The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
#10 in our series by Rudyard Kipling

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: Kim

Author: Rudyard Kipling


Release Date: June, 2000 [EBook #2226]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 27, 2001]
[This file was last updated on February 18, 2003]

Edition: 12

Language: English

Character set encoding: Latin-1

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIM ***




This file produced by:

Prof. Patricia C. Franks, Chairperson
Business Information Technology Department
Karyl Basmajian, BIT Student
Nancy K. Smith, BIT Student
Broome Community College
Front Street
Binghamton, NY 13902
franks_p@mail.sunybroome.edu

Kim

by Rudyard Kipling

Chapter I

O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to judgment Day,
Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!

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
Colonel's family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-
sergeant of 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 -
monstrous 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 gang-
foreman 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 waterpipe, 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 fakirs 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 lowcaste 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 Ravi. 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 ZamZammah'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. 'O 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 [a 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.

'Aye, 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 manufacturers 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 Such-zen, 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, Fu-
Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, 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 Mahabodhi, 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 Mahabodhi, 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 knobbiest?'

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, maybe - 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. Maybe 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
today.

'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-work iron
pincers, 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 brush-pen 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
awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty.

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

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 far-away 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.
[start here]
'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 Brahmini 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 fried 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 beggar-man.'

'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, bhisti!' he called to the water-
carrier, sluicing the crotons by the Museum. 'Give water here. We
men are thirsty.'

'We men!' said the bhisti, 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 nativefasion;
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 beggingbowl.
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 [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 me 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 the River?'

'Not U Kim laughed uneasily. 'I go to look for - for a bull a
Red. Bull on a green field who shall help me.' Boylike, if an
acquaintance had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his
own; and,

boylike, 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 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 grey 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, horseboys, 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 horseboys' 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 tall.'

'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 race - 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 hast 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 down among
my horseboys for tonight - 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 C25 IB. Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a
little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally -
it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4 - quite true. It
concerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities,
explorers of nationalities other than English, and the guntrade -
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 horsedealer 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.

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 R17'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 saddle-bag 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 carcass, '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
counsels 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 [caravans] - 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 something
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.

Chapter 2

And whoso will, from Pride released;
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East.
About him at Kamakura.

Buddha 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 3.25a.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 not 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 blueturbaned
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 as
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 Ludhiana 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 Afridi standards on the ridge not three
months gone.'

He told the story of a Border action in which the Dogra companies
of the Ludhiana Sikhs had acquitted themselves well. The Amritzar
girl smiled; for she knew the talc 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

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. O
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 te-rain 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 te-rain,' said the banker, with a
patronizing 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 Ludhiana 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 the 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 Home-stead.' 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 maybe we have over-passed 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 Such-zen. 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
field-side.'

'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 aplenty 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 of 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 tonight for the River?'

'Too late and too dark. Be comforted. Think how far thou art on
the road - an hundred miles 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 folk's 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 in 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 comer 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. The 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
Pined and Peshawar brigades. It will disorganize 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 C25 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
Hindustani, '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 someone
-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 law-suit 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 coconut-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 Such-zen, 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 enduring 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.1

'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 Srinagar 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 Ludhiana 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

'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.

Chapter 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.

Buddha at 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 crops fail,
thou canst only blame thine 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 offence.
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. '1 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 volleyed 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 fakir 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 koss [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 tomorrow, 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 are 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
greybeards.

'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 grey-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
fakirs 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 thine 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 fakirs 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 bobbled 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, maybe, 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 punt, 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 the 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
snowcapped 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
Chilianwallah, of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: "Abide a little
and the wind turns. There is no blessing in this work." In those
days I rode seventy miles with an English Memsahib 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 kind, 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 Kaisar-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 Rissaldar-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 Rissaldar-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 drank 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, 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 grey 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, scared 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 hadst thou that song, despiser
of this world?'

'I learned it in Pathankot - sitting on a doorstep,' 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 the
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,
fodder, lime and hides. A man goes in safety here for at every few
koss 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?'

'Rissaldar 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
Kathiawar 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 grey-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 reigned 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.

Chapter 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's 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.'

'This.' 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 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 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, slipping 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 wagons 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, grey-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
cartwheels 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 on 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 longsuffering
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 par. 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, grey-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
Hindustani 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 hat
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 fakir. 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 wagon.
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 -' I

'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 recognized 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 fakir 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 Buddha Gay. 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 him 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.'

'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 the 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. Maybe' - 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.'

'Maybe,' 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

women in the bullock-cart I think she needs a second son for her
daughter.'

'That is no 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 singsong 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 shadows of the low 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 reforming 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, those 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 ear-shot went to work. India was awake, and Kim was in the
middle of it, more awake and more excited than anyone, 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 grey 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,
today he paced with tenfold pride in the train of a semi-royal
procession, with a recognized 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 sugarcane, 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 hats no nose?'

'What?' she shrilled back. 'Thine 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 apologized 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.

Chapter 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 someone 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 manis impatience, but a great
faith.

'Where goest thou?' he called after Kim.

'Nowhither - 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's 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-wagons 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, wonderstruck. '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 wideawake
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 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 now in his mind 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 Hindustani 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
scullion, and at the same time keeping a keen eye on and a little
under the Chaplain's left arm-pit. 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. 'Oh, 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 very 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 drink 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.'

'"Sahibs 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 fakir 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 af-fairs.' 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? [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. Maybe 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 all 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 has
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 sorree 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 tomorrow 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?'

'Maybe.'

'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 fakir.

'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 tool. 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 Raiput 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, grey, 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 will watch your slumbers.'

Chapter 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 someone 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
saddlebow.

'Now, my son, your prophecy of last night has come true. Our orders
are to entrain at Umballa for the Front tomorrow.'

'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 on 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 or 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 your 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 it. 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.'
TO HERE

'Will he pay?' said the 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 kno west, 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 watch-in' 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'll 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.'

'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 unappetizing
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 his 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 hoondi per annum three
hundred rupees a year to one expensive education St Xavier,
Lucknow, and allow small time to forward same per hoondi 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 her 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 Such-zen looking for a River,
address care of Tirthankars' Temple, Benares. P. M. -Please note
boy is apple of eye, and rupees shall be sent per hoondi 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 today 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 temporize. 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 everything.'

'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 now 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 meals), the stroke might be 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 dangerous. Then he
attempted running off to the village where the priest had tried to,
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 affernoons under escort of the
drummer-boy, and all he heard from his companions 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 judgement overtook that drummer.
They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse. 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 Tirthankars 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 off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a grey
Kabuli 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 straight 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 Kabuli 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 Hindu 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-waking letter heard it all. Kim
beheld Mahbub Ali frying in flame for his treachery, but for
himself he saw one long grey 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 Englishman 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 Englishman
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 someone 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 pice 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 an harlot, and an harlot before a Pathan, Mahbub
Ali.'

'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 in 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 wilt 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 few
dealings in hoondis. 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 prophesyin' 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
Tirthankars' 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 anyone 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 Mabbub 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 say I 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 tomorrow, 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 agonized 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 me which I do not forget.'

'I will wait,' said Kim, 'but the boys will beat me.'

Then the bugles blew for dinner.

Chapter 7

Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised
With idiot moons and stars retracing 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 fraye
(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 La ma, the Holy One from Bhotiyal seeking for a
River, who is now in the Temple ofihe Tirthankars 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 in 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 most 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 verv
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 kickball.
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
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 thine 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 not 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-gharri 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 re-coming?' 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 Tirthankars gave me a guide for this journey. I came
from Benares in the te-rain, 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 Tirthankars' 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
Tirthankars 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 no
part of the Way - but, as they said at the Tirthankars' 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. Maybe 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, maybe 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 Tirthankars 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-gharri 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 threshed 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 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
all-together.' 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?
Oh, shame!'

'Was I born yesterday?' Kim squatted native-fashion on the cushions
of that upper room. 'A little dyestuff 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 to 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
patronized 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 racecourse.

'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 madrissak 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 at all 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 Patiala, 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
fire-work-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.'

Chapter 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.'

The Two-Sided Man.

'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 the almond-curd sweet-meats
[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 pulled serenely. 'That is 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?
Most 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 -,

'Maybe; 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 saddlebags 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 Seral. 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 hears.'

'But,' said Kim, 'I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to
curse thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when 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 Sahibs' 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 everyone,' 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 unwashed 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 horse-truck.

'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 fakir 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 night-
work. 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 fakir?'

'One said to the other, "What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver
at a little watching?"'

'Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do not die tonight.'

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

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

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

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

Then a most brilliant notion struck him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'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 fakirs. 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 horseboy, 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 saddlebags.
'Two Sahibs came up on a te-train. I was running to and fro in the
dark on this side of the trucks as the te-train 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 fakir's buck's horn' (Kim meant the
conjoined black-buck horns, which are a fakir'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-train. 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
knot.'

'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 hate the men of Tirah - I
could believe the same of all the Faiths. Now manifestly a
Kathiawar 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
mehteranees - 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 fakir, 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 kerim!' said Mahbub Ah. '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 fingernail 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 horseboy, 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 that 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 lowered 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.'

Chapter 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 Town Hall, 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 lamplight 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 sandal-wood, 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 eye dilated and
closed to pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a fakir 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 Lurgan Sahib suddenly.

'Why should I fear?'

'Thou wilt sleep here tonight, 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 that 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 someone 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, whichis 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 Sahib-dom. '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 today. 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 neighbours' 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 full 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 his 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 the 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 vice, 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 many who
has 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 [Never - never. No!]', came the broken
answer.

'And whether he will kill this other boy?'

'Kubbee - kubbee nahin.'

'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 someone, and
you saw someone 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 everyone 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 on 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 opened-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 Lucknao 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 photo-graphs 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 fakir, 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 for how long might such a boy live after the news was
told?' He smiled merrily at Lurgan's 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 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 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 -
today it may be of far-off things, tomorrow 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'Rara, jiggeting down to
Umballa behind Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, whose name on the books of
one section of the Ethnological Survey was R.

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 sub-divisible into many
multiples and sub-multiples'. 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 cart 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's 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 Alighur 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 smallpox
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
Gumti 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
Tirthankars 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 for
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 way 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 theTataka! - an elephant was captured for a time by the
king's hunters and ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous
legiron. 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,
new-born, wet with 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 Tataka! - 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 Tataka! 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, over-leapt 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 fiends 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
Rissaldar'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 granddaughter. 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 Qpeen'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.'

Chapter 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?

Gow's Watch

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 truckloads 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
Kabulis.

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 Bikanir, 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 Jeysulmir. 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'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 acknowledgment 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 hanged
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 Jodhpur, 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 blued
eyelids.

'E 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 unauthorized 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, 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 Tirthankars 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 which 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 yeears 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 FRS.

'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 the 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 desire.

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. That Service is ludicrously starved, of course, but the funds
are administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or
present itemized 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 what E 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 sixteen; 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 succeed 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. It is 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 that 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 an harlot, and an 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 women that
all plans come to ruin and we lie out in the 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 Birdcage -
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. Tonight 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 boylike 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.'

'Tadoo? [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 dish-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
besides 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, dematerialized 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 blind-sides 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 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, recognizing 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. Complete 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 releegion, but
rather sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected notes To
Whom It May Concern: Asiatic Quarterly Review on these subjects. Now
it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of
releegiosity. 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 releegious 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 lamp-black, 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 ventriloquy. 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 of life. That is useful, anyhow. And moreover, these
foolish natives - if they are not too excited - they always stop to
think before they kill a man who says he belongs to any speecific
organization. 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 any
one 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~Englishized, 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.

Chapter ll

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.

The Juggler's Song, 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 today, 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 a 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 reveres every sort of holy man. Kim was
guided to the Temple of the Tirthankars, about a mile outside the
city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met Punjabi 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 recognize 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 ZamZammah; but
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 tomorrow 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 men; 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 mv 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 flower-
pots.

'The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by
giving me these a year since,' he said, following Kim's eye. '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 Indian 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 crystallized 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 Tataka.'

He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had
told it so often to the Jam 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 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 Hindustani, 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 recognize 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 sand-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 in 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 king
[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 Jams 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 leafplatter 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 sweetstuff 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 quarrel-some, 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 the child into his
hairy breast, 'I might today 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 dovecot - 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 today, 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 counsel 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 nearlv 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 the 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.

'This 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'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 Jaipur 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 any one 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 recognized 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 foodstuffs?'

'I - I -'

'Open thy bundle!'

It was the usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth, quack
medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of atta - greyish, 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, 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
thine 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 E23. 'What is thy scheme?'

'This comes next,' said Kim, plucking the thin body-shirt. E23
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 thine 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 E23, 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. E23 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 the
breast, great streaks against the background of flour, ash, and
turmeric.

'The blood on them is enough to hang thee, brother.'

'Maybe; 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; E23, 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 thine 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-bins, 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 fakir 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. E23, 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.

Chapter 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 - grey, 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!

The Sea and the Hills.

'I have found my heart again,' said E23, 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 E23. 'Thev go carriage by carriage, like fisher-folk
netting a pool.'

When the procession reached their compartment, E23 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 E23, '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.

E23 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.'

E23, 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. 'Nickle-jao! 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 saving,' - the Englishman flushed angrily
- 'but it's some piece of blasted impertinence. Come out of that!'

E23, 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 today,
Holy One!'

The Saddhu followed the policeman, fawning and supplicating. The
ruck of passengers, busy, with their babies andtheir bundles, had
not noticed the affair. Kim slipped outbehind him; for it flashed
through his head that he had heardthis angry, stupid Sahib
discoursing loud personalities to an oldlady 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 cageful 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. Thev 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 savcd 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
sidelong 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 E23 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 E23 was paddling through byways 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
store 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 bougainvillea-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 koss
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 Siwaliks 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
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 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 Kabul 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 bought 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 torchlight; 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 -' 'Chutt! 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
thine 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 if 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! 1 6and 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 to 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
calamitv.'

'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 in-auspicious colour of the bottles.'

The lama, under cover of the monologue, had faded out into the
darkness towards the room prepared.

'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.) Tomorrow, 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 torchlight, 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 dovecote'

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 dovecote

'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
renew his youth and astonish his household; saffron from Kashmir,
and the best salep of Kabul. 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, Mister 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 it. 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 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 of the Ford, and hear all about you, and I talk here and talk
there. All the common people know what you do. I knew 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 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 Europeans, 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 everyone 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 unoffeecialiv to elucidate political
situation, Mister O'Hara. Offeecially, I am debarred from
criticizing any action of superiors. 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 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 tomorrow 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 detriment 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 the 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 the 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 Munsoorie
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 tomorrow, 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
Hindustani:

'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 snows upon the Hills.' The lami 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 came out from behind the dovecote 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
therefore - 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 he 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.