against it, Bennett. This
one boy in all India, and our regiment of all others on the line o'
march for him to meet with! It's predestined on the face of it. Yes,
tell him it's Kismet. Kismet, mallum?" (Fate! Do you understand?)

  He turned towards the lama, to whom he might as well have talked
of Mesopotamia.

  "They say"- the old man's eye lighted at Kim's speech- "they say
that the meaning of my horoscope is now accomplished, and that being
led back- though as thou knowest I went out of curiosity- to these
people and their Red Bull I must needs go to a madrissah and be turned
into a Sahib. Now I make pretence of agreement, for at the worst it
will be but a few meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away
and follow down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore, Holy One, keep
with that Kulu woman- on no account stray far from her cart till I
come again. Past question, my sign is of War and of armed men. See how
they have given me wine to drink and set me upon a bed of honour! My
father must have been some great person. So if they raise me to honour
among them, good. If not, good again. However it goes, I will run back
to thee when I am tired. But stay with the Rajputni, or I shall miss
thy feet.... Oah yess," said the boy, "I have told him everything
you tell me to say."

  "And I cannot see any need why he should wait," said Bennett,
feeling in his trouser-pocket. "We can investigate the details
later- and I will give him a ru-"

  "Give him time. May be he's fond of the lad," said Father Victor,
half-arresting the clergyman's motion.

  The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hat-brim
over his eyes.

  "What can he want now?"

  "He says"- Kim put up one hand. "He says: Be quiett. He wants to
speak to me by himself. You see you do not know one little word of
what he says, and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very
bad curses. When he takes those beads like that, you see he always
wants to be quiett."

  The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in
Bennett's eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed to
the religious arm.

  "A Sahib and the son of a Sahib- " The lama's voice was harsh with
pain. "But no white man knows the land and the customs of the land
as thou knowest. How comes it this is true?"

  "What matter, Holy One: but remember it is only for a night or
two. Remember, I can change swiftly. It will be as it was when I first
spoke to thee under Zam-Zammah the great gun- "

  "As a boy in the dress of white men- when I first went to the Wonder
House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu. What shall the third
incarnation be?" He chuckled drearily. "Ah, chela, thou hast done a
wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee."

  "And mine to thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would
bring me to this business?"

  The lama covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the
rosary. Kim squatted beside him and laid hold upon a fold of his
clothing.

  "Now it is understood that the boy is a Sahib?" he went on in a
muffled tone. "Such a Sahib as was he who kept the images in the
Wonder House." The lama's experience of white men was limited. He
seemed to be repeating a lesson. "So then it is not seemly that he
should do other than as the Sahibs do. He must go back to his own
people."

  "For a day and a night and a day," Kim pleaded.

  "No, ye don't!" Father Victor saw Kim edging towards the door, and
interposed a strong leg.

  "I do not understand the customs of white men. The Priest of the
Images in the Wonder House in Lahore was more courteous than the
thin one here. This boy will be taken from me. They will make a
Sahib of my disciple? Woe to me, how shall I find my River? Have
they no disciples? Ask."

  "He says he is very sorry that he cannot find the River now any
more. He says, Why have you no disciples, and stop bothering him? He
wants to be washed of his sins."

  Neither Bennett nor Father Victor found any answer ready.

  Said Kim in English, distressed for the lama's agony: "I think if
you will let me go now we will walk away quietly and not steal. We
will look for that River like before I was caught. I wish I did not
come here to find the Red Bull and all that sort of thing. I do not
want it."

  "It's the very best day's work you ever did for yourself, young
man," said Bennett.

  "Good heavens, I don't know how to console him," said Father Victor,
watching the lama intently. "He can't take the boy away with him,
and yet he's a good man- I'm sure he's a good man. Bennett, if you
give him that rupee he'll curse you root and branch!"

  They listened to each other's breathing- three- five full minutes.
Then the lama raised his head, and looked forth across them into space
and emptiness.

  "And I am a follower of the Way," he said bitterly. "The sin is mine
and the punishment is mine. I made believe to myself- for now I see it
was but make-belief- that thou wast sent to me to aid in the Search.
So my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy courtesy and
the wisdom of thy little years. But those who follow the Way must
permit not the fire of any desire or attachment, for that is all
illusion. As says... " He quoted an old, old Chinese text, backed it
with another, and reinforced these with a third. "I stepped aside from
the Way, my chela. It was no fault of thine. I delighted in the
sight of life, the new people upon the roads, and in thy joy at seeing
these things. I was pleased with thee who should have considered my
Search and my Search alone. Now I am sorrowful because thou art
taken away and my River is far from me. It is the Law which I have
broken!"

  "Powers of Darkness below!" said Father Victor, who, wise in the
confessional, heard the pain in every sentence.

  "I see now that the sign of the Red Bull was a sign for me as well
as for thee. All Desire is red- and evil. I will do penance and find
my River alone."

  "At least go back to the Kulu woman," said Kim, "otherwise thou wilt
be lost upon the roads. She will feed thee till I run back to thee."

  The lama waved a hand to show that the matter was finally settled in
his mind.

  "Now"- his tone altered as he turned to Kim- "what will they do with
thee? At least I may, acquiring merit, wipe out past ill."

  "Make me a Sahib- so they think. The day after to-morrow I return.
Do not grieve."

  "Of what sort? Such an one as this or that man?" He pointed to
Father Victor. "Such an one as those I saw this evening- men wearing
swords and stamping heavily?"

  "May be."

  "That is not well. These men follow desire and come to emptiness.
Thou must not be of their sort."

  The Umballa priest said that my Star was War," Kim interjected. "I
will ask these fools- but there is truly no need. I will run away this
night, for all I wanted to see the new things."

  Kim put two or three questions in English to Father Victor,
translating the replies to the lama.

  Then: "He says, 'You take him from me and you cannot say what you
will make him.' He says, 'Tell me before I go, for it is not a small
thing to make a child.'"

  "You will be sent to a school. Later on, we shall see. Kimball, I
suppose you'd like to be a soldier?"

  "Gorah-log (white-folk). No-ah! No-ah!" Kim shook his head
violently. There was nothing in his composition to which drill and
routine appealed. "I will not be a soldier."

  "You will be what you're told to be," said Bennett; and you should
be grateful that we're going to help you."

  Kim smiled compassionately. If these men lay under the delusion that
he would do anything that he did not fancy, so much the better.

  Another long silence followed. Bennett fidgeted with impatience, and
suggested calling a sentry to evict the faquir.

  "Do they give or sell learning among the Sahibs? Ask them," said the
lama, and Kim interpreted.

  "They say that money is paid to the teacher- but that money the
regiment will give.... What need? It is only for a night."

  "And- the more money is paid the better learning is given?" The lama
disregarded Kim's plans for an early flight. "It is no wrong to pay
for learning; to help the ignorant to wisdom is always a merit." The
rosary clicked furiously as an abacus. Then he faced his oppressors.

  "Ask them for how much money do they give a wise and suitable
teaching? and in what city is that teaching given?"

  "Well," said Father Victor in English, when Kim had translated,
"that depends. The regiment would pay for you all the time you are
at the Military Orphanage; or you might go on the Punjab Masonic
Orphanage's list (not that he or you 'ud understand what that
means); but the best schooling a boy can get in India is, of course,
at St. Xavier's in Partibus at Lucknow." This took some time to
interpret, for Bennett wished to cut it short.

  "He wants to know how much?" said Kim placidly.

  "Two or three hundred rupees a year." Father Victor was long past
any sense of amazement. Bennett, impatient, did not understand.

  "He says: 'Write that name and the money upon a paper and give it
him.' And he says you must write your name below, because he is
going to write a letter in some days to you. He says you are a good
man. He says the other man is a fool. He is going away."

  The lama rose suddenly. "I follow my Search," he cried, and was
gone.

  "He'll run slap into the sentries," cried Father Victor, jumping
up as the lama stalked out; "but I can't leave the boy." Kim made
swift motion to follow, but checked himself. There was no sound of
challenge outside. The lama had disappeared.

  Kim settled himself composedly on the chaplain's cot. At least the
lama had promised that he would stay with the Rajput woman from
Kulu, and the rest was of the smallest importance. It pleased him that
the two padres were so evidently excited. They talked long in
undertones, Father Victor urging some scheme on Mr. Bennett, who
seemed incredulous. All this was very new and fascinating, but Kim
felt sleepy. They called men into the tent- one of them certainly
was the Colonel, as his father had prophesied- and they asked him an
infinity of questions, chiefly about the woman who looked after him,
all of which Kim answered truthfully. They did not seem to think the
woman a good guardian.

  After all, this was the newest of his experiences. Sooner or
later, if he chose, he could escape into great, gray, formless
India, beyond tents and padres and colonels. Meantime, if the Sahibs
were to be impressed, he would do his best to impress them. He too was
a white man.

  After much talk that he could not comprehend, they handed him over
to a sergeant, who had strict instructions not to let him escape.
The regiment would go on to Umballa, and Kim would be sent up,
partly at the expense of the Lodge and in part by subscription, to a
place called Sanawar.

  "It's miraculous past all whooping, Colonel," said Father Victor,
when he had talked without a break for ten minutes. "His Buddhist
friend has levanted after taking my name and address. I can't quite
make out whether he'll pay for the boy's education or whether he is
preparing some sort of witchcraft on his own account." Then to Kim:
"You'll live to be grateful to your friend the Red Bull yet. We'll
make a man of you at Sanawar- even at the price o' making you a
Protestant."

  "Certainly- most certainly," said Bennett.

  "But you will not go to Sanawar," said Kim.

  "But we will go to Sanawar, little man. That's the order of the
Commander-in-Chief, who's a trifle more important than O'Hara's son."

  "You will not go to Sanawar. You will go to thee war."

  There was a shout of laughter from the full tent.

  "When you know your own regiment a trifle better you won't confuse
the line of march with line of battle, Kim. We hope to go to 'thee
war' sometime."

  "Oah, I know all thatt." Kim drew his bow again at a venture. If
they were not going to the war, at least they did not know what he
knew of the talk in the veranda at Umballa.

  "I know you are not at thee war now; but I tell you that as soon
as you get to Umballa you will be sent to the war- the new war. It
is a war of eight thousand men, besides the guns."

  "That's explicit. D'you add prophecy to your other gifts? Take him
along, Sergeant. Take up a suit for him from the Drums, an' take
care he doesn't slip through your fingers. Who says the age of
miracles is gone by? I think I'll go to bed. My poor mind's
weakening."

  At the far end of the camp, silent as a wild animal, an hour later
sat Kim, newly washed all over, in a horrible stuff suit that rasped
his arms and legs.

  "A most amazin' young bird," said the Sergeant. He turns up in
charge of a yellow-headed buck-Brahmin priest, with his father's Lodge
certificates round his neck, talkin' God knows what all of a red bull.
The buck-Brahmin evaporates without explanations, an' the bhoy sets
cross-legged on the chaplain's bed prophesyin' bloody war to the men
at large. Injia's a wild land for a God-fearin' man. I'll just tie his
leg to the tent-pole in case he'll go through the roof. What did ye
say about the war?

  "Eight thousand men, besides guns," said Kim. "Very soon you will
see."

  "You're a consolin' little imp. Lie down between the Drums an' go to
bye-bye. Those two boys beside ye will watch your slumbers."

                                 6

                Now I remember comrades-

                  Old playmates on new seas-

                Whenas we traded orpiment

                  Among the savages.

                Ten thousand leagues to southward,

                  And thirty years removed-

                They knew not noble Valdez,

                  But me they knew and loved.

                          " SONG  OF  DIEGO  VALDEZ "

  Very early in the morning the white tents came down and
disappeared as the Mavericks took a side road to Umballa. It did not
skirt the resting-place, and Kim, trudging beside a baggage-cart under
fire of comments from soldiers' wives, was not so confident as
overnight. He discovered that he was closely watched- Father Victor on
the one side, and Mr. Bennett on the other.

  In the forenoon the column checked. A camel-orderly handed the
Colonel a letter. He read it, and spoke to a major. Half a mile in the
rear, Kim heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on him
through the thick dust. Then some one beat him on the back, crying:
"Tell us how ye knew, ye little limb of Satan? Father dear, see if
ye can make him tell."

  A pony ranged alongside, and he was hauled on to the priest's
saddle-bow.

  "Now, my son, your prophecy of last night has come true. Our
orders are to entrain at Umballa for the front to-morrow."

  "What is thatt?" said Kim, for "front" and "entrain" were newish
words to him.

  "We are going to 'thee war,' as you called it."

  "Of course you are going to thee war. I said last night."

  "Ye did; but, Powers o' Darkness, how did ye know?"

  Kim's eyes sparkled. He shut his lips, nodded his head, and looked
unspeakable things. The chaplain moved on through the dust, and
privates, sergeants, and subalterns called one another's attention
to the boy. The Colonel, at the head of the column, stared at him
curiously. "It was probably some bazar rumour," he said; "but even
then- " He referred to the paper in his hand. "Hang it all, the
thing was only decided within the last forty-eight hours."

  "Are there many more like you in India?" said Father Victor, "or are
you by way o' being a lusus naturae?"

  "Now I have told you," said the boy, "will you let me go back to
my old man? If he has not stayed with that woman from Kulu, I am
afraid he will die."

  "By what I saw of him he's as well able to take care of himself as
you. No. Ye've brought us luck, an' we're goin' to make a man of
you. I'll take ye back to your baggage-cart and ye'll come to me
this evening."

  For the rest of the day Kim found himself an object of distinguished
consideration among a few hundred white men. The story of his
appearance in camp, the discovery of his parentage, and his
prophecy, had lost nothing in the telling. A big, shapeless white
woman of a pile of bedding asked him mysteriously whether he thought
her husband would come back from the war. Kim reflected gravely, and
said that he would, and the woman gave him food. In many respects,
this big procession that played music at intervals- this crowd that
talked and laughed so easily- resembled a festival in Lahore city.
So far, there was no sign of hard work, and he resolved to lend the
spectacle his patronage. At evening there came out to meet them
bands of music, and played the Mavericks into camp near Umballa
railway station. That was an interesting night. Men of other regiments
came to visit the Mavericks. The Mavericks went visiting on their
own account. Their pickets hurried forth to bring them back, met
pickets of strange regiments on the same duty; and, after a while, the
bugles blew madly for more pickets with officers to control the
tumult. The Mavericks had a reputation for liveliness to live up to.
But they fell in on the platform next morning in perfect shape and
condition; and Kim, left behind with the sick, women, and boys,
found himself shouting farewells excitedly as the trains drew away.
Life as a Sahib was amusing so far; but he touched it with a
cautious hand. Then they marched him back in charge of a drummer-boy
to empty, lime-washed barracks, whose floors were covered with rubbish
and string and paper, and whose ceilings gave back his lonely
footfall. Native fashion, he curled himself up on a stripped cot and
went to sleep. An angry man stumped down the veranda, woke him up, and
said he was a schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim, and he retired
into his shell. He could just puzzle out the various English Police
notices in Lahore city, because they affected his comfort; and among
the many guests of the woman who looked after him had been a queer
German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling theatre. He
told Kim that he had been "on the barricades in Forty-eight," and
therefore- at least that was how it struck Kim- he would teach the boy
to write in return for food. Kim had been kicked as far as single
letters, but did not think well of them.

  "I do not know anything. Go away!" said Kim, scenting evil. Hereupon
the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a far-off wing
where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and told him to be
still if he could do nothing else. This he managed very
successfully. The man explained something or other with white lines on
a black board for at least half an hour, and Kim continued his
interrupted nap. He much disapproved of the present aspect of affairs,
for this was the very school and discipline he had spent two-thirds of
his young life in avoiding. Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to him,
and he wondered that he had not thought of it before.

  The man dismissed them, and first to spring through the veranda into
the open sunshine was Kim.

  "'Ere you! 'Alt! Stop!" said a high voice at his heels. "I've got to
look after you. My orders are not to let you out of my sight. Where
are you goin'?"

  It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the
forenoon- a fat and freckled person of about fourteen, and Kim loathed
him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

  "To the bazar- to get sweets- for you," said Kim, after thought.

  "Well, the bazar's out o' bounds. If we go there we'll get a
dressing-down. You come back."

  "How near can we go?" Kim did not know what bounds meant, but he
wished to be polite- for the present.

  "'Ow near? 'Ow far, you mean? We can go as far as that tree down the
road."

  "Then I will go there."

  "All right. I ain't goin'. It's too 'ot. I can watch you from
'ere. It's no good runnin' away. If you did, they'd spot you by your
clothes. That's regimental stuff you're wearin'. There ain't a
picket in Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you started
out."

  This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment
would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at
the corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the
natives passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest
caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of
unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy
could not follow. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his
fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse
somebody in the tongue he knew best. "And now, go to the nearest
letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write
a letter."

  "But- but what manner of white man's son art thou, to need a bazar
letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?"

  "Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you- you Od!
Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg" (Kim knew
the god of the sweepers), "run on my business or we will talk again."

  The sweeper shuffled off in haste. There is a white boy by the
barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy," he stammered to
the first bazar letter-writer he came across. "He needs thee."

  "Will he pay?" said that spruce scribe, gathering up his desk and
pens and sealing-wax all in order.

  "I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is well
worth."

  Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in sight.
As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.

  "First I will take my pay," the letter-writer said. "Bad words
have made the price higher. But who art thou, dressed in that fashion,
to speak in this fashion?"

  "Aha! That is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was such a
tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer will serve me. Umballa city
is as full of them as is Lahore."

  "Four annas," said the writer, sitting down and spreading his
cloth in the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.

  "Mechanically Kim squatted beside him- squatted as only the
natives can- in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.

  The writer regarded him sideways.

  "That is the price to ask of Sahibs," said Kim. "Now fix me a true
one."

  "An anna and a half. How do I know, having written the letter,
that thou wilt not run away?"

  "I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be
considered."

  "I get no commission on the price of the stamp. Once more, what
manner of white boy art thou?"

  "That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the
horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is my friend."

  "Wonder on wonder!" murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in
the inkstand. "To be written in Hindi?"

  "Assuredly. To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! 'I have come down with the
old man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I carried the
news of the bay mare's pedigree.'" After what he had seen in the
garden, he was not going to write of white stallions.

  "Slower a little. What has a bay mare to do.... Is it Mahbub Ali the
great dealer?"

  "Who else? I have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. 'As the
order was, so I did it. We then went on foot towards Benares, but on
the third day we found a certain regiment.' Is that down?"

  "Ay, 'pulton,'" murmured the writer, all ears.

  "'I went into their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm
about my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the
son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of the
Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.'" Kim
waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer's heart,
cleared his throat, and continued: "'A priest clothed me and gave me a
new name.... One priest, however, was a fool. The clothes are very
heavy, but I am a Sahib and my heart is heavy too. They send me to a
school and beat me. I do not like the air and water here. Come then
and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money, for I have not
sufficient to pay the writer who writes this."

  "'Who writes this.' It is my own fault that I was tricked. Thou
art as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury stamps at
Nucklao. But what a tale! What a tale! Is it true by any chance?"

  "It does not profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali. It is better to help
his friends by lending them a stamp. When the money comes I will
repay."

  The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his desk,
sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, and departed. Mahbub Ali's
was a name of power in Umballa.

  "That is the way to win a good account with the Gods," Kim shouted
after him.

  "Pay me twice over when the money comes," the man cried over his
shoulder.

  "What was you bukkin' to that nigger about?" said the drummer-boy
when Kim returned to the veranda. "I was watchin' you."

  "I was only talkin' to him."

  "You talk the same as a nigger, don't you?"

  "No-ah! No-ah! I onlee speak a little. What shall we do now?"

  "The bugles 'ill go for dinner in arf a minute. My Gawd! I wish
I'd gone up to the front with the regiment. It's awful doin' nothin'
but school down 'ere. Don't you 'ate it?"

  "Oah yess!"

  "I'd run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in this
bloomin' Injia you're only a prisoner at large. You can't desert
without bein' took back at once. I'm fair sick of it."

  "You have been in Be- England?"

  "W'y, I only come out last troopin' season with my mother. I
should think I 'ave been in England. What a ignorant little beggar you
are. You was brought up in the gutter, wasn't you?"

  "Oah yess. Tell me something about England. My father he came from
there."

  Though he would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every word the
drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England. It
passed the heavy time till dinner- a most unappetising meal served
to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room. But that
he had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have been almost depressed.
The indifference of native crowds he was used to; but this strong
loneliness among white men preyed on him. He was grateful when, in the
course of the afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father Victor,
who lived in another wing across another dusty parade-ground. The
priest was reading an English letter written in purple ink. He
looked at Kim more curiously than ever.

  "An' how do you like it, my son, as far as you've gone? Not much,
eh? It must be hard- very hard on a wild animal. Listen now. I've an
amazin' epistle from your friend."

  "Where is he? Is he well? Oah! If he knows to write me letters, it
is all right."

  "You're fond of him then?"

  "Of course I am fond of him. He was fond of me."

  "It seems so by the look of this. He can't write English, can he?"

  "Oah no. Not that I know, but of course he found a letter-writer who
can write English verree well, and so he wrote. I do hope you
understand."

  "That accounts for it. D'you know anything about money affairs?"
Kim's face showed that he did not.

  "How can I tell?"

  "That's what I'm askin'. Now listen if you can make head or tail
o' this. We'll skip the first part.... It's written from Jagadhir
Road.... 'Sitting on wayside in grave meditation, trusting to be
favoured with your Honour's applause of present step, which
recommend your Honour to execute for Almighty God's sake. Education is
greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use.'
Faith, the old man's hit the bull's-eye that time! 'If your Honour
condescending giving my boy best educations Xavier' (I suppose
that's St. Xavier's in Partibus) 'in terms of our conversation dated
in your tent 15th instant' (a business-like touch there!) 'then
Almighty God blessing your Honour's succeedings to third an' fourth
generation and'- now listen!- 'confide in your Honour's humble servant
for adequate remuneration per hoondie per annum three hundred rupees a
year to one expensive education St. Xavier, Lucknow, and allow small
time to forward same per hoondie sent to any part of India as your
Honour shall address yourself. This servant of your Honour has
presently no place to lay crown of his head, but going to Benares by
train on account of persecution of old woman talking so much and
unanxious residing Saharunpore in any domestic capacity.' Now what
in the world does that mean?"

  "She has asked him to be puro- her clergyman- at Saharunpore, I
think. He would not do that on account of his River. She did talk."

  "It's clear to you, is it? It beats me altogether. 'So going to
Benares, where will find address and forward rupees for boy who is
apple of eye, and for Almighty God's sake execute this education,
and your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever awfully pray.
Written by Sobrao Satai, Failed Entrance Allahabad University, for
Venerable Teshoo Lama the priest of Suchzen looking for a River,
address care of Tirthankers' Temple, Benares. P.M.- Please note boy is
apple of eye, and rupees shall be sent per hoondie three hundred per
annum. For God Almighty's sake.' Now, is that ravin' lunacy or a
business proposition? I ask you, because I'm fairly at my wits' end."

  "He says he will give me three hundred rupees a year, so he will
give me them."

  "Oh, that's the way you look at it, is it?"

  "Of course. If he says so!"

  The priest whistled; then he addressed Kim as an equal.

  "I don't believe it; but we'll see. You were goin' off to-day to the
Military Orphanage at Sanawar, where the regiment would keep you
till you were old enough to enlist. Ye'd be brought up to the Church
of England. Bennett arranged for that. On the other hand, if ye go
to St. Xavier's ye'll get a better education an'- an' can have the
religion. D'ye see my dilemma?"

  Kim saw nothing save a vision of the lama going south in a train
with none to beg for him.

  Like most people, I'm going to temporise. If your friend sends the
money from Benares- Powers of Darkness below, where's a
street-beggar to raise three hundred rupees?- ye'll go down to Lucknow
and I'll pay your fare, because I can't touch the subscription-money
if I intend, as I do, to make ye a Catholic. If he doesn't, ye'll go
to the Military Orphanage at the regiment's expense. I'll allow him
three days' grace, though I don't believe it at all. Even then, if
he fails in his payments later on... but it's beyond me. We can only
walk one step at a time in this world, praise God! An' they sent
Bennett to the front an' left me behind. Bennett can't expect
anything."

  "Oah yess," said Kim vaguely.

  The priest leaned forward. "I'd give a month's pay to find what's
goin' on inside that little round head of yours."

  "There is nothing," said Kim, and scratched it. He was wondering
whether Mahbub Ali would send him as much as a whole rupee. Then he
could pay the letter-writer and write letters to the lama at
Benares. Perhaps Mahbub Ali would visit him next time he came south
with horses. Surely he must know that Kim's delivery of the letter
to the officer at Umballa had caused the great war which the men and
boys had discussed so loudly over the barrack dinner-tables. But if
Mahbub Ali did not know this, it would be very unsafe to tell him
so. Mahbub Ali was hard upon boys who knew, or thought they knew,
too much.

  "Well, till I get further news"- Father Victor's voice interrupted
the reverie- "ye can run along and play with the other boys. They'll
teach ye something- but I don't think ye'll like it."

  The day dragged to its weary end. When he wished to sleep he was
instructed how to fold up his clothes and set out his boots; the other
boys deriding. Bugles waked him in the dawn; the schoolmaster caught
him after breakfast, thrust a page of meaningless characters under his
nose, gave them senseless names, and whacked him without reason. Kim
meditated poisoning him with opium borrowed from a barrack-sweeper,
but reflected that, as they all ate at one table in public (this was
peculiarly revolting to Kim, who preferred to turn his back on the
world at his meals), the stroke might be dangerous. Then he
attempted running off to the village where the priest had tried to
drug the lama- the village where the old soldier lived. But far-seeing
sentries at every exit headed back the little scarlet figure. Trousers
and jacket crippled body and mind alike, so he abandoned the project
and fell back, Oriental fashion, on time and chance. Three days of
torment passed in the big, echoing white rooms. He walked out of
afternoons under escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard from
his companion were the few useless words which seemed to make
two-thirds of the white man's abuse. Kim knew and despised them all
long ago. The boy resented his silence and lack of interest by beating
him, as was only natural. He did not care for any of the bazars
which were in bounds. He styled all natives "niggers"; yet servants
and sweepers called him abominable names to his face, and, misled by
their deferential attitude, he never understood. This somewhat
consoled Kim for the beatings.

  On the morning of the fourth day a judgment overtook that drummer.
They had gone out together towards Umballa race-course. He returned
alone, weeping, with news that young O'Hara, to whom he had been doing
nothing in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger on
horseback; that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a
peculiarly adhesive quirt, picked up young O'Hara, and borne him off
at full gallop. These tidings came to Father Victor, and he drew
down his long upper lip. He was already sufficiently startled by a
letter from the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares, enclosing a
native banker's note of hand for three hundred rupees, and an
amazing prayer to "Almighty God." The lama would have been more
annoyed than the priest had he known how the bazar letter-writer had
translated his phrase "to acquire merit."

  "Powers of Darkness below!" Father Victor fumbled with the note.
"An' now he's off with another of his peep-o'-day friends. I don't
know whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or to
have him lost. He's beyond my comprehension. How the Divil- yes,
He's the man I mean- can a street-beggar raise money to educate
white boys?"

  Three miles on Umballa race-course, Mahbub Ali, reining a gray
Cabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was saying:

  "But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my honour and
reputation to be considered. All the officer-sahibs in all the
regiments, and all Umballa, know Mahbub Ali. Men saw me pick thee up
and chastise that boy. We are seen now from far across this plain. How
can I take thee away, or account for thy disappearing if I set thee
down and let thee run off into the crops? They would put me in jail.
Be patient. Once a Sahib, always a Sahib. When thou art a man- who
knows- thou wilt be grateful to Mahbub Ali."

  "Take me beyond their sentries where I can change this red. Give
me money and I will go to Benares and be with my lama again. I do
not want to be a Sahib, and remember I did deliver that message."

  The stallion bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven home
the sharp-edged stirrup. (He was not the new sort of fluent
horse-dealer who wears English boots and spurs.) Kim drew his own
conclusions from that betrayal.

  "That was a small matter. It lay on the road to Benares. I and the
Sahib have by this time forgotten it. I send so many letters and
messages to men who ask questions about horses, I cannot well remember
one from the other. Was it some matter of a bay mare that Peters Sahib
wished the pedigree of?"

  Kim saw the trap at once. If he had said "bay mare" Mahbub would
have known by his very readiness to fall in with the amendment that
the boy suspected something. Kim replied therefore:

  "Bay mare? No. I do not forget my messages thus. It was a white
stallion."

  "Ay, so it was. A white Arab stallion. But thou didst write bay mare
to me."

  "Who cares to tell truth to a letter-writer?" Kim answered,
feeling Mahbub's palm on his heart.

  "Hi! Mahbub, you old villain, pull up!" cried a voice, and an
Englishman raced alongside on a little polo-pony. "I've been chasing
you half over the country. That Cabuli of yours can go. For sale, I
suppose?"

  "I have some young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the delicate
and difficult polo-game. He has no equal. He-"

  "Plays polo and waits at table. Yes. We know all that. What the
deuce have you got there?"

  "A boy," said Mahbub gravely. He was being beaten by another boy.
His father was once a white soldier in the big war. The boy was a
child in Lahore city. He played with my horses when he was a babe. Now
I think they will make him a soldier. He has been newly caught by
his father's regiment that went up to the war last week. But I do
not think he wants to be a soldier. I take him for a ride. Tell me
where thy barracks are and I will set thee there."

  "Let me go. I can find the barracks alone."

  "And if thou runnest away who will say it is not my fault?"

  "He'll run back to his dinner. Where has he to run to?" the
Englishman asked.

  "He was born in the land. He has friends. He goes where he
chooses. He is a chabuk sawai (a sharp chap). It needs only to
change his clothing, and in a twinkling he would be a low-caste
Hindi boy."

  "The deuce he would!" The Englishman looked critically at the boy as
Mahbub headed towards the barracks. Kim ground his teeth. Mahbub was
mocking him, as faithless Afghans will; for he went on:

  "They will send him to a school and put heavy boots on his feet
and swaddle him in these clothes. Then he will forget all he knows.
Now which of the barracks is thine?"

  Kim pointed- he could not speak- to Father Victor's wing, all
staring white near by.

  "Perhaps he will make a good soldier," said Mahbub reflectively. "He
will make a good orderly at least. I sent him to deliver a message
once from Lahore. A message concerning the pedigree of a white
stallion."

  Here was deadly insult on deadlier injury- and the Sahib to whom
he had so craftily given that war-making letter heard it all. Kim
beheld Mahbub Ali frying in flame for his treachery, but for himself
he saw one long gray vista of barracks, schools, and barracks again.
He gazed imploringly at the clear-cut face in which there was no
glimmer of recognition; but even at this extremity it never occurred
to him to throw himself on the white man's mercy or to denounce the
Afghan. And Mahbub stared deliberately at the Englishman, who stared
as deliberately at Kim, quivering and tongue-tied.

  "My horse is well trained," said the dealer. "Others would have
kicked, Sahib."

  "Ah," said the Englishman at last, rubbing his pony's damp withers
with his whip-butt. "Who makes the boy a soldier?"

  "He says the regiment that found him, and especially the padre-sahib
of that regiment."

  "There is the padre!" Kim choked as bare-headed Father Victor sailed
down upon them from the veranda.

  "Powers o' Darkness below, O'Hara! How many more mixed friends do
you keep in Asia?" he cried, as Kim slid down and stood helplessly
before him.

  "Good morning, Padre," the Colonel said cheerily. "I know you by
reputation well enough. Meant to have come over and called before
this. I'm Creighton."

  "Of the Ethnological Survey?" said Father Victor. The Colonel
nodded. "Faith I'm glad to meet ye then; an' I owe you some thanks for
bringing back the boy."

  "No thanks to me, Padre. Besides, the boy wasn't going away. You
don't know old Mahbub Ali"- the horse-dealer sat impassive in the
sunlight. "You will when you have been in the station a month. He
sells us all our crocks. That boy is rather a curiosity. Can you
tell me anything about him?"

  "Can I tell you?" puffed Father Victor. "You'll be the one man
that could help me in my quandaries. Tell you! Powers o' Darkness, I'm
bursting to tell some one who knows something o' the native!"

  A groom came round the corner. Colonel Creighton raised his voice,
speaking in Urdu. "Very good, Mahbub Ali, but what is the use of
telling me all those stories about the pony. Not one pie more than
three hundred and fifty rupees will I give."

  "The Sahib is a little hot and angry after riding," the horse-dealer
returned, with the leer of a privileged jester. "Presently, he will
see my horse's points more clearly. I will wait till he has finished
his talk with the padre. I will wait under that tree."

  "Confound you!" The Colonel laughed. "That comes of looking at one
of Mahbub's horses. He's a regular old leech, Padre. Wait then, if
thou hast so much time to spare, Mahbub. Now I'm at your service,
Padre. Where is the boy? Oh, he's gone off to collogue with Mahbub.
Queer sort of boy. Might I ask you to send my mare round under cover?"

  He dropped into a chair which commanded a clear view of Kim and
Mahbub Ali in conference beneath the tree. The padre went indoors
for cheroots.

  Creighton heard Kim say bitterly: "Trust a Brahmin before a snake,
and a snake before a harlot, and a harlot before an Afghan, Mahbub
Ali."

  "That is all one," the great red beard wagged solemnly. "Children
should not see a carpet on the loom till the pattern is made plain.
Believe me, Friend of all the World, I do thee great service. They
will not make a soldier of thee."

  "You crafty old sinner," thought Creighton. "But you're not far
wrong. That boy mustn't be wasted if he is as advertised."

  "Excuse me half a minute," cried the padre from within, "but I'm
gettin' the documents of the case."

  "If through me the favour of this bold and wise Colonel Sahib
comes to thee, and thou art raised to honour, what thanks will thou
give Mahbub Ali when thou art a man?"

  "Nay, nay; I begged thee to let me take the road again, where I
should have been safe; and thou hast sold me back to the English. What
will they give thee for blood-money?"

  "A cheerful young demon!" The Colonel bit his cigar, and turned
politely to Father Victor.

  "What are the letters that the fat priest is waving before the
Colonel? Stand behind the stallion as though looking at my bridle!"
said Mahbub Ali.

  "A letter from my lama which he wrote from Jagadhir Road, saying
that he will pay three hundred rupees by the year for my schooling."

  "Oho! Is old Red Hat of that sort? At which school?"

  "God knows. I think in Nucklao."

  "Yes. There is a big school there for the sons of Sahibs- and
half-Sahibs. I have seen it when I sell horses there. So the lama also
loved the Friend of all the World?"

  "Ay; and he did not tell lies, or return me to captivity."

  "Small wonder the padre does not know how to unravel the thread. How
fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib." Mahbub Ali chuckled. "By Allah!"-
the keen eyes swept the veranda for an instant- "thy lama has sent
what to me looks like a note of hand. I have had some small dealing in
hoondies. The Colonel Sahib is looking at it."

  "What good is all this to me?" said Kim wearily. "Thou wilt go away,
and they will return me to those empty rooms where there is no good
place to sleep and where the boys beat me."

  "I do not think that. Have patience, child. All Pathans are not
faithless- except in horseflesh."

  Five- ten- fifteen minutes passed, Father Victor talking
energetically or asking questions which the Colonel answered.

  "Now I've told you everything that I know about the boy from
beginnin' to end; and it's a blessed relief to me. Did ye ever hear
the like?"

  "At any rate, the old man has sent the money. Gobind Sahai's notes
of hand are good from here to China," said the Colonel. "The more
one knows about natives the less can one say what they will or won't
do."

  "That's consolin'- from the head of the Ethnological Survey. It's
this mixture of Red Bulls and Rivers of Healing (poor heathen, God
help him!) an' notes of hand and Masonic certificates. Are you a
Mason, by any chance?"

  "By Jove, I am, now I come to think of it. That's an additional
reason," said the Colonel absently.

  "I'm glad ye see a reason in it. But as I said, it's the mixture
o' things that's beyond me. An' his prophesying' to our Colonel
sitting on my bed with his little shimmy torn open showing his white
skin; an' the prophecy comin' true! They'll cure all that nonsense
at St. Xavier's, eh?"

  "Sprinkle him with holy water," the Colonel laughed.

  "On my word, I fancy I ought to sometimes. But I'm hoping he'll be
brought up as a good Catholic. All that troubles me is what'll
happen if the old beggar-man- "

  "Lama, lama, my dear sir; and some of them are gentlemen in their
own country."

  "The lama, then, fails to pay next year. He's a fine business head
to plan on the spur of the moment, but he's bound to die some day. An'
takin' a heathen's money to give a child a Christian education- "

  "But he said explicitly what he wanted. As soon as he knew the boy
was white he seems to have made his arrangements accordingly. I'd give
a month's pay to hear how he explained it all at the Tirthankers'
Temple at Benares. Look here, Padre, I don't pretend to know much
about natives, but if he says he'll pay, he'll pay- dead or alive. I
mean his heirs will assume the debt. My advice to you is, send the boy
down to Lucknow. If your Anglican chaplain thinks you've stolen a
march on him- "

  "Bad luck to Bennett! He was sent to the front instead o' me.
Doughty certified me medically unfit. I'll excommunicate Doughty if he
comes back alive! Surely Bennett ought to be content with- "

  "Glory, leaving you the religion. Quite so! As a matter of fact I
don't think Bennett will mind. Put the blame on me. I- er- strongly
recommend sending the boy to St. Xavier's. He can go down on pass as a
soldier's orphan, so the railway fare will be saved. You can buy him
an outfit from the regimental subscription. The Lodge will be saved
the expense of his education, and that will put the Lodge in a good
temper. It's perfectly easy. I've got to go down to Lucknow next week.
I'll look after the boy on the way- give him in charge of my servants,
and so on."

  "You're a good man."

  "Not in the least. Don't make that mistake. The lama has sent us
money for a definite end. We can't very well return it. We shall
have to do as he says. Well, that's settled, isn't it? Shall we say
that, Tuesday next, you'll hand him over to me at the night train
south? That's only three days. He can't do much harm in three days."

  "It's a weight off my mind, but- this thing here?"- he waved the
note of hand- "I don't know Gobind Sahai: or his bank, which may be
a hole in a wall."

  "You've never been a subaltern in debt. I'll cash it if you like,
and send you the vouchers in proper order."

  "But with all your own work too! It's askin'- "

  "It's not the least trouble indeed. You see, as an ethnologist,
the thing's very interesting to me. I'd like to make a note of it
for some Government work that I'm doing. The transformation of a
regimental badge like your Red Bull into a sort of fetish that the boy
follows is very interesting."

  "But I can't thank you enough."

  "There's one thing you can do. All we Ethnological men are as
jealous as jackdaws of one another's discoveries. They're of no
interest to anyone but ourselves, of course, but you know what
book-collectors are like. Well, don't say a word, directly or
indirectly, about the Asiatic side of the boy's character- his
adventures and his prophecy, and so on. I'll worm them out of the
boy later on and- you see?"

  "I do. Ye'll make a wonderful account of it. Never a word will I say
to any one till I see it in print."

  "Thank you. That goes straight to an ethnologist's heart. Well, I
must be getting back to my breakfast. Good heavens! Old Mahbub here
still?" He raised his voice, and the horse-dealer came out from
under the shadow of the tree. "Well, what is it?"

  "As regards that young horse," said Mahbub, "I say that when a
colt is born to be a polo-pony, closely following the ball without
teaching- when such a colt knows the game by divination- then I say it
is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!"

  "So do I say also, Mahbub. The colt will be entered for polo only.
(These fellows think of nothing in the world but horses, Padre.)
I'll see you to-morrow, Mahbub, if you've anything likely for sale."

  The dealer saluted, horseman fashion, with a sweep of the off
hand. "Be patient a little, Friend of all the World," he whispered
to the agonised Kim. "Thy fortune is made. In a little while thou
goest to Nucklao, and- here is something to pay the letter-writer. I
shall see thee again, I think, many times," and he cantered off down
the road.

  "Listen to me," said the Colonel from the veranda, speaking in the
vernacular. In three days thou wilt go with me to Lucknow, seeing
and hearing new things all the while. Therefore sit still for three
days and do not run away. Thou wilt go to school at Lucknow."

  "Shall I meet my Holy One there?" Kim whimpered.

  "At least Lucknow is nearer to Benares than Umballa. It may be
thou wilt go under my protection. Mahbub Ali knows this, and he will
be angry if thou returnest to the road now. Remember- much has been
told to me which I do not forget."

  "I will wait," said Kim, "but the boys will beat me."

  Then the bugles blew for dinner.

                                   7

           Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised

             With idiot moons and stars retracting stars?

           Creep thou betweene- thy coming's all unnoised.

             Heaven hath her high, as earth her baser, wars.

           Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fray

             (By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);

           Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say

             Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars!

                                     " SIR  JOHN  CHRISTIE "

  In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had
been "struck off the strength," which conveyed no meaning to him
till he was ordered to go away and play. Then he ran to the bazar, and
found the young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.

  "Now I pay," said Kim royally, "and now I need another letter to
be written."

  "Mahbub Ali is in Umballa," said the writer jauntily. He was, by
virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.

  "This is not to Mahbub, but to a priest. Take thy pen and write
quickly. 'To Teshoo Lama, the holy one from Bhotiyal seeking for a
River, who is now in the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares.' Take
more ink! 'In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at
Nucklao. The name of the school is Xavier. I do not know where that
school is, but it is at Nucklao.'"

  "But I know Nucklao," the writer interrupted. "I know the school."

  "Tell him where it is, and I give half an anna."

  The reed pen scratched busily. "He cannot mistake." The man lifted
his head. "Who watches us across the street?"

  Kim looked up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creighton in
tennis-flannels.

  "Oh, that is some Sahib who knows the fat priest in the barracks. He
is beckoning me."

  "What dost thou?" said the Colonel, when Kim trotted up.

  "I- I am not running away. I send a letter to my Holy One at
Benares."

  "I had not thought of that. Hast thou said that I take thee to
Lucknow?"

  "Nay, I have not. Read the letter, if there be a doubt."

  "Then why hast thou left out my name in writing to that Holy One?"
The Colonel smiled a queer smile. Kim took his courage in both hands.

  "It was said once to me that it is inexpedient to write the names of
strangers concerned in any matter, because by the naming of names many
good plans are brought to confusion."

  "Thou hast been well taught," the Colonel replied, and Kim
flushed. "I have left my cheroot-case on the padre's veranda. Bring it
to my house this even."

  "Where is the house?" said Kim. His quick wit told him that he was
being tested in some fashion or another, and he stood on guard.

  "Ask anyone in the big bazar." The Colonel walked on.

  "He has forgotten his cheroot-case," said Kim, returning. "I must
bring it to him this evening. That is all my letter except, thrice
over, 'Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!' Now I will pay for a stamp
and put it in the post." He rose to go, and as an afterthought
asked, "Who is that angry-faced Sahib who lost the cheroot-case?"

  "Oh, he is only Creighton Sahib- a very foolish Sahib, who is a
Colonel Sahib without a regiment."

  "What is his business?"

  "God knows. He is always buying horses which he cannot ride, and
asking riddles about the works of God- such as plants and stones and
the customs of people. The dealers call him the father of fools,
because he is so easily cheated about a horse. Mahbub Ali says he is
madder than all other Sahibs."

  "Oh!" said Kim, and departed. His training had given him some
small knowledge of character, and he argued that fools are not given
information which leads to calling out eight thousand men, besides
guns. The Commander-in-Chief of all India does not talk, as Kim had
heard him talk, to fools. Nor would Mahbub Ali's tone have changed, as
it did every time he mentioned the Colonel's name, if the Colonel
had been a fool. Consequently- and this set Kim to skipping- there was
a mystery somewhere, and Mahbub Ali probably spied for the Colonel
much as Kim had spied for Mahbub. And, like the horse-dealer, the
Colonel evidently respected people who did not show themselves to be
too clever.

  He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge of the
Colonel's house; and when, on his return to barracks, he discovered
that no cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with delight.
Here was a man after his own heart- a tortuous and indirect person
playing a hidden game. Well, if he could be a fool, so could Kim.

  He showed nothing of his mind when Father Victor, for three long
mornings, discoursed to him of an entirely new set of gods and
godlings- notably of a goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was
one with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology. He betrayed no
emotion when, after the lecture, Father Victor dragged him from shop
to shop buying articles of outfit, nor when envious drummer-boys
kicked him because he was going to a superior school did he
complain, but awaited the play of circumstances with an interested
soul. Father Victor, good man, took him to the station, put him into
an empty second-class next to Colonel Creighton's first, and bade
him farewell with genuine feeling.

  "They'll make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St. Xavier's- a white man,
an', I hope, a good man. They know all about your comin', an' the
Colonel will see that ye're not lost or mislaid anywhere on the
road. I've given you a notion of religious matters- at least I hope
so- and you'll remember, when they ask you your religion, that
you're a Cath'lic. Better say Roman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the
word.

  Kim lit a rank cigarette- he had been careful to buy a stock in
the bazar- and lay down to think. This solitary passage was very
different from that joyful down-journey in the third-class with the
lama. "Sahibs get little pleasure of travel," he reflected. "Hai
mai! I go from one place to another as it might be a kick-ball. It
is my Kismet. No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi
Miriam and I am a Sahib"- he looked at his boots ruefully. "No; I am
Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?" He
considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till
his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all this roaring
whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.

  Presently the Colonel sent for him, and talked for a long time. So
far as Kim could gather, he was to be diligent and enter the Survey of
India as a chain-man. If he were very good, and passed the proper
examinations, he would be earning thirty rupees a month at seventeen
years old, and Colonel Creighton would see that he found a suitable
employment.

  Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of
this talk. Then the Colonel, seeing his mistake, turned to fluent
and picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented. No man could be a fool who
knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and silently, and
whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.

  "Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and
mountains and rivers- to carry these pictures in thy eye till a
suitable time comes to set them upon paper. Perhaps some day, when
thou art a chain-man, I may say to thee when we are working
together: 'Go across those hills and see what lies beyond.' Then one
will say: 'There are bad people living in those hills who will slay
the chain-man if he be seen to look like a Sahib.' What then?"

  Kim thought. Would it be safe to return the Colonel's lead?

  "I would tell what that other man had said."

  "But if I answered: 'I will give thee a hundred rupees for knowledge
of what is behind those hills- for a picture of a river and a little
news of what the people say in the villages there'?"

  "How can I tell? I am only a boy. Wait till I am a man." Then,
seeing the Colonel's brow clouded, he went on: "But I think I should
in a few days earn the hundred rupees."

  "By what road?"

  Kim shook his head resolutely. "If I said how I would earn them,
another man might hear and forestall me. It is no good to sell
knowledge for nothing."

  "Tell now." The Colonel held up a rupee. Kim's hand half reached
towards it, and dropped.

  "Nay, Sahib; nay. I know the price that will be paid for the answer,
but I do not know why the question is asked."

  "Take it for a gift, then," said Creighton, tossing it over.
"There is a good spirit in thee. Do not let it be blunted at St.
Xavier's. There are many boys there who despise the black men."

  "Their mothers were bazar-women," said Kim. He knew well there is no
hatred like that of the half-caste for his brother-in-law.

  "True; but thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Therefore, do
not at any time be led to contemn the black men. I have known boys
newly entered into the service of the Government who feigned not to
understand the talk or the customs of black men. Their pay was cut for
ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this."

  Several times in the course of the long twenty-four hours' run south
did the Colonel send for Kim, always developing this latter text.

  "We be all on one lead-rope, then," said Kim at last, "the
Colonel, Mahbub Ali, and I- when I become a chain-man. He will use
me as Mahbub Ali employed me, I think. That is good, if it allows me
to return to the road again. This clothing grows no easier by wear."

  When they came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no sign of
the lama. He swallowed his disappointment, while the Colonel bundled
him into a ticca-garri with his neat belongings and despatched him
alone to St. Xavier's.

  "I do not say farewell, because we shall meet again," he cried.
"Again, and many times, if thou art one of good spirit. But thou art
not yet tried."

  "Not when I brought thee"- Kim actually dared to use the tum of
equals- "a white stallion's pedigree that night?"

  "Much is gained by forgetting, little brother," said the Colonel,
with a look that pierced through Kim's shoulder-blades as he
scuttled into the carriage.

  It took him nearly five minutes to recover. Then he sniffed the
new air appreciatively. "A rich city," he said. "Richer than Lahore.
How good the bazars must be! Coachman, drive me a little through the
bazars here."

  "My order is to take thee to the school." The driver used the
"thou," which is rudeness when applied to a white man. In the clearest
and most fluent vernacular Kim pointed out his error, climbed on to
the box-seat, and, perfect understanding established, drove for a
couple of hours up and down, estimating, comparing, and enjoying.
There is no city- except Bombay, the queen of all- more beautiful in
her garish style than Lucknow, whether you see her from the bridge
over the river, or from the top of the Imambara looking down on the
gilt umbrellas of the Chutter Munzil, and the trees in which the
town is bedded. Kings have adorned her with fantastic buildings,
endowed her with charities, crammed her with pensioners, and
drenched her with blood. She is the centre of all idleness,
intrigue, and luxury, and shares with Delhi the claim to talk the only
pure Urdu.

  "A fair city- a beautiful city." The driver, as a Lucknow man, was
pleased with the compliment, and told Kim many astounding things where
an English guide would have talked of the Mutiny.

  "Now we will go to the school," said Kim at last. The great old
school of St. Xavier's in Partibus, block on block of low white
buildings, stands in vast grounds over against the Gumti River, at
some distance from the city.

  "What like of folk are they within?" said Kim.

  "Young Sahibs- all devils; but to speak truth, and I drive many of
them to and fro from the railway station, I have never seen one that
had in him the making of a more perfect devil than thou- this young
Sahib whom I am now driving."

  Naturally, for he was never trained to consider them in any way
improper, Kim had passed the time of day with one or two frivolous
ladies at upper windows in a certain street, and naturally, in the
exchange of compliments, had acquitted himself well. He was about to
acknowledge the driver's last insolence, when his eye- it was
growing dusk- caught a figure sitting by one of the white plaster
gate-pillars in the long sweep of wall.

  "Stop!" he cried. "Stay here! I do not go to the school at once."

  "But what is to pay me for this coming and recoming?" said the
driver petulantly. "Is the boy mad? Last time it was a dancing-girl.
This time it is a priest."

  Kim was in the road headlong, patting the dusty feet beneath the
dirty yellow robe.

  "I have waited here a day and a half," the lama's level voice began.
"Nay, I had a disciple with me. He that was my friend at the temple of
the Tirthankers gave me a guide for this journey. I came from
Benares in the train, when thy letter was given me. Yes, I am well
fed. I need nothing."

  "But why didst thou not stay with the Kulu woman, O Holy One? In
what way didst thou get to Benares? My heart has been heavy since we
parted."

  "The woman wearied me by constant flux of talk and requiring
charms for children. I separated myself from that company,
permitting her to acquire merit by gifts. She is at least a woman of
open hands, and I made a promise to return to her house if need arose.
Then, perceiving myself alone in this great and terrible world, I
bethought me of the te-rain to Benares, where I knew one abode in
the Tirthankers' Temple who was a Seeker, even as I."

  "Ah! Thy River," said Kim. "I had forgotten the River."

  "So soon, my chela? I have never forgotten it; but when I had left
thee it seemed better that I should go to the temple and take counsel,
for, look you, India is very large, and it may be that wise men before
us, some two or three, have left a record of the place of our River.
There is debate in the Temple of the Tirthankers on this matter;
some saying one thing, and some another. They are courteous folk."

  "So be it; but what dost thou do now?"

  "I acquire merit in that I help thee, my chela, to wisdom. The
priest of that body of men who serve the Red Bull wrote me that all
should be as I desired for thee. I sent the money to suffice for one
year, and then I came, as thou seest me, to watch for thee going up
into the Gates of Learning. A day and a half have I waited- not
because I was led by any affection towards thee- that is not part of
the Way- but, as they said at the Tirthankers' Temple, because,
money having been paid for learning, it was right that I should
oversee the end of the matter. They resolved my doubts most clearly. I
had a fear that, perhaps, I came because I wished to see thee-
misguided by the red mist of affection. It is not so.... Moreover, I
am troubled by a dream."

  "But surely, Holy One, thou hast not forgotten the Road and all that
befell on it? Surely it was a little to see me that thou didst come?"

  "The horses are cold, and it is past their feeding-time," whined the
driver.

  "Go to Jehannum and abide there with thy reputationless aunt!" Kim
snarled over his shoulder. "I am all alone in this land; I know not
where I go nor what shall befall me. My heart was in that letter I
sent thee. Except for Mahbub Ali, and he is a Pathan, I have no friend
save thee, Holy One. Do not altogether go away."

  "I have considered that also," the lama replied, in a shaking voice.
"It is manifest that from time to time I shall acquire merit- if
before that I have not found my River- by assuring myself that thy
feet are set on wisdom. What they will teach thee I do not know, but
the priest wrote me that no son of a Sahib in all India will be better
taught than thou. So from time to time, therefore, I will come
again. May be thou wilt be such a Sahib as he who gave me these
spectacles"- the lama wiped them elaborately- "in the Wonder House
at Lahore. That is my hope, for he was a Fountain of Wisdom- wiser
than many abbots.... Again, may be thou wilt forget me and our
meetings."

  "If I eat thy bread," cried Kim passionately, "how shall I ever
forget thee?"

  "No- no." He put the boy aside. "I must go back to Benares. From
time to time, now that I know the customs of letter-writers in this
land, I will send thee a letter, and from time to time I will come and
see thee."

  "But whither shall I send my letters?" wailed Kim, clutching at
the robe, all forgetful that he was a Sahib.

  "To the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares. That is the place I
have chosen till I find my River. Do not weep; for, look you, all
Desire is illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel. Go up to the
Gates of Learning. Let me see thee go.... Dost thou love me? Then
go, or my heart cracks.... I will come again. Surely I will come
again."

  The lama watched the ticca-garri rumble into the compound, and
strode off, snuffing between each long stride.

  "The Gates of Learning" shut with a clang.

  The country born and bred boy has his own manners and customs, which
do not resemble those of any other land; and his teachers approach him
by roads which an English master would not understand. Therefore,
you would scarcely be interested in Kim's experiences as a St.
Xavier's boy among two or three hundred precocious youths, most of
whom had never seen the sea. He suffered the usual penalties for
breaking out of bounds when there was cholera in the city. This was
before he had learned to write fair English, and so was obliged to
find a bazar letter-writer. He was, of course, indicted for smoking
and for the use of abuse more full-flavoured than even St. Xavier's
had ever heard. He learned to wash himself with the Levitical
scrupulosity of the native-born, who in his heart considers the
Englishman rather dirty. He played the usual tricks on the patient
coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the boys
thrashed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn; and
quietly he measured himself against his self-reliant mates.

  They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway, Telegraph,
and Canal services; of warrant-officers sometimes retired and
sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah's army;
of captains of the Indian Marine, Government pensioners, planters,
Presidency shopkeepers, and missionaries. A few were cadets of the old
Eurasian houses that have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah-
Pereiras, De Souzas, and D'Silvas. Their parents could well have
educated them in England, but they loved the school that had served
their own youth, and generation followed sallow-hued generation at St.
Xavier's. Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people to
abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar; lost tea-gardens
Shillong-way; villages where their fathers were large landholders in
Oudh or the Deccan; Mission-stations a week from the nearest railway
line; seaports a thousand miles south, facing the brazen Indian
surf; and cinchona-plantations south of all. The mere story of their
adventures, which to them were no adventures, on their road to and
from school would have crisped a Western boy's hair. They were used to
jogging off alone through a hundred miles of jungle, where there was
always the delightful chance of being delayed by tigers; but they
would no more have bathed in the English Channel in an English
August than their brothers across the world would have lain still
while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin. There were boys of fifteen
who had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a
flooded river, taking charge, as by right, of a camp of frantic
pilgrims returning from a shrine; there were seniors who had
requisitioned a chance-met Rajah's elephant, in the name of St.
Francis Xavier, when the rains once blotted out the cart-track that
led to their father's estate, and had all but lost the huge beast in a
quicksand. There was a boy who, he said, and none doubted, had
helped his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush of
Akas in the days when those head-hunters were bold against lonely
plantations.

  And every tale was told in the even, passionless voice of the
native-born, mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed unconsciously
from native foster-mothers, and turns of speech that showed they had
been that instant translated from the vernacular. Kim watched,
listened, and approved. This was not insipid, single-word talk of
drummer-boys. It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood. The
atmosphere suited him, and he throve by inches. They gave him a
white drill suit as the weather warmed, and he rejoiced in the
new-found bodily comforts as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind
over the tasks they set him. His quickness would have delighted an
English master; but at St. Xavier's they know the first rush of
minds developed by sun and surroundings, as well as they know the
half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two or twenty-three.

  None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly. When tales were
told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his
reminiscences; for St. Xavier's looks down on boys who "go native
altogether." One must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that
some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives.
Kim made a note of this, for he began to understand where examinations
led.

  Then came the holidays from August to October- the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the rains. Kim was informed that he would go
north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father Victor
would arrange for him.

  "A barrack-school?" said Kim, who had asked many questions and
thought more.

  "Yes, I suppose so," said the master. "It will not do you any harm
to keep you out of mischief. You can go up with young De Castro as far
as Delhi."

  Kim considered it in every possible light. He had been diligent,
even as the Colonel advised. A boy's holiday was his own property-
of so much the talk of his companions had advised him- and a
barrack-school would be torment after St. Xavier's. Moreover- this was
magic worth anything else- he could write. In three months he had
discovered how men can speak to each other without a third party, at
the cost of half an anna and a little knowledge. No word had come from
the lama, but there remained the Road. Kim yearned for the caress of
soft mud squishing up between the toes, as his mouth watered for
mutton stewed with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled with
strong-scented cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted rice, garlic and
onions, and the forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars. They
would feed him raw beef on a platter at the barrack-school, and he
must smoke by stealth. But again, he was a Sahib and was at St.
Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub Ali... No, he would not test Mahbub's
hospitality- and yet... He thought it out alone in the dormitory,
and came to the conclusion he had been unjust to Mahbub.

  The school was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away;
Colonel Creighton's railway-pass lay in his hand, and Kim puffed
himself that he had not spent Colonel Creighton's or Mahbub's money in
riotous living. He was still lord of two rupees seven annas. His new
bullock-trunk, marked "K. O'H.," and bedding-roll lay in the empty
sleeping-room. "Sahibs are always tied to their baggage," said Kim,
nodding at them. "You will stay here." He went out into the warm rain,
smiling sinfully, and sought a certain house whose outside he had
noted down some time before...

  "Arre! Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter?
O shame!"

  "Was I born yesterday?" Kim squatted native fashion on the
cushions of that upper room. "A little dye-stuff and three yards of
cloth to help out a jest. Is it much to ask?"

  "Who is she? Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, for this devilry."

  "Oh, she? She is the daughter of a certain schoolmaster of a
regiment in the cantonments. He has beaten me twice because I went
over their wall in these clothes. Now I would go as a gardener's
boy. Old men are very jealous."

  "That is true. Hold thy face still while I dab on the juice."

  "Not too black, Naikan. I would not appear to her as a hubshi"
(nigger).

  "Oh, love makes nought of these things. And how old is she?"

  "Twelve years, I think," said the shameless Kim.- Spread it also
on the breast. It may be her father will tear my clothes off me and if
I am piebald-" he laughed.

  The girl worked busily, dabbing a twist of cloth into a little
saucer of brown dye that holds longer than any walnut juice.

  "Now send out and get me a cloth for the turban. Woe is me, my
head is all unshaved! And he will surely knock off my turban."

  "I am not a barber, but I will make shift. Thou wast born to be a
breaker of hearts! All this disguise for one evening? Remember, the
stuff does not wash away." She shook with laughter till her
bracelets and anklets jingled. "But who is it pay me for this? Huneefa
herself could not have given thee better stuff."

  "Trust in the Gods, my sister," said Kim gravely screwing his face
round as the stain dried. "Besides, hast thou ever helped to paint a
Sahib thus before?"

  "Never indeed. But a jest is not money."

  "It is worth much more."

  "Child, thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of
Shaitan that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this
play, and then to say: 'Is not the jest enough?' Thou wilt go very far
in this world." She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in mockery.

  "All one. Make haste and rough-cut my head." Kim shifted from foot
to foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days
before him. He gave the girl four annas, and ran down the stairs in
the likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy- perfect in every detail. A
cookshop was his next point of call, where he feasted in
extravagance and greasy luxury.

  On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro, all
covered with prickly-heat, get into a second-class compartment. Kim
patronised a third, and was the life and soul of it. He explained to
the company that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind
sick with fever, and that he would pick up his master at Umballa. As
the occupants of the carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned
it with all the shoots of a budding fancy, the more rampant for
being held off native speech so long. In all India that night was no
human being so joyful as Kim. At Umballa he got out and headed
eastward, plashing over the sodden fields to the village where the old
soldier lived.

  About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from
Lucknow by wire that young O'Hara had disappeared. Mahbub Ali was in
town selling horses, and to him the Colonel confided the affair one
morning cantering round Annandale race-course.

  "Oh, that is nothing," said the horse-dealer. "Men are like
horses. At certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in
the mangers they will lick it up from the earth. He has gone back to
the Road again for a while. The madrissah wearied him. I knew it
would. Another time, I will take him upon the Road myself. Do not be
troubled, Creighton Sahib. It is as though a polo-pony, breaking
loose, ran out to learn the game alone."

  "Then he is not dead, think you?"

  "Fever might kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A monkey
does not fall among trees."

  Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion ranged alongside
the Colonel.

  "It is as I had thought," said the horse-dealer. He has come through
Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me, having
learned in the bazar that I was here."

  "Read," said the Colonel, with a sigh of relief. It was absurd
that a man of his position should take an interest in a little
country-bred vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation
in the train, and often in the past few months had caught himself
thinking of the queer, silent, self-possessed boy. His evasion, of
course, was the height of insolence, but it argued some resource and
nerve.

  Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the
cramped little plain, where none could come near unseen.

  "'The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World-'"

  "What is this?"

  "A name we give him in Lahore city. 'The Friend of all the World
takes leave to go to his own places. He will come back upon the
appointed day. Let the box and the bedding-roll be sent for; and if
there has been a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the Whip
of Calamity.' There is yet a little more, but-"

  "No matter, read."

  "'Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks. It is
better to eat with both hands for a while. Speak soft words to those
who do not understand this that the return may be propitious.' Now the
manner in which that was cast is of course the work of the
letter-writer, but see how wisely the boy has devised the matter of it
so that no hint is given except to those who know!"

  "Is this the Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity?"
laughed the Colonel.

  "See how wise is the boy. He would go back to the Road again, as I
said. Not knowing yet thy trade- "

  "I am not quite sure of that," the Colonel muttered.

  "He turns to me to make a peace between you. Is he not wise? He says
he will return. He is but perfecting his knowledge. Think, Sahib! He
has been three months at the school. And he is not mouthed to that
bit. For my part, I rejoice: the pony learns the game."

  "Ay, but another time he must not go alone."

  "Why? He went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahib's
protection. When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone- alone,
and at peril of his head. Then, if he spits, or sneezes, or sits
down other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain. Why
hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The jackal that lives
in the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by the hounds of
Mazanderan."

  "True. It is true, Mahbub Ali. And if he comes to no harm, I do
not desire anything better. But it is great insolence on his part."

  "He does not tell me, even, whither he goes," said Mahbub. "He is no
fool. When his time is accomplished he will come to me. It is time the
healer of pearls took him in hand. He ripens too quickly- as Sahibs
reckon."

  This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month later. Mahbub
had gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh consignment of horses,
and Kim met him on the Kalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms
of him, was sworn at, and replied in English. There was nobody
within earshot to hear Mahbub's gasp of amazement.

  "Oho! And where hast thou been?"

  "Up and down- down and up."

  "Come under a tree, out of the wet, and tell."

  "I stayed for a while with an old man near Umballa; anon with a
household of my acquaintance in Umballa. With one of these I went as
far as Delhi to the southward. That is a wondrous city. Then I drove a
bullock for a teli (an oilman) coming north; but I heard of a great
feast forward in Puttiala, and thither went I in the company of a
firework-maker. It was a great feast" (Kim rubbed his stomach). "I saw
Rajahs, and elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they lit all
the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men were killed, my
firework-maker among them, and I was blown across a tent but took no
harm. Then I came back to the rel with a Sikh horseman, to whom I
was groom for my bread; and so here."

  "Shabash!" said Mahbub Ali.

  "But what does the Colonel Sahib say? I do not wish to be beaten."

  "The Hand of Friendship has averted the Whip of Calamity; but
another time, when thou takest the Road it will be with me. This is
too early."

  "Late enough for me. I have learned to read and to write English a
little at the madrissah. I shall soon be altogether a Sahib."

  "Hear him!" laughed Mahbub, looking at the little drenched figure
dancing in the wet. "Salaam- Sahib," and he saluted ironically. "Well,
art tired of the Road, or wilt thou come on to Umballa with me and
work back with the horses?"

  "I come with thee, Mahbub Ali."

                                  8

              "Something I owe to the soil that grew-

                 More to the life that fed-

               But most to Allah Who gave me two

                 Separate sides to my head.

               I would go without shirts or shoes,

                 Friends, tobacco or bread

               Sooner than for an instant lose

                 Either side of my head."

  "Then in God's Name take blue for red," said Mahbub, alluding to the
Hindu colour of Kim's disreputable turban.

  Kim countered with the old proverb, "I will change my faith and my
bedding, but thou must pay for it."

  The dealer laughed till he nearly fell from his horse. At a shop
on the outskirts of the city the change was made, and Kim stood up,
externally at least, a Mohammedan.

  Mahbub hired a room over against the railway station, sent for a
cooked meal of the finest with almond-curd sweetmeats (balushai we
call it) and fine-chopped Lucknow tobacco.

  "This is better than some other meat that I ate with the Sikh," said
Kim, grinning as he squatted, "and assuredly they give no such
victuals at my madrissah."

  "I have a desire to hear of that same madrissah." Mahbub stuffed
himself with great boluses of spiced mutton fried in fat with
cabbage and golden-brown onions. "But tell me first, altogether and
truthfully, the manner of thy escape. For, O Friend of all the World"-
he loosed his cracking belt- "I do not think it is often that a
Sahib and the son of a Sahib runs away from there."

  "How should they? They do not know the land. It was nothing," said
Kim, and began his tale. When he came to the disguisement and the
interview with the girl in the bazar, Mahbub Ali's gravity went from
him. He laughed aloud and beat his hand on his thigh.

  "Shabash! Shabash! Oh, well done, little one! What will the healer
of turquoises say to this? Now, slowly, let us hear what befell
afterwards- step by step, omitting nothing."

  Step by step then, Kim told his adventures between coughs as the
full-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs.

  "I said," growled Mahbub Ali to himself, "I said it was the pony
breaking out to play polo. The fruit is ripe already- except that he
must learn his distances and his pacings, and his rods and his
compasses. Listen now. I have turned aside the Colonel's whip from thy
skin, and that is no small service."

  "True." Kim puffed serenely. "That is all true."

  "But it is not to be thought that this running out and in is any way
good."

  "It was my holiday, Hajji. I was a slave for many weeks. Why
should I not run away when the school was shut? Look, too, how I,
living upon my friends or working for my bread, as I did with the
Sikh, have saved the Colonel Sahib a great expense."

  Mahbub's lips twitched under his well-pruned Mohammedan moustache.

  "What are a few rupees"- the Pathan threw out his open hand
carelessly- "to the Colonel Sahib? He spends them for a purpose, not
in any way for love of thee."

  "That," said Kim slowly, "I knew a very long time ago."

  "Who told?"

  "The Colonel Sahib himself. Not in those many words, but plainly
enough for one who is not altogether a mud-head. Yea, he told me in
the te-rain when we went down to Lucknow."

  "Be it so. Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World,
though in the telling I lend thee my head."

  "It was forfeit to me," said Kim, with deep relish, "in Umballa,
when thou didst pick me up on the horse after the drummer-boy beat
me."

  "Speak a little plainer. All the world may tell lies save thou and
I. For equally is thy life forfeit to me if I chose to raise my finger
here."

  "And this is known to me also," said Kim, readjusting the live
charcoal-ball on the weed. "It is a very sure tie between us. Indeed
thy hold is surer even than mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to
death, or, it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Many
people here and in Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would,
on the other hand, say: 'What has come to Mahbub Ali,' if he were
found dead among his horses. Surely too the Colonel Sahib would make
inquiries. But again"- Kim's face puckered with cunning- "he would not
make overlong inquiry, lest people should ask: 'What has this
Colonel Sahib to do with that horse-dealer?' But I- if I lived-"

  "As thou wouldst surely die-"

  "It may be; but I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, would know that
one had come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to Mahbub Ali's
bulkhead in the serai, and there had slain him, either before or after
that thief had made a full search into his saddle-bags and between the
soles of his slippers. Is that news to tell to the Colonel, or would
he say to me- (I have not forgotten when he sent me back for a
cigar-case that he had not left behind him)- 'What is Mahbub Ali to
me?'"

  Up went a gout of heavy smoke. There was a long pause; then Mahbub
Ali spoke in admiration: "And with these things on thy mind, dost thou
lie down and rise again among all the Sahibs' little sons at the
madrissah and meekly take instruction from thy teachers?"

  "It is an order," said Kim blandly. "Who am I to dispute an order?"

  "A most finished son of Eblis," said Mahbub Ali. "But what is this
tale of the thief and the search?"

  "That which I saw," said Kim, "the night that my lama and I lay next
thy place in the Kashmir Serai. The door was left unlocked, which I
think is not thy custom, Mahbub. He came in as one assured that thou
wouldst not soon return. My eye was against a knot-hole in the
plank. He searched as it were for something- not a rug, not
stirrups, nor a bridle, nor brass pots- something little and most
carefully hid. Else why did he prick with an iron between the soles of
thy slippers?"

  "Ha!" Mahbub Ali smiled gently. "And seeing these things, what
tale didst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the Truth?"

  "None. I put my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my
skin, and, remembering the pedigree of a white stallion that I had
bitten out of a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa
perceiving that a heavy trust was laid upon me. At that hour, had I
chosen, thy head was forfeit. It needed only to say to that man, 'I
have here a paper concerning a horse which I cannot read.' And
then?" Kim peered at Mahbub under his eyebrows.

  "Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice- perhaps thrice,
afterwards. I do not think more than thrice," said Mahbub simply.

  "It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I
loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest,
but (and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see
what Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white
stallion's pedigree."

  "And what did he?" for Kim had bitten off the conversation.

  "Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?" Kim asked.

  "I sell and- I buy." Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt
and held it up.

  "Eight!" said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of
the East.

  Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. "It is too easy to deal in
that market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives
lie in each other's hand."

  "Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib (the Commander-in-Chief) come
to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw the
two read the white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders
given for the opening of a great war."

  "Hah!" Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. "The game is well
played. That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the
flower- thanks to me- and thee. What didst thou later?"

  "I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour
among the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I
bore away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So
next morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the news when I
fell into the hands of that white regiment with their Bull!"

  "That was foolishness." Mahbub scowled. "News is not meant to be
thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly- like bhang."

  "So I think now, and, moreover, it did me no sort of good. But
that was very long ago"- he made as to brush it all away with a thin
brown hand- "and since then, and especially in the nights under the
punkah at the madrissah, I have thought very greatly."

  "Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought might have
led?" said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet
beard.

  "It is permitted," said Kim, and threw back the very tone. "They say
at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a
fault."

  Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a "black
man" (kala admi) is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed.
"Speak, Sahib: thy black man bears."

  "But," said Kim, "I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault when
I cursed thee, Mahbub Ali, on the day at Umballa I thought I was
betrayed by a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and
I wished to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it
was well done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good
service. I will stay in the madrissah till I am ripe."

  "Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of
using compasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills
above to show thee."

  "I will learn their teaching upon a condition- that my time is given
to me without question when the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me
of the Colonel."

  "But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahib's tongue?"

  "The Colonel is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither and
yon at a word, and must consider his own advancement. (See how much
I have already learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since
three months only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years. So! To
the madrissah I will go. At the madrissah I will learn. In the
madrissah I will be a Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must
I be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!"

  "And who are thy People, Friend of all the World?"

  "This great and beautiful land," said Kim, waving his paw round
the little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned
heavily through the tobacco-smoke. "And, further, I would see my
lama again. And further, I need money."

  "That is the need of every one," said Mahbub ruefully. "I will
give thee eight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses'
hooves, and it must suffice for many days. As to all the rest, I am
well pleased, and no further talk is needed. Make haste to learn,
and in three years, or it may be less, thou wilt be an aid- even to
me."

  "Have I been such a hindrance till now?" said Kim, with a boy's
giggle.

  "Do not give answers," Mahbub grunted. "Thou art my new horse-boy.
Go and bed among my men. They are near the north end of the station,
with the horses."

  "They will beat me to the south end of the station if I come without
authority."

  Mahbub felt in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese
ink, and dabbed the impression on a piece of soft native paper. From
Balkh to Bombay men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar
running diagonally across it.

  "That is enough to show my headman. I come in the morning."

  "By which road?" said Kim.

  "By the road from the City. There is but one, and then we return
to Creighton Sahib. I have saved thee a beating."

  "Allah! What is a beating when the very head is loose on the
shoulders?"

  Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house,
keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a
mile or so. Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at
leisure, for he needed time to invent a story if any of Mahbub's
retainers asked questions.

  They were camped on a piece of waste ground beside the railway, and,
being natives, had not, of course, unloaded the two trucks in which
Mahbub's animals stood among a consignment of country-breds bought
by the Bombay tram-company. The headman, a broken-down,
consumptive-looking Mohammedan, promptly challenged Kim, but was
pacified at sight of Mahbub's sign-manual.

  "The Hajji has of his favour given me service," said Kim testily.
"If this be doubted, wait till he comes in the morning. Meantime, a
place by the fire."

  Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must
raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the
little knot of Mahbub's followers, almost under the wheels of a
horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among
brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded
horses and unwashen Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but
Kim was utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and surroundings were
the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots
of St. Xavier's all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as
the repetition of the multiplication-table in English.

  "I am very old," he thought sleepily. "Every month I become a year
more old. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub's
message to Umballa. Even when I was with that white regiment I was
very young and small and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day, and
in three years the Colonel will take me out of the madrissah and let
me go upon the Road with Mahbub hunting for horses' pedigrees, or
maybe I shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with
him. Yes; that is best. To walk again as a chela with my lama when
he comes back to Benares." The thoughts came more slowly and
disconnectedly. He was plunging into a beautiful dreamland when his
ears caught a whisper, thin and sharp, above the monotonous babble
round the fire. It came from behind the iron-skinned horsetruck.

  "He is not here then?"

  "Where should he be but roystering in the City. Who looks for a
rat in a frog-pond? Come away. He is not our man."

  "He must not go back beyond the Passes a second time. It is the
order."

  "Hire some woman to drug him. It is a few rupees only, and there
is no evidence."

  "Except the woman. It must be more certain; and remember the price
upon his head."

  "Ay, but the police have a long arm, and we are far from the Border.
If it were in Peshawur now!"

  "Yes- in Peshawur," the second voice sneered. "Peshawur, full of his
blood-kin- full of bolt-holes and women behind whose clothes he will
hide. Yes, Peshawur or Jehannum would suit us equally well."

  "Then what is the plan?"

  "O fool, have I not told it a hundred times. Wait till he comes to
lie down, and then one sure shot. The trucks are between us and
pursuit. We have but to run back over the lines and go our way. They
will not see whence the shot came. Wait here at least till the dawn.
What manner of faquir art thou to shiver at a little watching?"

  "Oho!" thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes. "Once again it is
Mahbub. Indeed a white stallion's pedigree is not a good thing to
peddle to Sahibs! Or maybe Mahbub has been selling other news. Now
what is to do, Kim? I know not where Mahbub houses, and if he comes
here before the dawn they will shoot him. That would be no profit
for thee, Kim. And this is not a matter for the police. That would
be no profit for Mahbub; and," he giggled almost aloud, "I do not
remember any lesson at Nucklao which will help me. Allah! Here is
Kim and yonder are they. First then, Kim must wake and go away, so
that they shall not suspect. A bad dream wakes a man- thus- "

  He threw the blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly
with the terrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by
nightmare.

  "Urr-urr-urr-urr! Ya-la-la-la-la! Narain! The churel! The churel!"

  A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died
in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards
on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.

  Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his feet
and staggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for waking them.
Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down again, taking care
that the whisperers should hear his grunts and groans as he recomposed
himself. After a few minutes he rolled towards the road and stole away
into the thick darkness.

  He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped
behind it, his chin on a level with the coping-stone. Here he could
command all the night-traffic, himself unseen.

  Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughing
policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off
evil spirits. Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.

  "Ah! This is more like Mahbub," thought Kim, as the beast shied at
the little head above the culvert.

  "Ohe, Mahbub Ali," he whispered, "have a care!"

  The horse was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced towards
the culvert.

  "Never again," said Mahbub, "will I take a shod horse for nightwork.
They pick up all the bones and nails in the city." He stooped to
lift its forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of Kim's.
"Down- keep down," he muttered. "The night is full of eyes."

  "Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will shoot
thee at thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head. I heard,
sleeping near the horses."

  "Didst thou see them?... Hold still, Sire of Devils!" This furiously
to the horse.

  "No."

  "Was one dressed belike as a faquir?"

  "One said to the other, 'What manner of a faquir art thou, to shiver
at a little watching?'"

  "Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do not die to-night."

  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 recoiled 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
to-night'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 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 any one 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 the night. Faquirs 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 faquirs. 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- "

  "Never mind your partner. Where are your horse-trucks?"

  "A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps
for the trains."

  "The signal-box. Yes."

  "And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand side-
looking up the line thus. But as regards Lutuf Ullah- a tall man
with a broken nose, and a Persian greyhound- Aie!"

  The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic
policeman; for, as he said, the Railway had suffered much from
depredations in the goods-yard. Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard.

  "They will walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they will
wonder why there are no faquirs. They are very clever boys- Barton
Sahib and Young Sahib."

  He waited idly for a few minutes, expecting to see them hurry up the
line girt for action. A light engine slid through the station, and
he caught a glimpse of young Barton in the cab.

  "I did that child an injustice. He is not altogether a fool," said
Mahbub Ali. "To take a fire-carriage for a thief is a new game!"

  When Mahbub Ali came to his camp in the dawn, no one thought it
worth while to tell him any news of the night. No one, at least, but
one small horse-boy, newly advanced to the great man's service, whom
Mahbub called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing.

  "It is all known to me," whispered Kim, bending above saddle-bags.
"Two Sahibs came up on a te-rain. I was running to and fro in the dark
on this side of the trucks as the te-rain moved up and down slowly.
They fell upon two men sitting under this truck- Hajji, what shall I
do with this lump of tobacco? Wrap it in paper and put it under the
salt-bag? Yes- and struck them down. But one man struck at a Sahib
with a faquir's buck's horn- (Kim meant the conjoined black-buck
horns, which are a faquir's sole temporal weapon)- "the blood came. So
the other Sahib, first smiting his own man senseless, smote the
stabber with a short gun which had rolled from the first man's hand.
They all raged as though mad together."

  Mahbub smiled with heavenly resignation. "No! That is not so much
dewanee (madness, or a case for the civil court- the word can be
punned upon both ways) as nizamut (a criminal case). A gun sayest
thou? Ten good years in jail."

  "Then they both lay still but I think they were nearly dead when
they were put on the te-rain. Their heads moved thus. And there is
much blood on the line. Come and see?"

  "I have seen blood before. Jail is the sure place- and assuredly
they will give false names, and assuredly no man will find them for
a long time. They were unfriends of mine. Thy Fate and mine seem on
one string. What a tale for the healer of pearls! Now swiftly with the
saddle-bags and the cooking-platter. We will take out the horses and
away to Simla."

  Swiftly- as Orientals understand speed- with long explanations, with
abuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a hundred checks for little
things forgotten, the untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen
stiff and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the
rain-swept dawn. Kim, regarded as Mahbub Ali's favourite by all who
wished to stand well with the Pathan, was not called upon to work.
They strolled on by the easiest of stages, halting every few hours
at a wayside shelter. Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka road;
and, as Mahbub Ali says, every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a
judge of a horse, and, though he be over head in debt to the
money-lender, must make as if to buy. That was the reason that Sahib
after Sahib, rolling along in a stage-carriage, would stop and open
talk. Some would even descend from their vehicles and feel the horses'
legs; asking inane questions, or, through sheer ignorance of the
vernacular, grossly insulting the imperturbable trader.

  "When first I dealt with Sahibs, and that was when Colonel Soady
Sahib was Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the Commissioner's
camping-ground for spite," Mahbub confided to Kim as the boy filled
his pipe under a tree, "I did not know how greatly they were fools,
and this made me wroth. As thus-" and he told Kim a tale of an
expression, misused in all innocence, that doubled Kim up with
mirth. Now I see, however"- he exhaled smoke slowly- "that it is
with them as with all men- in certain matters they are wise, and in
others most foolish. Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a
stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the
stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger."

  "True. True talk," said Kim solemnly. "Fools speak of a cat when a
woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them."

  "Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves thee
to remember this with both kinds of faces. Among Sahibs, never
forgetting thou art a Sahib; among the folk of Hind, always
remembering thou art-" he paused, with a puzzled smile.

  "What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard
nut."

  "Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt
be damned. So says my Law- or I think it does. But thou art also my
Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart.
This matter of creeds is like horseflesh. The wise man knows horses
are good- that there is a profit to be made from all; and for
myself- but that I am a good Sunni and bate the men of Tirah- I
could believe the same of all the Faiths. Now manifestly a Kattiawar
mare taken from the sands of her birthplace and removed to the west of
Bengal founders- nor is even a Balkh stallion (and there are no better
horses than those of Balkh, were they not so heavy in the shoulder) of
any account in the great Northern deserts beside the snow-camels I
have seen. Therefore I say in my heart the Faiths are like the horses.
Each has merit in its own country.

  "But my lama said altogether a different thing."

  "Oh, he is an old dreamer of dreams from Bhotiyal. My heart is a
little angry, Friend of all the World, that thou shouldst see such
worth in a man so little known."

  "It is true, Hajji; but that worth do I see; and to him my heart
is drawn."

  "And his to thine, I hear. Hearts are like horses. They come and
they go against bit or spur. Shout Gul Sher Khan yonder to drive in
that bay stallion's pickets more firmly. We do not want a
horse-fight at every resting-stage, and the dun and the black will
be locked in a little.... Now hear me. Is it necessary to the
comfort of thy heart to see that lama?"

  "It is one part of my bond," said Kim. "If I do not see him, and
if he is taken from me, I will go out of that madrissah in Nucklao
and, and- once gone, who is to find me again?"

  "It is true. Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than
thou." Mahbub nodded his head.

  "Do not be afraid." Kim spoke as though he could have evanished on
the moment. "My lama has said that he will come to see me at the
madrissah- "

  "A beggar and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa- "

  "Not all!" Kim cut in with a snort. "Their eyes are blued and
their nails are blackened with low-caste blood, many of them. Sons
of metheeranees- brothers-in-law to the bhungi" (sweeper).

   We need not follow the rest of the pedigree; but Kim made his
little point clearly and without heat, chewing a piece of sugar-cane
the while.

  "Friend of all the World," said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe for
the boy to clean, "I have met many men, women, and boys, and not a few
Sahibs. I have never in all my days met such an imp as thou art."

  "And why? When I always tell thee the truth."

  "Perhaps the very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest
men." Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground, girt in his belt,
and went over to the horses.

  "Or sell it?"

  There was that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn. "What new
devilry?"

  "Eight annas, and I will tell," said Kim, grinning. "It touches
thy peace."

  "O Shaitan!" Mahbub gave the money.

  "Rememberest thou the little business of the thieves in the dark,
down yonder at Umballa?"

  "Seeing they sought my life, I have not altogether forgotten. "Why?"

  "Rememberest thou the Kashmir Serai?"

  "I will twist thy ears in a moment- Sahib."

  "No need- Pathan. Only, the second faquir, whom the Sahibs beat
senseless, was the man who came to search thy bulkhead at Lahore. I
saw his face as they helped him on the engine. The very same man."

  "Why didst thou not tell before?"

  "Oh, he will go to jail, and be safe for some years. There is no
need to tell more than is necessary at any one time. Besides, I did
not then need money for sweetmeats."

  "Allah Karim!" said Mahbub Ali. "Wilt thou some day sell my head for
a few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee?"

  Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from Umballa,
through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by, up to Simla. A sudden
spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse (the most valuable,
be sure), and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders. Farther
up the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant, and
being in high condition of grass food, it cost a day and a half to get
them together again. Then they met Sikandar Khan coming down with a
few unsaleable screws- remnants of his string- and Mahbub, who has
more of horse-coping in his little finger nail than Sikandar Khan in
all his tents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that meant eight
hours' laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco. But it was all pure
delight- the wandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the
growing spurs; the flush of the morning laid along the distant
snows; the branched cacti, tier upon tier on the stony hillsides;
the voices of a thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys;
the solemn deodars, climbing one after another with down-drooped
branches; the vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them; the
incessant twanging of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led
horses when a tonga swung round a curve; the halts for prayers (Mahbub
was very religious in dry-washings and bellowings when time did not
press); the evening conferences by the halting-places, when camels and
bullocks chewed solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the news
of the Road- all these things lifted Kim's heart to song within him.

  "But, when the singing and dancing is done," said Mahbub Ali, "comes
the Colonel Sahib's, and that is not so sweet."

  "A fair land- a most beautiful land is this of Hind- and the land of
the Five Rivers is fairer than all," Kim half chanted. "Into it I will
go again if Mahbub Ali or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me.
Once gone, who shall find me? Look, Hajji, is yonder the city of
Simla? Allah, what a city!"

  "My father's brother, and he was an old man when Mackerson Sahib's
well was new at Peshawur, could recall when there were but two
houses in it."

  He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar-
the crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the
town-hall at an angle of forty-five. A man who knows his way there can
defy all the police of India's summer capital; so cunningly does
veranda communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and
bolt-hole with bolt-hole. Here live those who minister to the wants of
the glad city- jhampanis who pull the pretty ladies' rickshaws by
night and gamble till the dawn; grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors,
firewood dealers, priests, pickpockets, and native employees of the
Government: here are discussed by courtesans the things which are
supposed to be profoundest secrets of the India Council; and here
gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the native States. Here, too,
Mahbub Ali rented a room, much more securely locked than his
bulkhead at Lahore, in the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer. It was
a place of miracles, too, for there went in at twilight a Mohammedan
horse-boy, and there came out an hour later a Eurasian lad- the
Lucknow girl's dye was of the best- in badly fitting shop-clothes.

  "I have spoken with Creighton Sahib," quoth Mahbub Ali, "and a
second time has the Hand of Friendship averted the Whip of Calamity.
He says that thou hast altogether wasted sixty days upon the Road, and
it is too late, therefore, to send thee to any hill-school.

  "I have said that my holidays are my own. I do not go to school
twice over. That is one part of my bond."

  "The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of the contract. Thou art to
lodge in Lurgan Sahib's house till it is time to go again to Nucklao."

  "I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub."

  "Thou dost not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee.
Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou
must forget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me,
Mahbub Ali, who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not
know. Remember this order."

  Kim nodded. "Good," said he, "and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay"- he
caught Mahbub's sword-keen glance- "indeed I have never heard his
name. Is he by chance"- he his voice- "one of us?"

  "What talk is this of us, Sahib?" Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone
he used towards Europeans. "I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the
son of a Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops.
All Simla knows it. Ask there... and, Friend of all the World, he is
one to be obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes. Men say he does
magic, but that should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here
begins the Great Game."

                                  9

                 S'doaks was son of Yelth the wise-

                   Chief of the Raven clan.

                 Itswoot the Bear had him in care

                   To make him a medicine-man.

                 He was quick and quicker to learn-

                   Bold and bolder to dare:

                 He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance

                   To tickle Itswoot the Bear!

                                     " OREGON  LEGEND "

  Kim flung himself whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel.
He would be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so soon as he had
reached the broad road under Simla townhall, he cast about for one
to impress. A Hindu child, some ten years old, squatted under a
lamp-post.

  "Where is Mr. Lurgan's house?" demanded Kim.

  "I do not understand English," was the answer, and Kim shifted his
speech accordingly.

  "I will show."

  Together they set off through the mysterious dusk, full of the
noises of a city below the hillside, and the breath of a cool wind
in deodar-crowned Jakko, shouldering the stars. The house-lights,
scattered on every level made, as it were, a double firmament. Some
were fixed, others belonged to the rickshaws of the careless,
open-spoken English folk, going out to dinner.

  "It is here," said Kim's guide, and halted in a veranda flush with
the main road. No door stayed them, but a curtain of beaded reeds that
split up the lamp-light beyond.

  "He is come," said the boy, in a voice little louder than a sigh,
and vanished. Kim felt sure that the boy had been posted to guide
him from the first, but putting a bold face on it, parted the curtain.
A black-bearded man, with a green shade over his eyes, sat at a table,
and, one by one, with short, white hands, picked up globules of
light from a tray before him, threaded them on a glancing silken
string, and hummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious that beyond
the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all
the temples of all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandalwood,
and a breath of sickly jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.

  "I am here," said Kim at last, speaking in the vernacular: the
smells made him forget that he was to be a Sahib.

  "Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one," the man counted to himself,
stringing pearl after pearl so quickly that Kim could scarcely
follow his fingers. He slid off the green shade and looked fixedly
at Kim for a full half-minute. The pupils of the eyes dilated and
closed to pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a faquir by the Taksali
Gate who had just this gift and made money by it, especially when
cursing silly women. Kim stared with interest. His disreputable friend
could further twitch his ears, almost like a goat, and Kim was
disappointed that this new man could not imitate him.

  "Do not be afraid," said Mr. Lurgan suddenly.

  "Why should I fear?"

  "Thou wilt sleep here to-night, and stay with me till it is time
to go again to Nucklao. It is an order."

  "It is an order," Kim repeated. "But where shall I sleep?"

  "Here, in this room." Lurgan Sahib waved his hand towards the
darkness behind him.

  "So be it," said Kim composedly. "Now?"

  He nodded and held the lamp above his head. As the light swept them,
there leaped out from the walls a collection of Tibetan devil-dance
masks, hanging above the fiend-embroidered draperies of those
ghastly functions- horned masks, scowling masks, and masks of
idiotic terror. In a corner, a Japanese warrior, mailed and plumed,
menaced him with a halberd, and a score of lances and khandas and
kuttars gave back the unsteady gleam. But what interested Kim more
than all these things- he had seen devil-dance masks at the Lahore
Museum- was a glimpse of the soft-eyed Hindu child who had left him in
the doorway, sitting cross-legged under the table of pearls with a
little smile on his scarlet lips.

  "I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid. And I am sure
that the devil's brat below the table wishes to see me afraid. This
place," he said aloud, "is like a Wonder House. Where is my bed?"

  Lurgan Sahib pointed to a native quilt in a corner by the
loathsome masks, picked up the lamp, and left the room black.

  "Was that Lurgan Sahib?" Kim asked as he cuddled down. No answer. He
could hear the Hindu boy breathing, however, and, guided by the sound,
crawled across the floor, and cuffed into the darkness, crying:
"Give answer, devil! Is this the way to lie to a Sahib?"

  "From the darkness he fancied he could hear the echo of a chuckle.
It could not be his soft-fleshed companion, because he was weeping. So
Kim lifted up his voice and called aloud: "Lurgan Sahib! O Lurgan
Sahib! Is it an order that thy servant does not speak to me?"

  "It is an order." The voice came from behind him and he started.

  "Very good. But remember," he muttered, as he resought the quilt, "I
will beat thee in the morning. I do not love Hindus."

  That was no cheerful night; the room being overfull of voices and
music. Kim was waked twice by some one calling his name. The second
time he set out in search, and ended by bruising his nose against a
box that certainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort of
human accent. It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by
wires to a smaller box on the floor- so far, at least, as he could
judge by touch. And the voice, very hard and whirring, came out of the
trumpet. Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, thinking, as usual in
Hindi.

  "This with a beggar from the bazar might be good but- I am a Sahib
and the son of a Sahib and, which is twice as much more beside, a
student of Nucklao. Yess" (here he turned to English), "a boy of St.
Xavier's. Damn Mr. Lurgan's eyes!- It is some sort of machinery like a
sewing-machine. Oh, it is a great cheek of him- we are not
frightened that way at Lucknow- No!" Then in Hindi: "But what does
he gain? He is only a trader- I am in his shop. But Creighton Sahib is
a Colonel- and I think Creighton Sahib gave orders that it should be
done. How I will beat that Hindu in the morning! What is this?"

  The trumpet-box was pouring out a string of the most elaborate abuse
that even Kim had ever heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for a
moment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing drew
breath, Kim was reassured by the soft, sewing-machine-like whirr.

  "Chup!" (be still) he cried, and again he heard a chuckle that
decided him. "Chup- or I break your head."

  The box took no heed. Kim wrenched at the tin trumpet and
something lifted with a click. He had evidently raised a lid. If there
were a devil inside, now was its time for- he sniffed- thus did the
sewing-machines of the bazar smell. He would clean that shaitan, He
slipped off his jacket, and plunged it into the box's mouth. Something
long and round bent under the pressure, there was a whirr and the
voice stopped- as voices must if you ram a thrice-doubled coat on to
the wax cylinder and into the works of an expensive phonograph. Kim
finished his slumbers with a serene mind.

  In the morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib looking down on him.

  "Oah!" said Kim, firmly resolved to cling to his Sahibdom. "There
was a box in the night that gave me bad talk. So I stopped it. Was
it your box?"

  The man held out his hand.

  "Shake hands, O'Hara," he said. "Yes, it was my box. I keep such
things because my friends the Rajahs like them. That one is broken,
but it was cheap at the price. Yes, my friends the Kings are very fond
of toys- and so am I sometimes."

  Kim looked him over out of the corners of his eyes. He was a Sahib
in that he wore Sahib's clothes; the accent of his Urdu, the
intonation of his English, showed that he was anything but a Sahib. He
seemed to understand what moved in Kim's mind ere the boy opened his
mouth, and he took no pains to explain himself as did Father Victor or
the Lucknow masters. Sweetest of all- he treated Kim as an equal on
the Asiatic side.

  "I am sorry you cannot beat my boy this morning. He says he will
kill you with a knife or poison. He is jealous, so I have put him in
the corner and I shall not speak to him to-day. He has just tried to
kill me. You must help me with the breakfast. He is almost too jealous
to trust, just now."

  Now a genuine imported Sahib from England would have made a great to
do over this tale. Lurgan Sahib stated it as simply as Mahbub Ali
was used to record his little affairs in the North.

  The back veranda of the shop was built out over the sheer
hillside, and they looked down into their neighbors' chimney-pots,
as is the custom of Simla. But even more than the purely Persian
meal cooked by Lurgan Sahib with his own hands, the shop fascinated
Kim. The Lahore Museum was larger, but here were more wonders-
ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels from Tibet; turquoise and raw amber
necklaces; green jade bangles; curiously packed incense-sticks in jars
crusted over with raw garnets; the devil-masks of overnight and a wall
of peacock-blue draperies; gilt figures of Buddha, and little portable
lacquer altars; Russian samovars with turquoises on the lid; egg-shell
china sets in quaint octagonal cane boxes; yellow ivory crucifixes-
from Japan of all places in the world, so Lurgan Sahib said; carpets
in dusty bales, smelling atrociously, pushed back behind torn and
rotten screens of geometrical work; Persian water-jugs for the hands
after meals; dull copper incense-burners neither Chinese nor
Persian, with friezes of fantastic devils running round them;
tarnished silver belts that knotted like raw hide; hairpins of jade,
ivory, and plasma; arms of all sorts and kinds, and a thousand other
oddments were cased, or piled, or merely thrown into the room, leaving
a clear space only round the rickety deal table, where Lurgan Sahib
worked.

  "Those things are nothing," said his host, following Kim's glance.
"I buy them because they are pretty, and sometimes I sell- if I like
the buyer's look. My work is on the table- some of it."

  It blazed in the morning light- all red and blue and green
flashes, picked out with the vicious blue-white spurt of a diamond
here and there. Kim opened his eyes.

  "Oh, they are quite well, those stones. It will not hurt them to
take the sun. Besides, they are cheap. But with sick stones it is very
different." He piled Kim's plate anew. "There is no one but me can
doctor a sick pearl and re-blue turquoises. I grant you opals- any
fool can cure an opal- but for a sick pearl there is only me.
Suppose I were to die! Then there would be no one.... Oh no! You
cannot do anything with jewels. It will be quite enough if you
understand a little about the Turquoise- some day."

  He moved to the end of the veranda to refill the heavy, porous
clay water-jug from the filter.

  "Do you want drink?"

  Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet off, laid one hand on the
jar. Next instant, it stood at Kim's elbow, full to within half an
inch of the brim- the white cloth only showing, by a small wrinkle,
where it had slid into place.

  "Wah!" said Kim in most utter amazement. "That is magic." Lurgan
Sahib's smile showed that the compliment had gone home.

  "Throw it back."

  "It will break."

  "I say, throw it back."

  Kim pitched it at random. It fell short and crashed into fifty
pieces, while the water dripped through the rough veranda boarding.

  "I said it would break."

  "All one. Look at it. Look at the largest piece."

  That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve, as it were a star
on the floor. Kim looked intently; Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently
on the nape of the neck, stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered:
"Look! It shall come to life again, piece by piece. First the big
piece shall join itself to two others on the right and left- on the
right and the left. Look!"

  To save his life, Kim could not have turned his head. The light
touch held him as in a vise, and his blood tingled pleasantly
through him. There was one large piece of the jar where there had been
three, and above them the shadowy outline of the entire vessel. He
could see the veranda through it, but it was thickening and
darkening with each beat of his pulse. Yet the jar- how slowly the
thoughts came!- the jar had been smashed before his eyes. Another wave
of prickling fire raced down his neck, as Lurgan Sahib moved his hand.

  "Look! It is coming into shape," said Lurgan Sahib.

  So far Kim had been thinking in Hindi, but a tremor came on him, and
with an effort like that of a swimmer before sharks, who hurls himself
half out of the water, his mind leaped up from a darkness that was
swallowing it and took refuge in- the multiplication-table in English!

  "Look! It is coming into shape," whispered Lurgan Sahib.

  The jar had been smashed- yess, smashed- not the native word, he
would not think of that- but smashed- into fifty pieces, and twice
three was six, and thrice three was nine, and four times three was
twelve. He clung desperately to the repetition. The shadow-outline
of the jar cleared like a mist after rubbing eyes. There were the
broken shards; there was the spilt water drying in the sun, and
through the cracks of the veranda showed, all ribbed, the white
house-wall below- and thrice twelve was thirty-six!

  "Look! Is it coming into shape?" asked Lurgan Sahib.

  "But it is smashed- smashed," he gasped- Lurgan Sahib had been
muttering softly for the last half-minute. Kim wrenched his head
aside. "Look! Dekho! It is there as it was there."

  "It is there as it was there," said Lurgan, watching Kim closely
while the boy rubbed his neck. "But you are the first of a many who
have ever seen it so." He wiped his broad forehead.

  "Was that more magic?" Kim asked suspiciously. The tingle had gone
from his veins; he felt unusually wide awake.

  "No, that was not magic. It was only to see if there was- a flaw
in a jewel. Sometimes very fine jewels will fly all to pieces if a man
holds them in his hand, and knows the proper way. That is why one must
be careful before one sets them. Tell me, did you see the shape of the
pot?"

  "For a little time. It began to grow like a flower from the ground."

  "And then what did you do? I mean, how did you think?"

  "Oah! I knew it was broken, and so, I think, that was what I
thought- and it was broken."

  "Hm! Has anyone ever done that same sort of magic to you before?"

  "If it was," said Kim, "do you think I should let it again? I should
run away."

  "And now you are not afraid- eh?"

  "Not now."

  Lurgan Sahib looked at him more closely than ever. "I shall ask
Mahbub Ali- not now, but some day later," he muttered. "I am pleased
with you- yes; and I am pleased with you- no. You are the first that
ever saved himself. I wish I knew what it was that... But you are
right. You should not tell that- not even to me."

  "He turned into the dusky gloom of the shop, and sat down at the
table, rubbing his hands softly. A small, husky sob came from behind a
pile of carpets. It was the Hindu child obediently facing towards
the wall: his thin shoulders worked with grief.

  "Ah! He is jealous, so jealous. I wonder if he will try to poison me
again in my breakfast, and make me cook it twice."

  "Kubbee- kubbee nahin," came the broken answer.

  "And whether he will kill this other boy?"

  "Kubbee- kubbee nahin" (never- never. No!).

  "What do you think he will do?" He turned suddenly on Kim.

  "Oah! I do not know. Let him go, perhaps. Why did he want to
poison you?"

  "Because he is so fond of me. Suppose you were fond of some one, and
you saw some one come, and the man you were fond of was more pleased
with him than he was with you, what would you do?"

  Kim thought. Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the vernacular.

  "I should not poison that man," said Kim reflectively, "but I should
beat that boy- if that boy was fond of my man. But first I would ask
that boy if it were true."

  "Ah! He thinks every one must be fond of me."

  "Then I think he is a fool."

  "Hearest thou?" said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking shoulders. "The
Sahib's son thinks thou art a little fool. Come out, and next time thy
heart is troubled, do not try white arsenic quite so openly. Surely
the Devil Dasim was lord of our table-cloth that day! It might have
made me ill, child, and then a stranger would have guarded the jewels.
Come!"

  The child, heavy-eyed with much weeping, crept out from behind the
bale and flung himself passionately at Lurgan Sahib's feet, with an
extravagance of remorse that impressed even Kim.

  "I will look into the ink-pools- I will faithfully guard the jewels!
Oh, my father and my mother, send him away!" He indicated Kim with a
backward jerk of his bare heel.

  "Not yet- not yet. In a little while he will go away again. But
now he is at school-at a new madrissah- and thou shalt be his teacher.
Play the Play of the Jewels against him. I will keep tally."

  The child dried his tears at once, and dashed to the back of the
shop, whence he returned with a copper tray.

  "Give me!" he said to Lurgan Sahib. "Let them come from thy hand,
for he may say that I knew them before."

  "Gently- gently," the man replied, and from a drawer under the table
dealt a half handful of clattering trifles into the tray.

  "Now," said the child, waving an old newspaper. "Look on them as
long as thou wilt, stranger. Count and, if need be, handle. One look
is enough for me." He turned his back proudly.

  "But what is the game?"

  "When thou hast counted and handled and art sure that thou canst
remember them all, I cover them with this paper, and thou must tell
over the tally to Lurgan Sahib. I will write mine."

  "Oah!" The instinct of competition waked in his breast. He bent over
the tray. There were but fifteen stones on it "That is easy," he
said after a minute. The child slipped the paper over the winking
jewels and scribbled in a native account-book.

  "There are under that paper five blue stones- one big, one
smaller, and three small," said Kim, all in haste. "There are four
green stones, and one with a hole in it; there is one yellow stone
that I can see through, and one like a pipe-stem. There are two red
stones, and- and- I made the count fifteen, but two I have
forgotten. No! Give me time. One was of ivory, little and brownish;
and- and- give me time..."

  "One- two"- Lurgan Sahib counted him out up to ten. Kim shook his
head.

  "Hear my count!" the child burst in, trilling with laughter. "First,
are two flawed sapphires- one of two ruttees and one of four as I
should judge. The four-ruttee sapphire is chipped at the edge. There
is one Turkestan turquoise, plain with black veins, and there are
two inscribed- one with a Name of God in gilt, and the other being
cracked across, for it came out of an old ring, I cannot read. We have
now all five blue stones. Four flawed emeralds there are, but one is
drilled in two places, and one is a little carven- "

  "Their weights?" said Lurgan Sahib impassively.

  "Three- five- five- and four ruttees as I judge it. There is one
piece of old greenish pipe amber, and a cut topaz from Europe. There
is one ruby of Burma, of two ruttees, without a flaw, and there is a
balas-ruby, flawed, of two ruttees. There is a carved ivory from China
representing a rat sucking an egg; and there is last- ah ha!- a ball
of crystal as big as a bean set in a gold leaf."

  He clapped his hands at the close.

  "He is thy master," said Lurgan Sahib, smiling.

  "Huh! He knew the names of the stones," said Kim, flushing. "Try
again! With common things such as he and I both know."

  They heaped the tray again with odds and ends gathered from the
shop, and even the kitchen, and every time the child won, till Kim
marvelled.

  "Bind my eyes- let me feel once with my fingers, and even then I
will leave thee open-eyed behind," he challenged.

  Kim stamped with vexation when the lad made his boast good.

  "If it were men- or horses," he said, "I could do better. This
playing with tweezers and knives and scissors is too little."

  "Learn first- teach later," said Lurgan Sahib. "Is he thy master?"

  "Truly. But how is it done?"

  "By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly- for it is
worth doing."

  The Hindu boy, in highest feather, actually patted Kim on the back.

  "Do not despair," he said. "I myself will teach thee."

  "And I will see that thou art well taught," said Lurgan Sahib, still
speaking in the vernacular, "for except my boy here- it was foolish of
him to buy so much white arsenic when, if he had asked, I could have
given it- except my boy here I have not in a long time met with one
better worth teaching. And there are ten days more ere thou canst
return to Lucknow where they teach nothing- at the long price. We
shall, I think, be friends."

  They were a most mad ten days, but Kim enjoyed himself too much to
reflect on their craziness. In the morning they played the Jewel Game-
sometimes with veritable stones, sometimes with piles of swords and
daggers, sometimes with photographs of natives. Through the afternoons
he and the Hindu boy would mount guard in the shop, sitting dumb
behind a carpet-bale or a screen and watching Mr. Lurgan's many and
very curious visitors. There were small Rajahs, escorts coughing in
the veranda, who came to buy curiosities- such as phonographs and
mechanical toys. There were ladies in search of necklaces, and men, it
seemed to Kim- but his mind may have been vitiated by early
training- in search of the ladies; natives from independent and
feudatory courts whose ostensible business was the repair of broken
necklaces- rivers of light poured out upon the table- but whose true
end seemed to be to raise money for angry Maharanees or young
Rajahs. There were Babus to whom Lurgan Sahib talked with austerity
and authority, but at the end of each interview he gave them money
in coined silver and currency notes. There were occasional
gatherings of long-coated theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics
in English and Bengali, to Mr. Lurgan's great edification. He was
always interested in religions. At the end of the day, Kim and the
Hindu boy- whose name varied at Lurgan's pleasure- were expected to
give a detailed account of all that they had seen and heard- their
view of each man's character, as shown in his face, talk, and
manner, and their notions of his real errand. After dinner, Lurgan
Sahib's fancy turned more to what might be called dressing-up, in
which game he took a most informing interest. He could paint faces
to a marvel; with a brush-dab here and a line there changing them past
recognition. The shop was full of all manner of dresses and turbans,
and Kim was apparelled variously as a young Mohammedan of good family,
an oilman, and once- which was a joyous evening- as the son of an Oudh
landholder in the fullest of full dress. Lurgan Sahib had a hawk's eye
to detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-wood
couch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a
caste talked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since
"hows" matter little in this world, the "why" of everything. The Hindu
child played this game clumsily. That little mind, keen as an icicle
where tally of jewels was concerned, could not temper itself to
enter another's soul; but a demon in Kim woke up and sang with joy
as he put on the changing dresses, and changed speech and gesture
therewith.

  Carried away by enthusiasm, he volunteered to show Lurgan Sahib
one evening how the disciples of a certain caste of faquir, old Lahore
acquaintances, begged doles by the roadside; and what sort of language
he would use to an Englishman, to a Punjabi farmer going to a fair,
and to a woman without a veil. Lurgan Sahib laughed immensely, and
begged Kim to stay as he was, immobile for half an hour- cross-legged,
ash-smeared, and wild-eyed, in the back room. At the end of that
time entered a hulking, obese Babu whose stockinged legs shook with
fat, and Kim opened on him with a shower of wayside chaff. Lurgan
Sahib- this annoyed Kim- watched the Babu and not the play.

  "I think," said the Babu heavily, lighting a cigarette, I am of
opeenion that it is most extraordinary and effeecient performance.
Except that you had told me I should have opined that- that- that
you were pulling my legs. How soon can he become approximately
effeecient chain-man? Because then I shall indent for him."

  That is what he must learn at Lucknow."

  "Then order him to be jolly dam-quick. Good-night, Lurgan." The Babu
swung out with the gait of a bogged cow.

  When they were telling over the day's list of visitors, Lurgan Sahib
asked Kim who he thought the man might be.

  "God knows!" said Kim cheerily. The tone might almost have
deceived Mahbub Ali, but it failed entirely with the healer of sick
pearls.

  "That is true. God, He knows; but I wish to know what you think."

  Kim glanced sideways at his companion, whose eye had a way of
compelling truth.

  "I- I think he will want me when I come from the school, but"-
confidentially, as Lurgan Sahib nodded approval- "I do not
understand how he can wear many dresses and talk many tongues."

  "Thou wilt understand many things later. He is a writer of tales for
a certain Colonel. His honour is great only in Simla, and it is
noticeable that he has no name, but only a number and a letter- that
is a custom among us."

  "And is there a price upon his head too- as upon Mah- all the
others?"

  "Not yet; but if a boy rose up who is now sitting here and went-
look, the door is open!- as far as a certain house with a
red-painted veranda, behind that which was the old theatre in the
Lower Bazar, and whispered through the shutters: 'Hurree Chunder
Mookerjee bore the bad news of last month,' that boy might take away a
belt full of rupees."

  "How many?" said Kim promptly.

  "Five hundred- a thousand- as many as he might ask for."

  "Good. And how long might such a boy live after the news was
told?" He smiled merrily at Lurgan Sahib's very beard.

  "Ah! That is to be well thought of. Perhaps if he were very
clever, he might live out the day- but not the night. By no means
the night."

  "Then what is the Babu's pay if so much is put upon his head?"

  "Eighty- perhaps a hundred- perhaps a hundred and fifty rupees;
but the pay is the least part of the work. From time to time, God
causes men to be born- and thou art one of them- who have a lust to go
abroad at the risk of their lives and discover news- to-day it may
be of far-off things, to-morrow of some hidden mountain, and the
next day of some near-by men who have done a foolishness against the
State. These souls are very few; and of these few, not more than ten
are of the best. Among these ten I count the Babu, and that is
curious. How great therefore and desirable must be a business that
brazens the heart of a Bengali!"

  "True. But the days go slowly for me. I am yet a boy, and it is only
within two months I learned to write Angrezi. Even now I cannot read
it well. And there are yet years and years and long years before I can
be even a chain-man."

  "Have patience, Friend of all the World"- Kim started at the
title. "Would I had a few of the years that so irk thee. I have proved
thee in several small ways. This will not be forgotten when I make
my report to the Colonel Sahib." Then, changing suddenly into
English with a deep laugh:-

  "By Jove! O'Hara, I think there is a great deal in you; but you must
not become proud and you must not talk. You must go back to Lucknow
and be a good little boy and mind your book, as the English say, and
perhaps, next holidays if you care, you can come back to me!" Kim's
face fell. "Oh, I mean if you like. I know where you want to go."

  Four days later a seat was booked for Kim and his small trunk at the
rear of a Kalka tonga. His companion was the whale-like Babu, who,
with a fringed shawl wrapped round his head, and his fat
openwork-stockinged left leg tucked under him, shivered and grunted in
the morning chill.

  "How comes it that this man is one of us?" thought Kim,
considering the jelly-back as they jolted down the road; and the
reflection threw him into most pleasant day-dreams. Lurgan Sahib had
given him five rupees- a splendid sum- as well as the assurance of his
protection if he worked. Unlike Mahbub, Lurgan Sahib had spoken most
explicitly of the reward that would follow obedience, and Kim was
content. If only, like the Babu, he could enjoy the dignity of a
letter and a number- and a price upon his head! Some day he would be
all that and more. Some day he might be almost as great as Mahbub Ali!
The housetops of his search should be half India; he would follow
Kings and ministers, as in the old days he had followed vakils and
lawyers' touts across Lahore city for Mahbub Ali's sake. Meantime,
there was the present, and not at all unpleasant, fact of St. Xavier's
immediately before him. There would be new boys to condescend to,
and there would be tales of holiday adventures to hear. Young
Martin, son of the tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that he would
go to war, with a rifle, against the head-hunters. That might be,
but it was certain young Martin had not been blown half across the
forecourt of a Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks; nor had
he.... Kim fell to telling himself the story of his own adventures
through the last three months. He could paralyse St. Xavier's- even
the biggest boys who shaved- with the recital, were that permitted.
But it was, of course, out of the question. There would be a price
upon his head in good time, as Lurgan Sahib had assured him; and if he
talked foolishly now, not only would that price never be set, but
Colonel Creighton would cast him off- and he would be left to the
wrath of Lurgan Sahib and Mahbub Ali- for the short space of life that
would remain to him.

  "So I should lose Delhi for the sake of a fish," was his
proverbial philosophy. It behoved him to forget his holidays (there
would always remain the fun of inventing imaginary adventures) and, as
Lurgan Sahib had said, to work.

  Of all the boys hurrying back to St. Xavier's, from Sukkur in the
sands to Galle beneath the palms, none was so filled with virtue as
Kimball O'Hara, jiggeting down to Umballa behind Hurree Chunder
Mookerjee, whose name on the books of one section of the
Ethnological Survey was R.17.

  And if additional spur were needed, the Babu supplied it. After a
huge meal at Kalka, he spoke uninterruptedly. Was Kim going to school?
Then he, an M.A. of Calcutta University, would explain the
advantages of education. There were marks to be gained by due
attention to Latin and Wordsworth's "Excursion" (all this was Greek to
Kim). French, too, was vital, and the best was to be picked up in
Chandernagore, a few miles from Calcutta. Also a man might go far,
as he himself had done, by strict attention to plays called "Lear" and
"Julius Caesar"; both much in demand by examiners. "Lear" was not so
full of historical allusions as "Julius Caesar"; the book cost four
annas, but could be bought second-hand in Bow Bazar for two. Still
more important than Wordsworth, or the eminent authors, Burke and
Hare, was the art and science of mensuration. A boy who had passed his
examination in these branches- for which, by the way, there were no
cram-books- could, by merely marching over a country with a compass
and a level and a straight eye, carry away a picture of that country
which might be sold for large sums in coined silver. But as it was
occasionally inexpedient to carry about measuring-chains, a boy
would do well to know the precise length of his own foot-pace, so that
when he was deprived of what Hurree Chunder called "adventitious aids"
he might still tread his distances. To keep count of thousands of
paces, Hurree Chunder's experience had shown him nothing more valuable
than a rosary of eighty-one or a hundred and eight beads, for "it
was divisible and subdivisible into many multiples and
submultiples." Through the volleying drifts of English, Kim caught the
general trend of the talk, and it interested him very much. Here was a
new craft that a man could tuck away in his head; and by the look of
the large wide world unfolding itself before him, it seemed that the
more a man knew the better for him.

  Said the Babu when he had talked for an hour and a half, "I hope
some day to enjoy your offeecial acquaintance. Ad interim, if I may be
pardoned that expression, I shall give you this betel-box which is
highly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago."
It was a cheap, heart-shaped brass thing with three compartments for
carrying the eternal betel-nut, lime and pan-leaf; but it was filled
with little tabloid-bottles. "That is reward of merit for your
performance in character of that holy man. You see, you are so young
you think you will last for ever and not take care of your body. It is
great nuisance to go sick in the middle of business. I am fond of
drugs myself, and they are handy to cure poor people too. These are
good departmental drugs- quinine and so on. I give it you for
souvenir. Now good-bye. I have urgent private business here by the
roadside."

  He slipped out noiselessly as a cat, on the Umballa road, hailed a
passing ekka and jingled away, while Kim, tongue-tied, twiddled the
brass betel-box in his hands.

  The record of a boy's education interests few save his parents, and,
as you know, Kim was an orphan. It is written in the books of St.
Xavier in Partibus that a report of Kim's progress was forwarded at
the end of each term to Colonel Creighton and to Father Victor, from
whose hands duly came the money for his schooling. It is further
recorded in the same books that he showed a great aptitude for
mathematical studies as well as map-making, and carried away a prize
("The Life of Lord Lawrence," tree-calf, two vols., nine rupees, eight
annas) for proficiency therein; and the same term played in St.
Xavier's eleven against the Allyghur Mohammedan College, his age being
fourteen years and ten months. He was also re-vaccinated (from which
we may assume that there had been another epidemic of small-pox at
Lucknow) about the same time. Pencil notes on the edge of an old
muster-roll record that he was punished several times for
"conversing with improper persons," and it seems that he was once
sentenced to heavy pains for "absenting himself for a day in the
company of a street beggar." That was when he got over the gate and
pleaded with the lama through a whole day down the banks of the
Goomtee to accompany him on the Road next holidays- for one month- for
a little week; and the lama set his face as a flint against it,
averring that the time had not yet come. Kim's business, said the
old man as they ate cakes together, was to get all the wisdom of the
Sahibs and then he would see. The hand of friendship must in some
way have averted the whip of calamity, for six weeks later Kim seems
to have passed an examination in elementary surveying "with great
credit," his age being fifteen years and eight months. From this
date the record is silent. His name does not appear in the year's
batch of those who entered for the subordinate Survey of India, but
against it stand the words "removed on appointment."

  Several times in those three years, cast up at the Temple of the
Tirthankers in Benares the lama, a little thinner and a shade
yellower, if that were possible, but gentle and untainted as ever.
Sometimes it was from the South that he came- from south of Tuticorin,
whence the wonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon where are priests who
know Pali; sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand
cotton-factory chimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North,
where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk a day with the
Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House. He would stride to his
cell in the cool, cut marble- the priests of the temple were good to
the old man- wash off the dust of travel, make prayer, and depart
for Lucknow, well accustomed now to the ways of the rail, in a
third-class carriage. Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend
the Seeker pointed out to the head-priest, that he ceased for a
while to mourn the loss of his River, or to draw wondrous pictures
of the Wheel of Life, but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom
of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the temple had ever seen.
Yes, he had followed the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all
India. (The curator has still in his possession a most marvellous
account of his wanderings and meditations.) There remained nothing
more in life but to find the River of the Arrow. Yet it was shown to
him in dreams that it was a matter not to be undertaken with any
hope of success unless that seeker had with him the one chela
appointed to bring the event to a happy issue, and versed in great
wisdom- such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of Images possess. For
example (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain priests
made haste to be silent):-

  "Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares- let all
listen to the 'Jataka'!- an elephant was captured for a time by the
king's hunters and, ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous
leg-iron. This he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his
heart, and hurrying up and down the forests, besought his
brother-elephants to wrench it asunder. One by one, with their
strong trunks, they tried and failed. At the last they gave it as
their opinion that the ring was not to be broken by any bestial power.
And in a thicket, newborn, wet with the moisture of birth, lay a
day-old calf of the herd whose mother had died. The fettered elephant,
forgetting his own agony, said: 'If I do not help this suckling it
will perish under our feet.' So he stood above the young thing, making
his legs buttresses against the uneasily moving herd; and he begged
milk of a virtuous cow, and the calf throve, and the ringed elephant
was the calf's guide and defence. Now the days of an elephant- let all
listen to the 'Jataka'!- are thirty-five years to his full strength,
and through thirty-five Rains the ringed elephant befriended the
younger, and all the while the fetter ate into the flesh.

  "Then one day the young elephant saw the half-buried iron, and
turning to the elder said: 'What is this?' 'It is even my sorrow,'
said he who had befriended him. Then that other put out his trunk
and in the twinkling of an eyelash abolished the ring, saying: 'The
appointed time has come.' So the virtuous elephant who had waited
temperately and done kind acts was relieved, at the appointed time, by
the very calf whom he had turned aside to cherish- let all listen to
the 'Jataka'!- for the Elephant was Ananda, and the Calf that broke
the ring was none other than The Lord Himself...."

  Then he would shake his head benignly, and over the ever-clicking
rosary point out how free that elephant calf was from the sin of
pride. He was as humble as a chela who, seeing his master sitting in
the dust outside the Gates of Learning, overleapt the gates (though
they were locked) and took his master to his heart in the presence
of the proud-stomached city. Rich would be the reward of such a master
and such a chela when the time came for them to seek freedom together!

  So did the lama speak, coming and going across India as softly as
a bat. A sharp-tongued old woman in a house among the fruit-trees
behind Saharunpore honoured him as the woman honoured the prophet, but
his chamber was by no means upon the wall. In an apartment of the
forecourt overlooked by cooing doves he would sit, while she laid
aside her useless veil and chattered of spirits and friends of Kulu,
of grandchildren unborn, and of the free-tongued brat who had talked
to her in the resting-place. Once, too, he strayed alone from the
Grand Trunk Road below Umballa to the very village whose priest had
tried to drug him, but the kind heaven that guards lamas sent him at
twilight through the crops, absorbed and unsuspicious, to the
ressaldar's door. Here was like to have been a grave misunderstanding,
for the old soldier asked him why the Friend of the Stars had gone
that way only six days before.

  "That may not be," said the lama. "He has gone back to his own
people."

  "He sat in that corner telling a hundred merry tales five nights
ago," his host insisted. "True, he vanished somewhat suddenly in the
dawn after foolish talk with my grand-daughter. He grows apace, but he
is the same Friend of the Stars as brought me true word of the war.
Have ye parted?"

  "Yes- and no," the lama replied. "We- we have not altogether parted,
but the time is not ripe that we should take the Road together. He
acquires wisdom in another place. We must wait."

  "All one- but if it were not the boy how did he come to speak so
continually of thee?"

  "And what said he?" asked the lama eagerly.

  "Sweet words- an hundred thousand- that thou art his father and
mother and such all. Pity that he does not take the Queen's service.
He is fearless."

  This news amazed the lama, who did not then know how religiously Kim
kept to the contract made with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by
Colonel Creighton....

  "There is no holding the young pony from the game," said the
horse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over
India in holiday time was absurd. "If permission be refused to go
and come as he chooses, he will make light of the refusal. Then who is
to catch him? Colonel Sahib, only once in a thousand years is a horse
born so well fitted for the game as this our colt. And we need men."

                                10

        Your tiercel's too long at hack, Sire. He's no eyass

        But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,

        Dangerously free o' the air. Faith! were he mine

        (As mine's the glove he binds to for his tirings)

        I'd fly him with a make-hawk. He's in yarak

        Plumed to the very point- so manned so weathered...

        Give him the firmament God made him for,

        And what shall take the air of him?

                                                  OLD  PLAY

  Lurgan Sahib did not use as direct speech, but his advice tallied
with Mahbub's; and the upshot was good for Kim. He knew better now
than to leave Lucknow city in native garb, and if Mahbub were anywhere
within reach of a letter, it was to Mahbub's camp he headed, and
made his change under the Pathan's wary eye. Could the little Survey
paint-box that he used for map-tinting in term-time have found a
tongue to tell of holiday doings, he might have been expelled. Once
Mahbub and he went together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay,
with three truck-loads of tram-horses, and Mahbub nearly melted when
Kim proposed a sail in a dhow across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf
Arabs, which he understood from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul
Rahman, fetched better prices than mere Cabulis.

  He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when
Mahbub and a few co-religionists were invited to a big Haj dinner.
They came back by way of Karachi by sea, when Kim took his first
experience of sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a
coasting-steamer, well persuaded he had been poisoned. The Babu's
famous drug-box proved useless, though Kim had restocked it at Bombay.
Mahbub had business at Quetta, and there Kim, as Mahbub admitted,
earned his keep, and perhaps a little over, by spending four curious
days as scullion in the house of a fat Commissariat sergeant, from
whose office-box, in an auspicious moment, he removed a little
vellum ledger which he copied out- it seemed to deal entirely with
cattle and camel sales- by moonlight, lying behind an outhouse, all
through one hot night. Then he returned the ledger to its place,
and, at Mahbub's word, left that service unpaid, rejoining him six
miles down the road, the clean copy in his bosom.

  "That soldier is a small fish," Mahbub Ali explained, "but in time
we shall catch the larger one. He only sells oxen at two prices- one
for himself and one for the Government- which I do not think is a
sin."

  "Why could not I take away the little book and be done with it?"

  "Then he would have been frightened, and he would have told his
master. Then we should miss, perhaps, a great number of new rifles
which seek their way up from Quetta to the North. The Game is so large
that one sees but a little at a time."

  "Oho!" said Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon
holidays, after he had taken the prize for mathematics. The
Christmas holidays he spent- deducting ten days for private
amusements- with Lurgan Sahib, where he sat for the most part in front
of a roaring wood-fire- Jakko-road was four feet deep in snow that
year- and- the small Hindu had gone away to be married- helped
Lurgan to thread pearls. He made Kim learn whole chapters of the Koran
by heart, till he could deliver them with the very roll and cadence of
a mullah. Moreover, he told Kim the names and properties of many
native drugs, as well as the runes proper to recite when you
administer them. And in the evenings he wrote charms on parchment-
elaborate pentagrams crowned with the names of devils- Murra, and Awan
the Companion of Kings- all fantastically written in the corners. More
to the point, he advised Kim as to the care of his own body, the
cure of fever-fits, and simple remedies of the Road. A week before
it was time to go down, Colonel Creighton Sahib- this was unfair- sent
Kim a written examination-paper that concerned itself solely with rods
and chains and links and angles.

  Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the way, he
nearly died of thirst, plodding through the sand on a camel to the
mysterious city of Bikaneer, where the wells are four hundred feet
deep, and lined throughout with camel-bone. It was not an amusing trip
from Kim's point of view, because- in defiance of the contract- the
Colonel ordered him to make a map of that wild, walled city; and since
Mohammedan horse-boys and pipe-tenders are not expected to drag
Survey-chains round the capital of an independent native state, Kim
was forced to pace all his distances by means of a bead rosary. He
used the compass for bearings as occasion served- after dark
chiefly, when the camels had been fed- and by the help of his little
Survey paint-box of six colour-cakes and three brushes, he achieved
something not remotely unlike the city of Jeysalmir. Mahbub laughed
a great deal and advised him to make up a written report as well;
and in the back of the big account-book that lay under the flap of
Mahbub's pet saddle Kim fell to work.

  "It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or
considered. Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib himself had come by
stealth with a vast army outsetting to war."

  "How great an army?"

  "Oh, half a lakh of men."

  "Folly! Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand. Not a
thousand thirsty men could come near by here."

  "Then write that down- also all the old breaches in the walls- and
whence the firewood is cut- and what is the temper and disposition
of the King. I stay here till all my horses are sold. I will hire a
room by the gateway, and thou shalt be my accountant. There is a
good lock to the door."

  The report in its unmistakable St. Xavier's running script, and
the brown, yellow, and lake-daubed map, was on hand a few years ago (a
careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E.23's second
Seistan survey), but by now the pencil characters must be almost
illegible. Kim translated it, sweating under the light of an oil-lamp,
to Mahbub, the second day of their return-journey. The Pathan rose and
stooped over his dappled saddle-bags.

  "I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour, and so I made one
ready," he said smiling. "Were I Amir of Afghanistan (and some day
we may see him), I would fill thy mouth with gold." He laid the
garments formally at Kim's feet. There was a gold-embroidered Peshawur
turban-cap, rising to a cone, and a big turban-cloth ending in a broad
fringe of gold. There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a
milky-white shirt, fastening to the right, ample and flowing; green
pyjamas with twisted silk waist-string; and that nothing might be
lacking, russia-leather slippers, smelling divinely, with arrogantly
curled tips.

  "Upon a Wednesday, and in the morning, to put on new clothes is
auspicious," said Mahbub solemnly. "But we must not forget the
wicked folk in the world. So!"

  He capped all the splendour, that was taking Kim's delighted
breath away, with a mother-of-pearl, nickel-plated, self-extracting
..450 revolver.

  "I had thought of a smaller bore, but reflected that this takes
Government bullets. A man can always come by those- especially
across the Border. Stand up and let me look." He clapped Kim on the
shoulder. "May you never be tired, Pathan! Oh, the hearts to be
broken! Oh, the eyes under the eyelashes, looking sideways!"

  Kim turned about, pointed his toes, stretched, and felt mechanically
for the moustache that was just beginning. Then he stooped towards
Mahbub's feet to make proper acknowledgement with fluttering,
quick-patting hands; his heart too full for words. Mahbub
forestalled and embraced him.

  "My son," said he, "what need of words between us? But is not the
little gun a delight? All six cartridges come out at one twist. It
is borne in the bosom next the skin, which, as it were, keeps it
oiled. Never put it elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt some day
kill a man with it."

  "Hai mai!" said Kim ruefully. "If a Sahib kills a man he is hung
in the jail."

  "True: but one pace beyond the Border, men are wiser. Put it away;
but fill it first. Of what use is a gun unfed?"

  "When I go back to the madrissah I must return it. They do not allow
little guns. Thou wilt keep it for me?"

  "Son, I am wearied of that madrissah, where they take the best years
of a man to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road. The
folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom. No matter. Maybe thy
written report shall save thee further bondage; and God He knows we
need men more and more in the Game."

  They marched, jaw-bound against blowing sand, across the salt desert
to Jodhpore, where Mahbub and his handsome nephew Habib-Ullah did much
trading; and then sorrowfully, in European clothes, which he was
fast outgrowing, Kim went second-class to St. Xavier's. Three weeks
later, Colonel Creighton, pricing Tibetan ghost-daggers at Lurgan's
shop, faced Mahbub Ali openly mutinous. Lurgan Sahib operated as
support in reserve.

  "The pony is made- finished- mouthed and paced, Sahib! From now
on, day by day, he will lose his manners if he is kept at tricks. Drop
the rein on his back and let go," said the horse-dealer. "We need
him."

  "But he is so young, Mahbub- not more than sixteen- is he?"

  "When I was fifteen, I had shot my man and begot my man, Sahib."

  "You impenitent old heathen." Creighton turned to Lurgan. The
black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghan's dyed scarlet.

  "I should have used him long ago," said Lurgan. The younger the
better. That is why I always have my really valuable jewels watched by
a child. You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every way: he is
the only boy I could not make to see things."

  "In the crystal- in the ink-pool?" demanded Mahbub.

  "No. Under my hand, as I told you. That has never happened before.
It means that he is strong enough- but you think it skittles,
Colonel Creighton- to make anyone do anything he wants. And that is
three years ago. I have taught him a good deal since, Colonel
Creighton. I think you waste him now."

  "Hmm! Maybe you're right. But, as you know, there is no Survey
work for him at present."

  "Let him out- let him go," Mahbub interrupted. "Who expects any colt
to carry heavy weight at first? Let him run with the caravans like our
white camel-colts- for luck. I would take him myself, but- "

  "There is a little business where he would be most useful- in the
South," said Lurgan, with peculiar suavity, dropping his heavy nude
eyelids.

  "E.23 has that in hand," said Creighton quickly. "He must not go
down there. Besides, he knows no Turki."

  "Only tell him the shape and the smell of the letters we want and he
will bring them back," Lurgan insisted.

  "No. That is a man's job," said Creighton.

  It was a wry-necked matter of unauthorised and incendiary
correspondence between a person who claimed to be the ultimate
authority in all matters of the Mohammedan religion throughout the
world, and a younger member of a royal house who had been brought to
book for kidnapping women within British territory. The Moslem
Archbishop had been emphatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was
merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was no
need he should continue a correspondence which might some day
compromise him. One letter indeed had been procured, but the finder
was later found dead by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader,
as E.23, taking up the work, duly reported.

  These facts, and a few others not to be published, made both
Mahbub and Creighton shake their heads.

  "Let him go out with his Red Lama," said the horse-dealer with
visible effort. "He is fond of the old man. He can learn his paces
by the rosary at least."

  "I have had some dealings with the old man- by letter," said Colonel
Creighton, smiling to himself. "Whither goes he?"

  "Up and down the land, as he has these three years. He seeks a River
of Healing. God's curse upon all- " Mahbub checked himself. "He beds
down at the Temple of the Tirthankers or at Buddh Gaya when he is in
from the Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the madrissah as we
know, for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice. He is quite
mad, but a peaceful man. I have met him. The Babu also has had
dealings with him. We have watched him for three years. Red Lamas
are not so common in Hind that one loses track."

  "Babus are very curious," said Lurgan meditatively. "Do you know
what Hurree Babu really wants? He wants to be made a member of the
Royal Society by taking ethnological notes. I tell you, I tell him
about the lama everything that Mahbub and the boy have told me. Hurree
Babu goes down to Benares- at his own expense, I think."

  "I don't," said Creighton briefly. He had paid Hurree's travelling
expenses, out of a most lively curiosity to learn what the lama
might be.

  "And he applies to the lama for information on lamaism, and devil
dances, and spells and charms, several times in these few years.
Holy Virgin! I could have told him all that yee-ars ago. I think
Hurree Babu is getting too old for the Road. He likes better to
collect manners and customs information. Yes, he wants to be an F.
R. S."

  "Hurree thinks well of the boy, doesn't he?"

  "Oh, very indeed- we have had some pleasant evenings at my little
place- but I think it would be waste to throw him away with Hurree
on the ethnological side."

  "Not for a first experience. How does that strike you, Mahbub? Let
the boy run with the lama for six months. After that we can see. He
will get experience."

  "He has it already, Sahib- as a fish controls the water he swims in;
but for every reason it will be well to loose him from the school."

  "Very good, then," said Creighton, half to himself. "He can go
with the lama, and if Hurree Babu cares to keep an eye on them so much
the better. He won't lead the boy into any danger as Mahbub would.
Curious- his wish to be an F. R. S. Very human, too. He is best on the
ethnological side- Hurree."

  No money and no preferment would have drawn Creighton from his
work on the Indian Survey, but deep in his heart also lay an
ambition to write "F. R. S." after his name. Honours of a sort he knew
could be obtained by ingenuity and the help of friends, but, to the
best of his belief, nothing save work- papers representing a life of
it- took a man into the Society which he had bombarded for years
with monographs on strange Asiatic cults and unknown customs. Nine men
out of ten would flee from a Royal Society soiree in extremity of
boredom; but Creighton was the tenth, and at times his soul yearned
for the crowded rooms in easy London where silver-haired,
bald-headed gentlemen who know nothing of the Army move among
spectroscopic experiments, the lesser plants of the frozen tundras,
electric flight-measuring machines, and apparatus for slicing into
fractional millimetres the left eye of the female mosquito. By all
right and reason, it was the Royal Geographical that should have
appealed to him, but men are as chancy as children in their choice
of playthings. So Creighton smiled, and thought the better of Hurree
Babu, moved by like desires.

  He dropped the ghost-dagger and looked up at Mahbub.

  "How soon can we get the colt from the stable?" said the
horse-dealer, reading his eyes.

  "Hmm. If I withdraw him by order now- what will he do, think you?
I have never before assisted at the teaching of such an one."

  "He will come to me," said Mahbub promptly. "Lurgan Sahib and I will
prepare him for the Road."

  "So be it, then. For six months he shall run at his choice: but
who will be his sponsor?"

  Lurgan slightly inclined his head. "He will not tell anything, if
that is what you are afraid of, Colonel Creighton."

  "It's only a boy, after all."

  "Ye-es; but first, he has nothing to tell; and secondly, he knows
what would happen. Also, he is very fond of Mahbub, and of me a
little."

  "Will he draw pay?" demanded the practical horse-dealer.

  "Food and water allowance only. Twenty rupees a month."

  One advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no worrying
audit. The service is ludicrously starved, of course, but the funds
are administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or
present itemised accounts. Mahbub's eyes lighted with almost a
Sikh's love of money. Even Lurgan's impassive face changed. He
considered the years to come when Kim would have been entered and made
to the Great Game that never ceases day and night, throughout India.
He foresaw honour and credit in the mouths of a chosen few, coming
to him from his pupil. Lurgan Sahib had made E.23 what E.23 was, out
of a bewildered, impertinent, lying, little North-West Province man.

  But the joy of these masters was pale and smoky beside the joy of
Kim when St. Xavier's Head called him aside, with word that Colonel
Creighton had sent for him.

  "I understand, O'Hara, that he has found you a place as an assistant
chain-man in the Canal Department: that comes of taking up
mathematics. It is great luck for you, for you are only seventeen; but
of course you understand that you do not become pukka (permanent) till
you have passed the autumn examination. So you must not think you
are going out into the world to enjoy yourself, or that your fortune
is made. There is a great deal of hard work before you. Only, if you
in becoming pukka, you can rise, you know, to four hundred and fifty a
month." Whereat the Principal gave him much good advice as to his
conduct, and his manners, and his morals; and others, his elders,
who had not been wafted into billets, talked, as only Anglo-Indian
lads can, of favouritism and corruption. Indeed, young Cazalet,
whose father was a pensioner at Chunar, hinted very broadly that
Colonel Creighton's interest in Kim was directly paternal; and Kim,
instead of retaliating, did not even use language. He was thinking
of the immense fun to come, of Mahbub's letter of the day before,
all neatly written in English, making appointment for that afternoon
in a house the very name of which would have crisped the Principal's
hair with horror....

  Said Kim to Mahbub in Lucknow railway station that evening, above
the luggage-scales- "I feared lest, at the last, the roof would fall
upon me and cheat me. Is it indeed all finished, O my father?"

  Mahbub snapped his fingers to show the utterness of that end, and
his eyes blazed like red coals.

  "Then where is the pistol that I may wear it?"

  "Softly! A half-year, to run without heel-ropes. I begged that
much from Colonel Creighton Sahib. At twenty rupees a month. Old Red
Hat knows that thou art coming."

  "I will pay thee dustoorie (commission) on my pay for three months,"
said Kim gravely. "Yea, two rupees a month. But first we must get
rid of these." He plucked his thin linen trousers and dragged at his
collar. "I have brought with me all that I need on the Road. My
trunk has gone up to Lurgan Sahib's."

  "Who sends his salaams to thee- Sahib."

  "Lurgan Sahib is a very clever man. But what dost thou do?"

  "I go North again, upon the Great Game. What else? Is thy mind still
set on following old Red Hat?"

  "Do not forget he made me what I am- though he did not know it. Year
by year, he sent the money that taught me."

  "I would have done as much- had it struck my thick head," Mahbub
growled. "Come away. The lamps are lit now, and none will mark thee in
the bazar. We go to Huneefa's house."

  On the way thither, Mahbub gave him much the same sort of advice
as his mother gave to Lemuel, and curiously enough, Mahbub was exact
to point out how Huneefa and her likes destroyed kings.

  "And I remember," he quoted maliciously, "one who said, 'Trust a
snake before a harlot and a harlot before a Pathan, Mahbub Ali.'
Now, excepting as to Pathans, of whom I am one, all that is true. Most
true is it in the Great Game, for it is by means of woman that all
plans come to ruin and we lie out in dawning with our throats cut.
So it happened to such a one"- he gave the reddest particulars.

  "Then why- ?" Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to
the warm darkness of an upper chamber in the ward that is behind
Azim Ullah's tobacco-shop. Those who know it call it The Bird-cage- it
is so full of whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings.

  The room, with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs, smelt
abominably of stale tobacco. In one corner lay a huge and shapeless
woman clad in greenish gauzes, and decked, brow, nose, ear, neck,
wrist, arm, waist, and ankle, with heavy native jewellery. When she
turned it was like the clashing of copper pots. A lean cat in the
balcony outside the window mewed hungrily. Kim checked, bewildered, at
the door-curtain.

  "Is that the new stuff, Mahbub?" said Huneefa lazily, scarce
troubling to remove the mouthpiece from her lips. "O Buktanoos!"- like
most of her kind, she swore by the Djinns- "O Buktanoos! He is very
good to look upon."

  "That is part of the selling of the horse," Mahbub explained to Kim,
who laughed.

  "I have heard that talk since my Sixth Day," he replied, squatting
by the light. "Whither does it lead?"

  "To protection. To-night we change thy colour. This sleeping under
roofs has blanched thee like an almond. But Huneefa has the secret
of a colour that catches. No painting of a day or two. Also, we
fortify thee against the chances of the Road. That is my gift to thee,
my son. Take out all metals on thee and lay them here. Make ready,
Huneefa."

  Kim dragged forth his compass, Survey paint-box, and the
new-filled medicine-box. They had all accompanied his travels, and
boy-like he valued them immensely.

  The woman rose slowly and moved with her hands a little spread
before her. Then Kim saw that she was blind. "No, no," she muttered,
"the Pathan speaks truth- my colour does not go in a week or a
month, and those whom I protect are under strong guard."

  "When one is far off and alone, it would not be well to grow
blotched and leprous of a sudden," said Mahbub. "When thou wast with
me I could oversee the matter. Besides, a Pathan is a fair-skin. Strip
to the waist now and look how thou art whitened." Huneefa felt her way
back from an inner room. "It is no matter, she cannot see." He took
a pewter bowl from her ringed hand.

  The dye-stuff showed blue and gummy. Kim experimented on the back of
his wrist, with a dab of cotton wool; but Huneefa heard him.

  "No, no," she cried, "the thing is not done thus, but with the
proper ceremonies. The colouring is the least part. I give thee the
full protection of the Road."

  "Jadoo?" (magic), said Kim, with a half start. He did not like the
white, sightless eyes. Mahbub's hand on his neck bowed him to the
floor, nose within an inch of the boards.

  "Be still. No harm comes to thee, my son. I am thy sacrifice!"

  He could not see what the woman was about, but heard the clish-clash
of her jewellery for many minutes. A match lit up the darkness; he
caught the well-known purr and fizzle of grains of incense. Then the
room filled with smoke- heavy, aromatic, and stupefying. Through
growing drowse he heard the names of devils- of Zulbazan, Son of
Eblis, who lives in bazars and paraos, making all the sudden lewd
wickedness of wayside halts; of Dulhan, invisible about mosques, the
dweller among the slippers of the Faithful, who hinders folk from
their prayers; and Musboot, Lord of lies and panic. Huneefa, now
whispering in his ear, now talking as from an immense distance,
touched him with horrible soft fingers, but Mahbub's grip never
shifted from his neck till relaxing with a sigh, the boy lost his
senses.

  "Allah! How he fought! We should never have done it but for the
drugs. That was his White blood, I take it," said Mahbub testily.
"Go on with the dawut (invocation). Give him full Protection."

  "O Hearer! Thou that hearest with ears, be present. Listen, O
Hearer!" Huneefa moaned, her dead eyes turned to the west. The dark
room filled with moanings and snortings.

  From the outer balcony, a ponderous figure raised a round bullet
head and coughed nervously.

  "Do not interrupt this ventriloquial necromanciss, my friend," it
said in English. "I opine that it is very disturbing to you, but no
enlightened observer is jolly well upset."

  "...I will lay a plot for their ruin! O Prophet, bear with the
unbelievers. Let them alone awhile!" Huneefa's face, turned to the
northward, worked horribly, and it was as though voices from the
ceiling answered her.

  Hurree Babu returned to his note-book, balanced on the
window-sill, but his hand shook. Huneefa, in some sort of drugged
ecstasy, wrenched herself to and fro as she sat cross-legged by
Kim's still head, and called upon devil after devil in the ancient
order of the ritual, binding them to avoid the boy's every action.

  "With Him are the keys of the Secret Things! None knoweth them
beside Himself. He knoweth that which is in the dry land and in the
sea!" Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses.

  "I- I apprehend it is not at all malignant in its operation?" said
the Babu, watching the throat-muscles quiver and jerk as Huneefa spoke
with tongues. "It- it is not likely that she has killed the boy? If
so, I decline to be witness at the trial... What was the last
hypothetical devil mentioned?"

  "Babuji," said Mahbub in the vernacular. "I have no regard for the
devils of Hind, but the Sons of Eblis are far otherwise, and whether
they be jumalee (well-affected) or jullalee (terrible) they love not
Kafirs."

  "Then you think I had better go?" said Hurree Babu, half rising.
"They are, of course, dematerialised phenomena. Spencer says- "

  Huneefa's crisis passed, as these things must, in a paroxysm of
howling, with a touch of froth at the lips. She lay spent and
motionless beside Kim, and the crazy voices ceased.

  "Wah! That work is done. May the boy be better for it; and Huneefa
is surely a mistress of dawut. Help haul her aside, Babu. Do not be
afraid."

  "How am I to fear the absolutely non-existent?" said Hurree Babu,
talking English to reassure himself. It is an awful thing still to
dread the magic that you contemptuously investigate- to collect
folk-lore for the Royal Society with a lively belief in all Powers
of Darkness.

  Mahbub chuckled. He had been out with Hurree on the Road ere now.
"Let us finish the colouring," said he. "The boy is well protected if-
if the Lords of the Air have ears to hear. I am a sufi (free-thinker),
but when one can get blindsides of a woman, a stallion, or a devil,
why go round to invite a kick? Set him upon the way, Babu, and see
that old Red Hat does not lead him beyond our reach. I must get back
to my horses."

  "All raight," said Hurree Babu. "He is at present a curious
spectacle."

  About third cockcrow, Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of
years. Huneefa, in her corner, snored heavily, but Mahbub was gone.

  "I hope you were not frightened," said an oily voice at his elbow.
"I superintended entire operation, which was most interesting from
ethnological point of view. It was high-class dawut."

  "Huh!" said Kim, recognising Hurree Babu, who smiled ingratiatingly.

  "And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present
costume. I am not in the habit offeecially of carrying such gauds to
subordinates, but"- he giggled- "your case is noted as exceptional
on the books. I hope Mr. Lurgan will note my action."

  Kim yawned and stretched himself. It was good to turn and twist
within loose clothes once again.

  "What is this?" He looked curiously at the heavy duffle-stuff loaded
with the scents of the far North.

  "Oho! That is inconspicuous dress of chela attached to service of
lamaistic lama. Com-plete in every particular," said Hurree Babu,
rolling into the balcony to clean his teeth at a goglet. "I am of
opeenion it is not your old gentleman's precise religion, but rather
sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected notes to 'Asiatic
Quarterly Review' on these subjects. Now it is curious that the old
gentleman himself is totally devoid of religiosity. He is not a dam
particular."

  "Do you know him?"

  Hurree Babu held up his hand to show he was engaged in the
prescribed rites that accompany tooth-cleaning and such things among
decently bred Bengalis. Then he recited in English an Arya-Somaj
prayer of a theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with pan and
betel.

  "Oah yes. I have met him several times at Benares, and also at Buddh
Gaya, to interrogate him on religious points and devil-worship. He
is pure agnostic- same as me."

  Huneefa stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu jumped nervously to
the copper incense-burner, all black and discoloured in morning-light,
rubbed a finger in the accumulated lampblack, and drew it diagonally
across his face.

  "Who has died in thy house?" asked Kim in the vernacular.

  "None. But she may have the Evil Eye- that sorceress," the Babu
replied.

  "What dost thou do now, then?"

  "I will set thee on thy way to Benares, if thou goest thither, and
tell thee what must be known by Us."

  "I go. At what hour runs the te-rain?" He rose to his feet, looked
round the desolate chamber and at the yellow-wax face of Huneefa as
the low sun stole across the floor. "Is there money to be paid that
witch?"

  "No. She has charmed thee against all devils and all dangers- in the
name of her devils. It was Mahbub's desire." In English: "He is highly
obsolete, I think, to indulge in such supersteetion. Why, it is all
ventrilo-quy. Belly-speak- eh?"

  Kim snapped his fingers mechanically to avert whatever evil- Mahbub,
he knew, meditated none- might have crept in through Huneefa's
ministrations; and Hurree giggled once more. But as he crossed the
room he was careful not to step in Huneefa's blotched, squat shadow on
the boards. Witches- when their time is on them- can lay hold of the
heels of a man's soul if he does that.

  "Now you must well listen," said the Babu when they were in the
fresh air. "Part of these ceremonies which we witnessed they include
supply of effeecient amulet to those of our Department. If you feel in
your neck you will find one small silver amulet, verree cheap. That is
ours. Do you understand?"

  "Oah yes, hawa-dilli" (a heart-lifter), said Kim, feeling at his
neck.

  "Huneefa she makes them for two rupees twelve annas with- oh, all
sorts of exorcisms. They are quite common, except they are partially
black enamel, and there is a paper inside each one full of names of
local saints and such things. Thatt is Huneefa's look-out, you see?
Huneefa makes them onlee for us, but in case she does not, when we get
them we put in, before issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr.
Lurgan, he gives them. There is no other source of supply; but it
was me invented all this. It is strictly unoffeecial of course, but
convenient for subordinates. Colonel Creighton he does not know. He is
European. The turquoise is wrapped in the paper.... Yes, that is
road to railway station....  Now suppose you go with the lama, or with
me, I hope, some day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a
dam-tight place. I am a fearful man- most fearful- but I tell you I
have been in dam-tight places more than hairs on my head. You say:
'I am Son of the Charm.' Verree good."

  "I do not understand quite. We must not be heard talking English
here."

  "That is all raight. I am only Babu showing off my English to you.
All we Babus talk English to show off," said Hurree, flinging his
shoulder-cloth jauntily. "As I was about to say, 'Son of the Charm'
means that you may be member of the Sat Bhai- the Seven Brothers,
which is Hindi and Tantric. It is popularly supposed to be extinct
society, but I have written notes to show it is still extant. You
see it is all my invention. Verree good. Sat Bhai has many members,
and perhaps before they jolly-well-cut-your-throat they may give you
just a chance for life. That is useful, anyhow. And, moreover, these
fooolish natives- if they are not too excited- they always stop to
think before they kill a man who says he belongs to any specific
organisation. You see? You say then when you are in tight place, 'I am
Son of the Charm,' and you get- perhaps- ah- your second wind. That is
only in extreme instances, or to open negotiations with a stranger.
Can you quite see? Verree good. But suppose now, I, or anyone of the
Department, come to you dressed quite different. You would not know me
at all unless I choose, I bet you. Some day I will prove it. I come as
Ladakhi trader- oh anything- and I say to you: 'You want to buy
precious stones?' You say: 'Do I look like a man who buys precious
stones?' Then I say: 'Even verree poor man can buy a turquoise or
tarkeean.'"

  "That is kichree- vegetable curry," said Kim.

  "Of course it is. You say: 'Let me see the tarkeean.' Then I say:
'It was cooked by a woman, and perhaps it is bad for your caste.' Then
you say: 'There is no caste when men go to- look for tarkeean.' You
stop a little between those words, 'to- look.' That is thee whole
secret. The little stop before the words."

  Kim repeated the test-sentence.

  "That is all right. Then I will show you my turquoise if there is
time, and then you know who I am, and then we exchange views and
documents and those-all things. And so it is with any other man of us.
We talk sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about tarkeean, but
always with that little stop in the words. It is verree easy. First,
'Son of the Charm,' if you are in a tight place. Perhaps that may help
you- perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the tarkeean, if you
want to transact offeecial business with a strange man. Of course,
at present, you have no offeecial business. You are- ah ha!-
supernumerary on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were Asiatic
of birth you might be employed right off; but this half-year of
leave is to make you de-Englishised, you see? The lama, he expects
you, because I have demi-offeecially informed him you have passed
all your examinations, and will soon obtain Government appointment. Oh
ho! You are on acting-allowance you see: so if you are called upon
to help Sons of the Charm mind you jolly well try. Now I shall say
good-bye, my dear fellow, and I hope you- ah- will come out top-side
all raight."

  "Hurree Babu stepped back a pace or two into the crowd at the
entrance of Lucknow station and- was gone. Kim drew a deep breath
and hugged himself all over. The nickel-plated revolver he could
feel in the bosom of his sad-coloured robe, the amulet was on his
neck; begging-gourd, rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr. Lurgan had
forgotten nothing) were all to hand, with medicine, paint-box, and
compass, and in a worn old purse-belt embroidered with porcupine
quill-patterns lay a month's pay. Kings could be no richer. He
bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a Hindu trader, and ate them with
glad rapture till a policeman ordered him off the steps.

                                  11

                  Give the man who is not made

                        To his trade

                  Swords to fling and catch again,

                  Coins to ring and snatch again,

                  Men to harm and cure again,

                  Snakes to charm and lure again-

                  He'll be hurt by his own blade,

                  By his serpents disobeyed,

                  By his clumsiness bewrayed,

                  By the people mocked to scorn.

                     So 'tis not with juggler born.

                  Pinch of dust or withered flower,

                     Chance-flung fruit or borrowed staff,

                  Serve his need and shore his power,

                     Bind the spell, or loose the laugh!

                        " BUT  A  MAN  WHO,  ETC., " OP.  15

  Followed a sudden natural reaction.

  "Now am I alone- all alone," he thought. "In all India is no one
so alone as I! If I die to-day, who shall bring the news- and to whom?
If I live and God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for I
am a Son of the Charm- I, Kim."

  A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves
into a mazement as it were by repeating their own names over and
over again to themselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation as
to what is called personal identity. When one grows older, the
power, usually, departs, but while it lasts it may descend upon a
man at any moment.

  "Who is Kim- Kim- Kim?"

  He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from
all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted to
pin-points. In a minute- in another half second- he felt he would
arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always
happens, his mind dropped away from those heights with the rush of a
wounded bird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his head.

  A long-haired Hindu bairagi (holy man), who had just bought a
ticket, halted before him at that moment and stared intently.

  "I also have lost it," he said sadly. "It is one of the Gates to the
Way, but for me it has been shut many years."

  "What is the talk?" said Kim, abashed.

  "Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing thy
soul might be. The seizure came of a sudden. I know. Who should know
but I? Whither goest thou?"

  "Toward Kashi" (Benares).

  "There are no Gods there. I have proved them. I go to Prayag
(Allahabad) for the fifth time- seeking the road to Enlightenment.
Of what faith art thou?"

  "I too am a Seeker," said Kim, using one of the lama's pet words.
"Though"- he forgot his Northern dress for the moment- "though Allah
alone knoweth what I seek."

  The old fellow slipped the bairagi's crutch under his armpit and sat
down on a patch of ruddy leopard's skin as Kim rose at the call for
the Benares train.

  "Go in hope, little brother," he said. "It is a long road to the
feet of the One; but thither do we all travel."

  Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and ere he had sat out twenty
miles in the crowded compartment, was cheering his neighbours with a
string of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master's
magical gifts.

  Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city, though it was
pleasant to find how his cloth was respected. At least one-third of
the population prays eternally to some group or other of the many
million deities, and so revere every sort of holy man. Kim was
guided to the Temple of the Tirthankers, about a mile outside the
city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met Panjabi farmer- a Kamboh from
Jullundur-way who had appealed in vain to every God of his homestead
to cure his small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort.

  "Thou art from the North?" he asked, shouldering through the press
of the narrow, stinking streets much like his own pet bull at home.

  "Ay, I know the Punjab. My mother was a Pahareen, but my father came
from Amritzar- by Jandiala," said Kim, oiling his ready tongue for the
needs of the Road.

  "Jandiala- Jullundur? Oho! Then we be neighbours in some sort, as it
were." He nodded tenderly to the wailing child in his arms. "Whom dost
thou serve?"

  "A most holy man at the Temple of the Tirthankers."

  "They are all most holy and- most greedy," said the Jat with
bitterness. "I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my
feet are flayed, and the child is no whit better. And the mother being
sick too.... Hush, then, little one.... We changed his name when the
fever came. We put him into girl's clothes. There was nothing we did
not do, except- I said to his mother when she bundled me off to
Benares- she should have come with me- I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan
would serve us best. We know His generosity, but these down-country
Gods are strangers."

  The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked
at Kim through heavy eyelids.

  "And was it all worthless?" Kim asked, with easy interest.

  "All worthless- all worthless," said the child, lips cracking with
fever.

  "The Gods have given him a good mind, at least," said the father
proudly. "To think he should have listened so cleverly. Yonder is
thy temple. Now I am a poor man- many priests have dealt with me-
but my son is my son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him- I am
at my very wits' end."

  Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride. Three years ago
he would have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way
without a thought; but now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved
that he was a man. Moreover, he had tasted fever once or twice
already, and knew enough to recognise starvation when he saw it.

  "Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke, so
that the child is cured."

  Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple. A white-clad
Oswal banker from Ajmir, his sins of usury new wiped out, asked him
what he did.

  "I am chela to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from Bhotiyal- within there.
He bade me come. I wait. Tell him."

  "Do not forget the child," cried the importunate Jat over his
shoulder, and then bellowed in Punjabi: "O Holy One- O disciple of the
Holy One- O Gods above all the Worlds- behold affliction sitting at
the gate!" That cry is so common in Benares that the passers never
turned their heads.

  The Oswal, at peace with mankind, carried the message into the
darkness behind him, and the easy, uncounted Eastern minutes slid
by; for the lama was asleep in his cell, and no priest would wake him.
When the click of his rosary again broke the hush of the inner court
where the calm images of the Arhats stand, a novice whispered, "Thy
chela is here," and the old man strode forth, forgetting the end of
that prayer.

  Hardly had the tall figure shown in the doorway than the Jat ran
before him, and, lifting up the child, cried: "Look upon this, Holy
One; and if the Gods will, he lives- he lives!"

  He fumbled in his waist-belt and drew out a small silver coin.

  "What is now?" The lama's eyes turned to Kim. It was noticeable he
spoke far clearer Urdu than long ago, under Zam-Zammah; but the father
would allow no private talk.

  "It is no more than a fever," said Kim. "The child is not well fed."

  "He sickens at everything, and his mother is not here."

  "If it be permitted, I may cure, Holy One."

  "What! Have they made thee a healer? Wait here," said the lama,
and he sat down by the Jat upon the lowest step of the temple, while
Kim, looking out of the corner of his eyes, slowly opened the little
betel-box. He had dreamed dreams at school of returning to the lama as
a Sahib- of chaffing the old man before he revealed himself- boy's
dreams all. There was more drama in this abstracted, brow-puckered
search through the tabloid-bottles, with a pause here and there for
thought and a muttered invocation between whiles. Quinine he had in
tablets, and dark brown meat-lozenges- beef most probably, but that
was not his business. The little thing would not eat, but it sucked at
a lozenge greedily, and said it liked the salt taste.

  "Take then these six." Kim handed them to the man. "Praise the Gods,
and boil three in milk; other three in water. After he has drunk the
milk give him this (it was the half of a quinine pill), and wrap him
warm. Give him the water of the other three, and the other half of
this white pill when he wakes. Meantime, here is another brown
medicine that he may suck at on the way home.

  "Gods, what wisdom!" said the Kamboh, snatching.

  It was as much as Kim could remember of his own treatment in a
bout of autumn malaria- if you except the patter that he added to
impress the lama.

  "Now go! Come again in the morning."

  "But the price- the price," said the Jat, and threw back his
sturdy shoulders. "My son is my son. Now that he will be whole
again, how shall I go back to his mother and say I took help by the
wayside and did not even give a bowl of curds in return?"

  "They are alike, these Jats," said Kim softly. "The Jat stood on his
dunghill and the King's elephants went by. 'O driver,' said he,
'what will you sell those little donkeys for?'"

  The Jat burst into a roar of laughter, stifled with apologies to the
lama. "It is the saying of my own country- the very talk of it. So are
we Jats all. I will come to-morrow with the child; and the blessing of
the Gods of the Homesteads- who are good little Gods- be on you
both.... Now, son, we grow strong again. Do not spit it out, little
Princeling! King of my Heart, do not spit it out, and we shall be
strong men, wrestlers and club-wielders, by morning."

  He moved away, crooning and mumbling. The lama turned to Kim, and
all the loving old soul of him looked out through his narrow eyes.

  "To heal the sick is to acquire merit; but first one gets knowledge.
That was wisely done, O Friend of all the World."

  "I was made wise by thee, Holy One," said Kim, forgetting the little
play just ended; forgetting St. Xavier's; forgetting his white
blood; forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan
fashion, to touch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain temple.
"My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. My
time is finished. I am loosed from the schools. I come to thee."

  "Herein is my reward. Enter! Enter! And is all well?" They passed to
the inner court, where the afternoon sun sloped golden across.
"Stand that I may see. So!" He peered critically. "It is no longer a
child, but a man, ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician. I did
well- I did well when I gave thee up to the armed men on that black
night. Dost thou remember our first day under Zam-Zammah?"

  "Ay." said Kim. "Dost thou remember when I leapt off the carriage
the first day I went to- "

  "The Gates of Learning? Truly. And the day that we ate the cakes
together at the back of the river by Nucklao. Aha! Many times hast
thou begged for me, but that day I begged for thee."

  "Good reason," quoth Kim. "I was then a scholar in the Gates of
Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One," he went on
playfully, "I am still a Sahib- by thy favour."

  "True. And a Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, chela."

  "How is that known to thee?"

  The lama smiled. "First by means of letters from the kindly priest
whom we met in the camp of armed priest but he is now gone to his
own country, and I sent the money to his brother." Colonel
Creighton, who had succeeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor
went to England with the Mavericks, was hardly the chaplain's brother.
"But I do not well understand Sahibs' letters. They must be
interpreted to me. I chose a surer way. Many times when I returned
from my Search to this temple, which has always been a nest to me,
there came one seeking Enlightenment- a man from Leh- that had been,
he said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods." The lama pointed
to the Arhats.

  "A fat man?" said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.

  "Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given
up to useless things- such as devils and charms and the form and
fashion of our tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we
initiated the novices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a
friend of thine, chela. He told me that thou wast on the road to
much honour as a scribe. And I see thou art a physician."

  "Yes, that am I- a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside
when I come as thy disciple. I have accomplished the years appointed
for a Sahib."

  "As it were a novice?" said the lama, nodding his head. "Art thou
freed from the schools? I would not have thee unripe."

  "I am all free. In due time I take service under the Government as a
scribe- "

  "Not as a warrior. That is well."

  "But first I come to wander- with thee. Therefore I am here. Who
begs for thee, these days?" he went on quickly. The ice was thin.

  "Very often I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom here,
except when I come to look again at my disciple. From one end to
another of Hind have I travelled afoot and in the te-rain. A great and
a wonderful land! But here, when I put in, is as though I were in my
own Bhotiyal."

  He looked round the little clean cell complacently. A low cushion
gave him a seat, on which he had disposed himself in the
cross-legged attitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation; a
black teak-wood table, not twenty inches high, set with copper
tea-cups, was before him. In one corner stood a tiny altar, also of
heavily carved teak, bearing a copper-gilt image of the seated
Buddha and fronted by a lamp, an incense-holder, and a pair of
copper flowerpots.

  "The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by
giving me these a year since," he said, following Kim's eyes. "When
one is far from one's own land such things carry remembrance; and we
must reverence the Lord for that He showed the Way. See!" He pointed
to a curiously-built mound of coloured rice crowned with a fantastic
metal ornament. "When I was abbot in my own place- before I came to
better knowledge- I made that offering daily. It is the Sacrifice of
the Universe to the Lord. Thus do we of Bhotiyal offer all the world
daily to the Excellent Law. And I do it even now, though I know that
the Excellent One is beyond all pinchings and pattings." He snuffed
from his gourd.

  "It is well done, Holy One," Kim murmured, sinking at ease on the
cushions, very happy and rather tired.

  "And also," the old man chuckled, "I write pictures of the Wheel
of Life. Three days to a picture. I was busied on it- or it may be I
shut my eyes a little- when they brought word of thee. It is good to
have thee here: I will show thee my art- not for pride's sake, but
because thou must learn. The Sahibs have not all this world's wisdom."

  He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow
Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest,
severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes,
whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance,
Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and
hells, and all the chances of human life. Men say that the Bodhisat
Himself first drew it with grains of rice upon dust, to teach His
disciples the cause of things. Many ages have crystalized it into a
most wonderful convention crowded with hundreds of little figures
whose every line carries a meaning. Few can translate the
picture-parable; there are not twenty in all the world who can draw it
surely without a copy: of those who can both draw and expound are
but three.

  "I have a little learned to draw," said Kim. "But this is a marvel
beyond marvels."

  "I have written it for many years," said the lama. "Time was when
I could write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I will
teach thee the art- after due preparation; and I will show thee the
meaning of the Wheel."

  "We take the Road, then?"

  "The Road and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was made
plain to me in a hundred dreams- notably one that came upon the
night of the day that the Gates of Learning first shut- that without
thee I should never find my River. Again and again, as thou knowest, I
put this from me, fearing an illusion. Therefore I would not take thee
with me that day at Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take
thee till the time was ripe and auspicious. From the Hills to the Sea,
from the Sea to the Hills have I gone, but it was vain. Then I
remembered the 'Jataka.'"

  He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had
told it so often to the Jain priests.

  "Further testimony is not needed," he ended serenely. "Thou wast
sent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught. Therefore
we will go out again together, and our Search is sure."

  "Whither go we?"

  "What matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say, is
sure. If need be, the River will break from the ground before us. I
acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave
thee the jewel that is Wisdom. Thou didst return, I saw even now, a
follower of Sakyamuni, the Physician, whose altars are many in
Bhotiyal. It is sufficient. We are together, and all things are as
they were- Friend of all the World- Friend of the Stars- my chela!"

  Then they talked of matters secular; but it was noticeable that
the lama never demanded any details of life at St. Xavier's, nor
showed the faintest curiosity as to the manners and customs of Sahibs.
His mind moved all in the past, and he revived every step of their
wonderful first journey together, rubbing his hands and chuckling,
till it pleased him to curl himself up into the sudden sleep of old
age.

  Kim watched the last dusty sunshine fade out of the court, and
played with his ghost-dagger and rosary. The clamour of Benares,
oldest of all earth's cities awake before the Gods, day and night,
beat round the walls as the sea's roar round a breakwater. Now and
again, a Jain priest crossed the court, with some small offering to
the images, and swept the path about him lest by chance he should take
the life of a living thing. A lamp twinkled, and there followed the
sound of a prayer. Kim watched the stars as they rose one after
another in the still, sticky dark, till he fell asleep at the foot
of the altar. That night he dreamed in Hindustanee, with never an
English word....

  "Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave the medicine," he
said, about three o'clock in the morning, when the lama, also waking
from dreams, would have fared forth on pilgrimage. "The Jat will be
here at the light."

  "I am well answered. In my haste I would have done a wrong." He
sat down on the cushions and returned to his rosary. "Surely old
folk are as children," he said pathetically. "They desire a matter-
behold, it must be done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times
when I was upon the Road I have been ready to stamp with my feet at
the hindrance of an ox-cart in the way, or a mere cloud of dust. It
was not so when I was a man- a long time ago. None the less it is
wrongful- "

  "But thou art indeed old, Holy One."

  "The thing was done. A Cause was put out into the world, and, old or
young, sick or sound, knowing or unknowing, who can rein in the effect
of that Cause? Does the Wheel hang still if a child spin it- or a
drunkard? Chela, this is a great and a terrible world."

  "I think it good," Kim yawned. "What is there to eat? I have not
eaten since yesterday even."

  "I had forgotten thy need. Yonder is good Bhotiyal tea and cold
rice."

  "We cannot walk far on such stuff." Kim felt all the European's lust
for flesh-meat, which is not accessible in a Jain temple. Yet, instead
of going out at once with the begging-bowl, he stayed his stomach on
slabs of cold rice till the full dawn. It brought the farmer, voluble,
stuttering with gratitude.

  "In the night the fever broke and the sweat came," he cried. "Feel
here- his skin is fresh and new! He esteemed the salt lozenges, and
took milk with greed." He drew the cloth from the child's face, and it
smiled sleepily at Kim. A little knot of Jain priests, silent but
all-observant, gathered by the temple door. They knew, and Kim knew
that they knew, how the old lama had met his disciple. Being courteous
folk, they had not obtruded themselves overnight by presence, word, or
gesture. Wherefore Kim repaid them as the sun rose.

  "Thank the Gods of the Jains, brother," he said, not knowing how
those Gods were named. "The fever is indeed broken."

  "Look! See!" The lama beamed in the background upon his hosts of
three years. "Was there ever such a chela? He follows our Lord the
Healer."

  Now the Jains officially recognise all the Gods of the Hindu
creed, as well as the Lingam and the Snake. They wear the
Brahminical thread; they adhere to every claim of Hindu caste-law.
But, because they knew and loved the lama, because he was an old
man, because he sought the Way, because he was their guest, and
because he collogued long of nights with the head-priest- as
free-thinking a metaphysician as ever split one hair into seventy-
they murmured assent.

  "Remember"- Kim bent over the child- "this trouble may come again."

  "Not if thou hast the proper spell," said the father.

  "But in a little while we go away.

  "True," said the lama to all the Jains. "We go now together upon the
Search whereof I have often spoken. I waited till my chela was ripe.
Behold him! We go North. Never again shall I look upon this place of
my rest, O people of good will."

  "But I am not a beggar." The cultivator rose to his feet,
clutching the child.

  "Be still. Do not trouble the Holy One," a priest cried.

  "Go," Kim whispered. Meet us again under the big railway bridge, and
for the sake of all the Gods of our Punjab, bring food- curry,
pulse, cakes fried in fat, and sweetmeats. Specially sweetmeats. Be
swift!"

  The pallor of hunger suited Kim very well as he stood, tall and
slim, in his sad-coloured, sweeping robes, one hand on his rosary
and the other in the attitude of benediction, faithfully copied from
the lama. An English observer might have said that he looked rather
like the young saint of a stained-glass window, whereas he was but a
growing lad faint with emptiness.

  Long and formal were the farewells, thrice ended and thrice renewed.
The Seeker- he who had invited the lama to that haven from far-away
Tibet, a silver-faced, hairless ascetic- took no part in it, but
meditated, as always, alone among the images. The others were very
human; pressing small comforts upon the old man- a betel-box, a fine
new iron pencase, a food-bag, and such like- warning him against the
dangers of the world without, and prophesying a happy end to the
Search. Meantime Kim, lonelier than ever, squatted on the steps, and
swore to himself in the language of St. Xavier's.

  "But it is my own fault," he concluded. "With Mahbub, I ate Mahbub's
bread, or Lurgan Sahib's. At St. Xavier's, three meals a day. Here I
must jolly well look out for myself. Besides, I am not in good
training. How I could eat a plate of beef now!... Is it finished, Holy
One?"

  The lama, both hands raised, intoned a final blessing in ornate
Chinese. "I must lean on thy shoulder," said he, as the temple-gates
closed. "We grow stiff, I think."

  The weight of a six-foot man is not light to steady through miles of
crowded streets, and Kim, loaded down with bundles and packages for
the way, was glad to reach the shadow of the railway bridge.

  "Here we eat," he said resolutely, as the Kamboh, blue-robed and
smiling, hove in sight, a basket in one hand and the child on the
other.

  "Fall to, Holy Ones!" he cried from fifty yards. (They were by the
shoal under the first bridge-span, out of sight of hungry priests.)
"Rice and good curry, cakes all warm and well scented with hing
(asafoetida), curds and sugar. King of my fields," this to the small
son, "let us show these holy men that we Jats of Jullundur can pay a
service.... I had heard the Jains would eat nothing that they had
not cooked, but truly"- he looked away politely over the broad
river- "where there is no eye there is no caste."

  "And we," said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leaf-platter
for the lama, "are beyond all castes."

  They gorged themselves on the good food in silence. Nor till he
had licked the last of the sticky sweet-stuff from his little finger
did Kim note that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.

  "If our roads lie together," he said roughly, "I go with thee. One
does not often find a worker of miracles, and the child is still weak.
But I am not altogether a reed." He picked up his lathi- a five-foot
male-bamboo ringed with bands of polished iron- and flourished it in
the air. "The Jats are called quarrelsome, but that is not true.
Except when we are crossed we are like our own buffaloes.

  "So be it," said Kim. "A good stick is a good reason."

  The lama gazed placidly up-stream, where in long, smudged
perspective the ceaseless columns of smoke go up from the
burning-ghats by the river. Now and again, despite all municipal
regulations, the fragment of a half-burned body bobbed by on the
full current.

  "But for thee," said the Kamboh to Kim, drawing his child into his
hairy breast, "I might to-day have gone thither- with this one. The
priests tell us that Benares is holy- which none doubt- and
desirable to die in. But I do not know their Gods, and they ask for
money; and when one has done one worship a shaved-head vows it is of
none effect except one do another. Wash here! Wash there! Pour, drink,
lave, and scatter flowers- but always pay the priests. No, the
Punjab for me, and the soil of the Jullundur-doab for the best soil in
it."

  "I have said many times- in the temple I think- that if need be, the
River will open at our feet. We will therefore go North," said the
lama, rising. "I remember a pleasant place, set about with
fruit-trees, where one can walk in meditation- and the air is cooler
there. It comes from the Hills and the snow of the Hills."

  "What is the name?" said Kim.

  "How should I know? Didst thou not- no, that was after the Army rose
out of the earth and took thee away. I abode there in meditation in
a room against the dove-cot- except when she talked eternally."

  "Oho! the woman from Kulu. That is by Saharunpore," Kim laughed.

  "How does the spirit move thy master? Does he go afoot, for the sake
of past sins?" the Jat demanded cautiously. "It is a far cry to
Delhi."

  "No," said Kim. "I will beg a tikkut for the te-rain." One does
not own to the possession of money in India.

  "Then in the name of the Gods, let us take the fire-carriage. My son
is best in his mother's arms. The Government has brought on us many
taxes, but it gives us one good thing- the te-rain that joins
friends and unites the anxious. A wonderful matter is the te-rain."

  They all piled into it a couple of hours later, and slept through
the heat of the day. The Kamboh plied Kim with ten thousand
questions as to the lama's walk and work in life, and received some
curious answers. Kim was content to be where he was, to look out
upon the flat North-Western landscape, and to talk to the changing mob
of fellow-passengers. Even to-day, tickets and ticket-clipping are
dark oppression to Indian rustics. They do not understand why, when
they have paid for a magic piece of paper, strangers should punch
great pieces out of the charm. So long and furious are the debates
between travellers and Eurasian ticket-collectors. Kim assisted at two
or three with grave advice, meant to darken council and to show off
his wisdom before the lama and the admiring Kamboh. But at Somna
Road the Fates sent him a matter to think upon. There tumbled into the
compartment, as the train was moving off, a mean, lean little
person- a Mahratta, so far as Kim could judge by the cock of the tight
turban. His face was cut, his muslin upper-garment was badly torn, and
one leg was bandaged. He told them that a country-cart had upset and
nearly slain him: he was going to Delhi, where his son lived. Kim
watched him closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolled over and
over on the earth, there should have been signs of gravel-rash on
the skin. But all his injuries seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from
a cart could not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As, with
shaking fingers, he knotted up the torn cloth about his neck he laid
bare an amulet of the kind called a keeper-up of the heart. Now,
amulets are common enough, but they are not generally strung on
square-plaited copper wire, and still fewer amulets bear black
enamel on silver. There were none except the Kamboh and the lama in
the compartment, which, luckily, was of an old type with solid ends.
Kim made as to scratch in his bosom, and thereby lifted his own
amulet. The Mahratta's face changed altogether at the sight, and he
disposed the amulet fairly on his breast.

  "Yes," he went on to the Kamboh, "I was in haste, and the cart,
driven by a bastard, bound its wheel in a water-cut, and besides the
harm done to me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean. I was not a
Son of the Charm (a lucky man) that day."

  "That was a great loss," said Kamboh, withdrawing interest. His
experience of Benares had made him suspicious.

  "Who cooked it?" said Kim.

  "A woman." The Mahratta raised his eyes.

  "But all women can cook tarkeean," said the Kamboh. "It is a good
curry, as I know."

  "Oh, yes, it is a good curry," said the Mahratta.

  "And cheap," said Kim. "But what about caste?"

  "Oh, there is no caste where men go to- look for tarkeean," the
Mahratta replied, in the prescribed cadence. "Of whose service art
thou?"

  "Of the service of this Holy One." Kim pointed to the happy,
drowsy lama, who woke with a jerk at the well-loved word.

  "Ah, he was sent from Heaven to aid me. He is called the Friend of
all the World. He is also called the Friend of the Stars. He walks
as a physician- his time being ripe. Great is his wisdom."

  "And a Son of the Charm," said Kim under his breath, as the Kamboh
made haste to prepare a pipe lest the Mahratta should beg.

  "And who is that?" the Mahratta asked, glancing sideways nervously.

  "One whose child I- we have cured, who lies under great debt to
us. Sit by the window, man from Jullundur. Here is a sick one."

  "Humph! I have no desire to mix with chance-met wastrels. My ears
are not long. I am not a woman wishing to overhear secrets." The Jat
slid himself heavily into a far corner.

  "Art thou anything of a healer? I am ten leagues deep in
calamity," cried the Mahratta, picking up the cue.

  "The man is cut and bruised all over. I go about to cure him," Kim
retorted. "None interfered between thy babe and me."

  "I am rebuked," said the Kamboh meekly. "I am thy debtor for the
life of my son. Thou art a miracle-worker- I know it."

  "Show me the cuts." Kim bent over the Mahratta's neck, his heart
nearly choking him; for this was the Great Game with a vengeance.
"Now, tell thy tale swiftly, brother, while I say a charm."

  "I come from the South, where my work lay. One of us they slew by
the roadside. Hast thou heard?" Kim shook his head. He, of course,
knew nothing of E.23's predecessor, slain down South in the habit of
an Arab trader. "Having found a certain letter which I was sent to
seek, I came away. I escaped from the city and ran to Mhow. So sure
was I that none knew, I did not change my face. At Mhow a woman
brought charge against me of theft of jewellery in that city which I
had left. Then I saw the cry was out against me. I ran from Mhow by
night, bribing the police, who had been bribed to hand me over without
question to my enemies in the South. Then I lay in old Chitor city a
week, a penitent in a temple, but I could not get rid of the letter
which was my charge. I buried it under the Queen's Stone, at Chitor,
in the place known to us all."

  Kim did not know, but not for worlds would he have broken the
thread.

  "At Chitor, look you, I was all in Kings' country; for Kotah to
the east is beyond the Queen's law, and east again lie Jeypur and
Gwalior. Neither love spies, and there is no justice. I was hunted
like a wet jackal; but I broke through at Bandakui, where I heard
there was a charge against me of murder in the city I had left- of the
murder of a boy. They have both the corpse and the witnesses waiting."

  "But cannot the Government protect?"

  "We of the Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our
names are blotted from the book. That is all. At Bandakui, where lives
one of us, I thought to slip the scent by changing my face, and so
made me a Mahratta. Then I came to Agra, and would have turned back to
Chitor to recover the letter. So sure I was I had slipped them.
Therefore I did not send a tar (telegram) to anyone saying where the
letter lay. I wished the credit of it all."

  Kim nodded. He understood that feeling well.

  "But at Agra, walking in the streets, a man cried a debt against me,
and approaching with many witnesses, would hale me to the courts
then and there. Oh, they are clever in the South! He recognised me
as his agent for cotton. May he burn in Hell for it!"

  "And wast thou?"

  "O fool! I was the man they sought for the matter of the letter! I
ran into the Fleshers' Ward and came out by the House of the Jew,
who feared a riot and pushed me forth. I came afoot to Somna Road- I
had only money for my tikkut to Delhi- and there, while I lay in a
ditch with a fever, one sprang out of the bushes and beat me and cut
me and searched me from head to foot. Within earshot of the te-rain it
was!"

  "Why did he not slay thee out of hand?"

  "They are not so foolish. If I am taken in Delhi at the instance
of lawyers, upon a proven charge of murder, my body is handed over
to the State that desires it. I go back guarded, and then- I die
slowly for an example to the rest of us. The South is not my
country. I run in circles- like a goat with one eye. I have not
eaten for two days. I am marked"- he touched the filthy bandage on his
leg- "so that they will know me at Delhi."

  "Thou art safe in the te-rain, at least."

  "Live a year at the Great Game and tell me that again! The wires
will be out against me at Delhi, describing every tear and rag upon
me. Twenty- a hundred, if need be- will have seen me slay that boy.
And thou art useless!"

  Kim knew enough of native methods of attack not to doubt that the
case would be deadly complete- even to the corpse. The Mahratta
twitched his fingers with pain from time to time. The Kamboh in his
corner glared sullenly; the lama was busy over his beads; and Kim,
fumbling doctor-fashion at the man's neck, thought out his plan
between invocations.

  "Hast thou a charm to change my shape? Else I am dead. Five- ten
minutes alone, if I had not been so pressed, and I might- "

  "Is he cured yet, miracle-worker?" said the Kamboh jealously.
"Thou hast chanted long enough."

  "Nay. There is no cure for his hurts, as I see, except he sit for
three days in the habit of a bairagi." This is a common penance, often
imposed on a fat trader by his spiritual teacher.

  "One priest always goes about to make another priest," was the
retort. Like most grossly superstitious folk, the Kamboh could not
keep his tongue from deriding his Church.

  "Will thy son be a priest, then? It is time he took more of my
quinine."

  "We Jats are all buffaloes," said the Kamboh, softening anew.

  Kim rubbed a finger-tip of bitterness on the child's trusting little
lips. "I have asked for nothing," he said sternly to the father,
"except food. Dost thou grudge me that? I go to heal another man. Have
I thy leave- Prince?"

  Up flew the man's huge paws in supplication. "Nay- nay. Do not
mock me thus."

  "It pleases me to cure this sick one. Thou shalt acquire merit by
aiding. What colour ash is there in thy pipe-bowl? White. That is
auspicious. Was there raw turmeric among thy food-stuffs?"

  "Open thy bundle!"

  It was the usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth,
quack medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of atta- grayish,
rough-ground native flour- twists of down-country tobacco, tawdry
pipe-stems, and a packet of curry-stuff, all wrapped in a quilt. Kim
turned it over with the air of a wise warlock, muttering a
Mohammedan invocation.

  "This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs," he whispered to the
lama; and here, when one thinks of his training at Lurgan's, he
spoke no more than the truth. "There is a great evil in this man's
fortune, as shown by the stars, which- which troubles him. Shall I
take it away?"

  "Friend of the Stars, thou hast done well in all things. Let it be
at thy pleasure. Is it another healing?"

  "Quick! Be quick!" gasped the Mahratta. "The train may stop."

  "A healing against the shadow of death," said Kim, mixing the
Kamboh's flour with the mingled charcoal and tobacco ash in the
red-earth bowl of the pipe. E.23, without a word, slipped off his
turban and shook down his long black hair.

  "That is my food- priest," the Jat growled.

  "A buffalo in the temple! Hast thou dared to look even thus far?"
said Kim. "I must do mysteries before fools; but have a care for thy
eyes. Is there a film before them already? I save the babe, and for
return thou- oh, shameless!" The man flinched at the direct gaze,
for Kim was wholly in earnest. "Shall I curse thee, or shall I- " He
picked up the outer cloth of the bundle and threw it over the bowed
head. "Dare so much as to think a wish to see, and- and- even I cannot
save thee. Sit! Be dumb!"

  "I am blind- dumb. Forbear to curse! Co-come, child; we will play
a game of hiding. Do not, for my sake, look from under the cloth."

  "I see hope," said E.23. "What is thy scheme?"

  "This comes next," said Kim, plucking the thin body-shirt. E.23
hesitated, with all a North-West man's dislike of baring his body.

  "What is caste to a cut throat?" said Kim, rending it to the
waist. "We must make thee a yellow Saddhu all over. Strip- strip
swiftly, and shake thy hair over thy eyes while I scatter the ash.
Now, a caste-mark on thy forehead." He drew from his bosom the
little Survey paint-box and a cake of crimson lake.

  "Art thou only a beginner?" said E.23, labouring literally for the
dear life, as he slid out of his body-wrappings and stood clear in the
loin-cloth while Kim splashed in a noble caste-mark on the ash-smeared
brow.

  "But two days entered to the Game, brother," Kim replied. "Smear
more ash on the bosom."

  "Hast thou met- a physician of sick pearls?" He switched out his
long, tight-rolled turban-cloth and, with swiftest hands, rolled it
over and under about his loins into the intricate devices of a
Saddhu's cincture.

  "Hah! Dost thou know his touch, then? He was my teacher for a while.
We must bar thy legs. Ash cures wounds. Smear it again."

  "I was his pride once, but thou art almost better. The Gods are kind
to us! Give me that."

  It was a tin box of opium pills among the rubbish of the Jat's
bundle. E.23 gulped down a half handful. "They are good against
hunger, fear, and chill. And they make the eyes red too," he
explained. "Now I shall have heart to play the Game. We lack only a
Saddhu's tongs. What of the old clothes?"

  Kim rolled them small, and stuffed them into the slack folds of
his tunic. With a yellow-ochre paint cake he smeared the legs and
breast, great streaks against the background of flour, ash, and
turmeric.

  "The blood on them is enough to hang thee, brother."

  "May be; but no need to throw them out of the window.... It is
finished." His voice thrilled with a boy's pure delight in the Game.
"Turn and look, O Jat!"

  "The Gods protect us," said the hooded Kamboh, emerging like a
buffalo from the reeds. "But- whither went the Mahratta? What hast
thou done?"

  Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib; and E.23, by virtue of his
business, was no bad actor. In place of the tremulous, shrinking
trader there lolled against the corner an all but naked,
ash-smeared, ochre-barred, dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes-
opium takes quick effect on an empty stomach- luminous with
insolence and bestial lust, his legs crossed under him, Kim's brown
rosary round his neck, and a scant yard of worn, flowered chintz on
his shoulders. The child buried his face in his amazed father's arms.

  "Look up, Princeling! We travel with warlocks, but they will not
hurt thee. Oh, do not cry.... What is the sense of curing a child
one day and killing him with fright the next?"

  "The child will be fortunate all his life. He has seen a great
healing. When I was a child I made clay men and horses."

  "I have made them too. Sir Banas, he comes in the night and makes
them all alive at the back of our kitchen-midden," piped the child.

  "And so thou art not frightened at anything. Eh, Prince?"

  "I was frightened because my father was frightened. I felt his
arms shake."

  "Oh, chicken-man," said Kim, and even the abashed Jat laughed. I
have done a healing on this poor trader. He must forsake his gains and
his account-books, and sit by the wayside three nights to overcome the
malignity of his enemies. The Stars are against him."

  "The fewer money-lenders the better, say I; but, Saddhu or no
Saddhu, he should pay for my stuff on his shoulders."

  "So? But that is thy child on thy shoulder- given over to the
burning-ghat not two days ago. There remains one thing more. I did
this charm in thy presence because need was great. I changed his shape
and his soul. None the less, if, by any chance, O man from
Jullundur, thou rememberest what thou hast seen, either among the
elders sitting under the village tree, or in thy own house, or in
company of thy priest when he blesses thy cattle, a murrain will
come among the buffaloes, and a fire in thy thatch, and rats in the
corn-bin, and the curse of our Gods upon thy fields that they may be
barren before thy feet and after thy ploughshare." This was part of an
old curse picked up from a faquir by the Taksali Gate in the days of
Kim's innocence. It lost nothing by repetition.

  "Cease, Holy One! In mercy, cease!" cried the Jat. "Do not curse the
household. I saw nothing! I heard nothing! I am thy cow!" and he
made to grab at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on the carriage
floor.

  "But since thou hast been permitted to aid me in the matter of a
pinch of flour and a little opium and such trifles as I have
honoured by using in my art, so will the Gods return a blessing,"
and he gave it at length, to the man's immense relief. It was one that
he had learned from Lurgan Sahib.

  The lama stared through his spectacles as he had not stared at the
business of disguisement.

  "Friend of the Stars," he said at last, "thou hast acquired great
wisdom. Beware that it do not give birth to pride. No man having the
Law before his eyes speaks hastily of any matter which he has seen
or encountered."

  "No- no- no indeed," cried the farmer, fearful lest the master
should be minded to improve on the pupil. E.23, with relaxed mouth,
gave himself up to the opium that is meat, tobacco, and medicine to
the spent Asiatic.

  So, in a silence of awe and great miscomprehension, they slid into
Delhi about lamp-lighting time.

                                 12

    "Who hath desired the Sea- the sight of salt-water unbounded?

    The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber

       wind-hounded?

    The sleek-barrelled swell before storm- gray, foamless, enormous,

       and growing?

    Stark calm on the lap of the Line- or the crazy-eyed hurricane

       blowing?

    His Sea in no showing the same- his Sea and the same 'neath all

       showing-

          His Sea that his being fulfils?

    So and no otherwise- so and no otherwise Hill-men desire their

       Hills!"

  "I have found my heart again," said E.23, under cover of the
platform's tumult. "Hunger and fear make men dazed, or I might have
thought of this escape before. I was right. They come to hunt for
me. Thou hast saved my head."

  A group of yellow-trousered Punjab policemen, headed by a hot and
perspiring young Englishman, parted the crowd about the carriages.
Behind them, inconspicuous as a cat, ambled a small fat person who
looked like a lawyer's tout.

  "See the young Sahib reading from a paper. My description is in
his hand," said E.23. "They go carriage by carriage, like
fisher-folk netting a pool."

  When the procession reached their compartment, E.23 was counting his
beads with a steady jerk of the wrist; while Kim jeered at him for
being so drugged as to have lost the ringed fire-tongs which are the
Saddhu's distinguishing mark. The lama, deep in meditation, stared
straight before him; and the farmer, glancing furtively, gathered up
his belongings.

  "Nothing here but a parcel of holy-bolies," said the Englishman
aloud, and passed on amid a ripple of uneasiness; for native police
mean extortion to the native all India over.

  "The trouble now," whispered E.23, "lies in sending a wire as to the
place where I hid that letter I was sent to find. I cannot go to the
tar-office in this guise."

  "Is it not enough I have saved thy neck?"

  "Not if the work be left unfinished. Did never the healer of sick
pearls tell thee so? Comes another Sahib! Ah!"

  This was a tallish, sallowish District Superintendent of Police-
belt, helmet, polished spurs and all- strutting and twirling his
dark moustache.

  "What fools are these Police Sahibs!" said Kim genially.

  E.23 glanced up under his eyelids. "It is well said," he muttered in
a changed voice. "I go to drink water. Keep my place."

  He blundered out almost into the Englishman's arms, and was
bad-worded in clumsy Urdu.

  "Tum-mut? You drunk? You mustn't bang about as though Delhi
station belonged to you, my friend."

  E.23, not moving a muscle of his countenance, answered with a stream
of the filthiest abuse, at which Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded
him of the drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa in the
terrible time of his first schooling.

  "My good fool," the Englishman drawled. "Nicklejao! Go back to
your carriage."

  Step by step, withdrawing deferentially, and dropping his voice, the
yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage, cursing the D. S. P. to
remotest posterity by- here Kim almost jumped- by the curse of the
Queen's Stone, by the writing under the Queen's Stone, and by an
assortment of Gods with wholly new names.

  "I don't know what you're saying"- the Englishman flushed angrily-
"but it's some piece of blasted impertinence. Come out of that!"

  E.23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced his ticket, which
the Englishman wrenched angrily from his hand.

  "Oh zoolum! What oppression!" growled the Jat from his corner.
"All for the sake of a jest too." He had been grinning at the
freedom of the Saddhu's tongue. "Thy charms do not work well to-day,
Holy One!"

  The Saddhu followed the policeman, fawning and supplicating. The
ruck of passengers, busy with their babies and their bundles, had
not noticed the affair. Kim slipped out behind him; for it flashed
through his head that he had heard this angry, stupid Sahib
discoursing loud personalities to an old lady near Umballa three years
ago.

  "It is well," the Saddhu whispered, jammed in the calling, shouting,
bewildered press- a Persian greyhound between his feet and a
cadgeful of yelling hawks under charge of a Rajput falconer in the
small of his back." He has gone now to send word of the letter which I
hid. They told me he was in Peshawur. I might have known that he is
like the crocodile- always at the other ford. He has saved me from
present calamity, but I owe my life to thee."

  "Is he also one of Us?" Kim ducked under a Mewar camel-driver's
greasy armpit and cannoned off a covey of jabbering Sikh matrons.

  "Not less than the greatest. We are both fortunate! I will make
report to him of what thou hast done. I am safe under his protection."

  He bored through the edge of the crowd besieging the carriages,
and squatted by the bench near the telegraph-office.

  "Return, or they take thy place! Have no fear for the work, brother-
or my life. Thou hast given me breathing-space, and Strickland Sahib
has pulled me to land. We may work together at the Game yet. Farewell!

  Kim hurried to his carriage: elated, bewildered, but a little
nettled in that he had no key to the secrets about him.

  "I am only a beginner at the Game, that is sure. I could not have
leaped into safety as did the Saddhu. He knew it was darkest under the
lamp. I could not have thought to tell news under pretence of
cursing... and how clever was the Sahib! No matter, I saved the life
of one.... Where is the Kamboh gone, Holy One?" he whispered, as he
took his seat in the now crowded compartment.

  "A fear gripped him," the lama replied, with a touch of tender
malice. "He saw thee change the Mahratta to a Saddhu in the
twinkling of an eye, as a protection against evil. That shook him.
Then he saw the Saddhu fall sheer into the hands of the polis- all the
effect of thy art. Then he gathered up his son and fled; for he said
that thou didst change a quiet trader into an impudent bandier of
words with the Sahibs, and he feared a like fate. Where is the
Saddhu?"

  "With the polis," said Kim.... "Yet I saved the Kamboh's child."

  The lama snuffed blandly.

  "Ah, chela, see how thou art overtaken! Thou didst cure the Kamboh's
child solely to acquire merit. But thou didst put a spell on the
Mahratta with prideful workings- I watched thee- and with side-long
glances to bewilder an old old man and a foolish farmer: whence
calamity and suspicion."

  Kim controlled himself with an effort beyond his years. Not more
than any other youngster did he like to eat dirt or to be misjudged,
but he saw himself in a cleft stick. The train rolled out of Delhi
into the night.

  "It is true," he murmured. "Where I have offended thee I have done
wrong."

  "It is more, chela. Thou hast loosed an Act upon the world, and as a
stone thrown into a pool so spread the consequences thou canst not
tell how far."

  This ignorance was well both for Kim's vanity and for the lama's
peace of mind, when we think that there was then being handed in at
Simla a code-wire reporting the arrival of E.23 at Delhi, and, more
important, the whereabouts of a letter he had been commissioned to-
abstract. Incidentally, an over-zealous policeman had arrested, on
charge of murder done in a far southern State, a horribly indignant
Ajmir cotton-broker, who was explaining himself to a Mr. Strickland on
Delhi platform, while E.23 was paddling through by-ways into the
locked heart of Delhi city. In two hours several telegrams had reached
the angry minister of a southern State reporting that all trace of a
somewhat bruised Mahratta had been lost; and by the time the leisurely
train halted at Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim had
helped to heave was lapping against the steps of a mosque in
far-away Roum- where it disturbed a pious man at prayers.

  The lama made his in ample form near the dewy bougain-villea-trellis
near the platform, cheered by the clear sunshine and the presence of
his disciple. "We will put these things behind us," he said,
indicating the brazen engine and the gleaming track. "The jolting of
the te-rain- though a wonderful thing- has turned my bones to water.
We will use clean air henceforward."

  "Let us go to the Kulu woman's house," said Kim, and stepped forth
cheerily under the bundles. Early morning Saharunpore-way is clean and
well scented. He thought of the other mornings at St. Xavier's, and it
topped his already thrice-heaped contentment.

  "Where is this new haste born from? Wise men do not run about like
chickens in the sun. We have come hundreds upon hundreds of kos
already, and, till now, I have scarcely been alone with thee an
instant. How canst thou receive instruction all jostled of crowds? How
can I, whelmed by a flux of talk, meditate upon the Way?"

  "Her tongue grows no shorter with the years, then?" The disciple
smiled.

  "Nor her desire for charms. I remember once when I spoke of the
Wheel of Life"- the lama fumbled in his bosom for his latest copy-
"she was only curious about the devils that besiege children. She
shall acquire merit by entertaining us- in a little while- at an
after-occasion- softly, softly. Now we will wander loose-foot, waiting
upon the Chain of Things. The Search is sure."

  So they travelled very easily across and among the broad bloomful
fruit-gardens- by way of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and
little Phulesa- the line of the Sewaliks always to the north, and
behind them again the snows. After long, sweet sleep under the dry
stars came the lordly, leisurely passage through a waking village-
begging-bowl held forth in silence, but eyes roving in defiance of the
Law from sky's edge to sky's edge. Then would Kim return soft-footed
through the soft dust to his master under the shadow of a mango tree
or the thinner shade of a white Doon siris, to eat and drink at
ease. At mid-day, after talk and a little wayfaring, they slept;
meeting the world refreshed when the air was cooler. Night found
them adventuring into new territory- some chosen village spied three
hours before across the fat land, and much discussed upon the road.

  There they told their tale- a new one each evening so far as Kim was
concerned- and there were they made welcome, either by priest or
headman, after the custom of the kindly East.

  When the shadows shortened and the lama leaned more heavily upon
Kim, there was always the Wheel of Life to draw forth, to hold flat
under wiped stones, and with a long straw to expound cycle by cycle.
Here sat the Gods on high- and they were dreams of dreams. Here was
our Heaven and the world of the demi-Gods- horsemen fighting among the
hills. Here were the agonies done upon the beasts, souls ascending
or descending the ladder and therefore not to be interfered with. Here
were the Hells, hot and cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts.
Let the chela study the troubles that come from over-eating- bloated
stomach and burning bowels. Obediently then, with bowed head and brown
finger alert to follow the pointer, did the chela study; but when they
came to the Human World, busy and profitless, that is just above the
Hells, his mind was distracted; for by the roadside trundled the
very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading, marrying, and
quarrelling- all warmly alive. Often the lama made the living pictures
the matter of his text, bidding Kim- too ready- note how the flesh
takes a thousand thousand shapes, desirable or detestable as men
reckon, but in truth of no account either way; and how the stupid
spirit, bond-slave to the Hog, the Dove, and the Serpent- lusting
after betel-nut, a new yoke of oxen, women, or the favour of kings- is
bound to follow the body through all the Heavens and all the Hells,
and strictly round again. Sometimes a woman or a poor man, watching
the ritual- it was nothing less- when the great yellow chart was
unfolded, would throw a few flowers or a handful of cowries upon its
edge. It sufficed these humble ones that they had met a Holy One who
might be moved to remember them in his prayers.

  "Cure them if they are sick," said the lama, when Kim's sporting
instincts woke. "Cure them if they have fever, but by no means work
charms. Remember what befell the Mahratta."

  "Then all Doing is evil?" Kim replied, lying out under a big tree at
the fork of the Doon road, watching the little ants run over his hand.

  "To abstain from action is well- except to acquire merit."

  "At the Gates of Learning we were taught that to abstain from action
was unbefitting a Sahib. And I am a Sahib."

  "Friend of all the World"- the lama looked directly at Kim- "I am an
old man- pleased with shows as are children. To those who follow the
Way there is neither black nor white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. We be all
souls seeking escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among
Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion-
at my side. Hai! my bones ache for that River, as they ached in the
te-rain; but my spirit sits above my bones, waiting. The Search is
sure!"

  "I am answered. Is it permitted to ask a question?"

  The lama inclined his stately head.

  "I ate thy bread for three years- as thou knowest. Holy One,
whence came- ?"

  "There is much wealth, as men count it, in Bhotiyal," the lama
returned with composure. "In my own place I have the illusion of
honour. I ask for that I need. I am not concerned with the account.
That is for my monastery. Ai! The black high seats in the monastery,
and the novices all in order!"

  And he told stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the
immense and sumptuous ritual of avalanche-guarded cathedrals; of
processions and devil-dances; of the changing of monks and nuns into
swine; of holy cities fifteen thousand feet in the air; of intrigue
between monastery and monastery; of voices among the hills, and of
that mysterious mirage that dances on dry snow. He spoke even of
Lhassa and of the Dalai Lama, whom he had seen and adored.

  Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him
off from his race and his mother-tongue. He slipped back to thinking
and dreaming in the vernacular, and mechanically followed the lama's
ceremonial observances at eating, drinking, and the like. The old
man's mind turned more and more to his monastery as his eyes turned to
the steadfast snows. His River troubled him nothing. Now and again,
indeed, he would gaze long and long at a tuft or a twig, expecting, he
said, the earth to cleave and deliver its blessing; but he was content
to be with his disciple, at ease in the temperate wind that comes down
from the Doon. This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya, nor Bombay, nor
some grass-tangled ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon two
years ago. He spoke of those places as a scholar removed from
vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old man, wise and
temperate, illumining knowledge with brilliant insight. Bit by bit,
disconnectedly, each tale called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of
all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him
without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons. So they
enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule
demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not lying
on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomachs told them the
time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is. They
were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the
Ford, and little Phulesa, where Kim gave the soulless woman a
blessing.

  But news travels fast in India, and too soon shuffled across the
crop-land, bearing a basket of fruits with a box of Cabul grapes and
gilt oranges, a white-whiskered servitor- a lean, dry Oorya- begging
them to bring the honour of their presence to his mistress, distressed
in her mind that the lama had neglected her so long.

  "Now do I remember"- the lama spoke as though it were a wholly new
proposition. "She is virtuous, but an inordinate talker."

  Kim was sitting on the edge of a cow's manger, telling stories to
a village smith's children.

  "She will only ask for another son for her daughter. I have not
forgotten her," he said. "Let her acquire merit. Send word that we
will come."

  "They covered eleven miles through the fields in two days, and
were overwhelmed with attentions at the end; for the old lady held a
fine tradition of hospitality, to which she forced her son-in-law, who
was under the thumb of his women-folk and brought peace by borrowing
of the money-lender. Age had not weakened her tongue or her memory,
and from a discreetly barred upper window, in the hearing of not
less than a dozen servants, she paid Kim compliments that would have
flung European audiences into unclean dismay.

  "But thou art still the shameless beggar-brat of the parao," she
shrilled. "I have not forgotten thee. Wash ye and eat. The father of
my daughter's son is gone away awhile. So we poor women are dumb and
useless."

  For proof, she harangued the entire household unsparingly till
food and drink were brought; and in the evening- the smoke-scented
evening, copper-dun and turquoise across the fields- it pleased her to
order her palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by smoky
torch-light; and there, behind not too closely drawn curtains, she
gossiped.

  "Had the Holy One come alone, I should have received him
otherwise; but with this rogue, who can be too careful?"

  "Maharanee," said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, "is
it my fault that none other than a Sahib- a polis-sahib- called the
Maharanee whose face he- "

  "Chitt! That was on the pilgrimage. When we travel- thou knowest the
proverb."

  "Called the Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of
Delights?"

  "To remember that! It was true. So he did. That was in the time of
the bloom of my beauty." She chuckled like a contented parrot above
the sugar lump. "Now tell me of thy goings and comings- as much as may
be without shame. How many maids, and whose wives, hang upon thy
eyelashes? Ye hail from Benares? I would have gone there again this
year, but my daughter- we have only two sons. Phaii! Such is the
effect of these low plains. Now in Kulu men are elephants. But I would
ask thy Holy One- stand aside, rogue- a charm against most
lamentable windy colics that in mango-time overtake my daughter's
eldest. Two years back he gave me a powerful spell."

  "Oh, Holy One!" said Kim, bubbling with mirth at the lama's rueful
face.

  "It is true. I gave her one against wind."

  "Teeth- teeth- teeth," snapped the old woman.

  "Cure them when they are sick," Kim quoted relishingly, "but by no
means work charms. Remember what befell the Mahratta."

  "That was two Rains ago; she wearied me with her continual
importunity." The lama groaned as the Unjust Judge had groaned
before him. "Thus it comes- take note, my chela- that even those who
would follow the Way are thrust aside by idle women. Three days
through, when the child was sick, she talked to me."

  "Arre! and to whom else should I talk? The boy's mother knew
nothing, and the father- in the nights of the cold weather it was-
'Pray to the Gods,' said he, forsooth, and turning over, snored!"

  "I gave her the charm. What is an old man to do?"

  "'To abstain from action is well- except when we acquire merit.'"

  "Ah, chela, if thou desertest me, I am all alone."

  "He found his milk-teeth easily at any rate," said the old lady.
"But all priests are alike."

  Kim coughed severely. Being young, he did not approve of her
flippancy. "To importune the wise out of season is to invite
calamity."

  "There is a talking mynah"- the thrust came back with the
well-remembered snap of the jewelled fore-finger- "over the stables
which has picked up the very tone of the family-priest. Maybe I forget
honour to my guests, but if ye had seen him double his fists into
his belly, which was like a half-grown gourd, and cry: 'Here is the
pain!' ye would forgive. I am half minded to take the hakim's
medicine. He sells it cheap, and certainly it makes him fat as
Shiv's own bull. He does not deny remedies, but I doubted for the
child because of the inauspicious colour of the bottles."

  The lama, under cover of the monologue, had faded out into the
darkness towards the room prepared.

  "Thou hast angered him, belike," said Kim.

  "Not he. He is wearied, and I forgot, being a grandmother. (None but
a grandmother should ever oversee a child. Mothers are only fit for
bearing.) To-morrow, when he sees how my daughter's son is grown, he
will write the charm. Then, too, he can judge of the new hakim's
drugs."

  "Who is the hakim, Maharanee?"

  "A wanderer, as thou art, but a most sober Bengali from Dacca- a
master of medicine. He relieved me of an oppression after meat by
means of a small pill that wrought like a devil unchained. He
travels about now, vending preparations of great value. He has even
papers, printed in Angrezi, telling what things he has done for
weak-backed men and slack women. He has been here four days; but
hearing ye were coming (hakims and priests are snake and tiger the
world over) he has, as I take it, gone to cover."

  While she drew breath after this volley, the ancient servant,
sitting unrebuked on the edge of the torch-light, muttered:- "This
house is a cattle-pound, as it were, for all charlatans and-
priests. Let the boy stop eating mangoes... but who can argue with a
grandmother?" He raised his voice respectfully: "Sahiba, the hakim
sleeps after his meat. He is in the quarters behind the dovecot."

  Kim bristled like an expectant terrier. To outface and down-talk a
Calcutta-taught Bengali, a voluble Dacca drug-vendor, would be a
good game. It was not seemly that the lama, and incidentally
himself, should be thrown aside for such an one. He knew those curious
bastard English advertisements at the backs of native newspapers.
St. Xavier's boys sometimes brought them in by stealth to snigger over
among their mates; for the language of the grateful patient recounting
his symptoms is most simple and revealing. The Oorya, not unanxious to
play off one parasite against the other, slunk away towards the
dovecot.

  "Yes," said Kim, with measured scorn. "Their stock-in-trade is a
little coloured water and a very great shamelessness. Their prey are
broken-down kings and overfed Bengalis. Their profit is in children-
who are not born."

  The old lady chuckled. "Do not be envious. Charms are better, eh?
I never gainsaid it. See that thy Holy One writes me a good amulet
by the morning."

  "None but the ignorant deny"- a thick, heavy voice boomed through
the darkness, as a figure came to rest squatting- "None but the
ignorant deny the value of charms. None but the ignorant deny the
value of medicines."

  "A rat found a piece of turmeric. Said he: 'I will open a grocer's
shop,'" Kim retorted.

  Battle was fairly joined now, and they heard the old lady stiffen to
attention.

  "The priest's son knows the names of his nurse and three Gods.
Says he: 'Hear me, or I will curse you by the three million Great
Ones.'" Decidedly this invisible had an arrow or two in his quiver. He
went on: "I am but a teacher of the alphabet. I have learned all the
wisdom of the Sahibs."

  "The Sahibs never grow old. They dance and they play like children
when they are grandfathers. A strong-backed breed," piped the voice
inside the palanquin.

  "I have, too, our drugs which loosen humours of the head in hot
and angry men. Sina well compounded when the moon stands in the proper
House; yellow earths I have- arplan from China that makes a man to
renew his youth and astonish his household; saffron from Kashmir,
and the best salep of Cabul. Many people have died before- "

  "That I surely believe," said Kim.

  "They knew the value of my drugs. I do not give my sick the mere ink
in which a charm is written, but hot and rending drugs which descend
and wrestle with the evil."

  "Very mightily they do so," sighed the old lady.

  The voice launched into an immense tale of misfortune and
bankruptcy, studded with plentiful petitions to the Government. "But
for my fate, which overrules all, I had been now in Government employ.
I bear a degree from the great school at Calcutta- whither, maybe, the
son of this house shall go."

  "He shall indeed. If our neighbour's brat can in a few years be made
an F.A." (First Arts- she used the English word, of which she had
heard so often), "how much more shall children clever as some that I
know bear away prizes at rich Calcutta."

  "Never," said the voice, "have I seen such a child! Born in an
auspicious hour, and- but for that colic which, alas! turning into
black cholers, may carry him off like a pigeon- destined to many
years, he is enviable."

  "Hai mai!" said the old lady. "To praise children is inauspicious,
or I could listen to this talk. But the back of the house is
unguarded, and even in this soft air men think themselves to be men
and women we know.... The child's father is away too, and I must be
chowkedar (watchman) in my old age. Up! Up! Take up the palanquin. Let
the hakim and the young priest settle between them whether charms or
medicine most avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch tobacco for the
guests, and- round the homestead go I!"

  The palanquin reeled off, followed by straggling torches and a horde
of dogs. Twenty villages knew the Sahiba- her failings, her tongue,
and her large charity. Twenty villages cheated her after immemorial
custom, but no man would have stolen or robbed within her jurisdiction
for any gift under Heaven. None the less, she made great parade of her
formal inspections, the riot of which could be heard half-way to
Mussoorie.

  Kim relaxed, as one augur must when he meets another. The hakim,
still squatting, slid over his hookah with a friendly foot, and Kim
pulled at the good weed. The hangers-on expected grave professional
debate, and perhaps a little free doctoring.

  "To discuss medicine before the ignorant is of one piece with
teaching the peacock to sing," said the hakim.

  "True courtesy," Kim echoed, "is very often inattention."

  These, be it understood, were company-manners, designed to impress.

  "Hi! I have an ulcer on my leg," cried a scullion. "Look at it!"

  "Get hence! Remove!" said the hakim. "Is it the habit of the place
to pester honoured guests? Ye crowd in like buffaloes."

  "If the Sahiba knew- " Kim began.

  "Ai! Ai! Come away. They are meat for our mistress. When her young
Shaitan's colics are cured perhaps we poor people may be suffered
to- "

  "The mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in jail for breaking the
money-lender's head. Who speaks against her?" The old servitor
curled his white moustaches savagely in the young moonlight. "I am
responsible for the honour of this house. Go!" and he drove the
underlings before him.

  Said the hakim, hardly more than shaping the words with his lips:
"How do you do, Mr. O'Hara? I am jolly glad to see you again."

  Kim's hand clenched about the pipe-stem. Anywhere on the open
road, perhaps, he would not have been astonished; but here, in this
quiet backwater of life, he was not prepared for Hurree Babu. It
annoyed him, too, that he had been hoodwinked.

  "Ah ha! I told you at Lucknow- resurgam- I shall rise again and
you shall not know me. How much did you bet- eh?"

  He chewed leisurely upon a few cardamom seeds, but he breathed
uneasily.

  "But why come here, Babuji?"

  "Ah! Thatt is the question, as Shakespeare hath said. I come to
congratulate you on your extraordinary effeecient performance at
Delhi. Oah! I tell you we are all proud of you. It was verree neat and
handy. Our mutual friend, he is old friend of mine. He has been in
some dam-tight places. Now he will be in some more. He told me; I tell
Mr. Lurgan; and he is pleased you graduate so nicely. All the
Department is pleased."

  For the first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the clean pride
(it can be a deadly pitfall, none the less) of Departmental praise-
ensnaring praise from an equal of work appreciated by
fellow-workers. Earth has nothing on the same plane to compare with
it. But, cried the Oriental in him, Babus do not travel far to
retail compliments.

  "Tell thy tale, Babu," he said authoritatively.

  "Oah, it is nothing. Onlee I was at Simla when the wire came in
about what our mutual friend said he had hidden, and old Creighton-
" He looked to see how Kim would take this piece of audacity.

  "The Colonel Sahib," the boy from St. Xavier's corrected.

  "Of course. He found me at a loose string, and I had to go down to
Chitor to find that beastly letter. I do not like the South- too
much railway travel; but I drew good travelling allowance. Ha! Ha! I
meet our mutual at Delhi on the way back. He lies quiett just now, and
says Saddhu-disguise suits him to the ground. Well, there I hear
what you have done so well, so quickly, upon the instantaneous spur of
the moment. I tell our mutual friend you take the bally bun, by
Jove! It was splendid. I come to tell you so."

  "Umm!"

  The frogs were busy in the ditches, and the moon slid to her
setting. Some happy servant had gone out to commune with the night and
to beat upon a drum. Kim's next sentence was in the vernacular.

  "How didst thou follow us?"

  "Oah. Thatt was nothing. I know from our mutual friend you go to
Saharunpore. So I come on. Red lamas are not inconspicuous persons.
I buy myself my drug-box, and I am very good doctor really. I go to
Akrola by the Ford, and hear all about you, and I talk here and talk
there. All the common people know what you do. I know when the
hospitable old lady sent the dooli. They have great recollections of
the old lama's visits here. I know old ladies cannot keep their
hands from medicines. So I am a doctor, and- you hear my talk? I think
it is verree good. My word, Mister O'Hara, they know about you and the
lama for fifty miles- the common people. So I come. Do you mind?"

  "Babuji," said Kim, looking up at the broad, grinning face, "I am
a Sahib."

  "My dear Mister O'Hara- "

  "And I hope to play the Great Game."

  "You are subordinate to me departmentally at present."

  "Then why talk like an ape up in a tree? Men do not come after one
from Simla and change their dress, for the sake of a few sweet
words. I am not a child. Talk Hindi and let us get to the yolk of
the egg. Thou art here- speaking not one word of truth in ten. Why art
thou here? Give a straight answer."

  "That is so verree disconcerting of the European, Mister O'Hara. You
should know a heap better at your time of life."

  "But I want to know," said Kim, laughing. If it is the Game, I may
help. How can I do anything if you bukh (babble) all round the shop."

  Hurree Babu reached for the pipe, and sucked it till it guggled
again.

  "Now I will speak vernacular. You sit tight, Mister O'Hara.... It
concerns the pedigree of a white stallion."

  "Still? That was finished long ago."

  "When every one is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before.
Listen to me till the end. There were Five Kings who prepared a sudden
war three years ago, when thou wast given the stallion's pedigree by
Mahbub Ali. Upon them, because of that news, and ere they were
ready, fell our Army."

  "Ay- eight thousand men with guns. I remember that night."

  "But the war was not pushed. That is the Government custom. The
troops were recalled because the Government believed the Five Kings
were cowed; and it is not cheap to feed men among the high Passes.
Hilas and Bunar- Rajahs with guns- undertook for a price to guard
the passes against all coming from the North. They protested both fear
and friendship." He broke off with a giggle into English: "Of
course, I tell you this unoffeecially to elucidate political
situation, Mister O'Hara. Offeecially, I am debarred from
criticising any action of superior. Now I go on.- This pleased the
Government, anxious to avoid expense, and a bond was made for so
many rupees a month that Hilas and Bunar should guard the Passes as
soon as the State's troops were withdrawn. At that time- it was
after we two met- I, who had been selling tea in Leh, became a clerk
of accounts in the Army. When the troops were withdrawn, I was left
behind to pay the coolies who made new roads in the Hills. This
road-making was part of the bond between Bunar, Hilas, and the
Government."

  "So; and then?"

  "I tell you, it was jolly beastly cold up there too, after
summer," said Hurree Babu confidentially. "I was afraid these Bunar
men would cut my throat every night for thee pay-chest. My native
sepoy-guard, they laughed at me! By Jove! I was such a fearful man!
Nevar mind thatt. I go on colloquially.... I send word many times that
these two Kings were sold to the North; and Mahbub Ali, who was yet
farther north, amply confirmed it. Nothing was done. Only my feet were
frozen, and a toe dropped off. I sent word that the roads for which
I was paying money to the diggers were being made for the feet of
strangers and enemies."

  "For?"

  "For the Russians. The thing was an open jest among the coolies.
Then I was called down to tell what I knew by speech of tongue. Mahbub
came South too. See the end! Over the Passes this year after
snow-melting"- he shivered afresh- "come two strangers under cover
of shooting wild goats. They bear guns, but they bear also chains
and levels and compasses."

  "Oho! The thing gets clearer."

  "They are well received by Hilas and Bunar. They make great
promises; they speak as the mouthpiece of a Kaisar, with gifts. Up the
valleys, down the valleys go they, saying, 'Here is a place to build a
breastwork; here can ye pitch a fort. Here can ye hold the road
against an army'- the very roads for which I paid out the rupees
monthly. The Government knows, but does nothing. The three other
Kings, who were not paid for guarding the Passes, tell them by
runner of the bad faith of Bunar and Hilas. When all the evil is done,
look you- when these two strangers with the levels and the compasses
make the Five Kings to believe that a great army will sweep the Passes
to-morrow or the next day- Hill-people are all fools- comes the
order to me, Hurree Babu 'Go North and see what those strangers do.' I
say to Creighton Sahib, 'This is not a lawsuit, that we go about to
collect evidence.'" Hurree returned to his English with a jerk: "'By
Jove,' I said, 'why the dooce do you not issue demi-offeecial orders
to some brave man to poison them, for an example? It is, if you permit
the observation, most reprehensible laxity on your part.' And
Colonel Creighton, he laughed at me! It is all your beastly English
pride. You think no one dare conspire! That is all tommy-rott."

  Kim smoked slowly, revolving the business, so far as he understood
it, in his quick mind.

  "Then thou goest forth to follow the strangers?"

  "No; to meet them. They are coming in to Simla to send down their
horns and heads to be dressed at Calcutta. They are exclusively
sporting gentlemen, and they are allowed special faceelities by the
Government. Of course, we always do that. It is our British pride."

  "Then what is to fear from them?"

  "By Jove, they are not black people. I can do all sorts of things
with black people, of course. They are Russians, and highly
unscrupulous people. I- I do not want to consort with them without a
witness."

  "Will they kill thee?"

  "Oah, thatt is nothing. I am good enough Herbert Spencerian, I
trust, to meet little thing like death, which is all in my fate, you
know. But- but they may beat me."

  "Why?"

  Hurree Babu snapped his fingers with irritation. "Of course I
shall affeeliate myself to their camp in supernumerary capacity as
perhaps interpreter, or person mentally impotent and hungree, or
some such thing. And then I must pick up what I can, I suppose. That
is as easy for me as playing Mister Doctor to the old lady. Onlee-
onlee- you see, Mister O'Hara, I am unfortunately Asiatic, which is
serious detrimnent in some respects. And all-so I am Bengali- a
fearful man."

  "God made the Hare and the Bengali. What shame?" said Kim, quoting
the proverb.

  "It was process of Evolution, I think, from Primal Necessity, but
the fact remains in all its cui bono. I am, oh, awfully fearful!- I
remember once they wanted to cut off my head on the road to Lhassa.
(No, I have never reached to Lhassa.) I sat down and cried, Mister
O'Hara, anticipating Chinese tortures. I do not suppose these two
gentlemen will torture me, but I like to provide for possible
contingency with European assistance in emergency." He coughed and
spat out his cardamoms. "It is purely unoffeecial indent, to which you
can say, 'No, Babu.' If you have no pressing engagement with your
old man- perhaps you might divert him; perhaps I can seduce his
fancies- I should like you to keep in Departmental touch with me
till I find those sporting coves. I have great opeenion of you since I
met my friend at Delhi. And also I will embody your name in my
offeecial report when matter is finally adjudicated. It will be a
great feather in your cap. That is why I come really."

  "Humph! The end of the tale, I think, is true; but what of the
fore-part?"

  "About the Five Kings? Oah! there is ever so much truth in it. A
lots more than you would suppose," said Hurree earnestly. "You come-
eh? I go from here straight into the Doon. It is verree verdant and
painted meads. I shall go to Mussoorie- to good old Mussoorie Pahar,
as the gentlemen and ladies say. Then by Rampur into Chini. That is
the only way they can come. I do not like waiting in the cold, but
we must wait for them. I want to walk with them to Simla. You see, one
Russian is a Frenchman, and I know my French pretty well. I have
friends in Chandernagore."

  "He would certainly rejoice to see the Hills again," said Kim
meditatively. "All his speech these ten days past has been of little
else. If we go together- ?"

  "Oah! We can be quite strangers on the road, if your lama prefers. I
shall just be four or five miles ahead. There is no hurry for
Hurree- that is an Europe pun, ha! ha!- and you come after. There is
plenty of time; they will plot and survey and map of course. I shall
go to-morrow, and you the next day, if you choose. Eh? You go think on
it till morning. By Jove, it is near morning now." He yawned
ponderously, and with never a civil word lumbered off to his
sleeping-place. But Kim slept little, and his thoughts ran in
Hindustanee:

  "Well is the Game called great! I was four days a scullion at
Quetta, waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole. And that
was part of the Great Game! From the South- God knows how far- came up
the Mahratta, playing the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I
shall go far and far into the North playing the Great Game. Truly,
it runs like a shuttle throughout all Hind. And my share and my
joy"- he smiled to the darkness- "I owe to the lama here. Also to
Mahbub Ali- also to Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy One. He
is right- a great and a wonderful world- and I am Kim- Kim- Kim-
alone- one person- in the middle of it all. But I will see these
strangers with their levels and chains..."

  "What was the upshot of last night's babble?" said the lama, after
his orisons.

  "There came a strolling seller of drugs- a hanger-on of the
Sahiba's. Him I abolished by arguments and prayers, proving that our
charms are worthier than his coloured waters."

  "Alas! my charms. Is the virtuous woman still bent upon a new one?"

  "Very strictly."

  "Then it must be written, or she will deafen me with her clamour."
He fumbled at his pencase.

  "In the Plains," said Kim, "are always too many people. In the
Hills, as I understand, there are fewer."

  "Oh! the Hills, and the snow upon the Hills." The lama tore off a
tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet. "But what dost thou
know of the Hills?"

  "They are very close." Kim thrust open the door and looked at the
long, peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in morning-gold.
"Except in the dress of a Sahib, I have never set foot among them."

  The lama snuffed the wind wistfully.

  "If we go north"- Kim put the question to the waking sunrise- "would
not much mid-day heat be avoided by walking among the lower hills at
least?... Is the charm made, Holy One?"

  "I have written the names of seven silly devils- not one of whom
is worth a grain of dust in the eye. Thus do foolish women drag us
from the Way!"

  Hurree Babu come out from behind the dovecot, washing his teeth with
ostentatious ritual. Full-fleshed, heavy-haunched, bull-necked, and
deep-voiced, he did not look like "a fearful man." Kim signed almost
imperceptibly that matters were in good train, and when the morning
toilet was over Hurree Babu, in flowery speech, came to do honour to
the lama. They ate, of course, apart, and afterwards the old lady,
more or less veiled behind a window, returned to the vital business of
green-mango colics in the young. The lama's knowledge of medicine
was of course sympathetic only. He believed that the dung of a black
horse, mixed with sulphur, and carried in a snake-skin, was a sound
remedy for cholera; but the symbolism interested him far more than the
science. Hurree Babu deferred to these views with enchanting
politeness, so that the lama called him a courteous physician.
Hurree Babu replied that he was no more than an inexpert dabbler in
the mysteries; but at least- he thanked the Gods therefor- he knew
when he sat in the presence of a master. He himself had been taught by
the Sahibs, who do not consider expense, in the lordly halls of
Calcutta; but, as be was ever first to acknowledge, there lay a wisdom
behind earthly wisdom- the high and lonely lore of meditation. Kim
looked on with envy. The Hurree Babu of his knowledge- oily, effusive,
and nervous- was gone; gone too was the brazen drug-vendor of
overnight. There remained- polished, polite, attentive- a sober,
learned son of experience and adversity, gathering wisdom from the
lama's lips. The old lady confided to Kim that these rare levels
were beyond her. She liked charms with plenty of ink that one could
wash off in water, swallow, and be done with. Else what was the use of
the Gods? She liked men and women, and she spoke of them- of
kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of
the depredations of leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic;
of the incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her
son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the
young, and the age's lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in the
life of this world as she soon to leave it, squatted with his feet
under the hem of his robe, drinking all in, while the lama
demolished one after another every theory of body-curing put forward
by Hurree Babu.

  At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound drug-box, took his
patent-leather shoes of ceremony in one hand, a gay blue and white
umbrella in the other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where, he
said, he was in demand among the lesser kings of those parts.

  "We will go in the cool of the evening, chela," said the lama. "That
doctor, learned in physic and courtesy, affirms that the people
among these lower hills are devout, generous, and much in need of a
teacher. In a very short time- so says the hakim- we come to cool
air and the smell of pines."

  "Ye go to the Hills. And by Kulu-road? Ah, thrice happy!" shrilled
the old lady. "But that I am a little pressed with the care of the
homestead I would take palanquin... but that would be shameless, and
my reputation would be cracked. Ho! Ho! know the road- every march
of the road I know. Ye will find charity throughout- it is not
denied to the well-looking. I will give orders for provision. A
servant to set you forth upon your journey? No.... Then I will at
least cook ye good food."

  "What a woman is the Sahiba!" said the white-bearded Oorya, when a
tumult rose by the kitchen quarters. "She has never forgotten a
friend: she has never forgotten an enemy in all her years. And her
cookery- wah!" He rubbed his slim stomach.

  There were cakes, there were sweetmeats, there was cold fowl
stewed to rags with rice and prunes- enough to burden Kim like a mule.

  "I am old and useless," she said. "None now love me- and none
respect- but there are few to compare with me when I call on the
Gods and squat to my cooking-pots. Come again, O people of good
will! Holy One and disciple, come again! The room is always
prepared; the welcome is always ready.... See the women do not
follow thy chela too openly. I know the women of Kulu. Take heed,
chela, lest he run away when he smells his Hills again.... Hai! Do not
tilt the rice-bag upside down.... Bless the household, Holy One, and
forgive thy servant her stupidities."

  She wiped her red old eyes on a corner of her veil, and clucked
throatily.

  "Women talk," said the lama at last, "but that is a woman's
infirmity. I gave her a charm. She is upon the Wheel and wholly
given over to the shows of this life, but none the less, chela, she is
virtuous, kindly, hospitable- of a whole and zealous heart. Who
shall say she does not acquire merit?"

  "Not I, Holy One," said Kim, reslinging the bountiful provision on
his shoulders. "In my mind- behind my eyes- I have tried to picture
such an one altogether freed from the Wheel- desiring nothing, causing
nothing- a nun, as it were."

  "And, O imp?" The lama almost laughed aloud.

  "I cannot make the picture."

  "Nor I. But there are many, many millions of lives before her. She
will get wisdom a little, it may be, in each one."

  "And will she forget how to make stews with saffron upon that road?"

  "Thy mind is set on things unworthy. But she has skill. I am
refreshed all over. When we reach the lower hills I shall be yet
stronger. The hakim spoke truly to me this morn when he said a
breath from the snows blows away twenty years from the life of a
man. We will go up into the Hills- the high hills- up to the sound
of snow-water and the sound of the trees- for a little while. The
hakim said that at any time we may return to the Plains, for we do
no more than skirt the pleasant places. The hakim is full of learning;
but he is in no way proud. I spoke to him- when thou wast talking to
the Sahiba- of a certain dizziness that lays hold upon the back of
my neck in the night, and he said it rose from excessive heat- to be
cured by cool air. Upon consideration, I marvelled that I had not
thought of such a simple remedy."

  "Didst thou tell him of thy Search?" said Kim, a little jealously.
He preferred to sway the lama by his own speech- not through the wiles
of Hurree Babu.

  "Assuredly. I told him of my dream, and of the manner by which I had
acquired merit by causing thee to be taught wisdom."

  "Thou didst not say I was a Sahib?"

  "What need? I have told thee many times we be but two souls
seeking escape. He said- and he is just herein- that the River of
Healing will break forth even as I dreamed- at my feet if need be.
Having found the Way, seest thou, that shall free me from the Wheel,
need I trouble to find a way about the mere fields of earth- which are
illusion? That were senseless. I have my dreams, night upon night
repeated; I have the 'Jataka'; and I have thee, Friend of all the
World. It was written in thy horoscope that a Red Bull on a green
field- I have not forgotten- should bring thee to honour. Who but I
saw that prophecy accomplished? Indeed, I was the instrument. Thou
shalt find me my River, being in return the instrument. The Search
is sure!"

  He set his ivory-yellow face, serene and untroubled, towards the
beckoning Hills; his shadow shouldering far before him in the dust.

                                13

    "Who hath desired the Sea- the immense and contemptuous

       surges?

    The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the star-stabbing

       bow-spirit emerges-

    The orderly clouds of the Trades and the ridged roaring sapphire

       thereunder-

    Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails' low-volleying

       thunder?

    His Sea is no wonder the same- his Sea and the same in each

       wonder-

               His Sea that his being fulfils?

    So and no otherwise- so and no otherwise Hill-men desire their

       Hills!"

  "Who goes to the Hills goes to his mother."

  They had crossed the Sewaliks and the half-tropical Doon, left
Mussoorie behind them, and headed north along the narrow hillroads.
Day after day they struck deeper into the huddled mountains, and day
after day Kim watched the lama return to a man's strength. Among the
terraces of the Doon he had leaned on the boy's shoulder, ready to
profit by wayside halts. Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew
himself together as an old hunter faces a well-remembered bank, and
where he should have sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about
him, drew a deep double-lungful of the diamond air, and walked as only
a hillman can. Kim, plains-bred and plains-fed, sweated and panted
astonished. "This is my country," said the lama. "Besides Suchzen,
this is flatter than a ricefield"; and with steady, driving strokes
from the loins he strode upwards. But it was on the steep downhill
marches, three thousand feet in three hours, that he went utterly away
from Kim, whose back ached with holding back, and whose big toe was
nigh cut off by his grass sandal-string. Through the speckled shadow
of the great deodar-forests; through oak feathered and plumed with
ferns; birch, ilex, rhododendron, and pine, out on to the bare
hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass, and back into the woodlands'
coolth again, till oak gave way to bamboo and palm of the valley,
the lama swung untiring.

  Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and
the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay
out, with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for
the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on
Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the
high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above
stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath- kings of that wilderness- took
the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the
sun, and at evening put on their jewels again. At first they
breathed temperately upon the travellers, winds good to meet when
one crawled over some gigantic hogback; but in a few days, at a height
of nine or ten thousand feet, those breezes bit; and Kim kindly
allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by giving him a rough
blanket-coat. The lama was mildly surprised that anyone should
object to the knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his
shoulders.

  "These are but the lower hills, chela. There is no cold till we come
to the true Hills."

  "Air and water are good, and the people are devout enough, but the
food is very bad," Kim growled; "and we walk as though we were mad- or
English. It freezes at night, too."

  "A little, maybe; but only enough to make old bones rejoice in the
sun. We must not always delight in the soft beds and rich food."

  "We might at the least keep to the road."

  Kim had all a plains-man's affection for the well-trodden track, not
six feet wide, that snaked among the mountains; but the lama, being
Tibetan, could not refrain from short cuts over spurs and the rims
of gravel-strewn slopes. As he explained to his limping disciple, a
man bred among mountains can prophesy the course of a mountain-road,
and though low-lying clouds might be a hindrance to a short-cutting
stranger, they made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man. Thus,
after long hours of what would be reckoned very fair mountaineering in
civilised countries, they would pant over a saddle-back, sidle past
a few landslips, and drop through forest at an angle of forty-five
on to the road again. Along their track lay the villages of the
hill-folk- mud and earth huts, the timbers now and then rudely
carved with an axe- clinging like swallows' nests against the
steeps, huddled on tiny flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot
glissade; jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled and
focused every wandering blast; or, for the sake of summer pasture,
cowering down on a neck that in winter would be ten feet deep in snow.
And the people- the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with short
bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux- would flock out and adore. The
Plains- kindly and gentle- had treated the lama as a holy man among
holy men. But the Hills worshipped him as one in the confidence of all
the devils. Theirs was an almost obliterated Buddhism, overlaid with a
nature-worship fantastic as their own landscapes, elaborate as the
terracing of their tiny fields; but they recognised the big hat, the
clicking rosary, and the rare Chinese texts for great authority; and
they respected the man under the hat.

  "We saw thee come down over the black Breasts of Eua," said a
Betah who gave them cheese, sour milk, and stone-hard bread one
evening. "We do not use that often- except when calving cows stray
in summer. There is a sudden wind among those stones that casts men
down on the stillest day. But what should such folk care for the Devil
of Eua!"

  Then did Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with looking down,
footsore with cramping desperate toes into inadequate crannies, take
joy in the day's march- such joy as a boy of St. Xavier's who had
won the quarter-mile on the flat might take in the praises of his
friends. The hills sweated the ghi and sugar suet off his bones; the
dry air, taken sobbingly at the head of cruel passes, firmed and built
out his upper ribs; and tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf
and thigh.

  They meditated often on the Wheel of Life- the more so since, as the
lama said, they were freed from its visible temptations. Except the
gray eagle and an occasional far-seen bear grubbing and rooting on the
hillside, the vision of a furious painted leopard met at dawn in a
still valley devouring a goat, and now and again a bright-coloured
bird, they were alone with the winds and the grass singing under the
wind. The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the two walked as
they descended the mountains, were unlovely and unclean, wives of many
husbands, and afflicted with goitre. The men were wood-cutters when
they were not farmers- meek, and of an incredible simplicity. But that
suitable discourse might not fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and
overtaken upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who paid for
his food in ointments good for goitre and counsels that restore
peace between men and women. He seemed to know these hills as well
as he knew the hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of the land
towards Ladakh and Tibet. He said they could return to the Plains at
any moment. Meantime, for such as loved mountains, yonder road might
amuse. This was not all revealed in a breath, but at evening
encounters on the stone threshing-floors, when, patients disposed
of, the doctor would smoke and the lama snuff, while Kim watched the
wee cows grazing on the house-tops, or threw his soul after his eye
across the deep blue gulfs between range and range. And there were
talks apart in the dark woods, when the doctor would seek herbs, and
Kim, as budding physician, must accompany him.

  "You see, Mister O'Hara, I do not know what the deuce-an'-all I
shall do when I find our sporting friends; but if you will kindly keep
within sight of my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for cadastral
survey, I feel much better."

  Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks. "This is not my
country, hakim. Easier, I think, to find one louse in a bear-skin."

  "Oah, thatt is my strong points. There is no hurry for Hurree.
They were at Leh not so long ago. They said they had come down from
the Kara Korum with their heads and horns and all. I am onlee afraid
they will have sent back all their letters and compromising things
from Leh into Russian territoree. Of course they will walk away as far
to the East as possible- just to show that they were never among the
Western States. You do not know the Hills?" He scratched with a twig
on the earth. "Look! They should have come in by Srinagar or
Abbottabad. Thatt is their short road- down the river by Bunji and
Astor. But they have made mischief in the West. So"- he drew a
furrow from left to right- "they march and they march away East to Leh
(ah! it is cold there), and down the Indus to Han-le (I know that
road), and then down, you see, to Bushahr and Chini valley. That is
ascertained by process of elimination, and also by asking questions
from people that I cure so well. Our friends have been a long time
playing about and producing impressions. So they are well known from
far off. You will see me catch them somewhere in Chini valley.
Please keep your eye on the umbrella."

  It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the valleys and round
the mountain sides, and in due time the lama and Kim, who steered by
compass, would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders at eventide.
"We came by such and such a way!" The lama would throw a careless
finger backward at the ridges, and the umbrella would expend itself in
compliments.

  They crossed a snowy pass in cold moonlight, when the lama, mildly
chaffing Kim, went through up to his knees, like a Bactrian camel- the
snow-bred, shag-haired sort that come into the Kashmir Serai. They
dipped across beds of light snow and snow-powdered shale, where they
took refuge from a gale in a camp of Tibetans hurrying down tiny
sheep, each laden with a bag of borax. They came out upon grassy
shoulders still snow-speckled, and through forest, to grass anew.
For all their marchings, Kedarnath and Badrinath were not impressed;
and it was only after days of travel that Kim, uplifted upon some
insignificant ten-thousand-foot hummock, could see that a
shoulder-knot or horn of the two great lords had- ever so slightly-
changed outline.

  At last they entered a world within a world- a valley of leagues
where the high hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse from
off the knees of the mountains. Here one day's march carried them no
farther, it seemed, than a dreamer's clogged pace bears him in a
nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and, behold,
it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the main
pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached it,
for a vast tableland running far into the valley. Three days later, it
was a dim fold in the earth to southward.

  "Surely the Gods live here," said Kim, beaten down by the silence
and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after rain.
"This is no place for men!"

  "Long and long ago," said the lama, as to himself, "it was asked
of the Lord whether the world were everlasting. To this the
Excellent One returned no answer.... When I was in Ceylon, a wise
Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is written in Pali.
Certainly, since we know the way to Freedom, the question were
unprofitable, but- look, and know illusion, chela! These are the
true Hills! They are like my hills by Suchzen. Never were such hills!"

  Above them, still enormously above them, earth towered away
towards the snow-line, where from east to west across hundreds of
miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped.
Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to fight
their heads above the white smother. Above these again, changeless
since the world's beginning, but changing to every mood of sun and
cloud, lay out the eternal snow. They could see blots and blurs on its
face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to dance. Below
them, as they stood, the forest slid away in a sheet of blue-green for
mile upon mile; below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of
terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds; below the village they
knew, though a thunderstorm worried and growled there for the
moment, a pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the moist
valley where the streams gather that are the mothers of young Sutluj.

  As usual, the lama had led Kim by cow-track and by-road, far from
the main route along which Hurree Babu, that "fearful man," had
bucketed three days before through a storm to which nine Englishmen
out of ten would have given full right of way. Hurree was no
game-shot- the snick of a trigger made him change colour- but, as he
himself would have said, he was "fairly effeecient stalker," and he
had raked the huge valley with a pair of cheap binoculars to some
purpose. Moreover, the white of worn canvas tents against green
carries far. Hurree Babu had seen all he wanted to see when he sat
on the threshing-floor of Ziglaur, twenty miles away as the eagle
flies, and forty by road- that is to say, two small dots which one day
were just below the snow-line, and the next had moved downward perhaps
six inches on the hillside. Once cleaned out and set to the work,
his fat bare legs could cover a surprising amount of ground, and
this was the reason why, while Kim and the lama lay in a leaky hut
at Ziglaur till the storm should be overpassed, an oily, wet, but
always smiling Bengali, talking the best of English with the vilest of
phrases, was ingratiating himself with two sodden and rather rheumatic
foreigners. He had arrived, revolving many wild schemes, on the
heels of a thunderstorm which had split a pine over against their
camp, and so convinced a dozen or two forcibly impressed
baggage-coolies the day was inauspicious for further travel that
with one accord they had thrown down their loads and jibbed. They were
subjects of a Hill-Rajah who farmed out their services, as is the
custom, for his private gain; and, to add to their personal
distresses, the strange Sahibs had already threatened them with
rifles. The most of them knew rifles and Sahibs of old; they were
trackers and shikarris of the Northern valleys keen after bear and
wild goat; but they had never been thus treated in their lives. So the
forest took them to her bosom, and, for all oaths and clamour, refused
to restore. There was no need to feign madness or- the Babu had
thought of another means of securing a welcome. He wrung out his wet
clothes, slipped on his patent-leather shoes, opened the blue and
white umbrella, and with mincing gait and a heart beating against
his tonsils appeared as "agent for His Royal Highness, the Rajah of
Rampur, gentlemen. What can I do for you, please?"

  The gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly French, the other
Russian, but they spoke English not much inferior to the Babu's.
They begged his kind offices. Their native servants had gone sick at
Leh. They had hurried on because they were anxious to bring the spoils
of the chase to Simla ere the skins grew moth-eaten. They bore a
general letter of introduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to
all Government officials. No, they had not met any other
shooting-parties en route. They did for themselves. They had plenty of
supplies. They only wished to push on as soon as might be. At this
he waylaid a cowering hillman among the trees, and after three
minutes' talk and a little silver (one cannot be economical upon State
service, though Hurree's heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies
and the three hangers-on reappeared. At least the Babu would be a
witness to oppression.

  "My royal master, he will be much annoyed, but these people are
onlee common people and grossly ignorant. If your honours will
kindly overlook unfortunate affair, I shall be much pleased. In a
little while rain will stop and we can then proceed. You have been
shooting, eh? That is fine performance!"

  He skipped nimbly from one kilta to the next, making pretence to
adjust each conical basket. The Englishman is not, as a rule, familiar
with the Asiatic, but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly
Babu who had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin top. On the
other hand, he would not press drink upon a Babu were he never so
friendly, nor would he invite him to meat. The strangers did all these
things, and asked many questions- about women mostly- to which
Hurree returned gay and unstudied answers. They gave him a glass of
whitish fluid like to gin, and then more; and in a little time his
gravity departed from him. He became thickly treasonous, and spoke
in terms of sweeping indecency of a Government which had forced upon
him a white man's education and neglected to supply him with a white
man's salary. He babbled tales of oppression and wrong till the
tears ran down his cheeks for the miseries of his land. Then he
staggered off, singing love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed
upon a wet tree-trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product of English
rule in India more unhappily thrust upon aliens.

  "They are all just of that pattern," said one sportsman to the other
in French. "When we get into India proper thou wilt see. I should like
to visit his Rajah. One might speak the good word there. It is
possible that he has heard of us and wishes to signify his goodwill."

  "We have not time. We must get into Simla as soon as may be," his
companion replied. "For my own part, I wish our reports had been
sent back from Hilas, or even Leh."

  "The English post is better and safer. Remember we are given all
facilities- and name of God!- they give them to us too! Is it
unbelievable stupidity?"

  "It is pride- pride that deserves and will receive punishment."

  "Yes! To fight a fellow-Continental in our game is something.
There is a risk attached, but these people- bah! It is too easy."

  "Pride- all pride, my friend."

  "Now what the deuce is good of Chandernagore being so close to
Calcutta and all," said Hurree, snoring open-mouthed on the sodden
moss, "if I cannot understand their French. They talk so
par-tic-ularly fast! It would have been much better to cut their
beastly throats."

  When he presented himself again he was racked with a headache-
penitent, and volubly afraid that in his drunkenness he might have
been indiscreet. He loved the British Government- it was the source of
all prosperity and honour, and his master at Rampur held the very same
opinion. Upon this the men began to deride him and to quote past
words, till step by step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and
leers of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out of his
defences and forced to speak- truth! When Lurgan was told the tale
later, he mourned aloud that he could not have been in the place of
the stubborn, inattentive coolies, who with grass mats over their
heads and the raindrops puddling in their foot-prints, waited on the
weather. All the Sahibs of their acquaintance- rough-clad men joyously
returning year after year to their chosen gullies- had servants and
cooks and orderlies, very often hillmen. These Sahibs travelled
without any retinue. Therefore they were poor Sahibs, and ignorant;
for no Sahib in his senses would follow a Bengali's advice. But the
Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had given them money, and would
make shift with their dialect. Used to comprehensive ill-treatment
from their own colour, they suspected a trap somewhere, and stood by
to run if occasion offered.

  Then through the new-washed air, steaming with delicious
earth-smells, the Babu led the way down the slopes- walking ahead of
the coolies in pride; walking behind the foreigners in humility. His
thoughts were many and various. The least of them would have
interested his companions beyond words. But he was an agreeable guide,
ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal master's domain. He
peopled the hills with anything they had a mind to slay- thar, ibex,
or markhor, and bear by Elisha's allowance. He discoursed of botany
and ethnology with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of local
legends- he had been a trusted agent of the State for fifteen years,
remember- was inexhaustible.

  "Decidedly this fellow is an original," said the taller of the two
foreigners. "He is like the nightmare of a Viennese courier."

  "He represents in petto India in transition- the monstrous hybridism
of East and West," the Russian replied. "It is we who can deal with
Orientals."

  "He has lost his own country and has not acquired any other. But
he has a most complete hatred of his conquerors. Listen. He confides
to me last night," etc.

  Under the striped umbrella Hurree Babu was straining ear and brain
to follow the quick-poured French, and keeping both eyes on a kilta
full of maps and documents- an extra large one with a double red
oilskin cover. He did not wish to steal anything. He only desired to
know what to steal, and, incidentally, how to get away when he had
stolen it. He thanked all the Gods of Hindustan, and Herbert
Spencer, that there remained some valuables to steal.

  On the second day the road rose steeply to a grass spur above the
forest; and it was here, about sunset, that they came across an aged
lama- but they called him a bonze- sitting cross-legged above a
mysterious chart held down by stones, which he was explaining to a
young man, evidently a neophyte, of singular, though unwashen, beauty.
The striped umbrella had been sighted half a march away, and Kim had
suggested a halt till it came up to them.

  "Ha!" said Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss-in-Boots. "That is
eminent local holy man. Probably subject of my royal master."

  "What is he doing? It is very curious."

  "He is expounding holy picture- all hand-worked."

  The two men stood bare-headed in the wash of the afternoon
sunlight low across the gold-coloured grass. The sullen coolies,
glad of the check, halted and slid down their loads.

  "Look!" said the Frenchman. "It is like a picture for the birth of a
religion- the first teacher and the first disciple. Is he a Buddhist?"

  "Of some debased kind," the other answered. "There are no true
Buddhists among the Hills. But look at the folds of the drapery.
Look at his eyes- how insolent! Why does this make one feel that we
are so young a people?" The speaker struck passionately at a tall
weed. "We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere! That, do you
understand, is what disquiets me." He scowled at the placid face,
and the monumental calm of the pose.

  "Have patience. We shall make your mark together- we and you young
people. Meantime, draw his picture."

  The Babu advanced loftily; his back out of all keeping with his
deferential speech, or his wink towards Kim.

  "Holy One, these be Sahibs. My medicines cured one of a flux, and
I go into Simla to oversee his recovery. They wish to see thy picture-
"

  "To heal the sick is always good. This is the Wheel of Life," said
the lama, "the same I showed thee in the hut at Ziglaur when the
rain fell."

  "And to hear thee expound it."

  The lama's eyes lighted at the prospect of new listeners. "To
expound the Most Excellent Way is good. Have they any knowledge of
Hindi, such as had the Keeper of Images?"

  "A little, maybe."

  Hereat, simply as a child engrossed with a new game, the lama
threw back his head and began the full-throated invocation of the
Doctor of Divinity ere he opens the full doctrine. The strangers
leaned on their alpen-stocks and listened. Kim, squatting humbly,
watched the red sunlight on their faces, and the blend and parting
of their long shadows. They wore un-English leggings and curious
girt-in belts that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book at
St. Xavier's library: "The Adventures of a Young Naturalist in Mexico"
was its name. Yes, they looked very like the wonderful M. Sumichrast
of that tale, and very unlike the "highly unscrupulous folk" of Hurree
Babu's imagining. The coolies, earth-coloured and mute, crouched
reverently some twenty or thirty yards away, and the Babu, the slack
of his thin gear snapping like a marking-flag in the chill breeze,
stood by with an air of happy proprietorship.

  "These are the men," Hurree whispered, as the ritual went on and the
two whites followed the grass blade sweeping from Hell to Heaven and
back again. "All their books are in the large kilta with the reddish
top- books and reports and maps- and I have seen a King's letter
that either Hilas or Bunar has written. They guard it most
carefully. They have sent nothing back from Hilas or Leh. That is
sure."

  "Who is with them?"

  "Only the beggar-coolies. They have no servants. They are so close
they cook their own food."

  "But what am I to do?"

  "Wait and see. Only if any chance comes to me thou wilt know where
to seek for the papers."

  "This were better in Mahbub Ali's hands than a Bengali's," said
Kim scornfully.

  "There are more ways of getting to a sweetheart than butting down
a wall."

  "See here the Hell appointed for avarice and greed. Flanked upon the
one side by Desire and on the other by Weariness." The lama warmed
to his work, and one of the strangers sketched him in the quick-fading
light.

  "That is enough," the man said at last brusquely. "I cannot
understand him, but I want that picture. He is a better artist than I.
Ask him if he will sell it."

  "He says 'No, sar,'" the Babu replied. The lama, of course, would no
more have parted with his chart to a casual wayfarer than an
archbishop would pawn the holy vessels of a cathedral. All Tibet is
full of cheap reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama was an
artist, as well as a wealthy abbot in his own place.

  "Perhaps in three days, or four, or ten, if I perceive that the
Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding, I may myself draw him
another. But this was used for the initiation of a novice. Tell him
so, hakim."

  "He wishes it now- for money."

  The lama shook his head slowly and began to fold up the Wheel. The
Russian, on his side, saw no more than an unclean old man haggling
over a dirty piece of paper. He drew out a handful of rupees, and
snatched half-jestingly at the chart, which tore in the lama's grip. A
low murmur of horror went up from the coolies- some of whom were Spiti
men and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult;
his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the priest's weapon,
and the Babu danced in agony.

  "Now you see- you see why I wanted witnesses. They are highly
unscrupulous people. Oh Sar! Sar! You must not hit holy man!"

  "Chela! He has defiled the Written Word!"

  It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck
the old man full on the face. Next instant he was rolling over and
over down hill with Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every
unknown Irish devil in the boy's blood, and the sudden fall of his
enemy did the rest. The lama dropped to his knees, half-stunned; the
coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run
across the level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it
behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills
took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his
revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion. A
shower of cutting stones- hillmen are very straight shots- drove him
away, and a coolie from Ao-chung snatched the lama into the
stampede. All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness.

  "They have taken the baggage and all the guns," yelled the
Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight.

  "All right, Sar! All right! Don't shoot. I go to rescue," and
Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the
delighted and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe's
head against a boulder.

  "Go back to the coolies," whispered the Babu in his ear. "They
have the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but
look through all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla (King's
letter). Go! The other man comes!"

  Kim tore up hill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side,
and he cowered partridge-wise.

  "If you shoot," shouted Hurree, "they will descend and annihilate
us. I have rescued the gentleman, Sar. This is par-tic-ularly
dangerous."

  "By Jove!" Kim was thinking hard in English. "This is dam-tight
place, but I think it is self-defence." He felt in his bosom for
Mahbub's gift, and uncertainly- save for a few practice shots in the
Bikaner desert, he had never used the little gun- pulled trigger.

  "What did I say, Sar!" The Babu seemed to be in tears. "Come down
here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you."

  The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim
hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat- or a
country-bred.

  "Did they wound thee, chela?" called the lama above him.

  "No. And thou?" He dived into a clump of stunted firs.

  "Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to
Shamlegh-under-the-Snow."

  "But not before we have done justice," a voice cried. "I have got
the Sahibs' guns- all four. Let us go down."

  "He struck the Holy One- we saw it! Our cattle will be barren- our
wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go
home.... Atop of all other oppression too!"

  The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies- panic-stricken,
and in their terror capable of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked
the breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go down hill.

  "Wait a little, Holy One; they cannot go far: wait till I return."

  "It is this person who has suffered wrong," said the lama, his
hand over his brow.

  "For that very reason," was the reply.

  "If this person overlooks it, your hands are clean. Moreover, ye
acquire merit by obedience."

  "Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together," the man insisted.

  For a moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff a cartridge into
a breech-loader, the lama hesitated. Then he rose to his feet, and
laid a finger on the man's shoulder.

  "Hast thou heard? I say there shall be no killing- I who was Abbot
of Suchzen. Is it any lust of thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake
under the eaves- a worm in the belly of the most mean beast? Is it thy
wish to- "

  The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the voice boomed like a
Tibetan devil-gong.

  "Ai! ai!" cried the Spiti men. "Do not curse us- do not curse him.
It was but his zeal, Holy One!... Put down the rifle, fool!"

  "Anger on anger! Evil on evil! There will be no killing. Let the
priest-beaters go in bondage to their own acts. Just and sure is the
Wheel swerving not a hair! They will be born many times- in
torment." His head drooped, and he leaned heavily on Kim's shoulder.

  "I have come near to great evil, chela," he whispered in that dead
hush under the pines. "I was tempted to loose the bullet; and truly,
in Tibet there would have been a heavy and a slow death for them....
He struck me across the face... upon the flesh..." He slid to the
ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear the over-driven heart
bump and check.

  "Have they hurt him to the death?" said the Ao-chung man, while
the others stood mute.

  Kim knelt over the body in deadly fear. "Nay," he cried
passionately, "this is only a weakness." Then he remembered that he
was a white man, with a white man's camp-fittings at his service.
"Open the kiltas! The Sahibs may have a medicine."

  "Oho! Then I know it," said the Ao-chung man with a laugh. "Not
for five years was I Yankling Sahib's shikarri without knowing that
medicine. I too have tasted it. Behold!"

  He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap whisky- such as is sold to
explorers at Leh- and cleverly forced a little between the lama's
teeth.

  "So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor. Aha!
I have already looked into their baskets- but we will make fair
division at Shamlegh. Give him a little more. It is good medicine.
Feel! His heart goes better now. Lay his head down and rub a little on
the chest. If he had waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs
this would never have come. But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us
here. Then it would not be wrong to shoot them with their own guns,
heh?"

  "One is paid, I think, already," said Kim between his teeth. "I
kicked him in the groin as we went down hill. Would I had killed him!"

  "It is well to be brave when one does not live in Rampur," said
one whose hut lay within a few miles of the Rajah's rickety palace.
"If we get a bad name among the Sahibs, none will employ us as
shikarris any more."

  "Oh, but these are not Angrezi Sahibs- not merry-minded men like
Fostum Sahib or Yankling Sahib. They are foreigners- they cannot speak
Angrezi as do Sahibs."

  Here the lama coughed and sat up, groping for the rosary.

  "There shall be no killing," he murmured. "Just is the Wheel! Evil
on evil- "

  "Nay, Holy One. We are all here." The Ao-chung man timidly patted
his feet. "Except by thy order, no one shall be slain. Rest awhile. We
will make a little camp here, and later, as the moon rises, we go to
Shamlegh-under-the-Snow."

  "After a blow," said a Spiti man sententiously, "it is best to
sleep."

  "There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of my neck, and a
pinching in it. Let me lay my head on thy lap, chela. I am an old man,
but not free from passion.... We must think of the Cause of Things."

  "Give him a blanket. We dare not light a fire lest the Sahibs see."

  "Better get away to Shamlegh. None will follow us to Shamlegh."

  This was the nervous Rampur man.

  "I have been Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am Yankling Sahib's
shikarri. I should have been with Yankling Sahib now but for this
cursed beegar (the corvee). Let two men watch below with the guns lest
the Sahibs do more foolishness. I shall not leave this Holy One."

  They sat down a little apart from the lama, and, after listening
awhile, passed round a water-pipe whose receiver was an old Day and
Martin blacking-bottle. The glow of the red charcoal as it went from
hand to hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the high Chinese
cheek-bones, and the bull-throats that melted away into the dark
duffle folds round the shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some
magic mine- gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while they talked,
the voices of the snow-waters round them diminished one by one as
the night-frost choked and clogged the runnels.

  "How he stood up against us!" said a Spiti man admiring. "I remember
an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a
shoulder-shot, seven seasons back, standing up just like him. Dupont
Sahib was a good shikarri."

  "Not as good as Yankling Sahib." The Ao-chung man took a pull at the
whisky-bottle and passed it over. "Now hear me- unless any other man
thinks he knows more."

  The challenge was not taken up.

  "We go to Shamlegh when the moon rises. There we will fairly
divide the baggage between us. I am content with this new little rifle
and all its cartridges."

  "Are the bears only bad on thy holding?" said a mate, sucking at the
pipe.

  "No; but musk-pods are worth six rupees apiece now, and thy women
can have the canvas of the tents and some of the cooking-gear. We will
do all that at Shamlegh before dawn. Then we all go our ways,
remembering that we have never seen or taken service with these
Sahibs, who may, indeed, say that we have stolen their baggage."

  "That is well for thee, but what will our Rajah say?"

  "Who is to tell him? Those Sahibs, who cannot speak our talk, or the
Babu, who for his own ends gave us money? Will he lead an army against
us? What evidence will remain? That we do not need we shall throw on
Shamlegh midden, where no man has yet set foot."

  "Who is at Shamlegh this summer?" The place was only a grazing
centre of three or four huts.

  "The Woman of Shamlegh. She has no love for Sahibs, as we know.
The others can be pleased with little presents; and here is enough for
us all." He patted the fat sides of the nearest basket.

  "But- but- "

  "I have said they are not true Sahibs. All their skins and heads
were bought in the bazar at Leh. I know the marks. I showed them to ye
last march."

  "True. They were all bought skins and heads. Some had even the
moth in them."

  That was a shrewd argument, and the Ao-chung man knew his fellows.

  "If the worst comes to the worst, I shall tell Yankling Sahib, who
is a man of a merry mind, and he will laugh. We are not doing any
wrong to any Sahibs whom we know. They are priest-beaters. They
frightened us. We fled! Who knows where we dropped the baggage? Do
ye think Yankling Sahib will permit down-country police to wander
all over the hills, disturbing his game? It is a far cry from Simla to
Chini, and farther from Shamlegh to Shamlegh midden."

  "So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top
that the Sahibs pack themselves every morning."

  "Thus it is proved," said the Shamlegh man adroitly, "that they
are Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or
Yankling Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights
to shoot serow- I say, who ever heard of these Sahibs coming into
the hills without a down-country cook, and a bearer, and- and all
manner of well-paid, high-handed and oppressive folk in their tail?
How can they make trouble? What of the kilta?"

  "Nothing, but that it is full of the Written Word- books and
papers in which they wrote, and strange instruments, as of worship."

  "Shamlegh midden will take them all."

  "True! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods thereby? I do not
like to handle the Written Word in that fashion. And their brass idols
are beyond my comprehension. It is no plunder for simple hill-folk."

  "The old man still sleeps. Hst! We will ask his chela." The Ao-chung
man refreshed himself, and swelled with pride of leadership.

  "We have here," he whispered, "a kilta whose nature we do not know.

  "But I do," said Kim cautiously. The lama drew breath in natural,
easy sleep, and Kim had been thinking of Hurree's last words. As a
player of the Great Game, he was disposed just then to reverence the
Babu. "It is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful things, not
to be handled by fools."

  "I said it; I said it," cried the bearer of that burden. "Thinkest
thou it will betray us?"

  "Not if it be given to me. I will draw out its magic. Otherwise it
will do great harm."

  "A priest always takes his share." Whisky was demoralising the
Ao-chung man.

  "It is no matter to me," Kim answered, with the craft of his
mother-country. "Share it among you, and see what comes!"

  "Not I. I was only jesting. Give the order. There is more than
enough for us all. We go our way from Shamlegh in the dawn."

  They arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans for another
hour, while Kim shivered with cold and pride. The humour of the
situation tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul. Here were
the emissaries of the dread Power of the North, very possibly as great
in their own land as Mahbub or Colonel Creighton, suddenly smitten
helpless. One of them, he privately knew, would be lame for a time.
They had made promises to Kings. To-night they lay out somewhere below
him, chartless, foodless, tentless, gunless- except for Hurree Babu,
guideless. And this collapse of their Great Game (Kim wondered to whom
they would report it), this panicky bolt into the night, had come
about through no craft of Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but
simply, beautifully, and inevitably as the capture of Mahbub's
faquir-friends by the zealous young policeman at Umballa.

  "They are there- with nothing; and, by Jove, it is cold! I am here
with all their things. Oh, they will be angry! I am sorry for Hurree
Babu."

  Kim might have saved his pity, for though at that moment the Bengali
suffered acutely in the flesh, his soul was puffed and lofty. A mile
down the hill, on the edge of the pine-forest, two half-frozen men-
one powerfully sick at intervals- were varying mutual recriminations
with the most poignant abuse of the Babu, who seemed distraught with
terror. They demanded a plan of action. He explained that they were
very lucky to be alive; that their coolies, if not then stalking them,
had passed beyond recall; that the Rajah, his master, was ninety miles
away, and, so far from lending them money and a retinue for the
Simla journey, would surely cast them into prison if he heard that
they had hit a priest. He enlarged on this sin and its consequences
till they bade him change the subject. Their one hope, said he, was
unostentatious flight from village to village till they reached
civilisation; and, for the hundredth time dissolved in tears, he
demanded of the high stars why the Sahibs "had beaten holy man."

  Ten steps would have taken Hurree into the creaking gloom utterly
beyond their reach- to the shelter and food of the nearest village,
where glib-tongued doctors were scarce. But he preferred to endure
cold, belly-pinch, bad words, and occasional blows in the company of
his honoured employers. Crouched against a tree-trunk, he sniffed
dolefully.

  "And have you thought," said the uninjured man hotly, "what sort
of spectacle we shall present wandering through these hills among
these aborigines?"

  Hurree Babu had thought of little else for some hours, but the
remark was not to his address.

  We cannot wander! I can hardly walk," groaned Kim's victim.

  "Perhaps the holy man will be merciful in loving-kindness, Sar,
otherwise- "

  "I promise myself a peculiar pleasure in emptying my revolver into
that young bonze when next we meet," was the unchristian answer.

  "Revolvers! Vengeance! Bonzes!" Hurree crouched lower. The war was
breaking out afresh. "Have you no consideration for our loss? The
baggage! The baggage!" He could hear the speaker literally dancing
on the grass. "Everything we bore! Everything we have secured! Our
gains! Eight months' work! Do you know what that means? 'Decidedly
it is we who can deal with Orientals!' Oh, you have done well."

  They fell to it in several tongues, and Hurree smiled. Kim was
with the kiltas, and in the kiltas lay eight months of good diplomacy.
There was no means of communicating with the boy, but he could be
trusted. For the rest, he could so stage-manage the journey through
the hills that Hilas, Bunar, and four hundred miles of hill-roads
should tell the tale for a generation. Men who cannot control their
own coolies are little respected in the Hills, and the hillman has a
very keen sense of humour.

  "If I had done it myself," thought Hurree, "it would not have been
better; and, by Jove, now I think of it, of course I arranged it
myself. How quick I have been! Just when I ran down hill I thought it!
Thee outrage was accidental but onlee me could have worked it- ah- for
all it was dam-well worth. Consider the moral effect upon these
ignorant peoples! No treaties- no papers- no written documents at all-
and me to interpret for them. How I shall laugh with the Colonel! I
wish I had their papers also: but you cannot occupy two places in
space simultaneously. That is axiomatic."

                                14

                 My brother kneels (so saith Kabir)

                    To stone and brass in heathen-wise,

                 But in my brother's voice I hear

                    My own unanswered agonies.

                 His God is as his Fates assign-

                 His prayer is all the world's- and mine.

                                                K A B I R

  At moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. The lama,
refreshed by his sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim's
shoulder to bear him along- a silent, swift-striding man. They held
the shale-sprinkled grass for an hour, swept round the shoulder of
an immortal cliff, and climbed into a new country entirely blocked off
from all sight of Chini valley. A huge pasture-ground ran up
fan-shaped to the living snow. At its base was perhaps half an acre of
flat land, on which stood a few soil and timber huts. Behind them-
for, hill-fashion, they were perched on the edge of all things- the
ground fell sheer two thousand feet to Shamlegh midden, where never
yet man has set foot.

  The men made no motion to divide the plunder till they had seen
the lama bedded down in the best room of the place, with Kim
shampooing his feet, Mohammedan fashion.

  "We will send food," said the Ao-chung man, "and the red-topped
kilta. By dawn there will be none to give evidence, one way or the
other. If anything is not needed in the kilta- see here!"

  He pointed through the window- opening into space that was filled
with moonlight reflected from the snow- and threw out an empty
whisky-bottle.

  "No need to listen for the fall. This is the world's end," he
said, and swung off. The lama looked forth, a hand on either sill,
with eyes that shone like yellow opals. From the enormous pit before
him white peaks lifted themselves yearning to the moonlight. The
rest was as the darkness of interstellar space.

  "These," he said slowly, "are indeed my Hills. Thus should a man
abide, perched above the world, separated from delights, considering
vast matters."

  "Yes; if he has a chela to prepare tea for him, and to fold a
blanket for his head, and to chase out calving cows."

  A smoky lamp burned in a niche, but the full moonlight beat it down;
and by the mixed light, stooping above the food-bag and cups, Kim
moved like a tall ghost.

  "Ai! But now I have let the blood cool my head still beats and
drums, and there is a cord round the back of my neck."

  "No wonder. It was a strong blow. May he who dealt it- "

  "But for my own passions there would have been no evil."

  "What evil? Thou hast saved the Sahibs from death they deserved a
hundred times."

  "The lesson is not well learnt, chela." The lama came to rest on a
folded blanket, as Kim went forward with his evening routine. "The
blow was but a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in itself- my legs weary
apace these latter days!- it met evil in me- anger, rage, and a lust
to return evil. These wrought in my blood, woke tumult in my
stomach, and dazzled my ears." Here he drank scalding black-tea
ceremonially, taking the hot cup from Kim's hand. "Had I been
passionless, the evil blow would have done only bodily evil- a scar,
or a bruise- which is illusion. But my mind was not abstracted, for
rushed in straightway a lust to let the Spiti men kill. In fighting
that lust, my soul was torn and wrenched beyond a thousand blows.
Not till I had repeated the Blessings (he meant the Buddhist
Beatitudes) did I achieve calm. But the evil planted in me by that
moment's carelessness works out to its end. Just is the Wheel,
swerving not a hair! Learn the lesson, chela."

  "It is too high for me," Kim muttered. "I am still all shaken. I
am glad I hurt the man."

  "I felt that sleeping upon thy knees, in the wood below. It
disquieted me in my dreams- the evil in thy soul working through to
mine. Yet on the other hand"- he loosed his rosary- "I have acquired
merit by saving two lives- the lives of those that wronged me. Now I
must see into the Cause of Things. The boat of my soul staggers."

  "Sleep, and be strong. That is wisest."

  "I meditate: there is a need greater than thou knowest."

  Till the dawn, hour after hour, as the moonlight paled on the high
peaks, and that which had been belted blackness on the sides of the
far hills showed as tender green forest, the lama stared fixedly at
the wall. From time to time he groaned. Outside the barred door, where
discomfited kine came to ask for their old stable, Shamlegh and the
coolies gave itself up to plunder and riotous living. The Ao-chung man
was their leader, and once they had opened the Sahibs' tinned foods
and found that they were very good they dared not turn back.
Shamlegh kitchen-midden took the dunnage.

  When Kim, after a night of bad dreams, stole forth to brush his
teeth in the morning chill a fair-coloured woman with
turquoise-studded head-gear drew him aside.

  "The others have gone. They left thee this kilta as the promise was.
I do not love Sahibs, but thou wilt make us a charm in return for
it. We do not wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name on account of
the- accident. I am the Woman of Shamlegh." She looked him over with
bold, bright eyes, unlike the usual furtive glance of hillwomen.

  "Assuredly. But it must be done in secret."

  She raised the heavy kilta like a toy and slung it into her own hut.

  "Out and bar the door! Let none come near till it is finished."

  "But afterwards- we may talk?"

  Kim tilted the kilta on the floor- a cascade of
Survey-instruments, books, diaries, letters, maps, and queerly scented
native correspondence. At the very bottom was an embroidered bag
covering a sealed, gilded, and illuminated document such as one King
sends to another. Kim caught his breath with delight, and reviewed the
situation from a Sahib's point of view.

  "The books I do not want. Besides, they are logarithms- Survey, I
suppose." He laid them aside. "The letters I do not understand, but
Colonel Creighton will. They must all be kept. The maps- they draw
better maps than me- of course. All the native letters- oho!- and
particularly the murasla." He sniffed the embroidered bag. "That
must be from Hilas or Bunar, and Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove!
It is a fine haul. I wish Hurree could know.... The rest must go out
of the window." He fingered a superb prismatic compass and the shiny
top of a theodolite. But after all, a Sahib cannot very well steal,
and the things might be inconvenient evidence later. He sorted out
every scrap of manuscript, every map, and the native letters. They
made one softish slab. The three locked ferril-backed books, with five
worn pocketbooks, he put aside.

  "The letters and the murasla I must carry inside my coat and under
my belt, and the hand-written books I must put into the food-bag. It
will be very heavy. No. I do not think there is anything more. If
there is, the coolies have thrown it down the khud, so thatt is all
right. Now you go too." He repacked the kilta with all he meant to
lose, and hove it up on to the window-sill. A thousand feet below
lay a long, lazy, round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by
the morning sun. A thousand feet below that was an hundred-year-old
pine-forest. He could see the green tops looking like a bed of moss
when a wind-eddy thinned the cloud.

  "No! I don't think any one will go after you!"

  The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The
theodolite hit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded like a shell; the
books, inkstand, paint-boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few
seconds like a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though Kim,
hanging half out of window, strained his young ears, never a sound
came up from the gulf.

  "Five hundred- a thousand rupees could not buy them," he thought
sorrowfully. "It was verree wasteful, but I have all their other
stuff- everything they did- I hope. Now how the deuce am I to tell
Hurree Babu, and whatt the deuce am I to do? And my old man is sick. I
must tie up the letters in oilcloth. That is something to do first-
else they will get all sweated.... And I am all alone!" He bound
them into a neat packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilcloth at
the corners, for his roving life had made him as methodical as an
old hunter in matters of the road. Then with double care he packed
away the books at the bottom of the food-bag.

  The woman rapped at the door.

  "But thou hast made no charm," she said, looking about.

  "There is no need." Kim had completely overlooked the necessity
for a little patter-talk. The woman laughed at his confusion
irreverently.

  "None- for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the mere winking of an
eye. But think of us poor people when thou art gone! They were all too
drunk last night to hear a woman. Thou art not drunk?"

  "I am a priest." Kim had recovered himself, and, the woman being
aught but unlovely, thought best to stand on his office.

  "I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make an
inquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also the Babu with
them. Clerks have long tongues."

  "Is that all thy trouble?" The plan rose fully formed in Kim's mind,
and he smiled ravishingly.

  "Not all," quoth the woman, putting out a hard brown hand all
covered with turquoises set in silver.

  "I can finish that in a breath," he went on quickly. "The Babu is
the very hakim (thou hast heard of him?) who was wandering among the
hills by Ziglaur. I know him."

  "He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs cannot distinguish
one hillman from another, but Babus have eyes for men- and women."

  "Carry a word to him from me."

  "There is nothing I would not do for thee."

  He accepted the compliment calmly, as men must in lands where
women make the love, tore a leaf from a note-book, and with a patent
indelible pencil wrote in gross Shikast- the script that bad little
boys use when they write dirt on walls: "I have everything that they
have written: their pictures of the country, and many letters.
Especially the murasla. Tell me what to do. I am at
Shamlegh-under-the-Snow. The old man is sick."

  "Take this to him. It will altogether shut his mouth. He cannot have
gone far."

  "Indeed no. They are still in the forest across the spur. Our
children went to watch them when the light came, and have cried the
news as they moved."

  Kim looked his astonishment; but from the edge of the
sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending
cattle had picked it up from a brother or sister on the far side of
the slope that commanded Chini valley.

  "My husbands are also out there gathering wood." She drew a
handful of walnuts from her bosom, split one neatly, and began to eat.
Kim affected blank ignorance.

  "Dost thou not know the meaning of the walnut-priest?" she said
coyly, and handed him the half-shells.

  "Well thought of." He slipped the piece of paper between them
quickly. "Hast thou a little wax to close them on this letter?"

  The woman sighed aloud, and Kim relented.

  "There is no payment till service has been rendered. Carry this to
the Babu, and say it was sent by the Son of the Charm."

  "Ai! Truly! Truly! By a magician- who is like a Sahib."

  "Nay, Son of the Charm: and ask if there be any answer."

  "But if he offer a rudeness? I- I am afraid."

  Kim laughed. "He is, I have no doubt, very tired and very hungry.
The Hills make cold bedfellows. Hai, my"- it was on the tip of his
tongue to say Mother, but he turned it to Sister- "thou art a wise and
witty woman. By this time all the villages know what has befallen
the Sahibs- eh?"

  "True. News was at Ziglaur by midnight, and by to-morrow should be
at Kotgarh. The villages are both afraid and angry."

  "No need. Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs and pass them on,
in peace. We must get them quietly away from our valleys. To steal
is one thing- to kill another. The Babu will understand, and there
will be no after-complaints. Be swift. I must tend my master when he
wakes."

  "So be it. After service- thou hast said?- comes the reward. I am
the Woman of Shamlegh, and I hold from the Rajah. I am no common
bearer of babes. Shamlegh is thine: hoof and horn and hide, milk and
butter. Take or leave."

  She turned resolutely uphill, her silver necklaces clicking on her
broad breast, to meet the morning sun fifteen hundred feet above them.
This time Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin
edges of the packets.

  "How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally
pestered by women? There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford; and
there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecot- not counting the
others- and now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough,
but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts
indeed! Ho! ho! It is almonds in the Plains!"

  He went out to levy on the village- not with a begging-bowl, which
might do for down-country, but in the manner of a prince. Shamlegh's
summer population is only three families- four women and eight or nine
men. They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks, from
ammoniated quinine to white vodka, for they had taken their full share
in the overnight loot. The neat Continental tents had been cut up
and shared long ago, and there were patent aluminum saucepans abroad.

  But they considered the lama's presence a perfect safeguard
against all consequences, and impenitently brought Kim of their
best- even to a drink of chang- the barley-beer that comes from
Ladakh-way. Then they thawed out in the sun, and sat with their legs
hanging over infinite abysses, chattering, laughing, and smoking. They
judged India and its Government solely from their experience of
wandering Sahibs who had employed them or their friends as
shikarris. Kim heard tales of shots missed upon ibex, serow, or
markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in their graves- every detail
lighted from behind like twigs on tree-tops seen against lightning.
They told him of their little diseases, and, more important, the
diseases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle; of trips as far as
Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries live, and beyond even to
marvellous Simla, where the streets are paved with silver, and anyone,
look you, can get service with the Sahibs, who ride about in
two-wheeled carts and spend money with a spade. Presently, grave and
aloof, walking very heavily, the lama joined himself to the chatter
under the eaves, and they gave him great room. The thin air
refreshed him, and he sat on the edge of precipices with the best of
them, and, when talk languished, flung pebbles into the void. Thirty
miles away, as the eagle flies, lay the next range, seamed and
channelled and pitted with little patches of brush- forests, each a
day's dark march. Behind the village, Shamlegh hill itself cut off all
view to southward. It was like sitting in a swallow's nest under the
eaves of the roof of the world.

  From time to time the lama stretched out his hand, and with a
little, low-voiced prompting would point out the road to Spiti and
north across the Parungla.

  "Beyond, where the hills lie thickest, lies De-ch'en" (he meant
Han-le), "the great Monastery. s'Tag-stan-ras-ch'en built it, and of
him there runs this tale." Whereupon he told it: a fantastic piled
narrative of bewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh agasping.
Turning west a little, he speered for the green hills of Kulu, and
sought Kailung under the glaciers. "For thither came I in the old, old
days. From Leh I came, over the Baralachi."

  "Yes, yes; we know it," said the far-faring people of Shamlegh.

  "And I slept two nights with the priests of Kailung. These are the
hills of my delight! Shadows blessed above all other shadows! There my
eyes opened on this world; there my eyes were opened to this world;
there I found Enlightenment; and there I girt my loins for my
Search. Out of the Hills I came- the high Hills and the strong
winds. Oh, just is the Wheel!" He blessed them in detail- the great
glaciers, the naked rocks, the piled moraines and tumbled shale; dry
upland, hidden salt-lake, age-old timber and fruitful water-shot
valley one after the other, as a dying man blesses his folk, and Kim
marvelled at his passion.

  "Yes- yes. There is no place like our Hills," said the people of
Shamlegh. And they fell to wondering how a man could live in the hot
terrible Plains where the cattle run as big as elephants, unfit to
plough on a hillside; where village touches village, they had heard,
for a hundred miles; where folk went about stealing in gangs, and what
the robbers spared the Police carried utterly away.

  So the still forenoon wore through, and at the end of it Kim's
messenger dropped from the steep pasture as unbreathed as when she had
set out.

  "I sent a word to the hakim," Kim explained, while she made
reverence.

  "He joined himself to the idolaters? Nay, I remember he did a
healing upon one of them. He has acquired merit, though the healed
employed his strength for evil. Just is the Wheel! What of the hakim?"

  "I feared that thou hadst been bruised and- and I knew he was wise."
Kim took the waxed walnut-shell and read in English on the back of his
note: "'Your favour received. Cannot get away from present company
at present, but shall take them into Simla. After which, hope to
rejoin you. Inexpedient to follow angry gentlemen. Return by same road
you came, and will overtake. Highly gratified about correspondence due
to my forethought.' He says, Holy One, that he will escape from the
idolaters, and will return to us. Shall we wait awhile at Shamlegh,
then?"

  The lama looked long and lovingly upon the hills and shook his head.

  "That may not be, chela. From my bones outward I do desire it, but
it is forbidden. I have seen the Cause of Things."

  "Why? When the Hills give thee back thy strength day by day?
Remember we were weak and fainting down below there in the Doon."

  "I became strong to do evil and to forget. A brawler and a
swashbuckler upon the hillsides was I." Kim bit back a smile. "Just
and perfect is the Wheel, swerving not a hair. When I was a man- a
long time ago- I did pilgrimage to Guru Ch'wan among the poplars"
(he pointed Bhotanwards), "where they keep the Sacred Horse."

  "Quiet, be quiet!" said Shamlegh, all arow. "He speaks of
Jamlin-nin-k'or, The Horse That Can Go Round The World In a Day."

  "I speak to my chela only," said the lama, in gentle reproof, and
they scattered like frost on south eaves of a morning. "I did not seek
truth in those days, but the talk of doctrine. All illusion! I drank
the beer and ate the bread of Guru Ch'wan. Next day one said: 'We go
out to fight Sangor Gutok down the valley to discover (mark again
how Lust is tied to Anger!) which abbot shall bear rule in the valley,
and take the profit of the prayers they print at Sangor Gutok.' I
went, and we fought a day."

  "But how, Holy One?"

  "With our long pencases as I could have shown.... I say, we fought
under the poplars, both abbots and all the monks, and one laid open my
forehead to the bone. See!" He tilted back his cap and showed a
puckered silvery scar. "Just and perfect is the Wheel! Yesterday the
scar itched, and after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and the
face of him who dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion. Followed that
which thou didst see- strife and stupidity. Just is the Wheel! The
idolater's blow fell upon the scar. Then I was shaken in my soul: my
soul was darkened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the waters of
illusion. Not till I came to Shamlegh could I meditate upon the
Cause of Things, or trace the running grass-roots of Evil. I strove
all the long night."

  "But, Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil. May I be thy
sacrifice!"

  Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man's sorrow, and Mahbub
Ali's phrase slipped out unawares.

  "In the dawn," he went on more gravely, ready rosary clicking
between the slow sentences, "came enlightenment. It is here.... I am
an old man... hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my Hills.
Three years I travelled through Hind, but- can earth be stronger
than Mother Earth? My stupid body yearned to the Hills and the snow of
the Hills, from below there. I said, and it is true, my Search is
sure. So, at the Kulu woman's house I turned hillward,
over-persuaded by myself. There is no blame to the hakim. He-
following Desire- foretold that the Hills would make me strong. They
strengthened me to do evil to forget my Search. I delighted in life
and the lust of life. I desired strong slopes to climb. I cast about
to find them. I measured the strength of my body, which is evil,
against the high hills. I made a mock of thee when thy breath came
short under Jamnotri. I jested when thou wouldst not face the snow
of the pass."

  "But what harm? I was afraid. It was just. I am not a hillman; and I
loved thee for thy new strength."

  "More than once I remember," he rested his cheek dolefully on his
hand, "I sought thy praise and the hakim's for the mere strength of my
legs. Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full. Just is the
Wheel! All Hind for three years did me all honour. From the Fountain
of Wisdom in the Wonder House to"- he smiled- "a little child
playing by a big gun- the world prepared my road. And why?"

  "Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I myself
am still sick and shaken."

  "No! It was because I was upon the Way- tuned as are sinen (cymbals)
to the purpose of the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune
was broken: followed the punishment. In my own Hills, on the edge of
my own country, in the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet-
here!" (He touched his brow.) "As a novice is beaten when he misplaces
the cups, so am I beaten, who was Abbot of Suchzen. No word, look you,
but a blow, chela."

  "But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?"

  "We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and Lust
upon the road, and they begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am
no better than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who can
read the Cause of an act is half-way to Freedom! 'Back to the path,'
says the Blow. 'The Hills are not for thee. Thou canst not choose
Freedom and go in bondage to the delight of life.'"

  "If we had never met that thrice-cursed Russian!"

  "Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel swing backward. And for my
merit that I had acquired I gain yet another sign." He put his hand in
his bosom, and drew forth the Wheel of Life. "Look! I considered
this after I had meditated. There remains untorn by the idolater no
more than the breadth of my finger-nail."

  "I see."

  "So much, then, is the span of my life in this body. I have served
the Wheel all my days. Now the Wheel serves me. But for the merit I
have acquired in guiding thee upon the Way, there would have been
added to me yet another life ere I had found my River. Is it plain,
chela?"

  Kim stared at the brutally disfigured chart. From left to right
diagonally the rent ran- from the Eleventh House where Desire gives
birth to the Child (as it is drawn by Tibetans)- across the human
and animal worlds, to the Fifth House- the empty House of the
Senses. The logic was unanswerable.

  "Before our Lord won enlightenment," the lama folded all away with
reverence, "He was tempted. I too have been tempted, but it is
finished. The Arrow fell in the Plains- not in the Hills. Therefore,
what make we here?"

  "Shall we at least wait for the hakim?"

  "I know how long I live in this body. What can a hakim do?"

  "But thou art all sick and shaken. Thou canst not walk."

  "How can I be sick if I see Freedom?" He rose unsteadily to his
feet.

  "Then I must get food from the village. Oh, the weary Road!" Kim
felt that he too needed rest.

  "That is lawful. Let us eat and go. The Arrow fell in Plains...
but I yielded to Desire. Make ready, chela."

  Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise head-gear who had been
idly pitching pebbles over the cliff. She smiled very kindly.

  "I found him like a strayed buffalo in a corn-field- the Babu;
snorting and sneezing with cold. He was so hungry that he forgot his
dignity and gave me sweet words. The Sahibs have nothing." She flung
out an empty palm. "One is very sick about the stomach. Thy work?"

  Kim nodded, with a bright eye.

  "I spoke to the Bengali first- and to the people of a near-by
village after. The Sahibs will be given food as they need it- nor will
the people ask money. The plunder is already distributed. That makes
lying speeches to the Sahibs. Why does he not leave them?"

  "Out of the greatness of his heart."

  "'Was never a Bengali yet had one bigger than a dried walnut. But it
is no matter.... Now as to walnuts. After service comes reward. I have
said the village is thine."

  "It is my loss," Kim began. "Even now I had planned desirable things
in my heart which"- there is no need to go through the compliments
proper to these occasions. He sighed deeply... "But my master, led
by a vision- "

  "Huh! What can old eyes see except a full begging-bowl?"

  "- turns from this village to the Plains again."

  "Bid him stay."

  Kim shook his head. "I know my Holy One, and his rage if he be
crossed," he replied impressively. "His curses shake the Hills."

  "Pity they did not save him from a broken head! I heard that thou
wast the tiger-hearted one who smote the Sahib. Let him dream a little
longer. Stay!"

  "Hillwoman," said Kim, with austerity that could not harden the
outlines of his young oval face, "these matters are too high for
thee."

  "The Gods be good to us! Since when have men and women been other
than men and women?"

  "A priest is a priest. He says he will go upon this hour. I am his
chela, and I go with him. We need food for the Road. He is an honoured
guest in all the villages, but"- he broke into a pure boyish grin-
"the food here is good. Give me some."

  "What if I do not give it thee? I am the woman of this village."

  "Then I curse thee- a little- not greatly, but enough to
remember." He could not help smiling.

  "Thou hast cursed me already by the down-dropped eyelash and the
uplifted chin. Curses? What should I care for mere words?" She
clenched her hands upon her bosom.... But I would not have thee to
go in anger, thinking hardly of me- a gatherer of cow-dung and grass
at Shamlegh, but still a woman of substance."

  "I think nothing," said Kim, "but that I am grieved to go, for I
am very tired, and that we need food. Here is the bag."

  The woman snatched it angrily. "I was foolish," said she. "Who is
thy woman in the Plains? Fair or black? I was fair once. Laughest
thou? Once, long ago, if thou canst believe, a Sahib looked on me with
favour. Once, long ago, I wore European clothes at the Mission-house
yonder." She pointed towards Kotgarh. "Once, long ago, I was
Ker-lis-ti-an and spoke English- as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib
said he would return and wed me- yes, wed me. He went away- I had
nursed him when he was sick- but he never returned. Then I saw that
the Gods of the Kerlistians lied, and I went back to my own people....
I have never set eyes on a Sahib since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit
is past, little priestling.) Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion
of speech put me in mind of my Sahib, though thou art only a wandering
mendicant to whom I give a dole. Curse me? Thou canst neither curse
nor bless!" She set her hands on her hips and laughed bitterly. "Thy
Gods are lies; thy works are lies; thy words are lies. There are no
Gods under all the heavens. I know it.... But for a while I thought it
was my Sahib come back, and he was my God. Yes, once I made music on a
pianno in the Mission-house at Kotgarh. Now I give alms to priests who
are heatthen." She wound up with the English word, and tied the
mouth of the brimming bag.

  "I wait for thee, chela," said the lama, leaning against the
door-post.

  The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes. "He walk? He cannot
cover half a mile. Whither would old bones go?"

  At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama's collapse, and
foreseeing the weight of the bag, fairly lost his temper.

  "What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he goes?"

  "Nothing- but something to thee, priest with a Sahib's face. Wilt
thou carry him on thy shoulders?"

  "I go to the Plains. None must hinder my return. I have wrestled
with my soul till I am strengthless. The stupid body is spent, and
we are far from the Plains."

  "Behold!" she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his own
utter helplessness. "Curse me. May be it will give him strength.
Make a charm! Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest." She turned
away.

  The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the door-post. One
cannot strike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in a
night. Weakness bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on
Kim were alive and imploring.

  "It is all well," said Kim. "It is the thin air that weakens thee.
In a little while we go! It is the mountain-sickness I too am a little
while  at stomach," ... and he knelt and comforted with such poor
words as came first to his lips. Then the woman returned, more erect
than ever.

  "Thy Gods useless, heh? Try mine. I am the Woman of Shamlegh." She
hailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen her two husbands
and three others with a dooli, the rude native litter of the Hills,
that they use for carrying the sick and for visits of state. "These
cattle," she did not condescend to look at them, "are thine for so
long as thou shalt need."

  "But we will not go Simla-way. We will not go near the Sahibs!"
cried the first husband.

  "They will not run away as the others did, nor will they steal
baggage. Two I know for weaklings. Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and
Taree." They obeyed swiftly. "Lower now, and lift in that holy man.
I will see to the village and your virtuous wives till ye return."

  "When will that be?"

  "Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the food-bag at the foot, it
balances better so."

  "Oh, Holy One, thy Hills are kinder than our Plains!" cried Kim,
relieved, as the lama tottered to the litter. "It is a very king's
bed- a place of honour and ease. And we owe it to- "

  "A woman of ill-omen. I need thy blessings as much as I do thy
curses. It is my order and none of thine. Lift and away! Here! Hast
thou money for the road?"

  She beckoned Kim to her hut, and stooped above a battered English
cash-box under her cot.

  "I do not need anything," said Kim, angered when he should have been
grateful. "I am already rudely loaded with favours."

  She looked up with a curious smile and laid a hand on his
shoulder. "At least, thank me. I am foul-faced and a hillwoman, but,
as thy talk goes, I have acquired merit. Shall I show thee how the
Sahibs render thanks?" and her hard eyes softened.

  "I am but a wandering priest," said Kim, his eyes lighting in
answer. "Thou needest neither my blessings nor my curses."

  "Nay. But for one little moment- thou canst overtake the dooli in
ten strides- if thou wast a Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst
do?"

  "How if I guess, though?" said Kim, and putting his arm round her
waist, he kissed her on the cheek, adding in English: "Thank you
verree much, my dear."

  Kissing is practically unknown among Asiatics, which may have been
the reason that she leaned back with wide-open eyes and a face of
panic.

  "Next time," Kim went on, "you must not be so sure of your
heatthen priests. Now I say good-bye." He held out his hand
English-fashion. She took it mechanically. "Good-bye, my dear."

  "Good-bye, and- and"- she was remembering her English words one by
one- "you will come back again? Good-bye, and- thee God bless you."

  Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path
that leads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at
the hut door waving a white rag.

  "She has acquired merit beyond all others," said the lama. "For to
set a man upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had
herself found it."

  "Umm," said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. "It may be
that I have acquired merit also.... At least she did not treat me like
a child." He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the slab of
documents and maps, restowed the precious food-bag at the lama's feet,
laid his hand on the litter edge, and buckled down to the slow pace of
the grunting husbands.

  "These also acquire merit," said the lama, after three miles.

  "More than that, they shall be paid in silver," quoth Kim. The Woman
of Shamlegh had given it to him; and it was only fair, he argued, that
her men should earn it back again.

                                15

              I'd not give room for an Emperor-

                 I'd hold my road for a King.

              To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down-

                 But this is a different thing!

              I'll not fight with the Powers of Air-

                 Sentries pass him through!

              Drawbridge let fall- He's the Lord of us all-

                 The Dreamer whose dream came true!

                           " THE  SIEGE  OF  THE  FAIRIES "

  Two hundred miles north of Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh,
lies Yankling Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathfully
across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker- a man from
Ao-chung. But that renegade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two
hundred cartridges, is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market,
and Yankling Sahib will learn next season how very ill he has been.

  Up the valleys of Bushahr- the far-beholding eagles of the Himalayas
swerve at his new blue-and-white gored umbrella- hurries a Bengali,
once fat and well-looking, now lean and weather-worn. He has
received the thanks of two foreigners of distinction, piloted not
unskilfully to Mashobra tunnel which leads to the great and gay
capital of India. It was not his fault that, blanketed by wet mists,
he conveyed them past the telegraph-station and European colony of
Kotgarh. It was not his fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he
discoursed so engagingly, that he led them into the borders of
Nahan, where the Rajah of that state mistook them for deserting
British soldiery. Hurree Babu explained the greatness and glory, in
their own country, of his companions, till the drowsy kinglet
smiled. He explained it to every one who asked- many times- aloud-
variously. He begged food, arranged accommodation, proved a skilful
leech for an injury of the groin- such a blow as one may receive
rolling down a rock-covered hillside in the dark- and in all things
indispensable. The reason of his friendliness did him credit. With
millions of fellow-serfs, he had learned to look upon Russia as the
great deliverer from the North. He was a fearful man. He had been
afraid that he could not save his illustrious employers from the anger
of an excited peasantry. He himself would just as lief hit a holy
man as not, but.... He was deeply grateful and sincerely rejoiced that
he had done his "little possible" towards bringing their venture to-
barring the lost baggage- a successful issue. He had forgotten the
blows; denied that any blows had been dealt that unseemly first
night under the pines. He asked neither pension nor retaining fee,
but, if they deemed him worthy, would they write him a testimonial? It
might be useful to him later, if others, their friends, came over
the Passes. He begged them to remember him in their future
greatnesses, for he "opined subtly" that he, even he, Mohendro Lal
Dutt, M.A. of Calcutta, had "done the state some service."

  They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy, helpfulness,
and unerring skill as a guide. He put it in his waist-belt and
sobbed with emotion; they had endured so many dangers together. He led
them at high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance Bank of
Simla, where they wished to establish their identity. Thence he
vanished like a dawn-cloud on Jakko.

  Behold him, too fine drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the
drugs in his little brass-bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a
just man made perfect. Watch him, all Babudom laid aside, smoking at
noon on a cot, while a woman with turquoise-studded head-gear points
south-easterly across the bare grass. Litters, she says, do not travel
as fast as single men, but his birds should now be in the Plains.
The holy man would not stay though Lispeth pressed him. The Babu
groans heavily, girds up his huge loins, and is off again. He does not
care to travel after dusk; but his days' marches- there is none to
enter them in a book- would astonish folk who mock at his race. Kindly
villagers, remembering the Dacca drug-vendor of two months ago, give
him shelter against evil spirits of the wood. He dreams of Bengali
Gods, University text-books of education, and the Royal Society,
London, England. Next dawn the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes
forward.

  On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind them and the Plains
spread out in golden dust before, rests a worn litter in which- all
the Hills know it- lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing.
Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it,
for not only has the lama given them blessings, but his disciple
good money- full one-third Sahibs' prices. Twelve miles a day has
the dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, and by
roads that few Sahibs use. Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the
driven snow-dust filled every fold of the impassive lama's drapery;
between the black horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of
the wild goats through the clouds; pitching and strained on the
shale below; hard-held between shoulder and clenched jaw when they
rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati; swinging
and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the descent into the Valley
of the Waters; pressed along the steamy levels of that locked
valley; up, up and out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath;
set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly oak-forests; passed
from village to village in dawn-chill, when even devotees may be
forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men; or by torchlight, when
the least fearful think of ghosts- the dooli has reached her last
stage. The little hill-folk sweat in the modified heat of the lower
Sewaliks, and gather round the priests for their blessing and their
wage.

  "Ye have acquired merit," says the lama. "Merit greater than your
knowing. And ye will return to the Hills," he sighs.

  "Surely. The high hills as soon as may be." The bearer rubs his
shoulder, drinks water, spits it out again, and readjusts his grass
sandal. Kim- his face is drawn and tired- pays very small silver
from his belt, heaves out the food-bag, crams an oilskin packet-
they are holy writings- into his bosom, and helps the lama to his
feet. The peace has come again into the old man's eyes, and he does
not look for the hills to fall down and crush him as he did that
terrible night when they were delayed by the flooded river.

  The men pick up the dooli and swing out of sight between the scrub
clumps.

  The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas. "Not
with you, O blessed among all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord! And
never shall I breathe your air again!"

  "But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air," say Kim,
for to his wearied soul appeal the well-cropped, kindly plains. "Here,
or hereabouts, fell the Arrow, yes. We will go very softly, perhaps
a kos a day, for the Search is sure. But the bag weighs heavy."

  "Ay, our Search is sure. I have come out of great temptation."

  It was never more than a couple of miles a day now, and Kim's
shoulders bore all the weight of it- the burden of an old man, the
burden of the heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load of the
writings on his heart, and the details of the daily routine. He begged
in the dawn, set blankets for the lama's meditation, held the weary
head on his lap through the noon-day heats, fanning away the flies
till his wrist ached, begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the
lama's feet, who rewarded him with promise of Freedom- to-day,
to-morrow, or, at furthest, the next day.

  "Never was such a chela. I doubt at times whether Ananda more
faithfully nursed Our Lord. And thou art a Sahib? When I was a man-
a long time ago- I forgot that. Now I look upon thee often, and
every time I remember that thou art a Sahib. It is strange."

  "Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me with
this talk, Holy One? Let me rub the other foot. It vexes me. I am
not a Sahib. I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my shoulders."

  "Patience a little! We reach Freedom together. Then thou and I, upon
the far bank of the River, will look back upon our lives as in the
Hills we saw our days' marches laid out behind us. Perhaps I was
once a Sahib."

  "'Was never a Sahib like thee, I swear it."

  "I am certain the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House was in
past life a very wise abbot. But even his spectacles do not make my
eyes see. There fall shadows when I would look steadily. No matter- we
know the tricks of the poor stupid carcass- shadow changing to another
shadow. I am bound by the illusion of Time and Space. How far came
we to-day in the flesh?"

  "Perhaps half a kos." Three-quarters of a mile, and it was a weary
march.

  "Half a kos. Ha! I went ten thousand thousand in the spirit. How
we are all lapped and swathed and swaddled in these senseless things."
He looked at his thin blue-veined hand that found the beads so
heavy. "Chela, hast thou never a wish to leave me?"

  Kim thought of the oilskin packet and the books in the food-bag.
If some one duly authorised would only take delivery of them the Great
Game might play itself for aught he then cared. He was tired and hot
in his head, and a cough that came from the stomach worried him.

  "No," he said almost sternly. "I am not a dog or a snake to bite
when I have learned to love."

  "Thou art too tender for me."

  "Not that either. I have moved in one matter without consulting
thee. I have sent a message to the Kulu woman by that woman who gave
us the goat's milk this morn, saying that thou wast a little feeble
and would need a litter. I beat myself in my mind that I did not do it
when we entered the Doon. We stay in this place till the litter
returns."

  "I am content. She is a woman with a heart of gold, as thou
sayest, but a talker- something of a talker."

  "She will not weary thee. I have looked to that also. Holy One, my
heart is very heavy for my many carelessnesses towards thee." An
hysterical catch rose in his throat. "I have walked thee too far; I
have not picked good food always for thee; I have not considered the
heat; I have talked to people on the road and left thee alone.... I
have- I have... Hai mai! But I love thee... and it is all too late....
I was a child.... Oh why was I not a man!..." Overborne by strain,
fatigue, and the weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and sobbed at
the lama's feet.

  "What a to-do is here," said the old man gently. "Thou has never
stepped a hair's breadth from the Way of Obedience. Neglect me? Child,
I have lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new
wall. Day by day since Shamlegh down, I have stolen strength from
thee. Therefore, not through any sin of thine art thou weakened. It is
the Body- the silly, stupid Body- that speaks now. Not the assured
Soul. Be comforted! Know at least the devils that thou fightest.
They are earth-born- children of illusion. We will go to the woman
from Kulu. She shall acquire merit in housing us, and specially in
tending me. Thou shalt run free till strength returns. I had forgotten
the stupid Body. If there be any blame, I bear it. But we are too
close to the Gates of Deliverance to weigh blame. I could praise thee,
but what need? In a little- in a very little- we shall sit beyond
all needs.

  And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave texts on
that little-understood beast, our Body, who, being but a delusion,
insists on posing as the Soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the
immense multiplication of unnecessary devils.

  "Hai! hai! Let us talk of the woman from Kulu. Think you she will
ask another charm for her grandsons? When I was a young man, a very
long time ago, I was plagued with these vapours- and some others-
and I went to an abbot- a very holy man and a seeker after Truth,
though then I knew it not. Sit up and listen, child of my soul! My
tale was told. Said he to me, 'Chela, know this. There are many lies
in the world, and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our
bodies, except it be the sensations of our bodies.' Considering this I
was comforted, and of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea
in his presence. Suffer me now to drink tea, for I am thirsty."

  With a laugh above his tears, Kim kissed the lama's feet, and went
about tea-making.

  "Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on thee for
some other things. Dost know it?"

  "I have guessed maybe," and the lama's eyes twinkled. "We must
change that."

  So, when with scufflings and scrapings and a hot air of
importance, paddled up nothing less than the Sahiba's pet palanquin
sent twenty miles, with that same grizzled old Oorya servant in
charge, and when they reached the disorderly order of the long white
rambling house behind Saharunpore, the lama took his own measures.

  Said the Sahiba cheerily from an upper window, after compliments:
"What is the good of an old woman's advice to an old man? I told thee-
I told thee, Holy One, to keep an eye upon the chela. How didst thou
do it? Never answer me! I know. He has been running among the women.
Look at his eyes- hollow and sunk- and the Betraying Line from the
nose down! He has been sifted out! Fie! Fie! And a priest, too!"

  Kim looked up over-weary to smile, shaking his head in denial.

  "Do not jest," said the lama. "That time is done. We are here upon
great matters. A sickness of soul took me in the Hills, and him a
sickness of the body. Since then I have lived upon his strength-
eating him."

  "Children together- young and old," she sniffed, but forbore to make
any new jokes. "May this present hospitality restore ye. Hold awhile
and I will come to gossip of the high good Hills."

  At evening time- her son-in-law was returned, so she did not need to
go on inspection round the farm- she won to the meat of the matter,
explained low-voicedly by the lama. The two old heads nodded wisely
together. Kim had reeled to a room with a cot in it, and was dozing
soddenly. The lama had forbidden him to set blankets or get food.

 "I know- I know. Who but I?" she cackled. "We who go down to the
burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those coming up from the River of
Life with full water-jars- yes, brimming water-jars. I did the boy
wrong. He lent thee his strength? It is true that the old eat the
young daily. 'Stands now we must restore him."

  "Thou hast many times acquired merit- "

  "My merit. What is it? Old bag of bones making curries for men who
do not ask 'Who cooked this?' Now if it were stored up for my
grandson- "

  "He that had the belly-pain?"

  "To think the Holy One remembers that! I must tell his mother. It is
most singular honour! 'He that had the belly-pain'- straightway the
Holy One remembered. She will be proud."

  "My chela is to me as a son to the unenlightened."

  "Say grandson, rather. Mothers have not the wisdom of our years.
If a child cries they say the heavens are falling. Now a grandmother
is far enough separated from the pain of bearing and the pleasure of
giving the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness pure or
the wind. And since thou speakest once again of wind, when last the
Holy One was here, maybe I offended in pressing for charms."

  "Sister," said the lama, using that form of address a Buddhist
monk may sometimes employ towards a nun, "if charms comfort thee- "

  "They are better than ten thousand doctors."

  "I say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of Suchzen will make
as many as thou mayest desire. I have never seen thy face- "

  "That even the monkeys who steal our loquats count for a gain.
Hee! hee!"

  "But as he who sleeps there said," he nodded at the shut door of the
guest-chamber across the forecourt, "thou hast a heart of gold.... And
he is in the spirit my very 'grandson' to me."

  "Good! I am the Holy One's cow." This was pure Hinduism, but the
lama never heeded. "I am old. I have borne sons in the body. Oh,
once I could please men! Now I can cure them." He heard her armlets
tinkle as though she bared arms for action. "I will take over the
boy and dose him, and stuff him, and make him all whole. Hai! hai!
We old people know something yet."

  Wherefore when Kim, aching in every bone, opened his eyes, and would
go to the cook-house to get his master's food, he found strong
coercion about him, and a veiled old figure at the door, flanked by
the grizzled manservant, who told him precisely the very things that
he was on no account to do.

  "Thou must have? Thou shalt have nothing. What? A locked box in
which to keep holy books? Oh, that is another matter. Heavens forbid I
should come between a priest and his prayers! It shall be brought, and
thou shalt keep the key."

  They pushed the coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's
pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the locked books and
diaries, with a groan of relief. For some absurd reason their weight
on his shoulders was nothing to their weight on his poor mind. His
neck ached under it of nights.

  "Thine is a sickness uncommon in youth these days: since young
folk have given up tending their betters. The remedy is sleep, and
certain drugs," said the Sahiba; and he was glad to give himself up to
the blankness that half menaced and half soothed him.

  She brewed drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the
still-room- drenches that smelt pestilently and tasted worse. She
stood over Kim till they went down, and inquired exhaustively after
they had come up. She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and enforced it
by means of an armed man. It is true he was seventy odd, that his
scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt; but he represented the
authority of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants,
calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a wide compass by those
parts. Best of all, when the body was cleared, she cut out from the
mass of poor relations that crowded the back of the buildings-
household dogs, we name them- a cousin's widow, skilled in what
Europeans, who know nothing about it, call massage. And the two of
them, laying him east and west, that the mysterious earth-currents
which thrill the clay of our bodies might help and not hinder, took
him to pieces all one long afternoon- bone by bone, muscle by
muscle, ligament by ligament, and lastly, nerve by nerve. Kneaded to
irresponsible pulp, half hypnotised by the perpetual flick and
readjustment of the uneasy chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim slid
ten thousand miles into slumber- thirty-six hours of it- sleep that
soaked like rain after drought.

  Then she fed him, and the house spun to her clamour. She caused
fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober,
slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took
spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks- anon
limes for sherbets, fat quails of the pit, then chicken-livers upon
a skewer, with sliced ginger between.

  "I have seen something of this world," she said over the crowded
trays, "and there are but two sorts of women in it- those who take the
strength out of a man and those who put it back. Once I was that
one, and now I am this. Nay- do not play the priestling with me.
Mine was but a jest. If it does not hold good now, it will when thou
takest the road again. Cousin"- this to the poor relation, never
wearied of extolling her patroness's charity- "he is getting a bloom
on the skin of a new-curried horse. Our work is like polishing
jewels to be thrown to a dance-girl- eh?"

  Kim sat up and smiled. The terrible weakness had dropped from him
like an old shoe. His tongue itched for free speech again, and but a
week back the lightest word clogged it like ashes. The pain in his
neck (he must have caught it from the lama) had gone with the heavy
dengue-aches and the evil taste in the mouth. The two old women, a
little, but not much, more careful about their veils now, clucked as
merrily as the hens that had entered pecking through the open door.

  "Where is my Holy One?" he demanded.

  "Hear him! Thy Holy One is well," she snapped viciously. "Though
that is none of his merit. Knew I a charm to make him wise, I'd sell
my jewels and buy it. To refuse good food that I cooked myself- and go
roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly- and to tumble
into a brook at the end of it- call you that holiness? Then, when he
has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he
tells me that he has acquired merit. Oh, how like are all men! No,
that was not it- he tells me that he is freed from all sin. I could
have told him that before he wetted himself all over. He is well
now- this happened a week ago- but burn me such holiness! A babe of
three would do better. Do not fret thyself for the Holy One. He
keeps both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks."

  "I do not remember to have seen him. I remember that the days and
nights passed like bars of white and black, opening and shutting. I
was not sick: I was only tired."

  "A lethargy that comes by right some few score years later. But it
is all done now."

  "Maharanee," Kim began, but led by the look in her eye, changed it
to the title of plain love- "Mother, I owe my life to thee. How
shall I make thanks? Ten thousand blessings upon thy house and- "

  "The house be unblessed." (It is impossible to give exactly the
old lady's word.) "Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but
thank me if thou carest as a son. Heavens above! Have I shifted thee
and lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts
flung at my head? Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her
heart. What used thou to her- son?"

  "I had no mother, my mother," said Kim. "She died, they tell me,
when I was young."

  "Hai mai! Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if-
when thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a
thousand used for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing.
No matter. I need no blessings, but- but-" She stamped her foot at the
poor relation: "Take up the trays to the house. What is the good of
stale food in the room, oh woman of ill-omen?"

  "I ha- have borne a son in my time too, but he died," whimpered
the bowed sister-figure behind the chudder. "Thou knowest he died! I
only waited for the order to take away the tray."

  "It is I that am the woman of ill-omen," cried the old lady
penitently. "We that go down to the chattris (the big umbrellas
above the burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues) clutch
hard at the bearers of the chattis (water-jars- young folk full of the
pride of life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy). When one cannot
dance in the festival one must e'en look out of the window, and
grandmothering takes all a woman's time. Thy master gives me all the
charms I now desire for my daughter's eldest, by reason- is it?-
that he is wholly free from sin. The hakim is brought very low these
days. He goes about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters."

  "What hakim, mother?"

  "That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three
pieces. He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and
thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning
great anxiety for thy health. He was very thin and hungry, so I gave
orders to have him stuffed too- him and his anxiety!"

  "I would see him if he is here."

  "He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save
himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of anxiety for thy health that
he sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He
will keep. We shall never get rid of him."

  "Send him here, mother"- the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for a
flash- "and I will try."

  "I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least he had
the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One
did not say, acquiring merit."

  "He is a very wise hakim. Send him, mother."

  "Priest praising priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye
squabbled at your last meeting) I'll hale him here with horse-ropes
and- and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son.... Get up and see
the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils... my son!"

  She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and
almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to the shoulders
like a Roman emperor, jowled like Titus, bareheaded, with new
patent-leather shoes, in highest condition of fat, exuding joy and
salutations.

  "By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I am jolly glad to see you. I will
kindly shut the door. It is a pity you are sick. Are you very sick?"

  "The papers- the papers from the kilta. The maps and the murasla!"
He held out the key impatiently; for the present need on his soul
was to get rid of the loot.

  "You are quite right. That is correct departmental view to take. You
have got everything?"

  "All was handwritten in the kilta I took. The rest I threw down
the hill." He could hear the key's grate in the lock, the sticky
pull of the slow-rending oilcloth, and a quick shuffling of papers. He
had been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that they lay
below him through the sick idle days- a burden incommunicable. For
that reason the blood tingled through his body, when Hurree,
skipping elephantinely, shook hands again.

  "This is fine! This is finest! Mister O'Hara! You have- ha! ha!-
swiped the whole bag of tricks- locks, stocks, and barrels. They
told me it was eight months' work gone up the spouts! By Jove, how
they beat me!... Look, here is the letter from Hilas!" He intoned a
line or two of Court Persian, which is the language of authorised
and unauthorised diplomacy. "Mister Rajah Sahib has just about put his
foot in the holes. He will have to explain offeecially how the
deuce-an'-all he is writing love-letters to the Czar. And they are
very clever maps... and there is three or four Prime Ministers of
these parts implicated by the correspondence. By Gad, Sar! The British
Government will change the succession in Hilas and Bunar, and nominate
new heirs to the throne. 'Treason most base'... but you do not
understand? Eh?"

  "Are they in thy hands?" said Kim. It was all he cared for.

  "Just you jolly well bet yourself they are." He stowed the entire
trove about his body, as only Orientals can. "They are going up to the
office, too. The old lady thinks I am permanent fixture here, but I
shall go away with these straight off- immediately. Mr. Lurgan will be
proud man. You are offeecially subordinate to me, but I shall embody
your name in my verbal report. It is a pity we are not allowed written
reports. We Bengalis excel in thee exact science." He tossed back
the key and showed the box empty.

  "Good. That is good. I was very tired. My Holy One was sick, too.
And did he fall into- "

  "Oah yess. I am his good friend, I tell you. He was behaving very
strange when I came down after you, and I thought perhaps he might
have the papers. I followed him on his meditations, and to discuss
ethnological points also. You see, I am verree small person here
nowadays, in comparison with all his charms. By Jove, O'Hara, do you
know, he is afflicted with infirmity of fits. Yess, I tell you.
Cataleptic, too, if not also epileptic. I found him in such a state
under a tree in articulo mortem, and he jumped up and walked into a
brook and he was nearly drowned but for me. I pulled him out."

  "Because I was not there!" said Kim. "He might have died."

  "Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he has
undergone transfiguration." The Babu tapped his forehead knowingly. "I
took notes of his statements for Royal Society- in posse. You must
make haste and be quite well and come back to Simla, and I will tell
you all my tale at Lurgan's. It was splendid. The bottoms of their
trousers were quite torn, and old Nahan Rajah, he thought they were
European soldiers deserting."

  "Oh, the Russians? How long were they with thee?"

  "One was a Frenchman. Oh, days and days and days! Now all the
hill-people believe all Russians are all beggars. By Jove! they had
not one dam-thing that I did not get them. And I told the common
people- oah, such tales and anecdotes! I will tell you at old Lurgan's
when you come up. We will have- ah- a night out! It is feather in both
our caps! Yess, and they gave me a certificate. That is creaming joke.
You should have seen them at the Alliance Bank identifying themselves!
And thank Almighty God you got their papers so well! You do not
laugh verree much, but you shall laugh when you are well. Now I will
go straight to the railway and get out. You shall have all sorts of
credits for your game. When do you come along? We are very proud of
you, though you gave us great frights. And especially Mahbub."

  "Ay, Mahbub. And where is he?"

  "Selling horses in this vi-cinity, of course."

  "Here! Why? Speak slowly. There is a thickness in my head still."

  The Babu looked shyly down his nose. "Well, you see, I am fearful
man, and I do not like responsibility. You were sick, you see, and I
did not know where deuce-an'-all the papers were, and if so, how many.
So when I had come down here I slipped in private wire to Mahbub- he
was at Meerut for races- and I tell him how case stands. He comes up
with his men and he consorts with the lama, and then he calls me a
fool, and is very rude- "

  "But wherefore- wherefore?"

  "That is what I ask. I only suggest that if anyone steals the papers
I should like some good strong, brave men to rob them back again.
You see they are vitally important, and Mahbub Ali he did not know
where you were."

  "Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahiba's house? Thou art mad, Babu," said Kim
with indignation.

  "I wanted the papers. Suppose she had stole them? It was only
practical suggestion, I think. You are not pleased, eh?"

  A native proverb- unquotable- showed the blackness of Kim's
disapproval.

  "Well"- Hurree shrugged his shoulders- "there is no accounting for
thee taste. Mahbub was angry too. He has sold horses all about here,
and he says old lady is pukka (thorough) old lady and would not
condescend to such ungentlemanly things. I do not care. I have got the
papers, and I was very glad of moral support from Mahbub. I tell you I
am fearful man, but, somehow or other, the more fearful I am the
more dam-tight places I get into. So I was glad you came with me to
Chini, and I am glad Mahbub was close by. The old lady she is
sometimes very rude to me and my beautiful pills."

  "Allah be merciful," said Kim on his elbow, rejoicing. "What a beast
of wonder is a Babu! And that man walked alone- if he did walk- with
robbed and angry foreigners!"

  "Oah, thatt was nothing, after they had done beating me; but if I
lost the papers it was pretty jolly serious. Mahbub he nearly beat
me too, and he went and consorted with the lama no end. I shall
stick to ethnological investigations henceforwards. Now good-bye,
Mister O'Hara. I can catch 4.25 p.m. to Umballa if I am quick. It will
be good times when we all tell thee tale up at Mister Lurgan's. I
shall report you offeecially better. Good-bye, my dear fallow, and
when next you are under thee emotions please do not use the Mohammedan
terms with the Tibetan dress."

  He shook hands twice- a Babu to his boot-heels- and opened the door.
With the fall of the sunlight upon his still triumphant face he
returned to the humble Dacca quack.

  "He robbed them," thought Kim, forgetting his own share in the game.
"He tricked them. He lied to them like a Bengali. They give him a chit
(a testimonial). He makes them a mock at the risk of his life- I never
would have gone down to them after the pistol-shots- and then he
says he is a fearful man.... And he is a fearful man. I must get
into the world again."

  At first his legs bent like bad pipe-stems, and the flood and rush
of the sunlit air dazzled him. He squatted by the white wall, the mind
rummaging among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's
weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was removed, his own
self-pity, of which, like the sick, he had great store. The unnerved
brain edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once
rowelled, sidles from the spur. It was enough, amply enough, that
the spoil of the kilta was away- off his hands- out of his possession.
He tried to think of the lama- to wonder why he had tumbled into a
brook- but the bigness of the world, seen between the forecourt gates,
swept linked thought aside. Then he looked upon the trees and the
broad fields, with the thatched huts hidden among crops- looked with
strange eyes unable to take up the size and proportion and use of
things- stared for a still half-hour. All that while he felt, though
he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its
surroundings- a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery, just like
the idle cog-wheel of a cheap Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a
corner. The breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him,
the noises of the populated house behind- squabbles, orders, and
reproofs- hit on dead ears.

  "I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?" His soul repeated it again
and again.

  He did not want to cry- had never felt less like crying in his life-
but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an
almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on
the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an
instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be
walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to
be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and
true- solidly planted upon the feet- perfectly comprehensible- clay of
his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a
flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom
watchful eyes reported this move: "Let him go. I have done my share.
Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from
meditation, tell him."

  There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile
away, with a young banian tree behind- a look-out, as it were, above
some new-ploughed levels; and his eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew
heavy as he neared it. The ground was good clean dust- no new
herbage that, living, is halfway to death already, but the hopeful
dust that holds the seed of all life. He felt it between his toes,
patted it with his palms, and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously,
laid him down full length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned
cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as the Sahiba. She breathed
through him to restore the poise he had lost lying so long on a cot
cut off from her good currents. His head lay powerless upon her
breast, and his opened hands surrendered to her strength. The
many-rooted tree above him, and even the dead man-handled wood beside,
knew what he sought, as he himself did not know. Hour upon hour he lay
deeper than sleep.

  Towards evening, when the dust of returning kine made all the
horizons smoke, came the lama and Mahbub Ali, both afoot, walking
cautiously, for the house had told them where he had gone."

  "Allah! What a fool's trick to play in open country," muttered the
horse-dealer. "He could be shot a hundred times- but this is not the
Border."

  "And," said the lama, repeating a many-times-told tale, "never was
such a chela. Temperate, kindly, wise, of ungrudging disposition, a
merry heart upon the road, never forgetting, learned, truthful,
courteous. Great is his reward!"

  "I know the boy- as I have said."

  "And he was all those things?"

  "Some of them- but I have not yet found a Red Hat's charm for making
him overly truthful. He has certainly been well nursed."

  "The Sahiba is a heart of gold," said the lama earnestly. "She looks
upon him as her son."

  "Hmph! Half Hind seems that-way disposed. I only wished to see
that the boy had come to no harm and was a free agent. As thou
knowest, he and I were old friends in the first days of your
pilgrimage together."

  "That is a bond between us." The lama sat down. "We are at the end
of the pilgrimage."

  "No thanks to thee thine was not cut off for good and all a week
back. I heard what the Sahiba said to thee when we bore thee up on the
cot." Mahbub laughed, and tugged his newly-dyed beard.

  "I was meditating upon other matters that tide. It was the hakim
from Dacca broke my meditations."

  "Otherwise!"- this was in Pashtu for decency's sake- "thou wouldst
have ended thy meditations upon the sultry side of Hell- being an
unbeliever and an idolater for all thy child's simplicity. But now,
Red Hat, what is to be done?"

  "This very night"- the words came slowly, vibrating with triumph-
"this very night he will be as free as I am from all taint of sin-
assured as I am when he quits this body of Freedom from the Wheel of
Things. I have a sign," he laid his hand above the torn chart in his
bosom, "that my time is short; but I shall have safe-guarded him
throughout the years. Remember, I have reached Knowledge, as I told
thee only three nights back."

  "It must be true, as the Tirah priest said when I stole his cousin's
wife, that I am a sufi (a freethinker); for here I sit," said Mahbub
to himself, "drinking in blasphemy unthinkable... I remember the tale.
On that, then, he goes to Jannatu l'Adn (the Gardens of Eden). But
how? Wilt thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful river from
which the Babu dragged thee?"

  "I was dragged from no river," said the lama simply. "Thou hast
forgotten what befell. I found it by knowledge."

  "Oh, aye. True," stammered Mahbub, divided between high
indignation and enormous mirth. "I had forgotten the exact run of what
happened. Thou didst find it knowingly."

  "And to say that I would take life is- not a sin, but a madness
simple. My chela aided me to the River. It is his right to be cleansed
from sin- with me."

  "Ay, he needs cleansing. But afterwards, old man- afterwards?"

  "What matter under all the heavens? He is sure of Nibban-
enlightened- as I am."

  "Well said. I had a fear he might mount Mohammed's Horse and fly
away."

  "Nay- he must go forth as a teacher."

  "Aha! Now I see! That is the right gait for the colt. Certainly he
must go forth as a teacher. He is somewhat urgently needed as a scribe
by the State, for instance."

  "To that end he was prepared. I acquired merit in that I gave alms
for his sake. A good deed does not die. He aided me in my Search. I
aided him in his. Just is the Wheel, O horse-seller from the North.
Let him be a teacher; let him be a scribe- what matter? He will have
attained Freedom at the end. The rest is illusion."

  "What matter? When I must have him with me beyond Balkh in six
months! I come up with ten lame horses and three strong-backed men-
thanks to that chicken of a Babu- to break a sick boy by force out
of an old trot's house. It seems that I stand by while a young Sahib
is hoisted into Allah knows what of an idolater's heaven by means of
old Red Hat. And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game
myself! But the madman is fond of the boy; and I must be very
reasonably mad too."

  "What is the prayer?" said the lama, as the rough Pashtu rumbled
into the red beard.

  "No matter at all; but now I understand that the boy, sure of
Paradise, can yet enter Government service, my mind is easier. I
must get to my horses. It grows dark. Do not wake him. I have no
wish to hear him call thee master."

  "But he is my disciple. What else?"

  "He has told me." Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose
laughing. "I am not altogether of thy faith, Red Hat- if so small a
matter concern thee."

  "It is nothing," said the lama.

  "I thought not. Therefore it will not move thee sinless,
new-washed and three parts drowned to boot, when I call thee a good
man- a very good man. We have talked together some four or five
evenings now, and for all I am a horse-coper I can still, as the
saying is, see holiness beyond the legs of a horse. Yea, can see, too,
how our Friend of all the World put his hand in thine at the first.
Use him well, and suffer him to return to the world as a teacher, when
thou hast- bathed his legs, if that be the proper medicine for the
colt."

  "Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy?"

  Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the
demand, which across the Border he would have paid with more than a
blow. Then the humour of it touched his worldly soul.

  "Softly- softly- one foot at a time, as the lame gelding went over
the Umballa jumps. I may come to Paradise later- I have workings
that way- great motions- and I owe them to thy simplicity. Thou hast
never lied?"

  "What need?"

  "O Allah, hear him! 'What need' in this Thy world! Nor ever harmed a
man?"

  "Once- with a pencase- before I was wise."

  "So? I think the better of thee. Thy teachings are good. Thou hast
turned one man that I know from the path of strife." He laughed
immensely. "He came here open-minded to commit a dacoity (a
house-robbery with violence). Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry off
what he desired."

  "A great foolishness!"

  "Oh! black shame too. So he thought after he had seen thee- and a
few others, male and female. So he abandoned it; and now he goes to
beat a big fat Babu man."

  "I do not understand."

  "Allah forbid it! Some men are strong in knowledge, Red Hat. Thy
strength is stronger still. Keep it- I think thou wilt. If the boy
be not a good servant, pull his ears off."

  With a hitch of his broad Bokhariot belt the Pathan swaggered off
into the gloaming, and the lama came down from his clouds so far as to
look at the broad back.

  "That person lacks courtesy, and is deceived by the shadow of
appearances. But he spoke well of my chela, who now enters upon his
reward. Let me make the prayer!... Wake, O fortunate above all born of
women. Wake! It is found!"

  Kim came up from those deep wells, and the lama attended his yawning
pleasure; duly snapping fingers to head off evil spirits.

  "I have slept a hundred years. Where- ? Holy One, hast thou been
here long? I went out to look for thee, but"- he laughed drowsily-
"I slept by the way. I am all well now. Hast thou eaten? Let us go
to the house. It is many days since I tended thee. And the Sahiba
fed thee well? Who shampooed thy legs? What of the weaknesses- the
belly and the neck, and the beating in the ears?"

  "Gone- all gone. Dost thou not know?"

  "I know nothing, but that I have not seen thee in a monkey's age.
Know what?"

  "Strange the knowledge did not reach out to thee, when all my
thoughts were theeward."

  "I cannot see the face, but the voice is like a gong. Has the Sahiba
made a young man of thee by her cookery?"

  He peered at the cross-legged figure, outlined jet-black against the
lemon-coloured drift of light. So does the stone Bodhisat sit who
looks down upon the patent self-registering turnstiles of the Lahore
Museum.

  The lama held his peace. Except for the click of the rosary and a
faint "clop-clop" of Mahbub's retreating feet, the soft, smoky silence
of evening in India wrapped them close.

  "Hear me! I bring news."

  "But let us- "

  Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence. Kim tucked his
feet under his robe-edge obediently.

  "Hear me! I bring news! The Search is finished. Comes now the
Reward.... Thus. When we were among the Hills, I lived on thy strength
till the young branch bowed and nigh broke. When we came out of the
Hills, I was troubled for thee and for other matters which I held in
my heart. The boat of my soul lacked direction; I could not see into
the Cause of Things. So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman
altogether. I took no food. I drank no water. Still I saw not the Way.
They pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door. So I removed
myself to a hollow under a tree. I took no food. I took no water. I
sat in meditation two days and two nights, abstracting my mind;
inbreathing and outbreathing in the required manner.... Upon the
second night- so great was my reward- the wise Soul loosed itself from
the silly Body and went free. This I have never before attained,
though I have stood on the threshold of it. Consider, for it is a
marvel!"

  "A marvel indeed. Two days and two nights without food! Where was
the Sahiba?" said Kim under his breath.

  "Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed
that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws to
water, so my soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all
things. At that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind,
from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at
Suchzen; I saw every camp and village, to the least, where we have
ever rested. I saw them at one time and in one place; for they were
within the Soul. By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond the
illusion of Time and Space and of Things. By this I knew that I was
free. I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw thee falling down hill
under the idolater- at one time, in one place, in my Soul, which, as I
say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I saw the stupid body of
Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside,
shouting in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I saw nothing,
for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. And I meditated a
thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the Causes of
all Things. Then a voice cried: 'What shall come to the boy if thou
art dead?' and I was shaken back and forth in myself with pity for
thee; and I said: 'I will return to my chela, lest he miss the Way.'
Upon this my Soul, which is the soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew itself
from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings and
agonies not to be told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the
water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick air;
so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the soul of
Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: 'The River!
Take heed to the River!' and I looked down upon all the world, which
was as I had seen it before- one in time, one in place- and I saw
plainly the River of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was
hampered by some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed,
and it lay upon my arms and coiled round my waist; but I put it aside,
and I cast forth as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the
River. I pushed aside world upon world for thy sake. I saw the River
below me- the River of the Arrow- and, descending, the waters of it
closed over me; and behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but
free from sin, and the hakim from Dacca bore up my head in the
waters of the River. It is here! It is behind the mango-tope here-
even here!"

  "Allah Karim! Oh, well that the Babu was by! Wast thou very wet?"

  "Why should I regard? I remember the hakim was concerned for the
body of Teshoo Lama. He haled it out of the holy water in his hands,
and there came afterwards thy horse-seller from the North with a cot
and men, and they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the
Sahiba's house."

  "What said the Sahiba?"

  "I was meditating in that body, and did not hear. So thus the Search
is ended. For the merit that I have acquired, the River of the Arrow
is here. It broke forth at our feet, as I have said. I have found
it. Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from the Threshold of
Freedom to free thee from all sin- as I am free, and sinless. Just
is the Wheel! Certain is our deliverance. Come!"

  He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who has won
Salvation for himself and his beloved.

                              -The End-
.