Cornell University Library 
 PR 4854.K49 1901a 
 
 Kim. 
 
 3 1924 013 362 417 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013362417 
 
Kim. 
 
KIM 
 
 By Rudyard Kipling 
 
 Author of "Plain Tales from the 
 Hills," "The Seven 
 Seas," "The Jungle 
 Books," "The Day's 
 Work," "Stalky & 
 Co.," etc. 
 
 URIS LIBRARY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1901 
 
 >v.'.M<tAi\ 
 
 ■■ r '';. f' 
 
 '/; 
 
 "'I, 
 
 '(^> 
 
 (0 
 V 
 
 > ., 
 
 ""/(DililUl***' 
 

 OOFTBISHT, 1900, 1001, 
 BT 
 
 KTJDTAED KIPLING. 
 
 k 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Kim Frontispiece 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 ' Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to boot, but never 
 
 such a yo^ nor such a disciple '...... 54 
 
 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 . . .... .80 
 
 The lama and Kim walked a httle to one side ; Kim chewing his 
 stick of sugar-cane, and making way for no one under the 
 status of a priest . 118 
 
 ' First I will take my pay,' the letter-writer said . . . .158 
 
 '. . . . Pathans are not faithless — except in horseflesh ' . . .176 
 
 ' They are all most holy and — most greedy ... I have walked the 
 pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed, and the 
 child is no whit better ' 296 
 
 Full-fleshed, heavy-haunched, bull-necked, and deep-voiced . . 35S 
 
 ' I am the woman of Shamlegh ' . . . -i , b • • • 4°° 
 
 He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as V\§*P >vh9 has won 
 
 460)" . ^ 
 
 in 
 
 Salvation for himself and his beloved (page 460) . . . 448 
 

 GHAPTEE I 
 
 Oh. ye who tread the Narrow Way 
 By Tophet- flare to Judgment Day, 
 Be gentle when the heathen pray 
 To Buddha at Kamakura ! 
 
 He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the 
 gun Zam-Zammela on her brick platform opposite the 
 old Ajaib-Grher — tHe Wonder House, as the natives 
 call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammeh, 
 that ' fire-breathing dragon,' hold the Punjab; for the 
 great green-bronze piece is always first of the con- 
 queror'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. 
 Tbough he was burned black as any native; tbough 
 he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his 
 mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; 
 tliough he consorted on terms of perfect equality 
 witb iJhe small boys of the bazar; Kim was white — 
 a poor white of the very poorest. The ii'alf-cagte 
 woman who looked after him (she smoked opium 
 and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop 
 
 [1] 
 
KIM 
 
 by the square where the ticca gharries stand) 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, 
 who afterwards took a post on the Sind, Punjab, and 
 Delhi railway, and his regiment went home without 
 him. She 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 the other 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 w*hite Jadoo-Gher — the Magic 
 House, as they call the Masonic Lodge. It would, 
 he said, all come right some day, and Kim's horn 
 would be exalted between pillars — monstrous pil- 
 lars — of beauty and strength. The colonel himself, 
 
 [2] 
 
KIM 
 
 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-olass devils, whose god was a 
 red bull on a green field, would attend to Kim, if 
 they had not forgotten O'liara — poor O'Hara that 
 was gang-foreman on the Ferozepore line. Then he 
 would weep bitterly in the broken rush chair on the 
 verandah. 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 remember- 
 ing 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 — pukJea shaitans.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Kim, ' I shall remember. A red bull 
 and a colonel on a horse will come, but first, my 
 father said, come the two men making ready the 
 ground for tbese 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 IjDcal 
 Jadoo-Grher 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, 
 
 [3] 
 
KIM 
 
 too, lield 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 im- 
 mense 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 Easchid dreamed 
 of; that he lived in a life wild as that of the Arabian 
 Mghts, hut^ missionaries and secretaries of charitahle 
 societies could not see the beauty of it. His nick- 
 name through all the wards was ' Little Friend of all 
 the World ' ; and very often, being lithe and incon- 
 spicuous, 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 ovrai 
 sake — the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies 
 and lanes, the crawl up a water-pipe, the sights and 
 sounds of the women's world on the flat roofs, and 
 the headlong flight from housetop to 'housetop under 
 cover of the hot dark. Then there were holy men, 
 ash-smeared faJcirs by their brick shrines under the 
 trees at the riverside, with whom he was quite famil- 
 iar — 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 
 
 [4J 
 
KIM 
 
 •witli tears that he should wear European clothes — 
 trousers, a shirt, and a battered hat. Kim found it 
 easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when 
 engaged on certain businesses. One of the young 
 men of fashion — he who was found dead at the 
 bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake — 
 had once given him a complete suit of Hindu kit, 
 the costume of a low-caste street boy, and Kim stored 
 it in a secret place under some baulks in Mia Eam's 
 timber-yard beyond the Punjab High Court, where 
 the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after they 
 have driven down the Eavee. When there was busi- 
 ness or frolic afoot, Kim would use his properties, 
 returning at dawn to tlie verandah, 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 
 Kim went out again to eat with his native friends. 
 
 As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammeh he 
 turned now and again from his king-of-the-castle 
 game with little Chota Lai and Abdullah the sweet- 
 meat seller's son to make a rude remark to the na- 
 tive 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 goatskin 
 bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Museum carpenter, 
 bent over new packing-cases. So did everybody in 
 
 [5] 
 
KIM 
 
 sight except tlie 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 manufac- 
 tures, and anybody who c'hose could ask the curator 
 to explain things. 
 
 'Off! Off! Let me up! ' cried Abdullah, climb- 
 ing up Zam-Zammeh's wheel. 
 
 ' Thy father was a pastry cook, Thy mother Stole 
 the ghi,' sang Kim. ' All Mussahnans fell off Zam- 
 Zammeh long ago ! ' 
 
 'Let me up! ' shrilled little Chota Lai in his gilt- 
 embroidered cap. His father was worth perhaps 
 half a million sterling, but India is the only demo- 
 cratic land in the world. 
 
 ' The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammeh 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 
 
 [6] 
 
KIM 
 
 that of Took Shing, the Chinese bootmaker in the 
 bazar. His eyes turned up at the comers 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 Yogi, perhaps,' said Chota Lai, spying the 
 rosary. ' See ! He goes in to the Wonder House ! ' 
 ^ ' ISTay, nay,' said the policeman, shaking his head. 
 ' I do not understand your talk.' The constable 
 spoke Punjabi. ' Oh, The Priend of all the World, 
 what does he say? ' 
 
 ' Send him hither,' said Kim, dropping from 
 Zam-Zammeh, 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 linking 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.' 
 [7] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' "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 turned toward the 
 Museum. 
 
 'What is your caste? Where is your house? 
 Have you come far? ' Kim asked. 
 
 'I came hy Kulu — from beyond the Kailas — 
 but wtat know you? Trom the hills where ' — he 
 sighed — 'the air and water are fresh and cool.' 
 
 'Aiha! Khitai (a Ohinaman),' said Abdullah 
 proudly. Fook Shing had once chased him out of 
 his shop for spitting at the joss above the boots. 
 
 ' Pahari (a hill man),' said little Chota Lai. 
 
 'Ay, child — a hill nian 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 
 suchTa 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 Tour 
 Holy Places before I die. l^ow 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 
 [8] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 La- 
 hore?' 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 himj' said Kim. ' That is the Gov- 
 ernment'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 Lai. 
 
 'And he is a stranger and a iut-parast (idolater),' 
 said Abdullah, the Mohammedan. 
 
 Kim laughed. 'He is new. Kun to your moth- 
 el's' laps, and be safe. Gome, old man! ' 
 
 KiTTi 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 feel- 
 ing, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously trans- 
 mitted Grecian touch. There were hundreds of 
 pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of stat- 
 ues and slabs, crowded with figures that had en- 
 crusted the brick walls of the Buddhist 8tupas and 
 
 [91 
 
KIM 
 
 viharas of the Iforth. Country and now, du^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 w'hich were so deeply 
 undercut as to show almost detached. Eound 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 an- 
 other pair supported an umbrella surmounted by the 
 jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat. 
 
 'The Lord! The Lord! It is Sakya Muni him- 
 self,' the lama half sobbed; and under his breath be- 
 gan the wonderful Buddhist invocation : — 
 ' To Him the Way — the Law — Apart — 
 Whom Maya held Imeath her hea/rt 
 Anandah Lord — the Bodhisat.'' 
 
 ' And he is here ! The Most Excellent Law is here 
 also. My pilgrirpage is well begun. And what 
 work! What work! ' 
 
 ' Yonder is the Sahib,' said Kim, and dodged side- 
 ways among the cases of the arts and manufacture 
 wing. A white-bearded Englishman was looking at 
 the lama, who gravely turned and saluted him and 
 after some fumbling drew out a note-book and a scrap 
 of paper. 
 
 [10] 
 
KIM 
 
 '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 ex- 
 citement. 
 
 The office was but a little wooden cubicle parti- 
 tioned 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, set 
 himself 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 
 Kocks, 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 ^ectacles of Chinese work. 'Here is the 
 very door through which we bring wood before win- 
 ter. And thou — the English know of these things? 
 
 [llj 
 
KIM 
 
 He who is now Abbot of Lung-Oho told me, but I did 
 not believe. The Lord — the Excellent One — He 
 has honour here too? And His life is known? ' 
 
 ' It is aU carven upon the stones. Come and see, 
 if thou art rested.' 
 
 Out shuiHed the lama to the main hall, and, the 
 curator beside him, went through the collection with 
 the reverence of a devotee and the appreciative in- 
 stinct 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 de- 
 lighted as a child at each new trove. "Where the se- 
 quence failed, as ia 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 Kusin- 
 agara, where the weak disciple fainted; while there 
 were almost countless repetitions of the meditation 
 under the Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the alms- 
 [12] 
 
KIM 
 
 bowl was everywhere. In a few minutes the curator 
 saw that his guest was no mere bead-telling mendi- 
 cant, but a scholar of parts. And they went at it all 
 over again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his specta- 
 cles, and talking at railway speed in a bewildering 
 mixture of Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the 
 travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fo-Hian and Hwen- 
 Thiang, and was anxious to know if there was any 
 translation of their record. He drew in his breath 
 as he turned helplessly over the pages of Seal 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 schol- 
 ars, who by the help of these and a hundred other 
 documents have identified the Holy Places of Budd- 
 hism. 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 
 KapHavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here 
 Mah^bodi, 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 Fountai/ of Wisdom, that 
 [13] 
 
KIM 
 
 I decided to go to Holy Places which His foot 
 had trod — to the Birthplace, even to Kapila; then 
 to Maha Bodhi, which is Buddh Gaya — to the 
 Monastery — to the Deer-park — to the place of 
 His death.' 
 
 The lama lowered his voice. ' And I come here 
 alone. For five — seven — eighteen — forty years 
 it was in my mind that the Old Law was not well 
 followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devil- 
 dom, charms, and idolatry. Even as the child out- 
 side said but now. Ay, even as the child said, with 
 but-pat asti.' 
 
 ' So comes it wi1;h all faiths.' 
 
 ' Thinkest thou? The books of my lamassery I 
 read, and they were as 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, 
 -ilCcM^a, 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 most broad 
 and open road.' He smiled with simple triumph. 
 - [14J 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 
 over tender for marriage. Thou knowest? ' 
 
 The curator nodded; wondering what would come 
 next. 
 
 ' So they made the triple trial of strength against 
 all comers. And at the test of the Bow, our Lord 
 first breaking that which they gave him, called for 
 such a bow as none might bend. Thou knowest? ' 
 
 ' It is written. I have read.' 
 
 ' And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow 
 passed far and far beyond sight. At the last it fell; 
 and, where it touched earth, there broke out a 
 stream which presently became a river, whose na- 
 ture, by our Lord's beneficence, and that merit 
 He acquired ere He freed himself, is that w'hoso 
 bathes ia 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. 
 
 ' iN'ay, 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 
 
 [15] 
 
KIM 
 
 between thy feet, O Fountain of "Wisdom. "We Tcnow 
 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 Eiver 
 of the Arrow! Think again! Some little stream, 
 may be. Dried in the heats? But the Holy One 
 would never so cheat an old man.' 
 
 ' I do not know. I do not know.' 
 , The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once 
 more a handsbreadth from the Englishm'an's. ' I see 
 thou dost not know. Not being of the Law, the mat- 
 ter is hid from thee.' 
 
 ' Ay — hidden — hidden.' 
 
 ' We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But 
 I ' — he rose with a sweep of the soft thick drapery 
 — ' I go to cut myself free. Come also ! ' 
 
 'I am bound,' said the curator. 'But whither 
 goest thou? ' 
 
 'First to Kashi (Benares): where else? There I 
 shall meet one of the pure faith in a Jain temple of 
 that city. He also is a seeker in secret, and from 
 him haply I may learn. May be he will go with me 
 to Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapila- 
 [16] 
 
KIM 
 
 vastu, and there will I seek for the river. Nay, I 
 will seek everywhere as I go — for fhe 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 Pathan Kot, hav- 
 ing 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 modem 
 progress that is the note of India to-day. 
 
 ' As soon as may be. I follow the places of His 
 life till I come to the Eiver 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, hav^ good 
 store of money somewhere about them, but the 
 curator wished to make sure. 
 2 [lY] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' For fhe 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 mil take my alms-bowl and thus enable the 
 charitable to acquire merit.' He nodded his head 
 valiantly. Learned doctors of a lamassery do not 
 beg, but Hhe 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 be- 
 [181 
 
KIM 
 
 tween priest and priest — and now ' he fumbled 
 
 at his belt, detached the open iron-work pencase, and 
 laid it on the curator's table. ' That is for a memory 
 between thee and me — my pencase. It is something 
 old — even as I am.' 
 
 It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an 
 iron that is not smelted in these days; and the col- 
 lector'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 Sam- 
 thora — such as I used to make on silk a:t 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 hig'h in air, and 
 pausing an instant before the great statue of a 
 Bodhisat in meditation, brushed through the turn- 
 stiles. 
 
 Kim followed like a shadow. What he had over- 
 heard 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 
 
 [19] 
 
KIM 
 
 new building or a strange festival in La'hore city. 
 The lama was his trove, and he purposed to take 
 possession. Eam's mother had been Irish too. 
 
 The old man halted by Zam-Zammeh 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. 
 
 'Huh! Owl!' was Kim's retort on the lama's 
 behalf. ' Sit under that gun if it please thee. 
 Why didst thou steal the milk-woman's slippers, 
 Dunnoo? ' 
 
 That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung 
 on the spur of the moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, 
 who knew that Kim's clear yell could call up 
 legions of bad boys if need arose. 
 
 'And wliat 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 
 already knew '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 speak- 
 ing aloud? ' 
 
 [20] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Those ■wt'o 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. 
 
 'Kest 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 jogi vidth thy begging- 
 bowl? ' she cried. 
 
 ' ISTay,' 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) tlian 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.' 
 
 [21] 
 
KIM 
 
 'That bowl indeed! That oow-bellied basket! 
 Thou hast as much grace as the holy bull of Shiva. 
 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 moiise-coloured Brahminee bull of 
 the ward was shouldering his way through the 
 many-coloured crowd, a stolen plantain hanging 
 out of his mouth. He headed straight for the shop, 
 well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, 
 lowered his head, and puffed heavily along the 
 line of baskets , ere making his choice. Up flew 
 Kim's hard little heel and caught him on bis moist 
 blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked 
 away across the tram line, 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 tlie top of the 
 
 mound. 'A little curry is good, and a fried cake, 
 
 and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think.' 
 
 [22] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' It is a ii'ole as big as thy head,' said the woman 
 fretfully. But she filled it, none the less, with good, 
 steaming vegetable curry, clapped a dried cake atop, 
 and a m'orsel 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 
 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 sen- 
 tence, 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 con- 
 tents of the bowl. ' Eat now and — I will eat with 
 thee. Ohe bhistie ! ' he called to the water-carrier, 
 sluicing the crotons by the Museum. ' Give water 
 here. We men are thirsty.' 
 
 ' We men ! ' said the bhistie, laughing. ' Is one 
 skinful enough for such a pair? Drink then, in the 
 name of the Compassionate.' 
 
 He loosed a thin stream into Kim's hands, who 
 [231 
 
KIM 
 
 drank native fashion; but lilie lama must needs pull 
 out a cup from his inexhaustible upper draperies and 
 drink ceremonially. 
 
 ' Pardesi (a foreigner)/ K"iTn explained, as the old 
 man delivered in an unknown tongue what was evi- 
 dently a blessing. 
 
 They ate together in great content, clearing the 
 beggar's bowl. Then the lama took snuff from a por- 
 tentous wooden snuff-box, fingered his rosary aWhile, 
 and 90 dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the 
 shadow of Zam-Zammeh grew long. 
 
 Elm loafed over to the neai'est tobacco-seller, a 
 rather lively young Mohammedan woman, and 
 begged a rank cigar of the sort that they sell to 
 students of the Punjab University wOio copy English 
 customs. Then he smoked and thought, knees to 
 dhin, under the belly of the gun, and the outcome of 
 his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in 
 the direction of Nila Kam's timber-yard. 
 
 The lama did not wake till the evening life of the 
 city had begun with lamp-lighting and the return of 
 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? ' 
 [24] 
 
KIM 
 
 'It is my new chela (mj disciple) that is gone 
 away from me, and I know not where he is.' 
 
 'And what like of m'an was thy disciple?' 
 
 ' It was a boy who came to me in place of him w'ho 
 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 made me bold 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 over- 
 heard the talk in the Museum, and knew that the old 
 man was speaking the truth, which is a thing a native 
 seldom presents to a stranger. 
 
 ' But I see now that he was but sent upon a pur- 
 pose. By this I know that I shall find a certain river 
 for wtidh I seek.' 
 
 ' The Eiver 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. 
 [S5] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 truth to chance- 
 met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.' 
 'But the Kiver — 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 
 
 nver 
 
 «' 
 
 'Not I.' 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 mat- 
 ters tha;t I forget.' 
 
 [26] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 nig'ht. 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 Kule 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 lal-ge city, and the sight of 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 JSTorthern folk, tending tethered ponies 
 
 [27] 
 
KIM 
 
 and kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales 
 and bundles; drawing water for the evening meal at 
 the creaking well windlasses; piling gfass before the 
 shrieking, wild-eyed stallions; cuffing the surly cara- 
 van 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 — dhalk or paint 
 scratches told where he had gone. Thus: 'Lutuf 
 Allah is gone to Kurdistan.' Below, ia coarse verse: 
 ' O Allat, who sufferest lice to live on the coat of a 
 Kabuli, why ha^ thou allowed this louse Lutuf to 
 live so long? ' 
 
 Kim, fending the lama between excited men and 
 excited beasts, mdled along the cloisters to the far 
 end, nearest the railway station, where Mabbub AH, 
 the horse-trader, lived when he came in from that 
 mysterious land beyond the Passes of tbe ITorth. 
 
 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 
 [28] 
 
KIM 
 
 beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and 
 did not wish his gray hairs to show), knew the boy's 
 value as a gossip. Sometimes he would tell 'K\rr\ to 
 watcih 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 any one 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 
 before 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 sad- 
 dle-bags, pulling lazily at an immense silver hookah. 
 He turned his head very slightly at the cry; and see- 
 ing only the tall, silent lama, 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. 
 
 ' Grod's curse on all unbelievers,' said Mahbub. ' I 
 do not give to a lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis 
 
 [29] 
 
KIM 
 
 over yonder behind tlie camels. They may value your 
 blessings. Oh, horse-boys, here is a countryman of 
 yours. See if he be hungry.' 
 
 A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down 
 with the horses, and who was nominally some sort of 
 degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest, and 
 witlh thick gutturals invited the holy one to sit at the 
 horse-boys' fire. 
 
 ' Go! ' said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama 
 strode awayj leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister. 
 
 ' Gro! ' said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. 
 'Little Hindu, run away. God's curse on all unbe- 
 lievers! Beg from those of my tail who are of thy 
 faith.' 
 
 ' Maharaj,' whined Kim, using the Hindu form of 
 address, and thoroughly enjoying the situation; ' my 
 father is dead — my mother is dead — my stomach 
 is empty.' 
 
 ' Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There 
 must be some Hindus in my tail.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am 7 a Hindu? ' said Kim 
 in English. 
 
 The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but 
 looked under his shaggy eyebrows. 
 
 ' Little Friend of all the World,' said he, ' what is 
 this? ' 
 
 '!N"othing. I am now that holy man's disciple; 
 and we go a pilgrimage together — to Benares, he 
 [30] 
 
saja. He is quite mad, and I am tired of Lahore 
 city. I wislijiew^ir-jan^'^water/ ^_ ,^ — 
 ~" ' Bul~^OT 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 fortu- 
 nate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remem- 
 ber 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 ? .Mussal- 
 man — Sikh — Hindu — Jain — low caste or high?' 
 
 'Why should I ask? There is neither high nor 
 [31J 
 
KIM 
 
 low in tlie Middle Way. If he is my chela — does — 
 will — can any one 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 liie 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 mes- 
 sage 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." ' 
 [32] 
 
KIM 
 
 'And all for the sake of a wliite stallion,' said 
 Kim, with a giggle, his eyes aflame. 
 
 ' And that pedigree I will give thee now — in my 
 own fashion — with some hard words as well.' A 
 shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel. 
 Malhbub 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 feel- 
 ing on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft, 
 greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. ' Go and lie 
 down among my horse-boys for to-night — thou and 
 the lama. To-morrow I may find thee a service.' 
 
 Kim slunk away, his teeth in' the bread, and, as 
 he expected, he found a small wad of folded tissue 
 paper wrapped in oil-skin, with three silver rupees — 
 enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust money 
 and paper into his leather amulet-case. The lama, 
 sumptuously fed by Malhbub's Baltis, was already 
 asleep in a comer 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. 
 
 Eut 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 
 3 [33] 
 
KIM 
 
 departments as 0.25.1B. Twice or thrice yearly 
 C.25 would send in a little story, badly told but most 
 interesting, and generally — it was checked by the 
 statements of K.17 and MA — quite true. It con- 
 cerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain princi- 
 palities, explorers of nationalities other than English, 
 and the gun-trade — was, in brief, a small portion of 
 that vast mass of ' information received ' on which 
 the Indian Government acts. But, recently, five con- 
 federated kings, who had no business to confederate, 
 had been informed by a kindly E'orthem Power that 
 there was a leakage of news from their territories into 
 British India. So those kings' prime ministers were 
 seriously annoyed and took steps, after the Oriental 
 fashion. They suspected, among many others, the 
 bullying, red-bearded horse-dealer whose caravans 
 ploughed through their fastnesses belly deep in snow. 
 At least, his caravan that season had been ambushed 
 and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub's 
 men accounted for three strange ruffians who might, 
 or might not, have been hired for the jpb. -T-herefore 
 Mahbub had avoided halting in theWsalubrioijs city 
 of Peshawur, and had come through wrtEouit stop to 
 Lalhore, where, knowing his country people, he antici- 
 pated curious developments. 
 
 And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did 
 not wish to keep an hour longer than was necessary 
 — a wad of closely folded tissue paper, wrapped in 
 [34] 
 
KIM 
 
 oil-skin — an impersonal, unaddressed statement, 
 Avith five microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that 
 most scandalously betrayed the five confederated 
 kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu 
 banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Bel- 
 givim, and an important, semi-independent Moham- 
 medan ruler to the south. This last was K.l7's work, 
 which Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass 
 and was carrying in for R.17, who, owing to circum- 
 stances over whioh he had no control, could not leave 
 his post of observation. Dynamite was milky and 
 innocuous beside that report of C.25; and even an 
 Oriental, with an Oriental's views of the value of 
 time, could see that the sooner it was in the proper 
 hands the better. Mahbub had no particular desire 
 to die by violence, because two or three family blood- 
 feuds across the border hung unfinished on his hands, 
 and when these scores were cleared he intended to 
 settle down as a more or less virtuous citizen. He 
 had never passed the Serai Grate since his arrival on 
 the previous day, but had been ostentatious in send- 
 ing telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some of 
 his money; to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own 
 clan was selling horses to the agent of a Eajputana 
 state; and to Umballa, where an Englishman was 
 excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white stallion. 
 The public letter-writer, who knew English, com- 
 posed excellent telegrams, such as: — ' CreigJiton, 
 
 [35] 
 
KIM 
 
 La/wrel Bmik, TJmballa. — Horse is Ardbicm as al- 
 ready advised. Sorrowful delay ed-pedAgree which 
 am translating.' And later to the same address: 
 ' Much sorrowful delay. Will forwa/rd pedigree? To 
 his sub-partner at Delhi he wired: ' Lutuf Allah. — 
 Save wired two thousand rupees your credit Xuch- 
 man Narain's bank.' This was entirely in the way 
 of trade, but every one of those telegrams was dis- 
 cussed and rediscussed, by parties who conceived 
 themselves to be interested, before they went over to 
 the railway station in charge of a foolish Balti, who 
 allowed all sorts of people to read them en route. 
 
 "When, in Mahbub's own picturesque language, he 
 had muddied the wells of inquiry with the stick of 
 suspicion, Kim had dropped on him, as from 
 Heaven; and, being as prompt as he was unscru- 
 pulous, M'ahbub Ali, used to taking all sorts of 
 gusty chances, pressed him into service as we have 
 seen. 
 
 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, or what was more to the point, rob 
 them. 
 
 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 incrimi- 
 nate nobody. And he would go to TJmballa at his 
 [36] 
 
KIM 
 
 leisure and — at a certain risk of exciting fresh sus- 
 picion — repeat his own tale viva voce to the people 
 concerned. 
 
 But K.l7's tale 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 Eam'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 cfaU 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 tele- 
 grams. It was an utterly foolish thing to do; be- 
 cause they fell to drinking perfumed brandy against 
 the law of the prophet, and Mahbub grew wonder- 
 fully 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, vs^here the Mower 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 Mah- 
 [37] 
 
KIM 
 
 bub's deserted stall. The liorse-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 gentle- 
 man 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 sys- 
 tematically than the Flower and the pundit were 
 searching the owner. 
 
 ' And I think,' said the Flower scornfully an hour 
 later, one rounded elbow on the snoring carcase, ' that 
 he is no more than a pig of an Afghan horse-dealer, 
 with no thought except women and horses. More- 
 over, he may have sent it away by now — if ever 
 Dhere 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 slip- 
 pers as the Flower searched his turban. This is not 
 the man but another — I leave little unseen.' 
 
 ' They did not say he was the very man,' said the 
 pundit thoughtfully. ' They said, " Look if he be 
 the man, since our councils are troubled." ' 
 
 'That country is fiiU of horse-dealers as an old 
 coat of lice. There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, 
 [38] 
 
KIM 
 
 and Farrukli Shah. — all heads of Kafilas — who 
 deal there,' said the Flower. 
 
 ' They have not yet come in,' said the pundit. 
 ' Thou must ensnare them when they come.' 
 
 * Phew! ' said the Mower with deep disgust, roll- 
 ing Mahbub's head from her lap. ' I earn my money. 
 Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a swashbuckler, and 
 old Sikandar K'han — yaie! I sleep now. This 
 swine will not stir till the dawn.' 
 
 Wien Mahbub woke, the Mower talked to him 
 severely on the sin of drunkenness. Asiatics do not 
 ■\vink when they have out-manoeuvred the enemy, but 
 as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt, 
 and staggered forth under the early morning stars, 
 he came very near it. 
 
 'What a colt's trick,' he said to himself. 'As if 
 every girl in Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas 
 prettily done. E"ow 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 
 Mower and drinking wine as an Afghan coper 
 should.' , 
 
 He halted at the stall next his own. His man lay 
 there heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or 
 the lama. 
 
 ' Up ! ' He stirred a sleeper. ' Whither went those 
 [39] 
 
KIM 
 
 who lay here last even — the lama and the boy ? Is 
 aught missing ? ' 
 
 ' !N"ay,' grunted the man, ' the old madman rose at 
 second cockcrow saying he would go to Benares, and 
 the young one led liim away.' 
 
 ' The curse of AUah on all unbelievers,' said Mah- 
 bub heartily, and climbed into his own stall, growling 
 in his beard. 
 
 But it was Kim who had wakened the lama — 
 Kim with one eye against a knot-hole in the 
 planking, who had seen the Delhi man's search 
 througb 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 is the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie,' said 
 he, ' the thing that I carry to Umballa. Better that 
 we go now. Hail Hai! ' in a whisper to the light- 
 sleeping old man. ' Cbme. It is time — time to go 
 to Benares.' 
 
 The lama rose obediently, and they passed out of 
 the serai like shadows. 
 
 [40] 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 For whoso mil, from Pride released, 
 Contemnmg' neither man nor beast. 
 May hear the Soul of all the East 
 About him at Kamakura. 
 
 Kim led to the fort-like railway station, black in 
 the end of night; the electrics sizzling over the goods- 
 yard w'here day and nig'ht tliey handle the heavy 
 Northern traffic. 
 
 ' This is the work of devils! ' said the lama, recoil- 
 ing from the hollow echoing darkness, the glimmer 
 of rails between the masonry platforms, and th.e maze 
 of girders above. He stood in a gigantic stone 'hall 
 paved, it seemed, with the sheeted de'ad — 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 passen- 
 ger 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 TJm- 
 balla.' 
 
 ' But we ga to Benares,' he replied petulantly. 
 [41 J 
 
KIM 
 
 'All one. Benares then. Quick: she comes! ' 
 
 ' Take thou the purse.' 
 
 The lama, not so well used to trains as 'he had pre- 
 tended, started as the 3.25 a. m. south bound roared 
 in. The sleepers sprung to life, and the station filled 
 with clamour and shoutings, cries of water and sweet- 
 meat venders, shouts of native policemen, and ^rill 
 yells of women gathering up their baskets, their fam- 
 ilies, 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 farmei-s, but I live in the city of 
 Lahore. It was cleverly done, babu. !N'ow give the 
 ticket to Umballa.' 
 
 The babu scowled and dealt the proper ticket. 
 
 ' Now another to Amritzar,' said Kim, w'ho had no 
 notion of spending Mahbub All'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 be%vildered lama. ' They would have flung thee 
 out at Mian Mir but for me. This way! Oome! ' He 
 [42] 
 
KIM 
 
 returned the money, keeping only one anna in each 
 rupee of the price of the Umballa ticket as his com- 
 mission — 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 remem- 
 ber the time when I was afraid of the train. 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 JuUunder district. The 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 biue-turbaned husband. ' Pick up the child. It 
 is a holy man, see'st thou? ' 
 
 ' And my lap full of seventy times seven bundles ! 
 Why not bid him sit on my knee. Shameless ? But 
 men are ever thus! ' She looked round for approval. 
 An Amritzar courtesan near the window sniffed 
 behind her head drapery. 
 
 ' Enter! Enter! ' cried a fat Hindu money-lender, 
 his folded account-book in a'cloth under hisarm. With 
 an oily smirk: ' It is well to be kind to the -poor.' 
 
 [43] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Ay, at seven per cent a month, with, a mortgage 
 on the unhom calf,' said a young Dogra soldier going 
 sputh. on leave; and they all laughed. 
 
 ' Will it go 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! ' 
 
 'ISTay, help,' said the cultivator, putting out a 
 large brown hand and liauling 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 bis lips, 
 ' that there is not one rule of right living which these 
 te-rains do not cause us to break. We sit, for example, 
 side by side with all castes and peoples.' 
 
 ' Yea, and with most outrageously shameless ones,' 
 said the wife, scowling at the Amritzar girl making 
 eyes at the young sepoy. 
 
 'I said we might have gone by cart along the road,' 
 said the husband, ' and thus have saved some money.' 
 
 ' Yes — and spent twice over what we saved on food 
 bytheway. That was talked over 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 whicli may not look 
 [MJ 
 
KIM 
 
 at or reply to a woman.' For the lama, constrained 
 by his Kule, 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 chari- 
 table 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 woinan, hand- 
 ing him the half of a cake from a greasy package. 
 
 'Even to Benares.' 
 
 'Jugglers belike?' the young soldier suggested. 
 ' Have ye any tricks to pass the time? Why does not 
 that yellow man answer? ' 
 
 ' Because,' said Kim stoutly, ' he is holy, and 
 thinks upon matters hidden from thee.' 
 
 ' That may be well. We of the Loodhiana Sikhs,' 
 he rolled out sonorously, ' do not trouble our heads 
 with doctrine. We fight.' 
 
 'My sister's brother's son is naih (corporal) in 
 that regiment,' said the Sikh craftsman quietly. 
 ' There are also some Dogra companies there.' The 
 soldieiv 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. 
 
 [45] 
 
KIM 
 
 'Nay, but all who serve tKe Sirkar with weapons 
 in their hands are, as it were, one brother'hood. 
 There is one brotherhood of the caste, but beyond that 
 again ' — she looked round timidly — ' the bond of 
 the Pulton — the Eegiment.' 
 
 'My brother is in a Jat regiment,' said the culti- 
 vator. ' Dogras be good men.' 
 
 ' The Sikhs at least were of that opinion,' said the 
 soldier, with a scowl at the placid old man in the 
 corner. ' TJiy Sikhs thoug'ht so when our two com- 
 panies came to help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the 
 face of eight Afreed standards on the ridge not three 
 months gone.' 
 
 He told the story of a border action in which the 
 Dogra companies of the Loodhiana Sikhs had ac- 
 quitted themselves well. The Amritzar girl smiled; 
 for she knew the tale was to win her approval. 
 
 ' Alas ! ' said the cultivator's wife at the end. ' So 
 their villages were burnt and their little children 
 made homeless.' 
 
 ' They had cut up 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 come to look at our tickets,' 
 said the banker, fumbling in his clothes. 
 
 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 
 [46] 
 
KIM 
 
 tickets in all sorts of curious places. Kim produced 
 his and was told to get out. 
 
 ' But I go to Umballa,' he protested. ' I go with 
 this holy man.' 
 
 ' Thou canst go to Jehannum for aught I care. 
 This ticket is only to Amritzar. Out! ' 
 
 Kim burst into a flood of tears, protesting that the 
 lama was his father and his mother, that he was the 
 prop of the lama's declining years, and that the lama 
 would die without his care. All the carriage bade 
 the guard be merciful, — the banker was specially 
 strong on this point, — but the guard hauled Kim 
 on to the platform. The lama blinked, he could not 
 overtake the situation, and Kim lifted up his voice 
 and wept outside the carriage window. 
 
 'I am very poor. My father is dead — my 
 mother is dead. Oh, charitable ones, if I am left 
 here, who shaiU 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 tihe world is so char- 
 itable?' 
 
 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 ticket to Umballa — O 
 [4Y] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 tiklcuV 
 
 The girl looked up at the lama, who had mechani- 
 cally followed Kim to the platform. He bowed his 
 head that he might not see her, and muttered in 
 Tibetan as Ae passed on with the crowd. 
 
 ' Light come — light go,' said the cultivator's wife 
 viciously. 
 
 ' She has acquired merit,' returned the lama. 
 ' Pei'adventure it was a nun.' 
 
 ' Ay, there be ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar 
 alone. Return, old man, or the train may depart 
 without thee,' cried the banker. 
 
 ' Not only was it sufficient for the ticket, but for a 
 little food also,' Said Kim, leaping to his place. ' Now 
 eat. Holy One. Look. Day comes! ' 
 
 Golden, rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists 
 smoked away across the flat green levels. All the 
 [48] 
 
KIM 
 
 rich. Punjab lay out in the splendour of the keen sun. 
 The lama flinched a little as the telegrapli posts 
 , swiing by. 
 
 I ' Grreat is tbe speed of the train,' said the banker, 
 \ with a patronizing grin. ' We have gone farther 
 \ since Lahore tban thou oouldst walk in 'two days : at 
 ^ven, we shall enter Umballa.' - , . -- 
 
 ' And that is still far from Benares,' said the lam'a 
 wearily, mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered. 
 Tbey all "unloosed their bundles and made their 
 morning meal. Then the banker, the cultivator, and 
 the soldier prepared their pipes and wrapped the 
 compartment ia choking, acrid smoke, spitting and 
 coughing and enjoying themselves. The Sikh and 
 the cultivator's wife chewed pan; tbe lama took snuff 
 and told his beads, while Kim, cross-legged, smiled 
 over the comfort of a full stomacli. 
 
 ' What rivers have ye b;j Benares? ' said tbe lama 
 of a sudden to the carriage at large. 
 
 ' We have Gunga,' returned the banker, when the 
 little titter had subsided. 
 
 'What others?' 
 
 ' WTiat need for other tkan Gunga? ' 
 
 ' ISTay, but in my mind was the thougbt 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. 
 4 [49] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' There was need/ said the young sepoy drily, 
 and the travellers' kugh turned against the 
 banker. 
 
 ' Clean — to return again to the gods/ the lama 
 muttered. ' ' And to go forth on the round of lives 
 anew — stiU 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 any one should be igi^orant 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 stammer- 
 ing gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed 
 in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and 
 [50] 
 
KIM 
 
 visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and 
 will continue to the end. 
 
 ' Um ! ' said the soldier of the Loodhiana Sikhs. 
 ' There was a Mohammedan regiment lay next to us 
 at the Pirzai Kotal, and a priest- of theirs, — he was, 
 as I remember, a naih, — when the fit was on him, 
 spake propTiecies. 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 lis- 
 tened 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 car- 
 riage. 
 
 ' Though past question we have good gods JuUun- 
 der-way,' said the cultivator's wife, looking out of 
 window. ' See how they have blessed the crops.' 
 
 ' To search every river in the Punjab is no small 
 matter,' said her husband. 'For me, a stream that 
 leaves good silt on my land suffices, and I thank Bhu- 
 mia, the god of the homestead.' He shrugged one 
 knotted, bronzed shoulder. 
 
 [51] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 JuUunder 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 shrunk into himself, a dingy 
 shapeless mass. In the pauses of their talk they 
 could hear the low droning — ' Om mane pudme 
 hum! Om mane pudme hum! ' — and the thick click 
 of the wooden rosary beads. 
 
 ' It irks me,' he said at last. ' The speed and the 
 clatter irk me. Moreover, my chela, I think that 
 may be we have overpassed that river.' 
 
 'Peace, peace,' said Kim. 'Was not the river 
 near Benares? We are yet far from lihe place.' 
 
 'But — if our Loi'd 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 
 [52] 
 
KIM 
 
 me ? — f Of the merit I had acquired over yonder at 
 Suchzen. From beside the cannon didst thou oome 
 
 — 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 be'ard — holy among images — who himself 
 made more sure my assurance of the Eiver 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. Eest 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 greiat good-tempered world. 
 
 L' - [53] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' It was a bull — a Ked Bull that shall come and 
 help thee — and carry thee — whither? I have for- 
 gotten. A Eed Bull on a green field, was it not ? ' 
 
 ' Nay, it wili carry me nowhere,' said Kim. ' It 
 is but a tale I told thee.' 
 
 ' What is this? ' the cultivator's wife leaned for- 
 ward, 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 Bed Bull in our village behind JuHunder 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 Eed 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. 
 [54] 
 
' Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to boot, but never such 
 a yogi nor such a disciple.' " 
 
KIM 
 
 Then to the company, indicating Kim: 'This one 
 was sent to me but yesterday. He is not, I think, of 
 this world.' 
 
 'Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to 
 boot, but never such a yogi nor such a disciple,' said 
 the woman. 
 
 Her husband touched his forehead lightly with one 
 iinger and smiled. But the next time the lama would 
 eat they took care to give him their best. 
 
 And at last — tired, sleepy, and dusty — they 
 reached Umballa City Station. 
 
 ' We abide here upon a law-suit,' said the culti- 
 vator'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,' lihe husband began, as he shouldered his 
 heavy bamboo stick. 
 
 ' 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' 
 
 [55-] 
 
KIM 
 
 'Ay, I beg for him,' said Kim, anxious only to 
 get the lama under shelter for the night, that he 
 might seek Mahbub All'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 cantonment bazar, ' I go away for 
 awhile — to — to buy Tis 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 ia this very same shape? Is it too late to 
 look to-night for the river? ' 
 
 ' Too late and too dark. Be comforted. Think 
 how far thou art on the road — an hxmdred hos from 
 Lahore already.' 
 
 ' Yea — and farther from my monastery. Alas ! 
 It is a great and terrible world.' 
 
 Kim slipped out and away, as inconspicuous a 
 iigure as ever carried his own and a few score thou- 
 sand other folks' fate slung round his neck. Mah- 
 bub All's directions left him little doubt of the house 
 in wliieh his Englishman lived; and a groom, bring- 
 ing 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 verandah. The 
 house blazed with lights, and servants moved about 
 [56] 
 
KIM 
 
 tables dressed "with flowers, glass, and silver. Pres- 
 ently forth came an Englishman, dressed in black 
 and white, humming a tune. It Was too dark to see 
 his face, so Kim tried an old experiment. 
 
 'Protector of the Poor! ' 
 
 The man wheeled towards the voice. 
 
 ' Mahbub Ali says ' 
 
 'Hah I What says IVTahbub Ali?' He made no 
 attempt to look for the speaker, and that showed Kim 
 that the man knew. 
 
 ' The pedigree of the White Stallion is fully es- 
 tablished.' 
 
 'What proof is there?' The Englishman 
 switched at the rose-hedge in the side of the drive. 
 
 'Mahbub Ali has given me this proof.' Kim 
 flipped the wad of folded paper into the air, and it 
 fell on the path beside the man, who put his foot on 
 it as a gardener came round the comer. When the 
 man passed he picked it up, dropped a rupee, — Kim 
 could hear the clink, — and strode into the house, 
 never looking 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. 
 Instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass 
 and wormed neiarer to the house. 
 
 He saw — Indian bungalows are open through 
 and through — the Englishman return to a small 
 
 [57] 
 
KIM 
 
 dressing-room, in a corner of the verandaii, lihal; was 
 half office, littered with papers and despatch-boxes, 
 and sit down to study Mahbub All'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 
 verandah, and a tall, black-haired man, erect as an 
 arrow, swung out, preceded by a young officer who 
 laug'hed pleasantly. 
 
 Flat on his belly lay Kim, almost touching the 
 high wheels. His man and the black stranger ex- 
 changed 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 taiU 
 man, and they both passed into the dressing-room 
 together as the landau rolled away. Kim saw their 
 [58] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 — 'clenches it. Grogan's dining 
 here to-night, isn't he? ' 
 
 ' Yes sir, and Macklin too.' 
 
 ' Very good. I'll speak to them myself. The mat- 
 ter vnll be referred to the Council, of course, but 
 this is a case where one is justified in assuming that 
 we take action at once. Warn the Pindi and Pe- 
 shawur 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 wear? ' 
 
 ''Ho. Punishment. When a man is bound by 
 the action of his predecessor ' 
 
 'But C.25 may have lied.' 
 
 ' He bears out the other's information. Practi- 
 cally, 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 oflE those telegrams at once, — the new code, 
 
 [59] 
 
KIM 
 
 not tlie old, — mine and Wharton's. I don't think 
 we need keep your wife 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 ex- 
 periences, he judged lihere would be food — and in- 
 formation. 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 belly-full.' 
 
 ' 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 sculKons 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- 
 Ohief).' 
 
 'Ho! ' said Kim, with a guttural note of wonder. 
 He had learned w'hat he wanted, and w'hen the scul- 
 lion turned round he was gone. 
 
 ' And all that trouble,' said he to himself, thinking 
 as usual in Hindustanee, ' for a horse's pedigree. 
 Mahbub Ali ^ould have come to me to learn a little 
 lying. Every time before that I have borne a mes- 
 sage it concerned a woman. Now it ia men. The 
 [60] 
 
KIM 
 
 tall man said that they will loose a great army to pun- 
 ish, some one — somewhere — the news goes to Pindi 
 and Peshawur. There are also guns. Would I had 
 crept nearer. It is big news! ' 
 
 He returned to find the cultivator's cousin's 
 younger brother discussing the family law-suit in all 
 its bearings with the cultivator and his wife and a 
 few friends, w'hile 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 
 eoeoanut shell, his legs spread abroad in the moon- 
 light, 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. More- 
 over, 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 the priest's side, but the lama was 
 the guest and the novelty. His gentle kindliness, 
 and his impressive Chinese quotations, that sounded 
 like spells, delig'hted them hugely; and in this sym- 
 pathetic simple air, he expanded like the Bodhisat's 
 own lotus, speaking of his life in the great hills of 
 Suehzen before, as he said, 'I rose up to seek en- 
 lightenment.' 
 
 Then it came out that in those worldly days he 
 [61] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 vrhich forbids converse "with 
 women, as he talked of enduring snows, landslips, 
 blocked pases, the remote cliffs where men find 
 sapphires and turquoise, and that wonderful upland 
 road that leads at last into Great China itself. 
 
 'How thinkest lihou of this one?' said the culti- 
 vator 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, 
 thoug'h that is beyond thee, are wise and sure.' 
 
 'Tell me,' said Kim lazily, 'whether I find my 
 Eed Bull on a green field, as was promised me.' 
 
 'What Imowledge hast thou of thy birth hour?' 
 the priest asked, swelling with importance. 
 
 'Between first and second cockcrow of the first 
 night in May.' 
 
 ' Of what year? ' 
 
 ' I do not know; but upon the hour that I cried first 
 
 fell the great earthquake in Srinagur which is in 
 
 Kashmir.' This Kim had from the woman who 
 
 took care of him, and she again from Kimball 
 
 [62] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 motlier bore her husband four sons in 
 four years — all likely boys,' said the cultivator's 
 wife, sitting outside the circle in the shadow. 
 
 ' !N"one 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 sensa- 
 tion he was creating, ' I shall be made great by means 
 of a Ked Bull on a green filed, but first there will 
 enter two men making all things ready.' 
 
 'Yes; thus ever at the beginning 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 
 ones.' 
 
 He knitted his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and 
 scratched again in the dust mysterious signs — to the 
 
 [63] 
 
KIM 
 
 ■wonder of all save.iihe laana, 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. Withia lihree days 
 come the two men to make all ftihings ready. After 
 them follows the Bull; but the sign over against 
 him is the sign of War and armed men.' 
 
 ' There was indeed a man of the Loodhiana Sikhs 
 in the carriage from Lahore/ said the cultivator's 
 wife hopefully. 
 
 'Tck! Armed men — many hundreds. What 
 concern hast thou with war? ' said thfe 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.' 
 
 Em chuckled, remembering what he had over- 
 heard in the dressing-room. Decidedly he was a 
 favourite of the stars. 
 
 The priest brushed his foot over the rude horo- 
 scope. ' 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 preyed to stay, 
 [64] 
 
KIM 
 
 tlie lama insisted on departure. They gave Kim a 
 large 'bundle of good food and nearly tliree annas in 
 copper money for the needs of the road, and with 
 many 'blessings watched the two go southward in the 
 dawn. 
 
 ' Pity it is that these and such as these could not 
 be freed from the Wheel of Things/ said the lama. 
 
 ' Nay, then would only evil people be left on the 
 earth, and who would give us meat 'and shdter? ' 
 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 iJhe still 
 fields; walking into a very hornet's-nest of pariah 
 dogs. 
 
 [65] 
 
CHAPTEE in 
 
 Yea, voice of every Soul that clung 
 To Life that.strove from rung to rung 
 When Devadatta's rule was young, 
 The warm wind brings Kamakura. 
 
 Behind them an angry farmer brandislhed a bam- 
 boo 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 tlie farmer. 
 'Begone! Get hence!' 
 
 'We go,' the lama returned with quiet dignity. 
 ' We go from these unble^ed fields.' 
 
 'Ah,' said Kim, sucking in his breath. 'If the 
 next crops fail, thou canst only blame thyown tongue.' 
 
 The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. "The 
 land is full of beggars,' he began, half apologetically. 
 
 ' And by what sign did'st thou know that we would 
 beg from thee, O Mali? ' said Kim tartly, using the 
 [661 
 
KIM 
 
 name that a market-gardener least likes. 'All we 
 sought was to look at that river beyond the field there.' 
 
 ' Kiver, 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.' 
 
 ' ^aj, we will go to the river/ said the lama, strid- 
 ing out. 
 
 'Milk and a meal,' the man stammered, as he 
 looked at the strange tall figure. ' I — 1 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 Eed 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, ' swelling with im- 
 portance. 
 
 ' There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 
 ' there is no pride among such as follow the Middle 
 Way.' 
 
 [67] 
 
KIM 
 
 'But thou hast said lie was low caste and dis- 
 courteous.' 
 
 ' Low caste I did not say, for how can that be which 
 is not? Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and 
 I forgot the ofFence.' IVCoreoTer, 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 vsdll 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 blest to make the fields bear ! ' 
 
 ' Look ! Look ! ' Kim sprang to his side and 
 dragged him back. A yellow and brown streak glided 
 from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched 
 its neck to the water, drank, and lay still — a big 
 cobra with fixed, lidless eyes. 
 
 ' I have no stick — I have no stick,' said Kim. ' I 
 will get me one and break his back.' 
 
 ' Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are — a life 
 ascending or descending — very far from deliver- 
 ance. G-reat evil must the soul have done that is 
 cast into this shape.' 
 
 ' I hate all snakes,' said Kim.. !N"o native training 
 can quench the white man's horror of the Serpent. 
 
 ' Let him live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed 
 [68] 
 
KIM 
 
 and half opened his hood. ' May thy release come 
 soon, brother,' th& lama continued placidly. ' Hast 
 thou knowledge, by chance, of my river? ' 
 
 ' I^ever have I seen such a man as thou art,' 'Kim 
 whispered, overwhelmed. ' Do the very snakes un- 
 derstand thy talk? ' 
 
 'Who knows?' He passed within a foot of the 
 cobra's poised head. It flattened itself among the 
 dusty ooils. 
 
 ' Oome thou!' he called over his Shoulder. 
 
 ' ISTot 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 stepped 
 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-car- 
 riage fills my head with the noises of devil-druma 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 
 
 [69] 
 
KIM 
 
 day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse 
 of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages 
 at noonday; the lama replying to the voUied 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 hun- 
 gry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green 
 of the wheat. 
 
 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 ceremo- 
 nies being finished in the village temple, sent for the 
 village priest. 
 
 Earn told the older children tales of the size and 
 beauty of Lahore, of railway travel, and such like 
 city things, w'hile the men talked, slowly as their 
 cattle chew the cud. 
 
 [TO] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I cannot fatihom it,' said the headman at last to 
 the priest. ' How readest thou this talk? ' The 
 lama, 'his tale told, was silently telling his beads. 
 
 ' He is a Seeker,' the priest answered. ' The land 
 is full of such. Remember him who came only last 
 month — the faquir with the tortoise?' 
 
 'Ay, but that man had right and reason, for 
 Krishna Himself appeared in a vision promising him 
 Paradise without the burning-pyre if he journeyed 
 to Prayag. This man seeks no god who is within my 
 knowledge.' 
 
 ' Peace, he is old : he comes from far off, and he 
 is mad,' the smooth-Shaven priest replied. ' Hear 
 me.' He turned to the lama. ' Three kos (six miles) 
 to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta.' 
 
 ' But I would go to Benares — to Benares.' 
 
 'And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on 
 this side of Hind. Now my word to thee. Holy 
 One, is rest here till to-morrow. Then take the road 
 (it was the Grand Trunk Koad 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 free- 
 dom.' 
 
 ' That is well said.' The lama was much im- 
 pressed by the plan. ' We will begin to-morrow, and 
 a blessing come to thee for showing old feet such a 
 
 [Yl] 
 
KIM 
 
 near road.' A deep sing-song Chinese half-ehant 
 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 
 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 thiak, not alto- 
 gether 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-smeUing smoke, 
 'what art thou?' 
 
 ' This holy one's disciple,' said Kim. 
 
 ' He says thou art a hhut (a spirit).' 
 
 ' Can hhuts eat ? ' said Kim, with a twinkle. ' For 
 I am hungry.' 
 
 ' It is no jest,' cried the lama. ' A certain astrolo- 
 ger 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. 
 [72] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' -A-y, IJmballa was it ? He cast a horoscope and 
 declared that my chela should find his desire within 
 two days. But what isaid he of the meardng of the 
 stars, Friend of all the World? ' 
 
 Kim. cleared his throat and looked importantly at 
 the village graybeards. 
 
 ' The meaning of my Star is War/ he replied 
 pompously. 
 
 Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure 
 strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great 
 tree. Where a native would have lain down, Kim's 
 white blood set him upon his feet. 
 
 ' Ay, war ! ' he answered. 
 
 ' That is a sure prophecy,' rumbled a deep voice. 
 ' Eor 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 Gov- 
 ernment had given him a good holding in the village, 
 and though the demands of his sons, now gray- 
 bearded officers on their own account, had impover- 
 ished 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 
 [Y3] 
 
KIM 
 
 thousand,' Kim's voice shrilled across the quick- 
 gathering crowd. 
 
 ' Redcoats or our own regiments ? ' the old man 
 snapped, as though he were asking an equal. His 
 tone made men respect Kim. 
 
 ' Eedcoats,' said Kim at a venture. ' Eedcoats and 
 guns.' 
 
 ' But — but the astrologer said no word of this,' 
 cried the lama, snuffing prodigiously in his excite- 
 ment. 
 
 ' 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 us a sign,' thundered the old sol- 
 dier 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 
 
KIM 
 
 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 better things — the sheer excite- 
 ment and the sense of power. He drew a deep breath 
 and went on. 
 
 ' Old man, give me a sign. Do baboos order the 
 goings of eight thousand redcoats — with guns ? ' 
 
 ' !N^o.' 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 top-hhana (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 any one 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 arm- 
 pit.' Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a 
 stork. 
 
 [75] 
 
KIM 
 
 The old man groaned, inarticulate with amaze- 
 ment; 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 at 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 ' — Kiai'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, stand- 
 ing 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 Kiin against the purple twilight. 
 
 ' Said I not — said I not he was from the other 
 [T6] 
 
KIM 
 
 world ? ' cried the lama proudly. * He is the Friend 
 of all the World, He is the Friend of the Stars ! ' 
 
 ' At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. ' O 
 thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee 
 at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may 
 be sister to thy Bull for aught I know ' 
 
 ' Or I care,' said Kim. ' My Stars do not concern 
 themselves with thy cattle.' 
 
 ' Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 
 ' My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his 
 words better. Tell me if she recover ? ' 
 
 Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would 
 have carried on the play; but one does not know 
 Lahore city, and least of all the faquirs by the Tak- 
 sali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing 
 human nature. 
 
 The priest looked at him sideways, something bit- 
 terly — 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 vil- 
 lage. ' It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a 
 young calf to thy own priest, and unless thy gods 
 are angry past recall, she will give milk within a 
 month.' 
 
 [77] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' A master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest ap- 
 proTingly. ' ITot 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,' Eam retorted, flushed with the praise, 
 but still cautious — ' does one grow rich on that ? 
 And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me 
 while I learn the road at least.' 
 
 He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate 
 were like when they talked among themselves, and 
 copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples. 
 
 '' Is his search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends ? 
 It may be treasure.' 
 
 ' He is mad — many times mad. There is nothing 
 
 Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim 
 would accept his hospitality for the night. The 
 priest recommended him to do so, but insisted that 
 the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the 
 temple — at which the lama smiled guilelessly. 'K^m 
 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.' 
 [78] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Am I thy chela, or am I not ? Do I not safe- 
 guard 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.' 
 
 l^ext 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, tUl 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 long draught of milk,' said Kim, who 
 had carried not a few such remedies to opiimi-smok- 
 ers 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 hut-par ast, but in other lives, may be, they 
 
 [79] 
 
KIM 
 
 will receive enlightemnent. A rupee to the temple ? 
 The thing withia 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 Pathan Kot — 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 Trim 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 viQage street, aU shadowy 
 in the dawn, on a gaunt, scissor-hocked pony. ' Last 
 night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my 
 so-dried heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly 
 there is war abroad in the air. I smell it. ■ See ! I 
 have brought my sword.' 
 
 He sat long-legged on the little beast, with 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.' 
 
 [80] 
 
" 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 . . ." 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I am this holy one's disciple,' said Earn, as they 
 cleared the village gate. The villagers seemed almost 
 glad to be rid of them, and the priest's farewell was 
 cold and distant. He had wasted good 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 shoidd 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 
 him. He marches well, too.' 
 
 The first freshness of the day carried the lama 
 forward with long, easy, camel-like strides. He was 
 deep in meditation, mechanically clicking his rosary. . 
 
 They followed the rutted and worn country road 
 that wound across the flat between the great dark- 
 green mango-groves, the line of the snow-capped 
 Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at 
 work in the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the 
 shouting of ploughmen behind their cattle, and the 
 clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt the good 
 influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a 
 hand on the stirrup-leather. 
 6 [ 81 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 inter- 
 rupted 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 
 ^wa^ 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 
 [82] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Tear, 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 can- 
 not 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 to thee.' 
 
 ' 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 accom- 
 plished. Let each strike out a little holding for him- 
 
 [83] 
 
KIM 
 
 seK." / But I had talked with the men of Sobraon, 
 of Chillianwallah, of Moodkie 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 mem-sahib and her 
 babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow ! That was a horse 
 fit for a man!) I placed them in safety, and back 
 came I to my officer — the one that was not killed of 
 our five. " Give me work," said I, " for I am an 
 outcast among my own kin, and my cousin's blood is 
 wet on my sabre." " Be content," said he. " There 
 is great work forward. When this madness is over 
 there is a recompense." ' 
 
 ' Ay, there is a recompense when the madness is 
 over, surely ? ' the lama muttered half to himself. 
 
 ' They did not give medals in those days to all 
 who by accident had heard a gun fired. 'Nol In 
 nineteen pitched battles was I ; in six and forty skir- 
 mishes of horse ; and in small affairs without number. 
 iN'ine wounds I bear; a medal and four clasps and the 
 medal of an Order, for my captains, who are now 
 generals, remembered me when the Kaiser-i-Hind 
 had accomplished fifty years of her reign, and all 
 the land rejoiced. They said : " Give him the order 
 of Berittish India." I carry it upon my neck now. 
 I have also my jaghir (holding) from the hands of 
 the State — a free gift to me and mine. The men 
 of the old days — they are now Commissioners — 
 [84] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 com- 
 plaints 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 wel- 
 come my sons : I have no less than three — ressaldar- 
 majors all — in the regiments.' 
 
 ' And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go 
 forth from life to life — from despair to despair,' 
 said the lama below his breath, ' hot, uneasy, snatch- 
 ing.' 
 
 ' Ay,' the old soldier chuckled. ' Three ressaldar- 
 majors in three regiments. Gamblers a little, but so 
 
 [85] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 think- 
 est 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 power 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. J 
 All she gave me was a flux, and no sort of sttength/ 
 
 ' 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 
 [86] 
 
KIM 
 
 Middle "Way, which is the path to Freedom. Hear 
 the most excellent Law, and do not foUow dreams.' 
 
 ' Speak then, old man,' the soldier smiled, half sa- 
 luting. ' 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 notch of 
 the twisted roots. 
 
 There was a drowsy buzz of small life in hot sun- 
 shine, 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 vTist. The lama's 
 voice faltered — the periods lengthened. Kim was 
 busy watching a gray squirrel. When the scolding 
 little bunch of fur, close pressed to the branch, dis- 
 appeared, 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 rev- 
 erence, 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 in- 
 dignant, yelled aloud. 
 
 [87] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Hai I 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 cvj. 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 notice of 
 the child, began to click his rosary. 
 
 ' What is that ? ' said the child, stopping a yell 
 midway. ' I have never seen such beads. Give them 
 me.' 
 
 ' Aha,' said the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop 
 of it on the grass : 
 
 ' This is a handful of cardamoms, 
 
 This is a lump of ghi : 
 This is millet and chillies and rice, 
 A supper for thee and me ! ' 
 
 The child shrieked with Joy, and snatched at the 
 dark, glancing beads. 
 
 ' Oho ! ' said the old soldier. ' Whence had thou 
 that song, despiser of this world ? ' 
 
 ' I learned it in Pathan Kot — sitting on a door- 
 step,' said the lama shyly. ' It is good to be kind to 
 babes.' 
 
 ' As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou 
 hadst told me that marriage and bearing were dark- 
 [88] 
 
KIM 
 
 eners 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, re- 
 coiling the rosary. ' Kun 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 nice.' 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 
 Mkal 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 jS"ikal Seyn (Mcholson) — the song that 
 men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was de- 
 lighted, and the lama listened vdth deep interest. 
 
 'AM/ JVikal Seyn is dead — he Med lefore 
 [89] 
 
KIM 
 
 Delhi! Lcmces of Worth take vengecmcefor NiTcal 
 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 broad 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-car- 
 riages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hun- 
 dreds. Now there are only country-carts and such 
 Kke. Left and right is the rougher road for the 
 heavy carts — grain and cotton and timber, bhoosa, 
 lime and hides. A man goes in safety here — for at 
 every few hos is a police-station. The police are 
 thieves and extortioners (I myself would patrol it 
 with cavalry — ^young recruits under a strong leader), 
 but at least they do not suffer any rivals. All castes 
 and kinds of men move here. Look! Brahmins 
 and chumris, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bun- 
 nias, pilgrims and potters — all the world goiag and 
 coming. It is to me as a river from which I am with- 
 drawn like a log after a flood.' 
 
 And truly the Grand Trunk Eoad is a wonderful 
 spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowd- 
 ing India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles — such 
 [90] 
 
KIM 
 
 a river of life as exists nowhere else in the world. 
 They looked down the green-arched, shade-flecked 
 length of it, the white breadth speckled with slow- 
 pacing folk ; and the two-roomed police-station oppo- 
 site. 
 
 ' 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 de- 
 stroy evil-doers ? ' 
 
 ' It was because of the police I bought it,' was the 
 answer. ' Does all go well in Hind ? ' 
 
 ' Eessaldar 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 tall, thin, high Kattiwar mare, with 
 
 [91j 
 
KIM 
 
 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 nian. He was tall and 
 gray-bearded, sitting the almost mad mare 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 fol- 
 lows her man close,' said the old man. The carter 
 ran under the wheels of his cart and thence threat- 
 ened all sorts of vengeance. 
 
 ' They are strong men, thy sons,' said the police- 
 man serenely, picking his teeth. 
 
 The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with 
 his whip and came on at a canter. 
 
 ' My father ! ' He reined back ten yards and dis- 
 mounted. 
 
 The old man was off his pony in an instant, and 
 they embraced as do father and son in the East. 
 
 [92] 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 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 I 
 
 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 Tinder a tree, but the lama tugged 
 impatiently at his elbow. 
 
 ' Let us go on. The river is not here.' / 
 
 ' Hai mai ! Have we not walked enough for a 
 little? Our river "will not run away. Patience, and 
 he will give us a dole.' 
 
 ' That,' said the old soldier suddenly, ' is the 
 Friend of the Stars. He brought me the news yester- 
 day. Having seen the very man Himself, in a vision, 
 giving orders for the war.' 
 
 [93] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Hm ! ' said his son, all deep in his brog,d 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. 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.' 
 
 ' I^ay, as I know, the war,' returned Kim, com- 
 posedly. 
 
 ' Eh ? ' said the lama, clicking 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, 
 r94,J 
 
KIM 
 
 grmnbliiig sometliiiig about beggars and jugglers. It 
 was a four-anna piece, and would feed them well for 
 some days. The lama, seeing the flash of the metal, 
 droned a blessing. 
 
 ' Go thy way, Eriend 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 Kessaldar. 
 
 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 tahkus of two annas a head, 
 which is four annas, on those who enter the road 
 from this side-road? It is the order of the Sirkar, 
 and the money is spent for the planting of trees and 
 the beautification of the ways.' 
 
 ' And the bellies of the Police,' said Kim, skipping 
 out of arm's reach. ' Consider for a while, man with 
 a mud head. Think you we came from the nearest 
 pond like the frog, thy father-in-law? Hast thou 
 ever heard the name of thy brother ? ' 
 
 ' And who was he ? Leave the boy alone,' cried a 
 senior constable, immensely delighted, as he squatted 
 down to smoke his pipe in the verandah. 
 
 'He took a label from a bottle of lelaiiee-pani 
 [95] 
 
KIM 
 
 (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 English- 
 man 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 OAvn mind whether thou art a 
 spirit, sometimes, or sometimes an evil imp,' said the 
 lama, sm ill Tig slowly. 
 
 ' I am thy chela.'' Kim dropped into step at his 
 side — that indescribable gait of the long-distance 
 tramp all the world over. 
 
 ' ISTow 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 im- 
 provement 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 
 [96] 
 
KIM 
 
 on theit backs, the lean dogs sniffing at their heels. 
 These people kept their own side of the road, moving 
 at a quick, furtive jog-trot, and aU other castes gave 
 them ample room; for the Sansi id deep pollution* 
 Behind them, vsraMng vsdde and stiffly across the 
 strong shadows, the memory of his leg-irons stUl 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 coxdd 
 feed themselves. Kim Imew that walk well, and 
 made shrill jest of it as they passed. Then an Akali, 
 a wild-eyed, vdld-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 indepen- 
 dent Sikh States, where he had been singing the 
 ancient glories of the Khalsa to College4rained 
 priuceliugs 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 oilt 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 eyfes of their betters from 
 cheap toy mirrors. One could see at a glance what 
 7 [97] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 iN^orthwest. The 
 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 shared 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 shrill cackling. That was a gang of 
 changars — the women who have taken all the em- 
 bankments 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, swing- 
 ing hips, and heads on high, as suits women who 
 carry heavy weights. A little later a marriage pro- 
 cession 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 dhooly, a blur of red and tinsel, 
 staggering through the haze, while the bridegroom's 
 bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful 
 [98] 
 
KIM 
 
 from a passing fodder-cart. Then Kim would join 
 the Kentish fire of good wishes and broad jokes, wish- 
 ing 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 stroUing 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 see 
 the money-lender on his goose-rumped pony, hasten- 
 ing 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 
 
 [99] 
 
KIM 
 
 eottoB. Waggons crawling over the countr j roads : one 
 could hear their axles, complaining a mile away, com- 
 ing 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, turn- 
 ing 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 himseK 
 with buying peeled sugar-cane and spitting the pith 
 generously about hi^ path. Prom time to time the 
 lama took snuff, and at last Kim could stand 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 a,ll 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 rest- 
 ing place). Shall we stay there ? Look, the sun is 
 sloping.' 
 
 ' Who will receive us this evening ? ' 
 
 ' That is aU one. This coimtry is full of good folk. 
 [100] 
 
KIM 
 
 Besides,' — he sunk his voice beneath a whisper, — ■ 
 ' we have money.' 
 
 The crowd thickened as they neared the resting 
 place which marked the end of their day's journey. 
 A line of stalls selling very simple food and tobacco, 
 a stack of firewood, a police-station, a well, a horse- 
 trough, a few trees, and, under them, some trampled 
 ground dotted with the black ashes of old fires, are 
 all that mark a parao on the Grand Trunk; if you 
 except the beggars and the crows — both hungry. 
 
 By this time the sun was driving broad golden 
 spokes through the lower branches of the mango 
 trees ; the parakeets and doves were coming home in 
 their hundreds; the chattering, gray-backed Seven 
 Sisters, talking over the day's adventures, walked 
 back and forth in twos and threes almost under the 
 feet of the travellers ; and shufflings and scufflings in 
 the branches showed that the bats were ready to go 
 out on the night-picket. Swiftly the light gathered 
 itseK together, painted for an instant the faces and 
 the cart-wheels and the bullocks' horns as red as 
 blood. Then the night fell, changing the touch of 
 the air, drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer 
 veil of blue, across the face of the country, and bring- 
 ing 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 eoughings and reit- 
 [101 J 
 
KIM 
 
 erated orders ; and a live charcoal ball in the cup of a 
 wayside carter's hookah glowed red where 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 shrill squeals and giggles of 
 women whose faces should not be seen in public. 
 
 !N"owadays, 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 cus- 
 tom is spreading. But there are always those of the 
 old rock who hold by the use of their forefathers; 
 and, above all, there are always the old women, — 
 more conservative than the men, — who toward the 
 end of their days go a pilgrimage. They, being with- 
 ered and undesirable, do not, under certain circum- 
 [102] 
 
KIM 
 
 stances, object to unveiling. After their long seclu- 
 sion, during which they have always been in business 
 touch with a thousand outside interests, they love the 
 bustle and stir of the open road, the gatherings at the 
 shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip with 
 like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a long- 
 suflFering 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 it comes about that 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 a,nd discreet, and 
 when a European or a high-caste native is near will 
 net their charge with most elaborate precautions ; but 
 in the ordinary haphazard chances of pilgrimage the 
 precautions are not taken. The old lady is, after all, 
 intensely human, and lives to look upon life. 
 
 Kim marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or 
 family bullock-cart, with a broidered canopy of two 
 domes, like a double-humped camel, which had just 
 been drawn into the parao. Eight men made its reti- 
 nue, 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 Ian- 
 [103] 
 
KIM 
 
 guage, came from behind the curtains. Here was 
 evidently a woman used to command. 
 
 Eim looked over the retinue critically. Half of 
 them were thin-legged, gray-bearded Ooryas from 
 down country. The other half were duffle^clad, felt- 
 hatted hillmen of the JTorth; and that mixture told 
 its ovni tale, even if he had not overheard the inces- 
 sant 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 ovsni 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 ear. 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 ruth 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 
 [104] 
 
KIM 
 
 stouted in broken Hindustanee by one of the hill-^ 
 men. 
 
 ' Hub ! It is only a pahari ' (a bilbnan), said 
 Kim over bis sboulder. ' Since wben bave tbe bill- 
 men owned all Hindustan ? ' 
 
 Tbe retort was a swift and brilliant sketcb of 
 Kim's pedigree for tbree generations. 
 
 ' Ab ! ' Em's voice was sweeter tban ever, as 
 be broke tbe dung-cake into fit pieces. ' In my coun- 
 try we call tbat tbe beginning of love-taUi.' 
 
 A barsb, tbin cackle behind tbe curtains put tbe 
 billman on his mettle for a second shot. 
 
 ' iSTot 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 go in return. And our 
 curses bave tbe knack of biting home.' 
 
 Tbe Ooryas laughed; the bilbnan sprang forward 
 threateningly; tbe lama suddenly raised bis bead, 
 bringing bis huge tam-o'-sbanter cap into tbe full 
 light of Kim's new-started fire. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' said be. 
 
 Tbe 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 tbe Ooryas. 
 
 ' Hai ! Why is that beggar brat not well beaten ? ' 
 tbe old woman cried. 
 
 Tbe billman drew back to the cart and whispered 
 [lOS] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 hilhnan 
 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. 
 ' N'ow, 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 contemp- 
 tuously. 
 
 ' He is not a faquir. He is not. a down-country 
 beggar,' Kim went on severely, addressing the stars. 
 ' He is the most holy of holy men. He is above aU 
 castes. I am his chela.' 
 
 [106] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 exceeding holy one. He comes from far off. 
 He comes from Tibet.' 
 
 'Where in Tibet?' 
 
 ' Trom behind the snows — from a very far place. 
 He knows the stars; he makes horoscopes; he reads 
 nativities. But he does not do this for money. He 
 does it for kindness and great charity. I am his 
 disciple. I am called also the Friend of the Stars.' 
 
 ' Thou art no hillman.' 
 
 ' Ask him. He will tell thee I was sent to him 
 from the stars to show him an end to his pilgrimage.' 
 
 ' Humph ! Consider, brat, that I am an old woman 
 and not altogether a fool. Lamas I know, and to 
 these I give reverence, but thou art no more a lawful 
 chela than this my finger is the pole of this waggon. 
 Thou art a casteless Hindi — 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 dravwi at a venture — ' I 
 
 have heard ' 
 
 [107] 
 
KIM 
 
 '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 He, that even Eajahs 
 — small hill Eajahs ' 
 
 ' But none the less of good Eajput 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 is one thing in the world that the small 
 hill Eajahs deny it is just this charge ; but it happens 
 to be one thing that the bazars believe, when they dis- 
 cuss the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The old 
 lady explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whis- 
 per, 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 1 Who am I that thou 
 should 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 gad- 
 ding up and down Hind that a king's vndow must 
 [108] 
 
KIM 
 
 jostle with all the scum of the land, and be made a 
 mock by beggars.' 
 
 ' Great Queen/ said Kim promptly, for he heard 
 her shaking -with indignation. ' I am even what the 
 Great Queen says I am; but none the less is my 
 master holy. He has not yet heard the Great Queen's 
 order that ^ ' 
 
 ' Order ! I order a Holy One — a teacher of the 
 Law — to come and speak to a woman ! Never ! ' 
 
 ' Pity my stupidity. I thought it was given as an 
 order -^- — ' 
 
 ' It was not. It was a petition. Does this make 
 all clear ? ' 
 
 A silver eoia clioked 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 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. 
 
 ' Naj) what is it ? ' he said, dropping into his most 
 caressing and confidential tone — the one, he knew, 
 that few could resist. ' Is — there any need of a 
 son in thy family? Speak freely, for we priests 
 
 ' That last was a direct plagiarism from a 
 
 faquir by the Taksali Gate. 
 [109] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 drawl, looking discreetly earth- 
 ward. 
 
 ' 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,' said 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 Deng-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 matter 
 which I will make plain 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.' 
 
 [110] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 chUd 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 a little apart from the other, and Kim 
 topped it with a native-made cigarette. 
 
 ' Did I not say an hundred times that the South is 
 a good land ? Here is a virtuous and high-born widow 
 of a hill Eajah on pilgrimage, she says, to Buddh- 
 Gaya. She it is sends us those dishes; and when 
 thou art well rested she would speak to thee.' 
 
 ' Is this also thy work ? ' The lama dipped deep 
 into his snuff-gourd. 
 
 ' Who else watched over thee since our wonderful 
 journey began ? ' Kim's eyes danced in his head as 
 he blew the rank smoke through his nostrils and 
 stretched him on the dusty ground. ' Have I failed 
 to oversee thy comforts, Holy One ? ' 
 
 ' A blessing on thee.' The lama inclined his 
 solemn head. 'X have known many men in my so 
 [111] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Holy One as thdu.' 
 Kim considered the benevolent yellow face wriaMe 
 by wrinkle. ' It is less than three days since we took 
 road together, and it is as though it Were a htmdred 
 years.' 
 
 ' Perhaps in a former life it was permitted that I 
 should have rendered thee some service. May be ' — 
 he smiled — ' I freed thee from a trap ; or, having 
 caught thee on a hook in the days when I was not en- 
 lightened, cast thee back into the river again.' 
 
 ' May be/ said 'Kim quietly. He had heard this 
 sort of speculation again and again, from the mouths 
 of many men whom an Englishman would not con- 
 sider imaginative. ' l^ow as regards that woman in 
 the bullock-cart, I think she needs a second son for 
 her daughter.' 
 
 ' That is no part of the Way,' said 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. I^im would have 
 given his ears to come too, but the lama did not invite 
 him; and the few words Kim caught were in an 
 unknown tongue, for they spoke some commonspeech 
 of the mountains. The woman seemed to ask ques- 
 [112] 
 
KIM 
 
 tions which the lama turned over m his mind before 
 answering. Now and again he heard the drone and 
 boom of a Chinese quotation. It was a strange pic- 
 ture that he watched between drowsy 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 
 vdth the shadow of the long sun, addressed a tinsel 
 and lacquered ruth which burned like a many- 
 coloured jewel in the same uncertain light. The pat- 
 terns 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. Be- 
 hind the cart was a wall of uncertain darkness 
 speckled with little fires and alive with haK-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 were deep in their gurgling, 
 grunting hookahs, which in full blast sound Kke bull- 
 frogs. 
 
 At last the lama returned. A hillman walked 
 behind him v/ith a wadded cotton-quilt and spread it 
 carefully by the fire. 
 
 8 [113] 
 
KIM 
 
 'She deserves ten thousand grandchildren,' thought 
 Kim. ' ISTone the less, but for me, these gifts would 
 not have come.' 
 
 ' A virtuous woman - — • and a vdse 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 confi- 
 dences. 
 
 '■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 ! 
 
 [IM] 
 
KIM 
 
 She did not know of my river — not even the tale of 
 the Shooting 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, seeing that our roads run together for a 
 while, I do not see that we in any way depart from 
 our search if so be we go with 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.' 
 
 ' FHes go to carrion,' said the Oorya, in an 
 abstracted voice. 
 
 ' For the sick cow a crow; for the sick man a 
 Brahmin.' Kim qu:oted 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 
 [115] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Kitn heard 
 him snuff thrice, and dozed off, still laughing. 
 
 The diamond-bright dawn woke men and cows 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 
 beatuig 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 whirl of silver; the parrots shot away to some 
 distant river in shrieking green hosts: all the well- 
 wheels within earshot were at work. India was 
 awake, and Kim was in the middle of it, more awake 
 and more excited than any one, chewing on a twig 
 that he would presently use as a tooth-brush ; for he 
 borrowed right- and left-handedly from all the cus- 
 toms of the country he knew and loved. There was 
 no need to worry about food — no need to spend a 
 [116] 
 
KIM 
 
 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, — the old lady would be no bar to the en- 
 joyment of the road. He inspected her bullocks crit- 
 ically, as they came up grunting and blowing under 
 the yokes. If they went too swiftly — 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, rebuk- 
 ing, 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-bul- 
 locks ! ' They were backing and wheeling as a cotton- 
 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 
 [117] 
 
KIM 
 
 of Delhi going to pray for a son.' The man called 
 back over his high load : ' Room for the Queen of 
 Delhi and her prime minister the gray monkey 
 climbing up his own sword ! ' Another cart loaded 
 with bark for a down-country tannery followed close 
 behind, and its driver added a few compliments as 
 the ruth-hu\locks 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 amaze- 
 ment, as the man salaamed reverently to the voice, 
 leaped from the pole, and helped the escort to haul 
 their volcano on to the main road. Then the voice 
 told him truthfully what sort of vsdfe he had wedded, 
 and what she was doing in his absence. 
 
 'Oh, shabash!' murmured Kim, unable to con- 
 tain 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 gS,li 
 (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 ? ' 
 
 [118] 
 
KIM 
 
 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, dis- 
 ciple of a holy man, to-day he paced with tenfold 
 pride in the train of a semi-royal procession, with a 
 recognised place under the patronage of an old lady 
 of charming manners and infinite resource. The 
 escort, their heads tied up native fashion, fell in on 
 either side the cart, shuffling enormous clouds of 
 dust. 
 
 The lama and Kim walked a little to one side; 
 Kim chewing his stick of sugar-cane, and making 
 way for no one under the status of a priest. They 
 could hear the old lady's tongue clacking as steadily 
 as a rice-husker. She bade the escort tell her what 
 was going on on the road; and as 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 by her retinue what manner 
 of person she was, chaffed her. 
 
 ' O mother,' he cried, ' do they do this in the 
 zenanas? Suppose an Englishman came by and saw 
 that thou hadst no nose ? ' 
 
 [119] 
 
KIM 
 
 * What ? ' she shrilled back. ' Thy own mother has 
 no nose ? Why Say so, then, on the open road ? ' 
 
 It was a fair counter. The Englishman threw up 
 his hand with a gesture of a man hit at sword-play. 
 She laughed and nodded. 
 
 ' Is this a face to tempt virtue aside ? ' She with- 
 drew all her veil and stared at hitn. 
 
 It was by no means lovely, but as the man gathered 
 up his reins he called it a Moon of Paradise, a Dis- 
 turber of Integrity, and a few other fantastic epithets 
 which doubled her up with mirth. 
 
 ' That is a nut-Cut (rogue),' she said. ' AH police- 
 constables are nut-cutsj but the police-wallahs are the 
 worst. Hai, my son, thou hast never learned aU that 
 since thou earnest from Belait (Europe). Who 
 suckled thee ? ' 
 
 ' A pahareen — a hillwoman of Dalhousie, my 
 mother. Keep thy beauty under a shade - — O Dis- 
 penser 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 dispense 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 police- 
 man who had disturbed some small hill Eajah, a 
 [120] 
 
KIM 
 
 ninth cousin of her own, in the matter of a trivial 
 land case, winding up with a quotation from a work 
 by no means devotional. 
 
 Then her mood changed, and she bade one of the 
 escort ask whether the lama would walk alongside 
 and discuss matters of religion. So Kim dropped 
 back into the dust and returned to his sugar-cane. 
 For an hour or more the lama's tam-o'-shanter showed 
 like a moon through the haze; and, from all he heard, 
 Kim gathered that the old woman wept. One of the 
 Ooryas half apologised for his rudeness overnight, 
 saying that he had never known the old lady in so 
 good a temper, and he ascribed it to the presence of 
 the strange priest. Personally, he believed in Brah- 
 mins, though, like all natives, he was acutely aware 
 of their cunning and their greed. Still, when Brah- 
 mins only irritated a cantankerous dowager like 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 bul- 
 lock 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 vsdse nods, and bade the Oorya observe 
 that the lama took no money, and that the cost of his 
 and Em's food would be repaid a hundred times in 
 the good luck that would attend the caravan hence- 
 forward. He also told stories of Lahore city, and 
 [121 J 
 
KIM 
 
 sang a song or two whicli 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 ad- 
 vantage over men from a drowsy little 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 slops to certain beggars, that all require- 
 ments 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 ser- 
 vants 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 specu- 
 lated without reserve as to when a second grandson 
 might be expected. 
 
 [122] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 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. 
 
 Okce more the lazj, string-tied, shuffling proces- 
 sion got under way, and she slept till they reached the 
 next halting-stage. It was a very short march, and 
 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.' 
 
 ' l^ever 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. 
 [123] 
 
KIM 
 
 The lama strode after him. All that day, when- 
 ever they passed a stream, he had turned aside to look 
 at it, but in no case had he received any warning that 
 he had found his river. Insensibly too the comfort 
 of speaking to some one in a reasonable tongue, and 
 of being properly considered and respected as her 
 spiritual adviser by a well-born woman, had weaned 
 his thoughts a little from the search. And further, 
 he was prepared to spend serene years in his quest; 
 having nothing of the white man's impatience, but a 
 great faith. 
 
 ' Where goest thou ? ' he called after Kim. 
 
 ' No whither — it was a small march, and all 
 this ' — Kim waved his hands abroad — ' is new to 
 me.' 
 
 ' She is beyond question a wise and a discerning 
 woman. But it is hard to meditate when ' 
 
 ' All women are thtfs.' Kim spoke as might have 
 Solomon. 
 
 ' Before the lamassery was a broad platform,' the 
 lama muttered, looping up the well-worn rosary, ' of 
 
 stone On that I have left the marks of my 
 
 feet — pacing to and fro — with these.' 
 
 He clicked the beads, and began the ' Om mane 
 pudme hum ' of his devotion ; grateful for the cool, 
 the quiet, and the absence of dust. 
 
 One thing after another drew Ein's idle eye across 
 the plain. There was no purpose in his wanderings, 
 [124] 
 
KIM 
 
 except that the build of the huts near by was new, 
 and he wished to investigate. 
 
 They came out on a broad tract of grazing-ground, 
 brown and purple in the afternoon Hght, 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 had as keen an eye 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 pahns 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 carde forward uncertainly. They were 
 the advanced 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 dusty levels. 
 
 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. 
 [126] 
 
KIM 
 
 Have they marked out for the baggage-waggons 
 behind?' 
 
 They cried again to their comrades in the distance, 
 and the rough answer came back faint and mellowed. 
 
 ' Shove the flag in here, then,' said one. 
 
 ' What do they prepare ? ' said the lama, wonder- 
 struck. ' This is a great and terrible world. What 
 is the device on the flag ? ' 
 
 A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, 
 grunted discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred 
 with his companion, who looked up and dovsm the 
 shaded, green-roofed dome, and returned it. 
 
 Kim stared with all his eyes, his breath coming 
 short and sharp between his teeth. The soldiers went 
 away into the sunshine. 
 
 ' Holy One,' he gasped, ' my horoscope ! The 
 drawing in the dust by the priest at Umballa ! Ee- 
 member 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 no vision,' said the lama. ' It is the 
 world's niusion, 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 marking flag ; Jbut the regi- 
 ment, always punctilious in matters of millinery, 
 [126] 
 
KIM 
 
 had charged it with the regimental device, the Eed 
 Bull, which is the crest of the Mavericks — the great 
 Eed Bull on a background of Irish green. 
 
 ' I see, and now I remember,' said the lama. 
 ' Certainly it is the 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, 
 in some way which I do not see, 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 there was the sign of 
 war.' 
 
 ' What is to do now ? ' 
 
 ' Wait. Let us wait,' said the lama. 
 
 ' 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 tope, filling 
 it with mealy gold light for a few minutes; but to 
 Kim it was part of the Umballa Brahmin's prophecy. 
 
 ' Hark ! ' said the lama. ' One beats a drum — 
 far off!' 
 
 At first the sound, carrying far through the still 
 air, resembled the beating of an artery in the head. 
 Then a sharp noise was added to it. 
 
 ' Ah ! The music,' Kim explained. He knew the 
 sound of a regimental band, but it amazed the lama. 
 [127] 
 
KTM 
 
 At the far end of the plain a heavy, dusty column 
 crawled in sight. Then the wind brought the tune : 
 We crave your copdescension 
 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 Phcenix 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 into its camp; for the men were route- 
 marching with their baggage. The rippling column 
 swung into the plain — carts behind it — broke into 
 pieces, was divided left and right, ran about like an 
 ant-hill, and • 
 
 ' But this is sorcery 1 ' said the lama. 
 
 The plaiu 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 be- 
 hold the mango-tope turned into an orderly town as 
 they watched! 
 
 ' Let us go,' said the lama, sinking back afraid, as 
 [128] 
 
KIM 
 
 tlie fires twinkled and white officers with jingling 
 swords stalked into the mess-tent. 
 
 ' Stand back in the shadow. No one can see be^ 
 yond 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 chap' 
 Iain's mettle ; and to abash hitn Bennett had marched 
 step by step with the men that day. The black dress, 
 gold cross on the watch-chain, the hairless face, and 
 the soft, black wide-awake hat would have marked 
 him as a holy man anywhere in all India. He 
 dropped into a camp-chair by the door of the mess" 
 tent and slid off his boots. Three or four officers 
 gathered round him, laughing and joking over his 
 exploit. 
 
 ' The talk of white men is wholly lacking in dig- 
 nity,' said the lama, who judged only by tones. ' But 
 I have considered the countenance of that priest, 
 and I think he is courteous. 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 
 9 [ 129 1 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Eed BuU — my Ked 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. 
 
 ' !N"ow,' said Kim, picking his teeth, ' we will re- 
 turn 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 Eed Bull.' 
 
 ' But how canst thou imderstand the talk ? Walk 
 slowly. The road is very 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. N^ay,' as the lama made some sort of protest, 
 ' remember this is my search — the search for my 
 Eed Bull. The sign in the stars was not for thee. 
 I know a little of the customs of white soldiers, 
 though I have never seen them make a city in the 
 flash of an eye.' 
 
 ' 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. 
 [130] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 across 
 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 
 unsuspecting soldiers. He did them the compliment 
 of crawling betM^een a couple, and, running and halt- 
 ing, crouching and dropping flat, worked his way 
 toward the lighted mess-tent where, close pressed be- 
 hind the mango tree, he waited till some chance word 
 should give him a returnable lead. 
 
 The one thing now in his mind was further infor- 
 mation as to the Eed Bull. Tor aught he knew, and 
 Kim's limitations were as curious and sudden as 
 his knowledges, the men, the nine hundred pulcka 
 shaitans of his father's prophecy, might pray to the 
 beast after dark, as Hindus pray to the image of 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 equally sober-faced padres 
 whom he had avoided in Lahore city, the priest might 
 be an inquisitive nuisance who would bid him work. 
 But again, had it not been written in the dust at 
 Umballa that his sign in the high heavens portended 
 war and armed men ? Was he not, too, the Friend of 
 [131] 
 
KIM 
 
 the Stars as well as of all the worldj crammed to the 
 teeth with dreadful secrets ? Lastly^ — and firstly 
 as the undercurrent of all his quick little thoughts, 
 ^ — this adventure, though he did not know the Eng- 
 lish word, was a ^upendous 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. 
 
 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 Pfekin — a red-gold bull 
 with lowered head, stamping upon a field of Irish 
 greeUi To this god the Sahibs held out their glasses 
 and cried aloud confusedly. 
 
 Now the Eeverend 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 headj 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 dovm 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 re- 
 [132] 
 
KIM 
 
 laxirig bis grasp, rolled over again, and silently hauled 
 Kim to his own tent. The Mavericks were incurable 
 practical jokers; and it occurred to the chaplain that 
 silencp 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 seYerely, cried ; ' What were you doing ? You're 
 a thief. Choor f Mallum ? ' His Hindustanee was 
 very limited, and the ruffled and disgusted Kini in- 
 tended to keep to the character laid down for him. 
 As he recovered his breath he was inventing a most 
 beautifully plausible tale of his relations to some 
 mess-scullion, and at the same time keeping a keen 
 eye on and a little under the chaplain's left arm-pit. 
 The chance came; he ducked for the doorway; a long 
 arm shot out and clutched at his neck, snapping the 
 amulet string and closing on the amulet. 
 
 ' Give it me. give it me. Is it lost ? Give me 
 the papers,' 
 
 The words were in English^ — the clipped, sing-song 
 English of the native-bred. The chaplain jumped. 
 
 ' A scapular,' said he, opening his hand. ' ISTo, 
 some sort of heathen charm. Why — why, do you 
 speak English? Little boys who steal are beaten. 
 Tou know that.' 
 
 ' I do not — I did not steal.' Kim danced in 
 agony like a terrier at a lifted stick. ' O give it me. 
 It is my charm. Do not thieve it from me.' 
 [133] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 hoy 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 Eoman Catholic chaplain 
 of the Irish contingent lay, as Bennett believed, an 
 unbridgeable gulf; but it was noticeable that when- 
 ever the Church of England dealt with a human 
 problem she was very likely to call in the Church of 
 Home. 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 is not a scapular, Bennett.' He held 
 out his hand. 
 
 ' But have we any right to open it ? A sound 
 whipping ' 
 
 ' 1 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 
 [134 J 
 
KIM 
 
 ' ne varietur ' parchment, his clearance certificate, 
 and Kim's baptismal certificate. On this last O'Hara 
 — with some confused idea that he was doing won- 
 ders for his son — had scrawled scores of times : 
 ' JOook after the hoy. Please look after the hoy,'' — 
 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 ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Kim. ' But 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 mys- 
 tery 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 white. 
 White as you or me. What's your name ? ' 
 
 'Kim.' 
 
 [135] 
 
KIM 
 
 'Or Kimball r 
 
 ' I s^y Kim. WiU ypu let me go away ? ' 
 
 ' What else ? ' 
 
 ' They call me TTiTn Eisliti Ke. That is Kii^i of 
 the Eighti.' 
 
 ' What is that — " Bishti " ? ' 
 
 ' Eye^rishti ^^ that was the pulton — regunent — 
 my father's,' 
 
 ' Irish, oh I see.' 
 
 'Yes. That was how my father told me. My 
 father, he has lived.' 
 
 ' Hag -lived where ? ' 
 
 ' JJas lived, Of course he is dead — gone-out.' 
 
 ' Oh. That's your abrupt way of putting it, is it ? ' 
 
 Ber^nett interrupteds ' It is possible I have done 
 the boy ail injustice. He is certainly white, though 
 evideptly negleated- I am sure I must havp bruised 
 him. I do not thint spirits ' 
 
 ' (Jet hun a glass of sherry, then, and let him sit 
 down on the bed. J^Tpw, Kim,' continued Father 
 Yiptor, ' no one is going tp hurt you. Drini that 
 dowji fl-^id tell us about yourself, The truth, if you've 
 no objection.' 
 
 KiiA coughed a little as he put down the empty 
 glass, and considered. This seemed a time wh&n 
 tryth was desirable. Small bpys whp prowl about 
 camps are generally turned out after a whipping. 
 But he had received no stripes ; the amulet was evi- 
 [X36] 
 
KIM 
 
 dently working in his favour, and it looked as though 
 the Umbalia horoscope and the few words that he 
 could remember of his father's mauuderings were 
 fitting in most miraculously. Else why did the fat 
 padre seem so impressed, and why the glass of hot 
 yellow wine from the lean one ? 
 
 ' My father, he is dead la Lahore city since I was 
 very little. The woman, she kept kabdrri shop near 
 where the ticca-gharries 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-stand^ 
 ing. What do you call that ? ' (again Bennett nod- 
 ded). ' My father told me that. He said too, and 
 also the Brahmin who made the drawing in the dust 
 at Umbalia two days ago, he said, that I shall find a 
 Bed 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 at present disci- 
 ple of a very holy man. He is sitting outside. We 
 saw two men come with flags, making the place 
 [137] 
 
KIM 
 
 ready. That is always so in a dream, or on ac- 
 count of a — a — prophecy. So I knew it was come 
 true. I saw the Ked Bull on the green field, and my 
 father he said : " l^ine hundred pukJca devils and the 
 colonel riding on a horse will look after you when 
 you find the Ked Bull ! " I did not know what to do 
 when I saw the Bull, but I went away and I came 
 again when it was dark. I wanted to see the Bull 
 again, and I saw the Bull again with the — the 
 Sahibs praying to it. I think the Bull shall help me. 
 The holy man said so too. He is sitting outside. 
 Will you hurt him, if I call him a shout now? , He 
 is very holy. He can witness to all the things I say, 
 and he knows I am not a thief.' 
 
 ' Officers graying 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 confederate. 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 away.' 
 
 ' Powers of Darkness ! ' was all that Father Victor 
 could say, as Bennett marched off, with a firm hand 
 on Kim's shoulder. 
 
 [1381 
 
KIM 
 
 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 igno- 
 rance,' the lama returned. ' I am glad if thou art 
 rejoiced, chela.' 
 
 Dignified and unsuspicious, he strode into the lit- 
 tle tent, made his salutation to the amazed Father 
 Victor, and sat down by the open charcoal brazier. 
 The yellow lining of the tent reflected in the lamp- 
 light made his face almost orange. 
 
 Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed unin- 
 terest of a 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 Bed Bull brought ? ' The lama addressed 
 himseK to Kim. 
 
 ' He says, " What are you going to do ? " ' Ben- 
 nett was staring uneasily at Father Victor, and Kim, 
 for his own ends, took upon himself the office of in- 
 terpreter. 
 
 'I cannot see what concern this faquir has with the 
 boy, who is probably his dupe or his confederate,' Ben- 
 nett began! ' We cannot allow an English boy 
 
 [139] 
 
KIM 
 
 Assuining that he is the son of a Mason, the sooner 
 he goes to the Masonjg Orphanage the better.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Thg,t's your opinion as Secretary to the 
 Begimejital Lodge,' said Father Victor | • but we 
 might as well tell the old man what w§ are going to 
 do. He doesn't look like a villain,' 
 
 ' My experience is that one can never f gthoBi the 
 Oriental mind. ISTow Kimball, I wish you to tell 
 this man what I say - — word for word.' 
 
 Kim gathered the import of the next few sen- 
 tences and began thus : 
 
 ' Holy One, the thjn fool who looks like a camel 
 says thp't 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 thena they purpose to keep me in this regiajent or 
 send me to a fncbdrissah (a school), I have always 
 avoided that. 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. 
 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.' 
 
 [140] 
 
' i hare already told them. They lailgh, 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 produced 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 
 sympathy, 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.' (iGm had heard mission-talk 
 in his time.) ' I am his disciple, and we must find 
 that river. It is verree valuable to us.' 
 
 ' Say that again,' said Bennett. Kim obeyed, with 
 amplifications. 
 
 ' But this is mere blasphemy,' said the Chuch of 
 England chaplain. 
 
 ' Tck ! Tck ! ' said Eather Victor sympathetically. 
 ' I'd give a good deal to be able to talk the vernacu- 
 [141 J 
 
KIM 
 
 lar. A river that washes away sin ! And how long 
 have you two been looking for it ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, many days. Ifow 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 differ- 
 ent, 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,' Ben- 
 nett interrupted. 
 
 ' I'm doing no such thing. He must believe that 
 the boy's coming here — to his own regiment — in 
 search of his Bed 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 predes- 
 tined 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 horo- 
 scope is now accomplished, and that being led back 
 — though as thou knowe'st I went out of curiosity — 
 to these people and their Eed Bull I must needs go 
 [142] 
 
KIM 
 
 to a madrissdh and be turned into a Sahib. IsTow 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 Saharun- 
 pore. Therefore, Holy One, keep with that Kulu 
 woman — on no account stray far from her ruth till 
 I come again. Past question, my sign is of war and 
 of armed men. See how they have given me vrane to 
 drink and sat me upon a chair of honour! M.J 
 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 Kajputni, or I 
 shall miss thy feet. . . . Oah, yess,' said the boy, 
 ' I have told him everything you tell me to say.' 
 
 ' And I cannot see any need why he should wait,' 
 said Bennett, feeling in his trouser-pocket. ' We 
 can investigate the details later — and I will give 
 him a ru ' 
 
 ' Give him time. May be he's fond of the lad,' said 
 Father Victor, half arresting the clergyman's motion. 
 
 The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his 
 huge hat-brim over his eyes. 
 
 ' What can he want now ? ' 
 
 ' He says ' — Kim put up one hand. ' He says : 
 
 Be quiett. He wants to speak to me by himself. You 
 
 see you do not know one /little word of what he says, 
 
 and I think if you talk he wiU perhaps give you very 
 
 [143] 
 
KIM 
 
 bad curses. When he takes thoSfe beads like that, 
 yoil See he always wants to be qtdett.' 
 
 The two Englishmen sat otetwhelmed, but there 
 was a look in Bennett's eye that promised ill f of Kim 
 when he should be relaxed to the religious arm. 
 
 ' A Sahib and the son of a Sahib ' The 
 
 lalna'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 ? ' 
 
 ' God knows, Holy One : but remember it is only 
 for a night or two. Eemember, I can change swiftly. 
 It will all be as it was when I first spoke to theS 
 under Zam-Zammeh, the great gun — — ' 
 
 ' As a boy in the dregs of white men — when I 
 first went to the Wonder House. And a second time 
 thou wast a Hindu. What shall the third incarnation 
 be ? ' He chuckled drearily. ' Ah, chela, thou hast 
 done a wrong to an old man because my heart went 
 out to thee.' 
 
 ' And mine to thee. But how could I know that 
 the Eed Bull would bring me to this business ? ' 
 
 The lania covered his face afresh, and nervously 
 rattled the rosary. Kim squatted beside him and 
 laid hold upon a fold of his clothing. 
 
 ' ISTow it is Understood that the boy is a Sahib I ' 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 
 
 [144 J 
 
KIM 
 
 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 "K"im edging 
 towards the door, and interposed a strong leg. 
 
 ' I do not understand the customs of white men. 
 The Priest of the Images in. the Wonder House in 
 Lahore was more courteous than the thin one here. 
 This boy will be taken from me. They will make a 
 Sahib of my disciple ? Woe to me, how shall I find 
 my river? Have they no disciples? Ask.' 
 
 ' He says he is very sorry that he cannot find 
 the river now any more. He says. Why have you no 
 disciples and stop bothering him? He wants to be 
 washed of his sins.' 
 
 I^Teither Bennett nor Father Victor found an 
 answer ready. 
 
 Said 'K^rr^ in English, distressed for the lama's 
 agony : ' I think if you will let me go now we wiU 
 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 Eed Bull and aU 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, watchiug the lama intently. 
 10 [145] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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.' 
 
 Tley 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 preacher 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 illu- 
 sion. As says . . .' He quoted an old, old Chinese 
 text, backed it vnth 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 heard the pain in every sentence, but understood 
 no word. 
 
 [146] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I see now that the sign of the Ked 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 vsdll they do with thee ? At least I can acquire 
 merit for past ill.' 
 
 ' Make me a Sahib — so they think. The day 
 after to-morrow I return. ~^o. Do not grieve.' 
 
 ' Of what sort ? Such an one as thyself or that 
 man ? ' He pointed to Father Victor. ' Such an one 
 as those I saw this evening — men wearing swords 
 and stamping heavily ? ' 
 
 ' May be.' 
 
 ' That is not well. These men only follow desire 
 and come to emptiness. Thou must not be of this 
 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 
 [147] 
 
KIM 
 
 you caOnot say what you will make him." He says, 
 " TeU 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 ? ' 
 
 ' Oordh-log (white-folk). IsToah ! ISToah ! ' Kim 
 shook his head yiolently. There was nothing in his 
 composition to which drill and routine appealed. ' I 
 will not be a soldier.' 
 
 ' You will be what you are told to be,' said Ben- 
 nett ; ' 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 choose, so much the better. 
 
 Another long silence followed. Bennett fidgeted 
 with impatience, and suggested calling a sentry to 
 evict the faquir. 
 
 ' Do they give or sell learning among the Sahibs ? 
 Ask them,' said the lama, and Kim interpreted. 
 
 ' They say that money is paid to the teacher — but 
 that money the regiment will give. . . . What need ? 
 It is only for a night.' 
 
 ' And the more money is paid the better learning 
 
 is given ? ' The lama disregarded Kim's plans for 
 
 an early flight. ' It is no virrong to pay for learning ; 
 
 to help the ignorant to vsdsdom is always a merit.' 
 
 [148] 
 
KIM 
 
 The rosary cKcked furiously as an abacus. Then the 
 lama raised his head. 
 
 ' 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 Or- 
 phanage; 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 "K"im plac- 
 idly. 
 
 ' Two or three hundred rupees a year.' Father 
 Victor was long past any sense of amazement. Ben- 
 nett 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 good 
 man. He says the other man is a fool. He is going 
 away.' 
 
 The lama rose suddenly. ' I follow my Search,' he 
 cried, and was gone. 
 
 ' He'll run slap into the sentries,' cried Father: 
 [149] 
 
KIM 
 
 Victor, jumping up as the lama stalked out ; ' but I 
 can't leave the boy.' Kim made swift motion to fol- 
 low, 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 Eajput 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 was a good guardian. 
 
 After all, this was the newest of his experiences. 
 Sooner or later, if he chose, he could escape into the 
 great, gray, formless India, outside 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, 
 
 [150] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Eed 
 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 Private 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 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 verandah at IJmballa. 
 
 'I know you are not at thee war now ; but I tell you 
 [151] 
 
KIM 
 
 that as soon as you get to Umballa you will be sent to 
 the war — the new war. It is a war of eight thou- 
 sand men, besides the guns.' 
 
 ' That's explicit. D'you add prophecy to your 
 other gifts ? Take him along, Sergeant. You'll have 
 to take up a suit for him from the Drums, an' have a 
 care he doesn't slip through your fingers. Who says 
 the age of miracles is gone by ? I think I'll go to bed. 
 M.J poor mind's weakening.' 
 
 At the far end of the camp, sUent 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 expla- 
 nations, an' the bhoy sets cross-legged on the chap- 
 lain's bed prophesyin' bloody war to the men at large. 
 Injia's a wild land for a God-fearin' man. I'U just 
 tie his leg to the tent-pole in case he'U go through the 
 roof in blue flame. What did ye say about the war ? ' 
 
 'Eight thousand men, besides guns,' said Kim. 
 ' Very soon you vdll see.' 
 
 ' You're a consolin' little imp. Lie down between 
 the drums an' go to bye-bye. Those two boys beside 
 ye vdll watch your slumbers.' 
 
 [152] 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 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. 
 
 Yeey early in the morning the white tents came 
 down, and disappeared as the Mavericks took the 
 road to Umballa. It did not skirt the resting-place, 
 and Kim, trudguig beside a baggage-cart under fire 
 of comments from soldiers' wives, was not so confi- 
 dent as overnight. He discovered that he was closely 
 watched — Father Victor on the one side, and Mr. 
 Bennett on the other. 
 
 In the forenoon the column checked. A camel- 
 orderly handed the Colonel a letter. He read it, and 
 spoke to a Major. Half a mile in the rear, Kim 
 heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on 
 him through the thick dust. Then some one beat 
 him on the back, crying : ' Tell us how ye knew, ye 
 [153] 
 
KIM 
 
 little limb of Satan? Eather dear, see if ye can 
 make him tell.' 
 
 A pony ranged alongside, and he was hauled on 
 to the priest's saddle-bow. 
 
 ' Now, my son, your prophecy of last night has 
 come true. Our orders are to entrain at Umballa for 
 the front to-morrow.' 
 
 ' What is that ? ' said Kim, for ' front ' and ' en- 
 train ' were new 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 ru- 
 mour,' 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 
 Eather 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 
 [154 J 
 
KIM 
 
 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'U come to me this 
 evening.' 
 
 For the rest of the day Kim found himself an ob- 
 ject of distinguished consideration among a few 
 hundred white men. The story of his appearance in 
 camp, the discovery of his parentage, and his proph- 
 ecy, had lost nothing in the telling. A big, shapeless 
 white woman on a pile of bedding asked him in 
 a mysterious voice whether he thought her hus- 
 band 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 La- 
 hore 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 excitiag 
 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 
 [165] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 morn- 
 ing in perfect shape and condition; and Kim, left 
 behind with the sick, women, and boys, found him- 
 self shouting farewells with the best as the trains 
 drew away. Life as a Sahib was amusing so far; but 
 he touched it with a very cautious hand. Then they 
 marched him back in charge of a drummer-boy to 
 empty, lime-washed barracks, whose floors were cov- 
 ered with rubbish and string and paper, and whose 
 ceilings gave back his lonely footfall. I^sTative fash- 
 ion, he curled himself up on a stripped cot and went 
 to sleep. An angry man stumped down the veran- 
 dah, 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 wo- 
 man of the habarri shop had been a queer G-erman 
 who painted scenery for theParsee 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 sin- 
 gle letters, but did not approve of the road to 
 learning. 
 
 [156] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I do not know anything. Go away ! ' said Kim, 
 scenting evU. Whereupon the man caught him by 
 the ear, dragged him to a room in a far-off wing 
 where a dozen drmnmer-boys were sitting on forms, 
 and told him to be still if he could do nothing else. 
 _ This he managed very successfully. The man ex- 
 plained something or other with white lines on a 
 black board for at least half an hour, and TTiTn con- 
 tinued his interrupted nap. He did not approve 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 verandah into the open sunshine w^s 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 per- 
 son 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 
 [157] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 know- 
 ledge 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 as they passed. Most of them were barrack-- 
 servants of the lowest caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, 
 who promptly retorted Avith a piece of unnecessary 
 insolence, in the natural belief that the European 
 boy could not understand. 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 ? ' 
 [158] 
 
' First I will take my pay," the letter-writer said. 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Ay; and hell is full of the same sort. Do my 
 order, you — you Od! Thy mother was married 
 under a basket ! Servant of Lai Beg ' (Kim knew 
 the god of the sweepers), ' run on my business or we 
 will talk again.' 
 
 The sweeper shuffled off in haste. ' There is a 
 white boy by the barracks, waiting under a tree, who 
 is not a white boy,' he stammered to the first bazar 
 letter-writer he came across. ' He needs thee.' 
 
 ' Will he pay ? ' said that spruce scribe, gathering 
 up his desk and pens and sealing-wax all in order. 
 
 ' I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go 
 and see.' 
 
 Kim danced with impatience when the slim young 
 Kayeth hove in sight. As soon as his voice could 
 carry he cursed him volubly. 
 
 ' Mrst 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 bar- 
 rack wing. 
 
 Mechanically Kim squatted beside him, — squatted 
 [159] 
 
KIM 
 
 as only the natives can, — in sgite of the abominable 
 clinging trousers. 
 
 The writer regarded him sideways. 
 
 ' That is the price to ask of Sahibs,' said Kim. 
 ' ITow 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 Mah- 
 bub 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 Umialla 
 in the train. At TTmhalla 1 ca/rried the news of the 
 hay mareh 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, hut on the third 
 dwy wefoimd a certain regvment. Is that down ? ' 
 [160] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Ay, pulton,' murmured the writer, all ears. 
 
 ' I went into their camp and was caught, omd ly 
 means of the charm about my nech, wJdch thou hnow- 
 est, it was established that I was the son of some man 
 in the regiment : according to the profhecy of the 
 Hed Bull, which thou hnowest was common talk of 
 the 'bazar.'' Kim waited for this shaft to sink into 
 the letter-writer's heart, cleared his throat, and con- 
 tinued : '-4 priest clothed m^e and game me a new 
 name. . . . One priest, however, was a fool. The 
 clothes a/re very heamy, hut I am a Sahib and m,y 
 heart is hea/oy too. They send me to a school a/nd 
 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 home not sufficient to pa/y the writer who 
 writes this.' 
 
 ' Who writes this. It is my own fault that I 
 was tricked. 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 
 than to ask questions. When the money comes I will 
 repay in Umballa.' 
 
 The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stampout 
 of his desk, sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, 
 and departed. Mahbub All's was a name of power. 
 
 ' That is the way to win a good account with the 
 gods,' Kim shouted after him. 
 11 [ 161 J 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Pay me twice over when the money comes,' the 
 man cried oyer his shoulder. 
 
 ' What was you bukkin' to that nigger about ? ' 
 said the drummer-boy when Kim returned to the 
 verandah. ' I was watchin' you.' 
 
 ' Oah. I was only talkin' to him.' 
 
 ' You talk same as a nigger, don't you ? ' 
 
 ' Noah ! Noah ! I onlee speak a little. What 
 shall we do now ? ' 
 
 ' The bugles'ill go for dinner in arf a minute. My 
 Gawd! I wish I'd gone up to the front with the 
 regiment. It's awful doin' nothin' but school down 
 'ere. Don't you 'ate it ? ' 
 
 ' Oah yess ! ' 
 
 ' I'd run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the 
 men say, in this bloomin' Injia you' re. only a prisoner 
 at large. You can't desert without bein' took back 
 at once. I'm fair sick of it.' 
 
 ' You have been in Be — England ? ' 
 
 ' W'y, I only come out last troopin' season with 
 my mother. I should think I 'ave been in England. 
 What an ignorant little beggar you are. You was 
 brought up in the gutter, wasn't you ? ' 
 
 ' Oah yess. Tell me something about England. 
 IJLj father he did come from there.' 
 
 Though he would not say so, Kim of course dis- 
 believed every word the drummer-boy spoke about 
 the Liverpool suburb which was his England. It 
 [162] 
 
KIM 
 
 passed the heavy time till dinner — a most unappe- 
 tising 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 de- 
 pressed. The indifference of native crowds he was 
 used to ; but this 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 lying in a chair 
 reading a letter written in purple ink. He looked at 
 Xim 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' 
 letter 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. 
 
 [163] 
 
KIM 
 
 'HowcanlteU?' 
 
 ' 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 Jagadir Eoad. . . . 
 " Sitting on wayside in gra/ue meditation, trusting to 
 he favoured with your Honour'' s wpjplause of present 
 step, which recommend your Honour to execute for 
 Almighty God^s sake. JEdueatmm is greatest ilessing 
 if of hest sorts. Otherwise no earthl/y use." Faith, 
 the old man's hit the bull's-eye that time. " If yowr 
 Honour condescending giving my hoy hest educations 
 Xamier " (I suppose that's St. Xavier in Partibus) 
 '■'■in terms of ou/r conmersation dated in you/r tent 
 l6th instant " (a business-like touch there !) " then 
 Almighty God hlessing your Honour's succeedings to 
 third an' fourth generation am,d " — now listen ! — 
 " confide in your Honour's humble servant for ade- 
 quate remuneration per hoondie per annu/m three 
 hu/ndred rupees a year to one eapensvoe education St. 
 Xavier, Luchnow, amd allow small ti/me to forward 
 same per hoondie sent to a/ny part of India as you/r 
 Honou/r shall address himself. This serva/nt of your 
 Honour has presently no place to lay crown of his 
 head, hut going to Bena/res hy train on account of 
 persecution of old woman taTkvng so much a/nd 
 unoMxious residi/ng Saharv/npore in any domestic ca- 
 pacity." Now what in the world does that mean ? ' 
 
 ' She has asked him to be family priest at Saha- 
 [164] 
 
KIM 
 
 runpore. He would not do that on account of his 
 river. She did talk a very great deal.' 
 
 ' It's clear to you, is'it ? It beats me altogether. 
 "So goitig to Benares, where willjmd add/ress and 
 forward rwpeesfor loy who is a^ple of eye, and for 
 Almighty Ood''s saTce execute this education, and 
 your jpetitioner as in duty lound shall ever awfully 
 pray. Written ly Sobrao Satai, Failed ent/rance 
 Allahabad University, for Venerable Teshoo lama 
 the priest of Suohzen looTcingfor a river, address care 
 of Tirthan/cer^s Temple, Benares. P.M. — Please 
 note boy is ajpjple of eye, and rupees shall be sent per 
 hoondie three hundred per annum. For God Al- 
 mighty's salce." 
 
 ' Now is that ravin' lunacy or a business proposi- 
 tion? 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. Tou were goin' 
 off to-day to the Military Orphanage at Sanawar, 
 where the regiment would keep you till you were old 
 enough to enlist. Te'd be brought up to the Church 
 of England. Bennett arranged for that. On the 
 [165] 
 
KIM 
 
 other hand, if ye go to St. Savier's ye'll get a better 
 education an' — an' can have your choice of re- 
 ligions. D'ye see my dilemma ? ' 
 
 Kim. saw nothing save a vision of the lama going 
 south in a train with none to beg for him. 
 
 ' Like most people, I'm going to temporise. If 
 your friend sends the money from Benares — Pow- 
 ers of Darkness below, where's a street-beggar to 
 raise three hundred rupees ? -^ ye'U go down to 
 Lucknow and I'll pay your fare, because I can't 
 touch the subscription-money if I'm going, "as it's my 
 duty, to make ye a Catholic. If he doesn't, ye'U go 
 to the Military Orphanage at the regiment's ex- 
 pense. I'll allow three days' grace to the old man. 
 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 Ben- 
 nett to the front an' left me behind. He can't expect 
 everything.' 
 
 ' Oah yess,' said Kim vaguely. 
 
 ' D'ye know,' 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 AU 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 
 [166] 
 
KIM 
 
 time he came south with horses. Surely Mahbub Ali 
 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 
 dinner-tables. But if Mahbub Ali did not know this, 
 it would be very unsafe to tell him so. Mahbub Ali 
 was severe with boys who knew, or thought they 
 knew, too much. 
 
 ' Well, till I get further news ' — Father Victor's 
 voice interrupted the reverie — ' ye can run along 
 and play with the other boys. They'll teach ye some- 
 thing — but I don't think ye'U 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 mean- 
 ingless characters under his nose, gave them senseless 
 names, and whacked him vsithout reason. Kim 
 thought seriously of poisoning him with opium bor- 
 rowed from a barrack-sweeper, but reflected that, as 
 they all ate at one table in public (this was pecul- 
 iarly revolting to Kim, who preferred to turn his 
 back on the world at meals), the stroke might be 
 dangerous. Then he thought of running off to the 
 village where the priest had tried to drug the lama 
 — the village where the old soldier lived. It could 
 only be a few miles to the westward. The heavy 
 [167] 
 
KIM 
 
 trousers and jacket seemed to cripple body and mind 
 alike, and he abandoned the project with a sigh, and 
 fell back, Oriental fashion, on time and chance. 
 Three days of torment passed in the big, echoing 
 white rooms. He walked out of afternoons under 
 escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard from his 
 companion were the few useless words which seemed 
 to make two-thirds of the white man's abuse. Kim 
 knew and despised them all long ago. The boy 
 resented his silence and lack of interest by beating 
 him, as was only natural. He did not care for any 
 of the bazars which were in bounds. He called all 
 natives ' niggers ' ; yet servants and sweepers called 
 him abominable names to his face, and, misled by 
 their deferential attitude, he never understood. This 
 somewhat consoled Kim for the beatings. 
 
 On the morning of the fourth day a judgment 
 overtook that drummer. They had gone out together 
 towards Umballa race-course. He returned alone, 
 weeping, with news that young O'Hara, to whom he 
 had been doing nothing in particular, had hailed a 
 scarlet-bearded nigger on horseback; that the nigger 
 then and there laid into him with a peculiarly adhe- 
 sive quirt, picked up young O'Hara, and bore him 
 off at full gallop. These tidings came to Father Vic- 
 tor, and he drew down his long upper lip. He had 
 already been sufficiently startled by a letter from the 
 Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares, enclosing a 
 [168] 
 
KIM 
 
 native banker's note of hand for three hundred 
 rupees, and an amazing prayer to ' Aknighty 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 gone 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 compre- 
 hension. How the Divil — yes, he's the man I mean 
 — can a street-beggar raise money to educate white 
 boys ? ' 
 
 Three miles off, on TJmballa race-course, Mahbub 
 AH, riding a plunging gray Cabuli stallion with Kim 
 in front of him, was saying : 
 
 ' But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my 
 honour and reputation to be considered. All the 
 officer Sahibs in all the regiments and all TJmballa, 
 know Mahbub AH. 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 grate- 
 ful to Mahbub Ali.' 
 
 ' Take me away or let me go. Give me a little 
 [169] 
 
KIM 
 
 money and I will go south to Benares in the train 
 and be with my lama again. I do not want to be a 
 Sahib, and, O Mahbub Ali, remember I did deliver 
 that message.' 
 
 The stallion bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had in- 
 cautiously 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 con- 
 clusions 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 vsdshed the pedigree 
 of?' 
 
 Kim saw the trap at once. If he had said ' bay 
 mare ' Mahbub would have known by his very readi- 
 ness to fall in with the amendment that the boy sus- 
 pected something. Kim replied therefore: 
 
 ' Bay mare. N^o. I do not forget my messages 
 thus. It was a white stalhon.' 
 
 ' 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 pahn on his heart. 
 
 ' Hi ! Mahbub, you old villain, pull up ! ' cried a 
 voice, and an Englishman raced alongside on a little 
 [170] 
 
KIM 
 
 polo-pony. ' I've been chasing yon half over the 
 maidan. That Cabuli of yours can go. For sale, I 
 suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Aha,' said Mahbub, smoothly reeling out the old, 
 old lie in the vernacular, ' goes in a cart : carries a 
 lady and ' 
 
 ' 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 ' (Mahbub meant the Afghan 
 war of '79). ' The boy was a child in Lahore city. 
 He played with my horses when he was a babe. l:Tow 
 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. ISTow it is time 
 to go home. Tell me where thy barracks are and I 
 will set thee down.' 
 
 ' Let me go. I can go to 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 chaluTc sawai (a sharp 
 chap). It needs only to change his clothing, and in 
 a twinkling he would be a low-caste Hindi boy.' 
 
 [mj 
 
KIM 
 
 ' The deuce lie would ! ' The Englishman, of a 
 sudden, looked critically at the boy as Mahbub 
 headed towards the barracks. Kim ground his teeth. 
 Mahbub was betraying him, mercilessly mocking him 
 the while, 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 yonder is thine ? ' 
 
 Kim pointed — he could not speak — to Father 
 Victor's wing, all staring white across the plain. If 
 the Englishman had not come he might have pre- 
 vailed upon Mahbub to let him go. Now, his chance 
 was lost. 
 
 ' Perhaps he will make a good soldier,' said Mah- 
 bub reflectively. ' He will make a good orderly at 
 least. I sent him to deliver a message once — a mes- 
 sage to this town — from Lahore. A message con- 
 cerning the pedigree of a white stallion.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said the Englishman, lazily rubbing his 
 pony's damp withers with his whip-butt. ' Who will 
 make the boy a soldier ? ' 
 
 ' He says even the regiment that found him, and 
 especially the padre-sahib of that regiment.' 
 
 ' There is the padre ! ' Kim pointed to the bare- 
 headed Eather Victor sailing down upon them from 
 the verandah. 
 
 ' Powers o' Darkness below, O'Hara ! How many 
 [172] 
 
KIM 
 
 more mixed friends do you keep in Asia ? ' he cried, 
 as Kim slid down and stood helplessly before him. 
 
 ' Good morning, Padre,' the Colonel said cheerily. 
 ' I know you by reputation well enough. Meant to 
 have come over and called before this. I'm Creighton.' 
 
 ' Of the Ethnological Survey ? ' said Father Vic- 
 tor. The Colonel nodded. ' Faith, I'm glad to meet 
 ye then; an' I owe you some thanks for bringing 
 back the boy.' 
 
 ' No thanks to me, Padre. Besides, the boy wasn't 
 going away. You don't know old Mahbub AH ' — 
 the horse-dealer sat impassive in the sunlight. ' You 
 will when you have been in the 'station a month. He 
 sells us aU our crocks. He seems to have met your 
 boy somewhere up country. That boy is rather a 
 curiosity. Can you tell me anything about him ? ' 
 
 ' Can I teU you ? ' puffed Father Victor. ' You'll 
 be the one man that could help me in my quandaries. 
 I'll call a boy to hold your horse if ye can give me 
 your attention for a few minutes. Tell you ! Powers 
 o' Darkness! I'm bursting to tell some one who 
 knows something o' the native.' 
 
 A groom came round the corner. Colonel Creigh- 
 ton raised his voice, speaking in Urdu. ' Very good, 
 Mahbub Ali, but what is the use of telling me all 
 those stories about the pony. liTot one pie more than 
 three hundred and fifty rupees willT give.' 
 
 ■ The Sahib is a little hot and angry after riding,' 
 [173] 
 
 e I 
 
KIM 
 
 the horse-dealer returned, with the leer of a privi- 
 leged jester. ' Presently he wiU see the horse's 
 points more clearly. We will say four hundred 
 rupees? No? Good. I will wait then 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 ser- 
 vice. Padre. Where is the boy ? Oh, he's gone off to 
 collogue with Mahbub. Queer sort of boy. These 
 native-bred brats always prefer to jabber with Asiat- 
 ics. Might I ask you to send my mare round under 
 cover? She's a trifle warm.' 
 
 He dropped into a long chair which commanded 
 a clear view of Kim and Mahbub Ali in conference 
 beneath the tree. The groom, who would have given 
 his eyes for a word or two from the eminent horse- 
 dealer, took the mare away. The padre went indoors 
 for cheroots. 
 
 Creighton heard Kim say bitterly : ' Trust a Brah- 
 min before a snake, and a snake before a harlot, and 
 a harlot before an Afghan, Mahbub Ali.' 
 
 ' That is all one,' the great red beard wagged sol- 
 emnly. ' Children should not see a carpet on the 
 loom till the pattern is made plain. Believe me. 
 Friend of all the World, I do thee great service. One 
 [174 J 
 
KIM 
 
 thing at least is sure. They will not make a soldier 
 of thee.' 
 
 ' You crafty old sinner,' thought Oreighton. ' But 
 you're not far wrong. That boy mustn't be wasted 
 if he is as advertised.' 
 
 ' Excuse me half a minute,' cried the padre from 
 within, ' but I'm gettin' the documents of the case.' 
 
 ' If through me the favour of this great and wise 
 Colonel Sahib comes to thee and, after a while, 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 price will they 
 give thee for blood money ? ' 
 
 ' A cheerful sort of 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 Jag- 
 adhir Eoad, saying that he will pay three hundred 
 rupees by the year for my schooling.' 
 
 ' Oho ! Is the red lama pf that sort ? At which 
 school ? ' 
 
 ' God knows. I think it I^ucklao.' 
 
 ' Yes. There is a big school there for the sons of 
 Sahibs — and half Sahibs. I have seen it when I 
 [175] 
 
KIM 
 
 sell horses there. So the lama also loved the Triend 
 of all the World?' 
 
 ' Aj; 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 AUah ! ' — the 
 keen eyes swept the verandah for an instant — ' thy 
 lama has sent what to me looks like a note of hand. 
 I have had some small experience in hoondies. The 
 Colonel Sahib is looking at it.' 
 
 ' What good is all this to me ? ' said Kim wearily. 
 ' Thou wilt go away, and they will return me to those 
 empty rooms where there is no good place to sleep 
 and where the boys beat me.' 
 
 ' I do not think that. Have patience, child. All 
 Pathans are not faithless — except in horseflesh.' 
 
 Mve — ten — fifteen minutes passed, Father Vic- 
 tor 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 re- 
 lief 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.' 
 
 [176] 
 
" . . . . Pathans are not faithless — except in horse-flesh.' " 
 
KIM 
 
 ' That's consolin' — from the head of the Ethno- 
 logical Survey. It is this mixture of red buUs 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, novsr I come to thiiik: 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 the 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 non- 
 sense at St. Xavier's.' 
 
 ' Sprinkle him -with holy water then,' 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'U happen if the old beg- 
 
 gar man 
 
 ' Lama, lama, my dear sir; and some of them are 
 gentlemen in their own couhtry.' 
 
 ' 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 hea- 
 then's money to give a child a Christian educa- 
 tion — '■ — ' 
 
 ' But he said explicitly what he wanted. As soon 
 as he knew the boy was a white he seems to have 
 
 12 [m] 
 
KIM 
 
 made his arrangements accordingly. I'd give a 
 month's pay to hear how he explained it all at the 
 Tirthanker 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. That's to 
 say, he'll pass on the debt to some one else. My ad- 
 vice 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 home alive. 
 Surely Bennett ought to be content with ' 
 
 ' Grlory, 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 recom- 
 mend 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 wiU put 
 the Lodge in a good temper. It's perfectly easy. 
 Look here. I've got to go down to Lucknow next 
 week. I'll look after the boy on the way. Put him 
 in charge of my servants and so on.' 
 
 ' You're a good man.' 
 
 ' ISTot in the least. Don't make that mistake. The 
 lama has sent us money for a definite end. We 
 [1Y8] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 on Tuesday next you'll hand him over to me on 
 the night train south ? That's only three days. He 
 can't do much harm in three days.' 
 
 ' It's a weight oflE my mind, but — this thing here ' 
 — he waved the note of hand — ' I don't know 
 Gobind Sahai : an' his bank, which may be a hole in 
 a wall in a bazar.' 
 
 ' You\e 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 in some Government work 
 that I'm doing. The transformation of a regimental 
 badge like your Eed 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 Ethnolog- 
 ical men are as jealous as jackdaws of one another's 
 discoveries. They're of no interest to any one but 
 ourselves, of course, but you know what book-collec- 
 tors are like. Well, don't say a word, directly or in- 
 directly, 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 ? ' 
 [1Y9] 
 
KIM 
 
 'I do. Te'U make a wonderful account of it. 
 Never a word will I say to any one tiU I see it in 
 print.' 
 
 ' Thank you. That goes straight to an ethnologist's 
 heart. Well, I must be getting back to my break- 
 fast. Good Heavens! Old Mahbub is stiU here.' 
 He raised his voice, and the horse-dealer came out 
 from under the shadow of the tree. ' Well, what is 
 it, Mahbub?' 
 
 ' As regards that young horse,' said Mahbub, join- 
 ing his hands as one making a petition, ' I say that 
 when a colt is born to be a polo-pony, closely follow- 
 ing the ball without teaching — when such a colt 
 knows the game by divination- — -then I say it is a 
 great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart. 
 Sahib!' 
 
 ' So do I say also, Mahbub. The colt wiU be 
 entered for polo only. These fellows think of noth- 
 ing in the world but horses, fadre. I'll see you to- 
 morrow, Mahbub, if you've anything likely for sale.' 
 
 The dealer saluted, horseman fashion, with a sweep 
 of his off hand. ' Be patient a little, Friend of all 
 the World,' he whispered to the agonised Kitn. ' Thy 
 fortune is made. In a little while thou goest to 
 Lucknow, and — h'ere 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 veran- 
 [180] 
 
KIM 
 
 dah, speaking in the vernactilar. ' In three days thou 
 wilt go "with me to Lucknow, seeing and hearing new 
 things all the while. Therefore sit stiU for three 
 days and do not run away. Thou wilt go to school at 
 Lucknow.' 
 
 ' Shall I meet the Holy One at Lucknow ? ' Kim 
 whimpered. 
 
 ' At least Lucknow is nearer to Benares than TJm- 
 balla. It may be thou wilt go under my protection. 
 Mahbub Ali knows this, and he will be angry if thou 
 returnest to the road. Kemember — much has been 
 told me which I do not forget.' 
 
 ' I will wait here, then,' said Kim, ' but the boys 
 will beat me.' 
 
 Then the bugles blew for dinner. 
 
 [181] 
 
OHAPTEE VII 
 
 Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised 
 With idiot moons and stars retracting stars ? 
 
 Creep thou betweene — thy coming's all unnoised. 
 Heaven hath her high as earth her baser wars. 
 
 Heir to these tumults, this affright, that 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 ! 
 
 SiE John Christie. 
 
 In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told 
 Kim that lie 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 want 
 another letter to be written.' 
 
 ' lEahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the vs^riter 
 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 Lamia, ike holy 
 one from BhoUyal seeking for a Bi/oer, who is now in 
 [182] 
 
KIM 
 
 the Temple of the TirthamJcers at Benares. Take 
 more ink. In three days I a/rn, to go down to Nucldao 
 to the school at Nucldao. The name of the school is 
 Xa/oier. I do not hnow where that school is, Tyat it is 
 at Nucldao^ 
 
 ' 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 mis- 
 take.' The man lifted his head. ' Who watches us 
 across the street ? ' 
 
 Kim looked up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creigh- 
 ton 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 ? ' 
 
 ' l^ay, I have not. Kead 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 mat- 
 [183] 
 
KIM 
 
 ter, 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 verandah. Bruig it to my house this even.' 
 
 ' Where is thy house ? ' said Kim. His quick wit 
 told him that he was being tested in some fashion or 
 another, and he stood on guard. 
 
 ' Ask any one in the big bazar.' The Colonel 
 walked on, 
 
 ' He has forgotten his cheroot-case,' said Kim, re- 
 turning' to the letter-writer. ' I must bring it to him 
 this evening. That is all my letter except, thrice 
 over, Oome to me ! Gome to me ! CoTtie to me ! IKTow 
 I will pay for a stamp and put it in the post.' He 
 rose to go, and as an after-thought said : ' 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 ? ' 
 
 ' Grod knows. He is always buying horses which 
 he cannot ride, and asking questions about the works 
 of God — such as plants and stones and the customs 
 of people. The dealers say that he is the father of 
 fools, because he is so easily cheated about a horse. 
 Mahbub Ali says he is madder than all other Sahibs.' 
 
 ' Oh I ' said Kim, and departed. His training had 
 given him some small knowledge of character, and he 
 [184] 
 
KIM 
 
 argued promptly that if Colonel Oreighton was a 
 fool, he was so for a purpose. Fools are not given 
 information that leads to calling out eight thousand 
 men besides guns. The Commander-in-Chief of all 
 India does not talk, as Kiqa had heard him talk, to 
 fools. lyTor, and this to Kim was conclusive, would 
 Mahbub All'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 — therd was a mystery somewhere, and 
 Mahbub Ali evidently 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 know- 
 ledge 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 what was in 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 AU's theology. 
 He betrayed no emotion when, after the lecture, 
 Father Victor dragged him from shop to shop buyiag 
 [185] 
 
KIM 
 
 articles of outfit, nor when envious drummer-boys 
 kicked him because he was going to a superior school 
 did he complain. He awaited the play of circum- 
 stances with deep relish. Father Victor, good man, 
 took him to the station, put him into an empty 
 second-class next to Colonel Oreighton'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 com in', 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 Eoman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the 
 word.' 
 
 Kim lit a rank cigarette — he had been careful to 
 buy a stock in the bazar — and lay down to think. 
 This solitary passage was very different from that 
 joyful down-journey in the third-class with the lama. 
 ' Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,' he reflected. 
 ' Hai mai ! I go from one place to another as I 
 might be a kick-ball. It is my Kismet. 'So man can 
 escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi 
 Miriam, and I am a Sahib ' — he looked at his boots 
 ruefully. ' liTo ; I am Kim. This is the ^reat world, 
 and I am only Kim. Who is Kim ? ' He considered 
 his own identity, a thing he had never done before, 
 [186] 
 
KIM 
 
 till his head swam. He was one insignificant person 
 in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward 
 to he knew not what fate. Till he saw his road more 
 clearly he would keep all his lights under a bushel; 
 though he was greatly tempted at stations, when the 
 sweetmeat-seller came along with his wares, to chaff 
 him in the vernacular, and to be rude to the ticket- 
 collector. 
 
 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 understood perhaps one word in three of this 
 talk, to which he listened politely, an eye on the 
 dusty landscape of the JSTorthwest. The Colonel 
 spoke always in Urdu. JSTo man could be a fool who 
 knew the language so intimately, who moved so 
 gently and silently, and whose eyes were so different 
 from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs. 
 
 ' Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures 
 of roads and mountains and rivers — to carry these 
 pictures in thy eye till a suitable time comes to set 
 them upon paper. Perhaps some day, when thou art 
 a chainman, I may say to thee when we are working 
 together : " Go across those hills asid see what lies 
 [187] 
 
KIM 
 
 teyond." Then one will say : " There are bad people 
 living in those hills who will slay the chainman if he 
 be seen to look like a Sahib." What wouldst thou do 
 then?' 
 
 Kim thought. Would it be safe to return the 
 Colonel's lead? 
 
 ' I would tell thee 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 fore- 
 stallme. It is no good to sell knowledge for nothing.' 
 
 ' Tell now.' The Colonel held up a rupee. Kim's 
 hand half reached towards it, and dropped. 
 
 ' Nay, Sahib ; nay. I know the price that will be 
 paid for the answer, but I do not know why the ques- 
 tion is asked.' 
 
 ' Take it for a gift, then,' said Creighton, tossing 
 it over. ' I think that 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.' 
 [188] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 un- 
 derstand 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, al- 
 ways developing this latter text. 
 
 ' We be all on one lead-rope, then,' said TTiTn to 
 himself, ' the Colonel, Mahbub AH, and I — when I 
 become a chainman. 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. Kim swallowed his 
 disappointment, while the Colonel bundled him into a 
 ticca-gharri with his small belongings and despatched 
 him alone to St, Xavier's. 
 
 'I do not say farewell, because we shall meet 
 again,' he cried. ' Agaiit, and many times, if thou 
 art one of good spirit. But thou art not yet tried.' 
 
 ' Not when I brought thee ' — Kim. actually dared 
 [189] 
 
KIM 
 
 to use the turn of equals — ' the white stallion's pedi- 
 gree that night ? ' 
 
 ' Much is gained by forgetting, little brother/ said 
 the Colonel, with a look that pierced through Kim's 
 shouder-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. ' Eicher 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 ap- 
 plied to a white man. In the clearest and most fluent 
 vernacular Kim pointed out his error, climbed on to 
 the box-seat, and, a perfect understanding being es- 
 tablished, 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 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 fan- 
 tastic 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. 
 
 [190] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 dis- 
 tance 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 rail- 
 way 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 had never been trained to con- 
 sider 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 ex- 
 change of compliments, had acquitted himself well. 
 He was about to acknowledge the driver's last inso- 
 lence, when his eye — it was growing dusk — was 
 caught by 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 
 [191 J 
 
KIM 
 
 mad? Last time it was a dancing-girl. This time it 
 is a priest.' 
 
 Kim was in the road, if the driver could trust his 
 eyes, 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 vsdth me. 
 He that was my friend at the Temple of the Tir- 
 thankers gave me a chela for this journey. I came 
 from Benares in the train, when thy letter was given 
 me. Yes, I am well fed. I need nothing.' 
 
 ' But why didst thou not stay with the Kulu 
 woman, O Holy One ? In what way didst thou get 
 to Benares? Hy heart has been heavy since we 
 parted.' 
 
 ' The woman wearied me by constant flux of talk 
 and requiring charms for children. I separated my- 
 self from that company, permitting her to acquire 
 merit by gifts. She is at least a woman of open 
 hands, and I made a promise to return to her house if 
 need arose. Then, perceiving myself alone in this 
 great and terrible World, I bethought me of the 
 te-rain to Benares, where I knew one abode in the 
 Tirthankers Temple who was a Seeker, even as I.' 
 
 'Ah! Thy Eiver,' said Eim. 'I had forgotten 
 the Biver.' 
 
 ' So soon, my chela? I have never forgotten it; 
 butwhen I had left thee it Seemedbetter that I should 
 [192] 
 
KIM 
 
 go to the temple and take counsel, for, look yoll, India 
 is very large, and it rriay be that wise men before Us^ 
 some two or three, have left a record of the plaCe of 
 our Eiver. There is debate in the Temple of the 
 Tirthankers on this matter; some saying one thing, 
 and some another. They are courteous folk.' 
 
 ' So be it; but what dost thou do now? ' 
 
 ' I acquire merit in that I help thee, my thela, tH 
 wisdom. The priest of that body of men who serve 
 the Ked Bull wrote me that all should be as I desired 
 for thee. I sent the money to Suffice for 6ne year, 
 and then I came, as thou s6est me, to watch foi^ 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 Tirthankers Temple, 
 because, money having been paid iiit learning, it 
 was right that I should oversee the end of the matter. 
 They resolved my doubts most clearly. I had a feat 
 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 fofgbtten 
 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 feedilig^ 
 time,' whined the driver. 
 
 ' Go to Jehalinum and abide there with thy fepu- 
 , 13 [193] 
 
KIM 
 
 tationless 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 Kiver — by assuring myself that thy 
 feet are set on the Way. 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, may be thou wilt forget 
 me and our meetings.' 
 
 ' If I eat thy bread,' cried Kim passionately, ' how 
 shall I ever forget thee ? ' 
 
 ' ISTo — no.' He put the boy aside. ' I must go 
 back to Benares. Erom 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 vsdll come 
 and see thee.' 
 
 ' But whither shall I send my letters ? ' wailed 
 [194] 
 
KIM 
 
 Kim, clutching at the robe, all forgetful that he was 
 a Sahib. 
 
 ' To the Temple of the Tirthaukers at Benares, 
 That is the place I have chosen till I find my Kiver. 
 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, snufiing between each long 
 stride. 
 
 ' The Gates of Learning ' shut with a clang. 
 ****** 
 
 The country born and bred boy has his own man- 
 ners 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 
 [195] 
 
KIM 
 
 himself with the LeVitical setupulosity qi the native- 
 born, who in his heart considers the Englishman 
 rathef dirty. He played the usual tricks on the 
 patient coolies who pulled the puakahs in the sleep- 
 ing-rooms where the boys thrashed through the hot 
 nights telling tales till the dawn; and quietly he 
 measured himself against his mates. 
 
 They were eons of subotdinate officials in the Rail- 
 way, Telegraph, and Canal services; of warrant- 
 officersj sometimes retired and sometimes acting as 
 commanders-in-chief of a feudatory Bajah's army; 
 of captains of the Indian Marine, Government pen- 
 sioners, plantefs, presidency sh&pkeepers, and mis- 
 sionaries; a few were cadets of the old Eurasian 
 houses that have taken stfong l*ODt in Dhuttunitollah 
 — Pereiras, De SotteaS) and De Silvas. Their parents 
 could well have educated them in England, but they 
 loved the school that had served their ovm youth, and 
 gfeheration followed sallow-hued generation at St, 
 Xavier's. Their holnes ranged from HDV«ah of the 
 railway people to abandoned cantonments like Mon^ 
 ghyt and Chunar; lost tea^gal-dens Shillong way; 
 villages where their fathers were large landholders in 
 Oiidh ot the Deccan; mission stations a week from 
 the nearest railway line; seaports a thousand miles 
 south, facing the shallow Indian surf; and cinchona 
 plantations south of all. The mere story of their 
 adventures, which to them were no adventures, on 
 [196] 
 
KIM 
 
 tfeeir road to and from school would have crisped an 
 Elflish 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 
 tigeys; but they would no more have bathed in the 
 English Ohanjiel in an English Xugust, than their 
 brothers aei^ss 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 requisi- 
 tioned a chance-met Eajah's elephant, in the name of 
 St, Erancis 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 verandah a 
 rush of Akas in the days when those herd-hunters 
 were bold against outlying plantations. 
 
 And every tale was told in the even, passionless 
 voice of the native-bom, mixed with quaint reflec- 
 tions, borrowed unconscipusly from native foster- 
 mothers, and turns of speech that showed they had 
 been that instant translated from the vernacular. 
 ^im watched, listened, and approved. This was not 
 insipid, gingle^word talk of drummer-boya. It dealt 
 •with a life he knew and understood- The atmos- 
 [197] 
 
• KIM 
 
 phere suited him, and he throve by inches. They put 
 him into a white drill suit as the weather grew 
 warmer, 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 amazed 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 
 comes at twenty-two or twenty-three. 
 
 None the less he remembered to hold himself in 
 hand. When the tales were told of hot nights, Em 
 did not sweep the board with his reminiscences ; for 
 St. Xavier's <looks down on boys who ' go natives alto- 
 gether.' One must never forget that one is a Sahib, 
 and that some day, when examinations are passed, one 
 will command natives. Eom made a note of this. 
 He began to understand what examinations led to. 
 
 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 IJmballa, where 
 Father Victor would arrange for him. 
 
 ' A barrack school ? ' said Kim, who had asked 
 questions. 
 
 ' 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 
 [198] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Jehannum after St. Xavier's. More- 
 over — this was magic worth anything else — he 
 could write. In three months he had discovered how 
 men can speak to each other at a distance at the cost 
 of half an anna and a little knowledge. IvTo word 
 had come from the lama, but there remained Mahbub 
 Ali — Mahbub Ali and the road. Kim yearned for 
 the feel 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 give 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; the masters, all save two, 
 had gone away.. Colonel Creighton's railway pass 
 was 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 
 [199] 
 
KIM 
 
 annas. His new bullock-trunkj 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 tenderly, 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 ? shanje ! ' 
 
 * Was I born yesterday ? ' Kim squatted native 
 fashion oh the cushions of that upper room. 'A little 
 dye-stuff and three yards of cloth to help out a jest. 
 Is it much to ask ? ' 
 
 ' Who is she? Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, 
 for this devilry.' 
 
 ■ Oh, she ? She is the daughter of a certain school- 
 master 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.' 
 
 ' ITot too black, Haikun. I would not appear to 
 her as a Jiuhshi (nigger).' 
 
 ' Oh, love makes naught of these things. And how 
 old is she ? ' 
 
 ' Twelve years, I think,' said the shameless Kim. 
 ' Spread it also on the breast. It may he her father 
 [200] 
 
KIM 
 
 will tear my clothes off me ^.nd if I am piebald ' 
 
 he laughed. 
 
 The girl worked busily, dabbing a t^w^t of oloth 
 into a little saucer of brown dye that holds longer 
 than any walnut juice. 
 
 ' N^ow send out and get me a loin-cloth, and a cloth 
 for the turban. Woe is me, my he^d is all unsbaved, 
 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 ? Eemember, the stuff does not wash 
 away.' She shook with l9,ughter till her bracelets and 
 anklets jingled. ' But who is to pay me for this ? ' 
 
 ' Trust in the gods, my sister,' said Earn gravely, 
 screwing his face round as the stain dried. ' Some 
 days a feast, and some days a famine. Besides, hast 
 thou ever helped to paint a Sahib thus before ? ' 
 
 ' IsTever 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' salu- 
 tation in mockery. 
 
 ' All one. Make haste and rough-cut my head.' 
 Xi Tn shifted from foot to foot, his eyes ablaze with 
 mirth as he thought of the fat days before him. He 
 [201] 
 
KIM 
 
 gave the girl four annas, and went down the stairs in 
 the likeness of a low-caste Hindi boy — perfect in 
 every detail. A cookshop was his next point of call, 
 where he feasted Avith more delight than ever did 
 Haroun al Easchid. 
 
 On Lucknow station platform he watched youngDe 
 Oastro, all covered with prickly heat, get into a sec- 
 ond-class compartment! Kim patronised a third, and 
 was the life and soul of it. He explained to the com- 
 pany 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 car- 
 riage changed, he varied the 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 up there selling 
 horses, and to him the Colonel confided the affair one 
 morning when they were cantering round the Annan- 
 dale race-course. 
 
 ' Oh, that is nothing,' said the horse-dealer. ' Men 
 are like horses. At certain times they need salt, and 
 if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up 
 [202] 
 
KIM 
 
 from the earth. He has gone back to the road again 
 for a while. The madrissah wearied him. I knew it 
 would. Another time, I will take him upon the road 
 myself. Do not be troubled, Creighton Sahib. I 
 know the boy. 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 stal- 
 lion 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.' 
 
 ' Eead,' 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 queer, silent, self-possessed Kim. His 
 evasion, of course, was the height of insolence, but it 
 argued unlimited resource and nerve. 
 
 Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the 
 centre of the cramped little course, where none could 
 come near them unseen. 
 
 ' " 77ie Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of 
 
 all the World " ' 
 
 [203] 
 
KIM 
 
 'What is this?' 
 
 ' A name we give him in Labor? city. " The 
 Frimd of all the World tajces leave to go to Ms own 
 place. Se will come hack wpon the a^pjpoimted day^ 
 Let the hox and the heddmg-rfoll he gent f off y and if 
 there has heen a fault, let the ha/nd of friendship twn 
 aside the whip of cakmdt'tf" There is yet a, little 
 more, but ' 
 
 ' No matter, read.' 
 
 ' *' Certain things are not known to those who eat 
 with forks. It is hetter to eat with hoth ha/ndsfor a 
 while. Sjpeak soft words to those who do not under- 
 stand, this that the retviTn rnay he prcpitiows." 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 hirit is given 
 except to those who know.' 
 
 ' Is this the hand of friendship to avert the whip 
 of calamity ? ' laughed the Colonel. 
 
 ' See how wise is the boy. He would go back to 
 the road again, as I said, Not knowing yet thy 
 trade ' 
 
 ' I am not quite sure of that,' the Ooloxiel muttered. 
 
 ' He turns to me to make a peace between you. Is 
 he not wise ? He says he will return. He is but per- 
 fecting his knowledge. Think, Sahib 1 He has been 
 three months at the school. Can he become a Sahib ? 
 For my part, I rejoice. The pony learns the game.' 
 [204] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Ay, but another time iie 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. Thm^ 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? Eemember how 
 the Persians say. The jackal that Uvea in the wilds 
 of Mazanderan can only he caiight hy the hounds of 
 MazamdeTcm? 
 
 ' 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 child. When his time is accom- 
 plished he will come to me. I am his friend.' 
 
 This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month 
 later. Mahbub had gone down to TJmballa to bring 
 up a fresh eonsignment of horses, and Kim met him 
 on the Xalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an 
 alms of him and 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 ? ' 
 ' trp 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 Um- 
 balla; anon with a household of my acquaintance in 
 [205] 
 
KIM 
 
 Umballa. With one of these I went as far as Delhi 
 to the southward. That is a wondrous city. Then I 
 drove a bullock for a teli (an oilman) coming north ; 
 but I heard of a great feast forward in Puttiala, and 
 thither I went 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 trap- 
 pings; and they lit all the fireworks at once whereby 
 eleven men were killed, my firework-maker among 
 them, and I was blown across a tent but took no harm. 
 Then I came back to the line with a Sikh horseman, 
 to whom I was groom for my bread; and so here.' 
 
 'Shahash!' 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.' 
 
 ' SJiabash ! ' said Kim in his turn. ' I have learned 
 to read and to write English a little at the madris'sah. 
 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 thou 
 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.' . 
 
 [206] 
 
CHAPTEE Vin 
 
 Something I owe to the soil that grew — 
 
 More to the life that fed — 
 But most to Allah Who gave me two 
 
 Separate sides to my head. 
 
 I would go without shirts or shoes 
 
 Friends, tobacco, or bread, 
 Sooner than for an instant lose 
 
 Either side of my head. 
 
 ' Then in God's name take blue for red,' said 
 Mahbub, alluding to the Hindu colour of Kim's dis- 
 reputable turban. 
 
 Kim countered with the old proverb, ' I will 
 change my faith and my bedding, but thou must pay 
 for it.' 
 
 Mahbub Ali 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 sta- 
 tion, sent for a cooked meal of the finest with almond 
 curried sweetmeats (ialushai, they 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, 
 [207] 
 
EIM 
 
 ' 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 almost 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 All's gravity went from 
 him. He laughed aloud and beat his hand on his 
 thigh. 
 
 ' Shahash! Shabash! Oh, well done, little one! 
 What will Lurgan Sahib say to this ? Take my pipe 
 a while, for where there is no eye there is no caste, as 
 the Hindus say. iN'ow, slowly, let us hear what befell 
 afterwards — step by gtep, omitting nothing.' 
 
 Step by step then, Kim told his adventures between 
 coughs as the full-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs. 
 
 ' I said,' growled ifahbub 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 dis* 
 tances and his pacings, and his rods and hia 
 compasses and the length of his chains. 
 [208] 
 
KIM 
 
 * Listen now. I have turned aside the Colonel's 
 whip from thy skin, and that is no small service.' 
 
 'True.' Kim puffed serenely. 'That is all 
 true.' 
 
 ' But it is not to be thought that this running back 
 and forth of thine is in 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 very 
 words, but plainly enough for one who is not alto- 
 gether a mud-head. Tea, he told me in the te-rain 
 when we went down to the madrissah.' 
 
 ' 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, 
 [209] 
 
KIM 
 
 'in Umballa, when thou didst pick me up on the 
 horse when 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, read- 
 justing 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 road- 
 side ? Many people here and in Simla and across the 
 passes behind the hills would, on the other hand, say : 
 " What has come to Mahbub Ali," if he were found 
 dead among his horses. Surely too the Colonel Sahib 
 would make inquiries. But again,' — Kim's face 
 puckered with cunning, — ' he would not make over- 
 long inquiry, lest people should ask : " What has this 
 Colonel Sahib to do with that horse-dealer ? " But I 
 — if Hived ' 
 
 ' As thou wouldst surely die ' 
 
 ' It may be, but I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, 
 would know that one came by night, as a common 
 thief perhaps, to Mahbub All's bulkhead in the serai, 
 and there slew him, either before or after that that 
 thief had made a full search into his saddle-bags and 
 between the soles of his slippers. Is that news to tell 
 to the Colonel, or would he say to me — (I have not 
 forgotten when he sent me back for a cigar-case that 
 [210] 
 
KIM 
 
 he had not left behind him) — would the Colonel 
 say: " 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 my lama 
 (hai mai !) and I lay next thy place in the Kashmir 
 Serai. The door was left unlocked, which I think is 
 not thy custom, Mahbub. He came in as one assured 
 that thou wouldst not soon return. My eye was 
 against a knot-hole in the plank. He searched as it 
 were for something — not a rug, not stirrups, nor a 
 bridle, nor brass pots — something little and most 
 carefully hid. Else why did he pick 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 
 [ 211 J 
 
KIM 
 
 a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to TJin- 
 balla 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 any 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 TJmballa, as thou knowest, but (and this thou 
 dost not know) I lay hid in the garden grass waiting 
 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, Eriend 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 come to 
 [212] 
 
KIM 
 
 a big dinner. I saw him in Oreigliton 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 ! ' Mahbiib nodded with deepest eyes afire. 
 ' The game is well played. That war is done now, 
 and the evil nipped before the flower — thanks to me 
 — and thee. And what didst thon do 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. ' iN'ews 
 is not meant to be thrown about like dung-cakes, but 
 used sparingly — like hhang.' 
 
 ' 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-bom's 
 thought might have led ? ' said Mahbub, with an 
 elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet beard. 
 
 * It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the 
 [213] 
 
KIM 
 
 very tone. ' They say at the madrissah 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 ' (hala 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 when I cursed thee, Mahbub Ali, on the 
 day at Umballa I thought I was betrayed by a 
 Pathan. I was senseless ; for I was but newly caught, 
 and I wished to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I 
 say now, Haj ji, that it was well done ; and I see my 
 road all clear before me. I will stay in the mad- 
 rissah, and I will learn their teaching 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 halls above to show 
 thee.' 
 
 ' I will learn their teaching upon a condition — 
 that my time is given to me without question when 
 the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me of the 
 Colonel' 
 
 ' But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahib's 
 tongue ? ' 
 
 ' The Colonel is the servant of the Sirkar (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 the madrissah i, 
 
 [214] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 I ' 
 
 ' And who are thy people, O Friend of all the 
 World ? ' 
 
 ' This great and beautiful land/ said Kim, waving 
 his hand round the little clay-walled room where the 
 oil-lamp in its niche burned heavily through the 
 tobacco-smoke. ' And, further, I would see my lama 
 again. And further, I need money.' ' 
 
 ' That is the need of every one,' said Mahbub rue- 
 fully. ' I will give thee eight annas, for much money 
 is not picked out of horses' hooves, and that must 
 suffice thee 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 now my 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 T come without authority.' 
 [215] 
 
KIM 
 
 Mahbub felt in his bosom, wetted his thumb on a 
 cake of Chinese ink, and dabbed the impression on a 
 piece of soft native paper. Erom Balkh to Bombay 
 men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar 
 running diagonally across it. 
 
 ' That is enough for thee 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 Mah- 
 bub'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 head- 
 man, a broken-down, consumptive-looking Moham- 
 medan, promptly challenged Kim, but was pacified 
 at sight of Mahbub's sign-maniial. 
 
 ' The Hajji has of his favour given me service,' 
 [216] 
 
KIM 
 
 said Kim testily. ' If this be doubted, wait till he 
 comes in the morning. Meantime, give me 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 Mah- 
 bub's followers, almost under the wheels of a horse- 
 truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. 'Now a bed 
 among brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, 
 between overcrowded horses and unwashen Baltis, 
 would not appeal to many white boys ; but Kim was 
 utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and sur- 
 roundings 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 regi- 
 ment 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 
 [217] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 seemed to come from beneath 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 the man.' 
 
 ' He must not go back beyond the passes a second 
 time. It is the order.' 
 
 ' Then get some woman to drug him. It is a few 
 rupees only, and there is no evidence.' 
 
 ' Except the woman. It must be a more sure mat- 
 ter; and remember the price upon his head.' 
 
 ' Ay, but the Sirkar's 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 himdred times ? Wait 
 till he comes to lie down, and then one sure shot. 
 The trucks are between iis 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 
 [218] 
 
KIM 
 
 till the dawn. What manner of faquir art thou to 
 shiver at a little watching ? ' 
 
 ' Oho ! ' thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes. 
 ' Once again it is Mahbub. Indeed a white stallion's 
 pedigree is not a good thing to peddle to Sahibs ! Or 
 may be Mahbub has been selling other news. Now 
 what is to do, Kim? I Imow 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. They should have 
 given the matter over to a woman for a few rupees. 
 But they have not, and here is Kim and yonder are 
 they. Eirst 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 him- 
 self suddenly with the terrible, bubbling, meaning- 
 less yell of an Asiatic roused by nightmare. 
 
 ' Urr-urr-urr-urr ! Ya-la-la-la-la ! NarainI The 
 churel ! The churel ! ' 
 
 A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a 
 woman who has died in child-bed and 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 
 [219] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 elclcas passed, jingling out to the 
 suburbs ; a coughing policeman, a hurrying foot-pas- 
 senger 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 fore-foot 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, be- 
 cause there is a price on thy head. I heard sleeping 
 near the horses.' 
 
 [220] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Didst thou see them ? . . . Hold still, Sire of 
 Devils ! ' This furiously to the horse. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Was one dressed helike as a faquir? ' 
 
 ' I did not see, but one said to the other, " What 
 manner of a faquir art thou, to shiver at a little 
 watching ? '"' ' 
 
 ' Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do 
 not die to-night.' 
 
 Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished. Kim 
 tore back down the ditch till he reached a point oppo- 
 site 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 to-night's 
 watch.' 
 
 An hour passed, and Kim, with the best will in the 
 world to keep awake all night, slept deeply. ISTow 
 and again a night train roared along the metals within 
 twenty feet of him ; but he had all the Oriental's in- 
 difference 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 iip 
 again, and, catching his well-wishers from behind, 
 [221] 
 
KIM 
 
 summarily slay them. Here, he reflected with sor- 
 row, another branch of the Government, totally un- 
 connected with Colonel Creighton, might demand 
 explanations which would be hard to supply ; and he 
 knew that south the border a perfectly ridiculous 
 fuss is made about a corpse or so. He had not been 
 troubled in this way since he sent Kim to Umballa 
 with the message, and hoped that suspicion had been 
 finally diverted. 
 
 Then a most brilliant notion struck him. 
 
 ' The English do eternally tell the truth,' he -said, 
 ' therefore we of this country are eternally made 
 foolish. By Allah, I will tell the truth to an English- 
 man ! Of what use is the Sirkar's police if a poor 
 Kabuli is robbed of his horses in their very trucks. 
 This is as bad as Peshawur! I should lay a com- 
 plaint at the Thandh. Better still, some young Sahib 
 on the Eailway. 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 Dis- 
 trict 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 ? Sell- 
 ing crocks, eh ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I am not troubled for my horses. I come to 
 look for Lutuff Ullah. I have a truck-load up the 
 [222] 
 
KIM 
 
 line. Could any one take them out without the Rail- 
 way's knowledge ? ' 
 
 ' Shouldn't l^ink so, Mahbub. You can claim 
 against us if they do.' 
 
 ' I have seen two men crouching under the wheels 
 of one of the trucks nearly all the night. Faquirs do 
 not steal horses, so I gave them no more thought. 1 
 would find Liituf UUah, my partner.' 
 
 ' The deuce you did ! And you didn't bother your 
 head about it ? 'Pon my word, it's just almost as well 
 that I met you. What were they like, eh ? ' 
 
 ' They were only faquirs. They will no more than 
 take a little grain perhaps from one of the trucks. 
 There are many up the line. The Sirkar 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 rail- 
 way had suffered much from depredations in the 
 [223 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 goods-yard. Mahbub Ali chuckled in hia dyed 
 beard. 
 
 ' They will walk in their boots, making a noise, 
 and then they will wonder why there are no faquirs. 
 They are very clever boys — Barton Sahib and 
 Young Sahib.' i 
 
 He waited idly for a few minutes, expecting to see 
 them hurry up the line girt for action. A light engine 
 slid tlirough 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. ~^o one, at least, but one small horse-boy, 
 newly advanced to the great man's service, whom Mah- 
 bub called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing, 
 
 ' It is all known to me,' whispered Kim, bending 
 above saddle-bags. ' Two Sahibs came up on a 
 te-rain. I was running to and fro in the dark on this 
 side of the trucks as the te-rain moved up and down 
 slowly. They fell upon two men sitting under this 
 truck — Hajji, what shall I do vsdth this lump of 
 tobacco ? Wrap it in paper and put it under the 
 salt-bag ? Yes — and struck them dovsra. But one 
 man struck at a Sahib with a faquir's buck's horn ' 
 (Kim meant the conjoined black buck horns, which 
 [224 1 
 
KIM 
 
 are a faquir s sole temporal weapon) -^ ' the blood 
 came. So the other Sahib, first smiting his own man 
 senseless, smote the stabber with a short gun which 
 had rolled from the first man's hand. They aU raged 
 as though mad together.' 
 
 Mahbnb 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 nigamut (a criminal case). A gun sayest 
 thou ? that is good ten years in jail.' 
 
 ' Then they both lay still, but I think they were 
 nearly dead when they were put on the te-rain. Their 
 heads moved thus. And there is much blood on the 
 line.' 
 
 ' I would not have them dead. Jail is the sure 
 place — and assuredly they will give false names, 
 and assuredly no man will see them for a long time. 
 A Pathan would scarcely have done better. They 
 were unfriends of mine. Ifow quickly with the sad' 
 die-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, care- 
 lessly, amid a hundred checks for little things for- 
 gotten, 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, re- 
 garded as Mahbub All's favourite by all who wished 
 [225] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 
 up to his teeth 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 
 the dak-garries and feel the horses' legs; asking inane 
 questions, or, through sheer ignorance of the vernac- 
 ular, 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 commissioners' 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,' — h% 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.' 
 
 [226] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' True. True talk/ said Kim solemn,ly. ' One 
 who speaks of a cat when a woman, is brought to bed, 
 for instance. I have heard that.' 
 
 ' Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particu- 
 larly 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 Bud- 
 dhist ? That is a hard nut.' Kim smiled. 
 
 ' Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and 
 therefore thou wilt be damned. So says the Canoon 
 of 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, bet that I am a good Sunni and hate the men 
 of Tirah. I could believe the same of all the faiths. 
 I^ow manifestly a Kattiawar mare taken from the 
 sands of her birthplace and removed to the west of 
 Bengal becomes lame — 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 ac- 
 count in the great I^orthern 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.' 
 
 [227 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Now my lama said altogether a different thing.' 
 
 ' Oh, he is an old dreamer of dreams from Bhoti- 
 yal. My heart is a little angry, Friend of all the 
 World, that thou shonldst see such worth in a man 
 so little known,' 
 
 ' True. It is true, Hajji, but that worth do I see; 
 and to him my heart is drawn.' 
 
 ' And his to thine. Hearts are like horses. They 
 come and they go against bit or spur. Shout to 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 looked in a little. . . . iSTow 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 l^uoklao and, and — once gone, 
 who is to find me again ? ' 
 
 * It is true, l^ever was eolt held on a lighter heel- 
 rope' than thou.' Mahbuh 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 ' 
 
 ' Keranis/ Kim cut in with a snort. ' Their eyes 
 are blued and their nails are blackened with low-«JiSt6 
 [228] 
 
KIM 
 
 blood many of them. Sons of meheeranees — brotH- 
 ers-in4aw of the hhungi (sweepet).' 
 
 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 afe thou 
 art.' 
 
 ' And why ? When I always tell thee the truth.' 
 
 ' That is 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 houses. 
 
 ' 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 Sultans ! ' Mahbub gave the money. 
 
 ' Eememberest thou the little business of the 
 thieves in the dark, down yonder at Umballa ? ' 
 
 ' Seeing they songht my life, I have not altogether 
 forgotten. Why ? ' 
 
 ' Eemembetest thou the Kashmir Serai ? ' 
 
 ' I vnll trust thy ears in a moment.' 
 
 ' No need, Pathan. Only, the second faquir, whom 
 [229] 
 
KIM 
 
 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, Shaitan ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, he would go to jail and be safe for some 
 years. There is no need to tell more than is necessary 
 at any time. Besides, I did not then need money for 
 sweetmeats.' 
 
 ' Allah kerien ! ' said Mahbub Ali, ' wilt thou some 
 day sell my head for a few sweetmeats then if the fit 
 takes thee ? ' 
 
 ****** 
 
 Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy 
 journey from Umballa, through Kalka and the Pin- 
 jore 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 Sikander Khan coming down with a few 
 unsaleable crocks, — remnants of his string, — and 
 Mahbub, who had more of horse-coping in his little 
 finger-nail than Sikander Khan in all his tents, must 
 needs biiy two of the worst, and that meant eight 
 hours' laborioiis diplomacy and untold tobacco. But 
 it was all pure delight — the wandering road, climb- 
 [230 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 ing, dipping, and sweeping about the growing spurs ; 
 the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows ; 
 the branched cacti ; tier upon tier the stony hillsides ; 
 the voices of a thousand water-channels; the chatter 
 of the monkeys; the solemn deodars, climbing one 
 after another with do-wn-drooped branches ; the vista 
 of the plains rolled out far beneath them; the inces- 
 sant 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 Kivers 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 pahar. 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 
 [231] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 verandah commnnicate with veran- 
 dah, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with 
 bolt-hole> Here live those who minister to the 
 wants of the city — jhampanis who pull the pretty 
 ladies' rickshaws by night and gamble till the dawn, 
 grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors, fire-wood dealers, 
 priests, pickpockets, and native employees of the 
 Government ; here are discussed by courtesans all 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 vi^ent into it at tvidlight a 
 Mohammedan horse-boy, and there came out an 
 hour later, when all Simla was wrapped in soft 
 rain-mist, a Eurasian lad — for the Lucknow 
 girl's dye was of the best sort — in badly fitting 
 shop-clotheS. 
 
 ' I have spoken with Oreighton Sahib,' qUoth Mah- 
 bub Ali, ' and a second time has the hand of friend- 
 ship avertfed the Vs^hlp of calamity. He says that 
 thou hast altogether wasted sixty days Upon the road, 
 |;232] 
 
KIM 
 
 and it is too late, therefore, to send thee to any 
 hill-school.' 
 
 ' I have said that my holidays are .my own. I do 
 not go to school twice over. That is one part of my 
 bond.' 
 
 ' The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of the con- 
 tract. Thou art to lodge in Lnrgan 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, 
 JVTahbub Ali, who sells horses to Oreighton Sahib, 
 whom thou dost not know. Eemember this order.' 
 
 Kim nodded. ' Good,' said he, ' and who id LurgaU 
 Sahib ? !N"ay — ' 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 soti 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 a Sahib to be obeyed to the last 
 wink of his eye-lashes- Men say he does magic, but 
 that should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. 
 Here begins the great game.' , 
 [ 233 ] 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 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 flixng himself whole-heartedly upon the next 
 turn of the wheel. He would be a Sahib again for a 
 while. In that idea, as 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 
 
 [234] 
 
KIM 
 
 on every level, made, as it were, a double firmament. 
 Some were fixed, others belonged to the rickshaws of 
 careless, open-spoken English folk, going out to din- 
 ner. 
 
 ' It is here,' said Kim's guide, and halted in a 
 verandah flush with the main road. ]^o door stayed 
 them, but a curtain of beaded reeds that split up the 
 lamp-light beyond. 
 
 ' He is come,' said the boy, in a voice little louder 
 than a sigh, and vanished. Kim felt sure that the 
 boy had been posted to guide him from the first, but 
 putting a bold face on it, parted the curtain. A 
 black-bearded man with a green shade over his eyes, 
 sat at a table, and, one by one, with short, white 
 hands, picked up globules of light from a tray before 
 him, threaded them on a glancing silken string and 
 hummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious 
 that beyond the circle of light the room was full of 
 things that smelt like all the temples of all the East. 
 A whiff of musk, a pufF of sandal-wood, and a breath 
 of sickly jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils. 
 
 ' I am here,' said Kim at last, speaking in the ver- 
 nacular — for the smells made hirrl forget that he 
 was going to be a Sahib henceforward. 
 
 '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 intently at Kim for 
 
 [235] 
 
KIM 
 
 a iiill half-minute. The pupils of the eye dilated 
 and closed to pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a 
 faquit by the Taksali Gate who had just this gift and 
 made money by it, especially when cursing silly 
 Women. Kim stared intently.. His disreputable 
 friend could further twitch his ears, almost like a 
 goat, fend Kjm weIs disappointed that this new man 
 did not imitate him. 
 
 ' Do not be afraid,' said Mr. Lurgan suddenly. 
 
 'Why should I fear?' 
 
 ' Thou wilt sleep here to-night, and stay with me 
 till it is time to go again to ISTucklao. 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 deviMance masks, hang- 
 ing above the fiend-embroidered draperies of those 
 ghastly functions — horned masks, scowlitig 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 hhandas and kut- 
 tars gave back the unsteady gleam. But what inter- 
 ested Kim more than all these things - — he had seen 
 devil'dance masks at the Lahore Museum — was a 
 [236] 
 
KIM 
 
 glimpse of the soft-eyed Hindu child who had left 
 him in the doorway, sitting cross-legged under the 
 table of pearls with a little smile on his scarlet lips. 
 
 ' I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me 
 afraid. And I am sure that the devil's brat below 
 the table wishes to see me afraid. This place,' he said 
 aloud, ' is like a wonder-house. Where is my bed ? ' 
 
 Lurgan Sahib pointed to a native quilt in a corner 
 by the loathsome masks, picked up the lamp, and left 
 the room in black darkness. 
 
 * Was that Lurgan Sahib ? ' Kim asked as he cud- 
 dled 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 like Hindus.' 
 
 That was no cheerful night; the room being over- 
 [237] 
 
KIM 
 
 ful of voices and music. Kim was waked twice by 
 some one calling his name. The second time he set 
 out in search, and ended by bruising his nose against 
 a box that certainly spoke with a human tongue, but 
 in no sort of human accent. It seemed to end in a 
 tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smaller 
 box on the floor — so far, at least, as he could 
 judge by touch. And the voice, very hard and whir- 
 ring, came out of the trumpet, singing, ' Taza ha taza 
 nao henao.'' Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, 
 thinking, as usual, in Hindi. 
 
 ' This with a beggar from the bazar might be good 
 but — I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib and, 
 which is twice as much more beside, a student of 
 Luchnao. 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 great cheek of him — we are not frightened that 
 way in 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 bastard 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 level uninterested voice, that for a moment lifted 
 
 the short hairs in his neck. When the vile thing 
 
 [238] 
 
KIM 
 
 drew breath, Kim was reassured by the soft, sewing- 
 machine-like whirr. 
 
 ' CMp ! ' (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 gali. 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 
 Eajahs 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.' 
 [239] 
 
KIM 
 
 "Kim looked at him out of the comers of hia eyea. 
 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 Father Victor or the Lucknow 
 masters did. Sweetest of all — sweeter than the 
 pilau -r^he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiatic 
 side. 
 
 ^ I am sorry you cannot beat my boy this morning. 
 He says he will kill you with a knife or poison. He 
 is jealous, so I have put him in the corner and I shall 
 not speak to him to-day. He has just tried to kill 
 me. You must help me with the jewels. He is 
 almost too jealous to trust, just now.' 
 
 I^ow a genuine imported Sahib from England 
 would have made a great to do over this tale. Lur- 
 gan Sahib stated it as simply as Mahbub AU recorded 
 hia little doings in the North. 
 
 The black verandah of the shop was built out over 
 the sheer hillside, and they looked down into their 
 neighbours' chimney-pots, as ia the custom of Simla. 
 But even more than the purely Persian meal cooked 
 by Lurgan Sahib with his own hands, the shop fasci- 
 nated Kim. The Lahore Museiun was larger, but here 
 were more wonders — ghost-daggers and prayer- 
 wheels from Tibet; turquoise and raw amber neck- 
 [340] 
 
-V ^ ^ ^-v 
 
 KIM 
 
 laces ; 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 altars of lacquer; Eussian 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 geo- 
 metrical 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; hair-pins 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, watching 
 Kim's admiring eye. ' I buy them because they are 
 pretty, and sometimes I sell — if I like the buyer's 
 look. Mj 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 
 16 [241 J 
 
KIM 
 
 hurt them to see 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 turquoises — 
 some day.' 
 
 He moved to the end of the verandah to refill the 
 heavy, porous clay water-jug from the filter. 
 
 ' Do you want drink ? ' 
 
 Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet away, 
 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, 
 that it had slid into its place. 
 
 ' Wah ! ' said Kim in most utter amazement. 
 ' That is magic' Lurgan Sahib's smUe showed that 
 the compliment had gone home. 
 
 ' Throw it back.' 
 
 ' It will break.' 
 
 ' I say, throw it back.' 
 
 Kim grasped it by the neck and pitched it at ran- 
 dom. It fell short and crashed into fifty pieces, 
 while the water dripped through the rough verandah 
 boarding. 
 
 [242] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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; Lur- 
 gan 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 verandah 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. An- 
 other wave of prickling fire raced dovra his neck, as 
 Lurgan Sahib moved his hand. 
 
 'Look ! It is coming into shape,' saidLurgan 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 mul- 
 tiplication table in English! 
 [243] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Look ! It is coming into shape,' whispered Lur- 
 gan Sahib. 
 
 The jar had been smashed — - yess, smashed ^ not 
 the native word, he would not thinlc 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 verandah 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 — - Lur- 
 gan Sahib had been muttering softly for the last half- 
 minute. Kim VTrenched his head aside. ' Look ! 
 Dekleo! It is there as it was there.' 
 
 ' It is there as it was there,' said Lurgan, watch- 
 ing Kim closely while the boy rubbed his neck. ' But 
 you are the first of a many who have ever seen it so.' 
 He wiped his broad forehead. 
 
 ' Was that more magic ? ' Kim asked suspiciously. 
 The tingle had gone from his blood ; he felt unusually 
 vnde awake. 
 
 ' No, that was not magic. It was only to see if 
 there was a flaw in a jewel. Eemember when any 
 man asks you to look close at anything and waves his 
 [244] 
 
KIM 
 
 hand — so ! — you must not do it. But ' — he went 
 on to himself — 'it is very curious that he should 
 have saved himself. 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 thinli that 
 was what I thought — and it was broken.' 
 
 ' H'm ! Has any one 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 ? ' 
 
 '1^0.' 
 
 Lurgan Sahib looked at him more closely than 
 ever. ' I shall ask Mahbub Ah — 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 you began to think. . . . 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 slim shoulders worked with grief. 
 [ 245 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Ah ! He is jealous, so jealous. I wonder if hs, 
 will try to poison me again in my breakfast, and 
 make me cook it twice.' 
 
 '■ Kvbhee — huVbee nahwi^ came the broken an- 
 swer. 
 
 ' And whether he will kill this other boy ? ' 
 
 ' Kvhiee — levMee nahvn ' (never — never. No !) 
 
 ' What do you think he will do ? ' He turned sud- 
 denly on Kim. 
 
 ' Oah ! I do not know. Let him go, perhaps. 
 Why did he want to poison you ? ' 
 
 ' Because he is so fond of me. Suppose you were 
 fond of some one, and you saw some one come, and 
 the man you were fond of was more pleased with him 
 than he was with you, what would you do ? ' 
 
 Kim thought. Lurgan repeated the sentence 
 slowly in the vernacular. 
 
 ' I should not poison that man,' said Kim reflec- 
 tively, ' but I should beat that boy — if that boy was 
 fond of my man. But first I would ask that boy if it 
 were true.' 
 
 ' Ah ! He thinks every one must be fond of me.' 
 
 ' Then I think he is a fool.' 
 
 ' Hearest thou ? ' said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking 
 shoulders. ' The Sahib's son thinks thou art a little 
 fool. Oorae out, and next time thy heart is troubled, 
 do not try white arsenic quite so openly. Surely the 
 Devil Dasim was lord of the table-cloth that day ! It 
 [246] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 passion- 
 ately 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 cop- 
 per 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 clat- 
 tering trifles into the tray. 
 
 ' Now,' said the child, waving an old copy of a 
 paper. ' 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 ? ' Kim asked. 
 [247], 
 
KIM 
 
 ' When tholl 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 limp-backed native account-book. 
 
 ' There are under that paper five blue stones — 
 one big, one smaller, and three small/ said Eim, 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. Earn 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 green veins, and 
 there are two inscribed — one vrith 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 
 [248] 
 
KIM 
 
 tlie fire blue stones. Tout flawed emei'alds there are, 
 but one is drilled in two places, and one iS a little 
 carven ' 
 
 ' Their weight ? ' said Lurgan Sahib impassively. 
 
 ' Three — five — five aiad four ruttees as I judge 
 it. There is one piece of old greenish amber, and a 
 cheap cut topaz from Europe. There is one ruby of 
 Burma, of two ruttees, without a flaw, and there is a 
 ballas ruby, flawed, of two ruttees. There is a carved 
 ivory from China representing a rat sucking an egg ; 
 and there is last — ah ha ! — a ball of crystal' as big 
 as a bean set in a gold leaf.' 
 
 He clapped his hands at the close. 
 
 ' He is thy master,' said Lurgan Sahib, smiling. 
 
 ' Huh ! He knew the names of the stones,' said 
 Kim, flushing. ' Try again ! With common things 
 such as he and I both know.' 
 
 They heaped the tray again with odds and ends 
 gathered from the shop, and even the kitchen, and 
 every time the boy won, till Kim marvelled. 
 
 ' Bind my eyes — let me feel once with my fingers, 
 and even then I will leave thee open-eyed behind,' he 
 challenged. 
 
 Kim stamped with vexation when the lad made his 
 boast good. 
 
 ' If it were men — or horses,' he said, ' I could do 
 better^ This playing with tweezers and knives and 
 scissors is too little.' 
 
 [249] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 per- 
 fectly — 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 thon art well taught/ said 
 Lurgan Sahib, still speaking in the vernacular, ' for 
 except my boy here — it was foolish of thee to buy 
 so much white arsenic when, if thou hadst asked, I 
 could have given it to thee — 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 a long price. We shall, I think, be friends.' 
 
 They were a most mad ten days, but Kim enjoyed 
 himself too much to reflect on their craziness. In the 
 morning they played the ' jewel game ' — sometimes 
 with veritable stones, sometimes with piles of swords 
 and daggers, sometimes with photographs (in this 
 event Kim won). 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 
 the many and very curious visitors who came to buy 
 curiosities. There were small Eajahs, their escorts 
 [250] 
 
KIM 
 
 coughing in the verandah, who came to buy curiosi- 
 ties — phonographs and French mechanical toys. 
 There were ladies in search of necklaces, and men, it 
 seemed to Kim — but his mind may have been viti- 
 ated by early training — in search of the ladies ; na- 
 tives from independent and feudatory courts whose 
 ostensible business was the repair of broken necklaces 
 — rivers of light poured out upon the table — but 
 whose real end seemed to be to raise money for angry 
 Maharanees or young Eajahs. There were Babus to 
 whom Lurgan Sahib talked with austerity and author- 
 ity, 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 talked metaphysics in English and Ben- 
 gali, to Mr. Lurgan's great edification. He was al- 
 ways interested in religion. At the end of the day, 
 Kim and the Hindu boy — whose name varied at Lur- 
 gan's pleasure — were expected to give a detailed ac- 
 count of all that they had seen and heard — theirview 
 of each man's character, as shown in his face, talk, 
 and manner, and their notions of his real business. 
 After ' dinner, Lurgan Sahib's fancy turned more to 
 what might be called dressing-up, in which game he 
 took the 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. 
 [251 J 
 
was apparelled variously as a young Mohammedan 
 of good family, an oilman, and once — whicli was a 
 joyous evening — as the son of an Oudh landholdei' 
 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 boy played this 
 game clumsily. The little mind, keen as an icicle 
 where tally of jewels was concerned, could not temper 
 itseK to enter into another's soul ; but there was that 
 in Kim which woke up and sang with joy as he put 
 on the changing dresses, and changed his speech and 
 gesture therewith. 
 
 Carried away by enthusiasm, he volunteered to 
 show Lurgan Sahib one evening how the disciples of 
 a certain caste of faquir, old Lahore acquaintances, 
 begged doles by the roadside, and what sort of lan- 
 guage 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 hailed him with a shower of wayside chaff. 
 [ 252 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 Lurgan Sahib — this annoyed Kim — watched the 
 Babu and not the play. 
 
 ' I think,' said the Babu heavily, lighting a cig- 
 arette, ' I am of opeenion that it is most extraor- 
 dinary and effeecient performance, Except that you 
 had told me I should have opined that — that you 
 were pulling my legs. How soon can he become 
 approximately effeecient chainman? 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 bagged cow. 
 
 When they were telling over the day's list of visit- 
 ors, Lurgan Sahib asked Kim who he thought the 
 Babu 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 
 [253] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 the custom.' 
 
 ' And is there a price upon his head too — as upon 
 all the others ? ' 
 
 ' ISTot 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 verandah, behind 
 that which was the old theatre in the Lower Bazar, 
 and whispered through the shutters : " Hurree Chun- 
 der Mookerjee bore the bad news of last month," that 
 boy might take away a belt full of silver.' 
 
 ' How many ? ' said Kim promptly. 
 
 ' Five hundred — a thousand — as many as he 
 might ask for.' 
 
 ' Good. And how long might such a boy live after 
 the news was told ? ' He smiled merrily at Lurgan 
 Sahib's very beard. 
 
 ' Ah ! That is to be well thought of. Perhaps if 
 he were very clever, he might live out the day — but 
 not the night. By no means the night.' 
 
 ' Then what is the Babu's pay for his work if so 
 much is put upon his life ? ' 
 
 ' Eighty — perhaps a hundred — perhaps a hun- 
 dred and fifty rupees ; but the pay is the least part of 
 the work. From time to time, God causes men to be 
 born — and thou art one of them — who have a lust 
 [254] 
 
KIM 
 
 to go abroad at. the risk of their lives and discover 
 news — to-day it may be of far-off things, to-morrow 
 of some hidden mountain, and the next day of some 
 near-by man who has done a foolishness against the 
 State. These men 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 
 changes 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 chainman.' 
 
 ' Have patience. Friend of all the World,' — Kim 
 started at the title. ' I 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. Tou 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.' 
 [255] 
 
KIM 
 
 Eour days later a seat was booked for Kim and his 
 small trunk at the rear of a Kalka tonga. His com- 
 panion was the whale-like Babu, who, with a fringed 
 shawl wrapped round his head, and his fat open- 
 worked stockinged left leg tucked under him, 
 shivered and grunted in the morning chill. 
 
 ' How comes it that this man is one ofusf 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 — an enormous sum — as well as the 
 assurance of his protection if he worked. The indoor 
 life (and never did a visitor see less of Simla in a 
 ten days' visit) had preyed upon him, and he yearned 
 for the open road. 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 
 Kahbub 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 All's sake. 
 Meantime, there was the present, and not at all un- 
 pleasant, 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, the son of a tea-planter at Manipur, 
 had boasted that he would go to war, with a rifle, 
 [256] 
 
KIM 
 
 agauj^t the head-hunters. Th?it might be, but it was 
 pertain young Hartin had not beeiji blown half across 
 the forecourt of a Pati^la palace by an explosion of 
 fireworks; nor had he, . . . Ki^ fell to telling 
 hipself the story of l^js own adventures through the 
 last three months. He could paralyse St. X^yier's 
 — even the biggest boys who shaved — with the re- 
 cital, were that permitted. But it was, of course, oi^t 
 pf the question. There would be a price upon his 
 head in good time, as Lurgan Sahib had assured him; 
 but if he told stories now, ij.ot only would that price 
 never be set, but Colonel Creighton would C3,st him 
 off — and he would be left to the wrath of Lurgan 
 Sahib and Mahbub Ali — for the short space o^ life 
 that would remain to him. 
 
 ' So I shojjld lose Delhi for the sake of a fish,' was 
 his proverbial philosophy. It behoved him to forget 
 Jiis holidays (there would always remain the fun of 
 inventing imaginary adventures), 3,nd, as Lurgan 
 Sahil? had ?aid, to work. As if any fine but a fool of 
 a Sahib would show his method ! 
 
 Of all the boys hurrying back to St. Xavier's, from 
 Sukkj;r in ;the sands to Galle beneath the palms, none 
 was so filled vsdth virtue as Kimball O'Hara, jigetting 
 down to TJmballa behind Hurree Chun4er Moo- 
 kerjee, whose name on the books of pne section of the 
 Ethnological Survey was E.17. 
 
 And if additional spjir were needed, the Babu 
 17 [267] 
 
supplied it. After a huge meal at Kalka, he spoke as 
 a stranger. Was K^im goiag 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). Also a man 
 might go far, as he himself had done, by strict atten- 
 tion to plays called Lear and Julius Caesar, both 
 much in demand by examiners on the Bengal side. 
 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. No one should 
 waste his money on new books. Still, more impor- 
 tant than Wordsworth, or the eminent authors, Burke 
 and Hare, was the art and science of mensuration 
 which included trigonometry and the survey of land. 
 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 Ohunder called ' adventitious aids ' 
 he might still tread his distances. , To keep count of 
 thousands of paces, Hurree Chunder's experience 
 [258] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 ' a very much.' Here was a: 
 new craft that a man could carry 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 ac- 
 quaintance. 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 
 box 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 
 verree fond of drugs myself, and they are handy to 
 impress poor people too. I give it you for souvenir. 
 Wow good-bye. I have urgent private business here 
 by the roadside.' 
 
 He slipped out noiselessly as a cat, on the TJm- 
 [2591 
 
SIM 
 
 ball^ read, ijailed g passing §]|ka ftpd jinglpd ^Tpay, 
 while Kiw, tongue-tied, twiddlpd the brass betel- 
 bos in bis bapds. 
 
 The record of a boy's education interests fe'v? save 
 his parents, and, as you know, Kim was ap orphan. 
 It is written in the books of St. Xayier ip fartibus 
 thp.t a report of Brim's prpgregs was forwarded at 
 the end of each term to Colonel Creighton and to 
 Father VictpTj from whose h^nd duly caijip the 
 money for his schoolfjig. It is furtlier recorded ifl 
 the samp bopks th^t he sjiowed a great aptitTi4e lo? 
 m^theipaticftl studies as well ^s piap-maMM! &b4 
 carried aw^y a prize {^The Life of Lqr^ Lawrence, 
 tree calf, two ¥flls„ nine rupees, eight 3.nnp,p) for 
 prpfieienjoy thereiu ; ftftd the same term played in §t. 
 Xayier's eleven figainst the j^UygJiur l|!ohaifpnedan 
 College, his age being fourteen years and tep wontljg. 
 lie was also vacciuated (from which we mp.y assume 
 that there had been another epidenaic of small-pQ? q.t 
 Lucknow) about the same tirne. Pencil notes ou tb® 
 edge of au old musterrroU record that he was pun- 
 ished several times for ' couversing with improper 
 persons,' and tlie principal Igiows th3.t he w^s once 
 sentenced to heg,vy pajns for ' §,bsenting Ijimgelf for a 
 day in the company of a street beggar.' That was 
 when he got oyer t^e gate ancj he pleaded with the 
 [260] 
 
KIM 
 
 lamS/ 4§\^n the baiikS of theGooiiite to accompany hinl 
 ofl tla.§ foad aext MctMdays ■ — for one month — for a 
 little W^fekj and the Ittiaa set his face as a flint agaiast 
 itj Saying thit the time had not yet Goine. Eitli's 
 blisiiifessj said the old mail as they ate cakes idgether^ 
 was t& get all tte wisdoiii of the Sahibfe and then he 
 wOiild see. Thd hand of friendship must have in 
 sdflie way atef tdd thd whip of dalamity, for six weeks 
 later' Kim sefems tti have passed aii examination in 
 eleinentafy siirveying ' With gi'eat credit/ his age 
 being flftSefl yeats aild four months. Erom this date 
 the f eeofd is silelit. His name dOeS Hot appear in the 
 year's batch of thQse Who eMeJed for the subordinate 
 survey of Iildiaj but against it Stands the wdrds ' re- 
 inoved on appoiiltiiient.' 
 
 Several tiffieS in those three yeats, cast up at the 
 Temple of ihe TirthalikefS iii BenafeS the laffla, a 
 little thiliiiei- and a shade yellowerj if that were pos- 
 sible, btLt Still butning t^ith his inextidguishable 
 hepe. SdwietuneS it was from the South that he 
 eaflle — from sbuth oi Tiiticoi'itl — VhetiCe the won- 
 derful fire-boats go to Geyloii and the priests who 
 khovf Pali; SOmetiiiieS it Was from the wet green 
 WeSt and the thousand cotton-factory chimneys that 
 ring B&nibay ; and once from the iN'orth, Where he had 
 doubled baek eight htindred miles to talk a day with 
 tke Keeper of the linages ifi. the Wonder House. He 
 W§uld go to hk cell ifl the cool, cut marble — for the 
 [201] 
 
KIM 
 
 priests of the Temple were good to the old man — 
 wash off the dust of travel, make prayer, and depart 
 for Lucknow, well accustomed now to the ways of the 
 rail, in a third-class carriage. Eeturning, 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 Eiver, or to draw wondrous pictures of 
 the Wheel of Life, and 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 fol- 
 lowed the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all 
 India (the curator has still in his possession a most 
 marvellous account of his wanderings and medita- 
 tions) ; there remained nothing more in life but to 
 find the Eiver of Healing. Yet it seemed to him that 
 it was a matter not to be undertaken with any hope 
 of success unless the Seeker took 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 possessed. For example 
 (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain 
 priests made haste to be silent). 
 
 ' Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of 
 Benares — let all listen to the Jataka! — an elephant 
 was captured for a time by the king's himters, and 
 ere he broke free, ringed with a grievous leg-iron. 
 This he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his 
 heart, and hurrying up and down the forest, be- 
 [ 262 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 sought his brother elephants to wrench it asunder. 
 One by one they tried with their strong trunks 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 the moisture of 
 birth, lay a day-old calf of the herd whose mother 
 had died. The fettered elephant, forgetting his own 
 agony, said : " If I do not help this suckling it will 
 perish under our feet." So he stood above the young 
 thing, making his legs buttresses against the uneasily 
 moving herd ; and he begged milk of a virtuous cow, 
 and the calf throve, and the ringed elephant was 
 the calf's guide and defence. Now the days of 
 an elephant — let all listen to the JdtaJca — 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 coil, 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 eye-lash abolished the ring, 
 saying : " The appointed time has come." So the 
 virtuous elephant who had waited temperately and 
 done kind acts was relieved, at the appointed time, 
 by the very calf whom he had turned aside to cherish 
 — let all listen to the Jataka — for the elephant was 
 [263] 
 
KIM 
 
 Aftandaj and the fialf that broke thfe ring was Actee 
 other that The Lord himself. . . .' 
 
 Then he would shake his hedd benigdlyj an^ ovtiJ 
 the eTet-olicking roskr^ jjoint otit how f refi thftt ele- 
 phdilt calf was from the feia of pride; He was as 
 hiimble as a theld whoj seeiiig his mfistei* sittiii^ in 
 the diist otitside the gates of learning, overlekpt the 
 gates (though they were locked) and took his mastei* 
 to his heart in the presence of the proud-stomached 
 city. Hidh would be the teward of sti6h a fliaster and 
 such a chela wheii the time came for them to seek 
 freedom together. 
 
 Sb did the latna speak, coming and goihg aCrdss 
 India as softly as a bat. A sharp-tongued old woman 
 in a house amotig the fruit-trees behiiid Saharunpofe 
 honoured them as the woman honoured the prophet, 
 but his ehahiber if^As by no ineatis upOii the wall. In 
 an apartment of the forecourt overlooked by codihg 
 doveS he would sit, while she laid aside he* useless 
 Teil and chattered of spirits and fiends of Kubi,- of 
 gi'andeihildl'enufibomj and the free-tOngued brat who 
 had talked to her in the refeting-place. Once, too, he 
 strayed alone from the Grand Trunk road below TJm- 
 balla to the very village whose priest had tried to 
 irtig him; blit the kind heaven thkt guards lamas 
 sent him at twilight through the crops, clicking his 
 rosaty, to the ressaldar's door. Here was like to 
 hate been a grave misunderstanding, f ot the old sol- 
 [ 264 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 dier asked him why the Friend of the Stars had gone 
 that way oflly six days before. 
 
 ' That aay not be/ said the lama. ' He has gone 
 back to his own people.' 
 
 * He sat in that comer telling a hundred merry 
 tales five nights ago/ his host insisted, ' True, he 
 vanished somewhat suddenly in the dawn after 
 foolish talk with my grand-daughter. He grows 
 apace, but he is the same Friend of the Stars as 
 brought me true word of the war. Have ye parted 
 then?' 
 
 ' Yes — and ISo,' the lama replied. ' "We — we 
 have not altogether parted, but the time is not ripe 
 that we should take the road together. He acquires 
 wisdom in another place. We must wait.' 
 
 ' All one — but if it were not the boy how did he 
 come to speak so continually of thee ? ' 
 
 ' And what said he ? ' asked the lama eagerly. 
 
 ' Sweet words — an hundred thousand — that 
 thou art his father and mother and such all. Pity 
 that he does not take the Queen's service.' 
 
 This news amazed the lama, who then did not 
 know how religiously Kim kept to the contract made 
 with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by Colonel 
 Oreighton. ' 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 
 [265] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 bom 
 so well fitted for the game as this our colt.' 
 
 [266] 
 
OHAPTEE X 
 
 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 I were he mine 
 (As mine's the glove he hinds 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 iirmament God made him for, 
 And what shall take the air of him ? — Old Play. 
 
 LuEGAjj 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 
 Lucknao 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. If the little tin paint-box that 
 he used for map-tinting in term time could have 
 found a tongue to tell of holiday doings, he might 
 have been expelled. Once Mahbub and he went 
 together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay, with 
 three truck-loads of tram-horses, and Mahbub nearly 
 melted when Kim proposed a sail in a dbow across 
 the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs, which he under- 
 [267] 
 
KIM 
 
 stood from a hanger-on of the great 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, was 
 invited to a big Haj dinner. They came back by way 
 of Karachi by sea, When Klffi took his first experience 
 of sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a coasting- 
 steamer, well persuaded he hd,d beeii poisoiied. The 
 Babu's famous drug-box proved useless, though Kim 
 had restocked it at Bombay. Mahbub had business 
 at Quetta, and Kim, Ets Mahbub admitted, eartied his 
 keep, and perhaps a little over, by spending four 
 amazing days as scullion in the house of a fat com- 
 missariat sergeant, from whose office-box, in an 
 auspicious moment, he temoved a little velliiM ledger 
 which he copied oUt — it seemed to deal entirely Vith 
 cattle ahd calnel sales — by moonlightj lying behind 
 an OuthottSej all tht&ugh one hot itight. Theh he 
 returned the ledger to its pkce^ tedj at Mahbub'§ 
 wordj left that service, fejoiMng him six miles dOWfl 
 the road, the blean Copy in his bosbiii. 
 
 ' That soldief is a small fish,' Mahbub Ali ex- 
 plained, ' but in time "tve shall catch the large* one. 
 He only seUs oxen at tvpd priced ^- oiie f of himself 
 and one for the Government ^^ -^hieh I do nftt thiiils 
 is a sin.' 
 
 ' But why could not 1 take away the little beok 
 and be done with it ? ' 
 
 [268] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Then he woujd have been frightenedj and he 
 would have told his master — then V7e should miss, 
 perhp.ps,a great number of new rifles which seek their 
 way up from Qyetta to the north. The game is so 
 Ipge th^t one sees but a little at a time.' 
 
 ' Oho ! ' said Kam, and held his tongue. That was 
 in the monsoon holidays, after he had taken the prize 
 for mathematics. The Christmas holidays he spent 
 rrr- deducting ten days for private amusements — 
 with Lurgan S^hib, 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 
 Hjndji had gone away to be married — helped Lur- 
 gan to thread pearls. He made Kina learn whole 
 chp.pters of the Koran by heart, till he could deliver 
 thepi with the very roll and cadence of a mullah. 
 Moreover, hp told Kim the names and properties of 
 Pfiny native drugs, as well as the formulae proper to 
 recite when ypu administer them. And in the even- 
 ings he ^iVFote charms on parchment — elaborate 
 g§ptagrapis eroAvned with the names of devils — 
 Murra and Awan, the Companion of Kings — all 
 fantastically written in the corners. What was more 
 t§ the point, he advised Kinj as to the care of his own 
 body, ths cure of fever-fits, and simple remedies of 
 fte r(3a4- A week before it was time to go down, 
 Colonel Creighton Sahib — this was unfair — sent 
 TTiTn a written examination paper that concerned 
 [g69] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Bika- 
 neer, 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 Jeysahnir. 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 ? ' 
 
 [270] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Oh, half a lakh of men.' 
 
 ' Folly ! Remember how few and bad were the 
 wells in the pest. 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 go hire 
 a room by the gateway, and thou shalt be my account- 
 ant. There is a good lock to the door.' 
 
 The report in its unmistakable St. Xavier's run- 
 ning hand, and the brown, yellow, and lake daubed 
 map was on hand a few years ago (a careless clerk 
 filed it with the rough notes of E.23's second Seistan 
 survey), but by now the pencil characters must be 
 almost illegible. Kim translated it, sweating . under 
 the light of an oil lamp, to Mahbub, the second day 
 of their return journey. The Pathan rose and 
 stooped over the dappled saddle-bags. 
 
 ' I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour, and 
 so I made one ready,' he said smiling. ' Were I the 
 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, 
 [2Y1J 
 
ample and flowing; green pyjamas ij^th twisted silk 
 waist-string; aijd that nothing might he lacking, rus- 
 sia leather slippers, smelling diyiiiely,with arrogajitly 
 curled tips. 
 
 ' Upon a Wednesday, and iii the morning, tq put 
 on new clothjes is auspicious,' said Mahhuh solefjinly, 
 ' But we must not forget there are wicked f plk in t]^e 
 world. So ! ' 
 
 He capped all th,e splendqur, jthat was taking 
 Kim's delighted breath away, by a niot^er-pf-peq,rl, 
 njekel-plated, self -extracting .450 rpyolve?*. 
 
 ' I had thought of a smaller bore, but reflected that 
 this takes Crovernment bullets. A ^nan can always 
 come by those — especially across the bprcjer. Staii^ 
 up and let me look.' He clapped Kiiji on the shoulder. 
 ■' May you neyer be tired, Pathan ! Oh, the heap|ts 
 to be broken! Oh, the eyes under the eyelg,8hes, 
 looking sideways ! ' 
 
 Kim turned about, pointed his toes, stretchpij, and 
 felt mjechanix5ally 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 ? AH six car- 
 tridges come out at one twist. It is borne in the 
 bo^om next the skin, which, as it were, keeps it oiled, 
 [272] 
 
KIM 
 
 Never put It elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt 
 some day kill a man with it.' 
 
 ' Eai mai! ' said Kim ruefully. ' If a Sahib kills 
 a man he is hung in the jail.' 
 
 ' True : but one pace beyond the border, men are 
 wiser. Put it away; but fill it first. Of what use is 
 a gun unfed ? ' 
 
 ' When I go back to the madrissah I must return 
 it. They do not allow little guns. Thou wilt keep it 
 for me ? ' 
 
 ' Son, I am wearied of that madrissah, where they 
 take the best years of a man to teach him what he can 
 only learn upon the road. But the folly of the Sahibs 
 has neither top nor bottom. ISTo matter. Maybe thy 
 written report shall save thee further bondage; and 
 Grod He knows we need men more and more in the 
 G-ame.' 
 
 They marched, jaw-bound against blowing sand, 
 across the salt desert to Jidhpore, where Mahbub and 
 his handsome nephew Habib- Allah did much trad- 
 ing; and then sorrowfully, in European clothes, 
 which he was fast outgrovdng, Kim went second-class 
 to St. Xavier's. Three weeks later. Colonel Oreigh- 
 ton, 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 
 [273] 
 
KIM 
 
 his manners if he is kept at tricks. Loose 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 impertinent 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 Jold you. That was 
 quite unique. 1 was annoyed. With an older man 
 to guide him on the road, he would have been fit for 
 work then. And that is three years ago. I have 
 taught him a good deal since. Colonel Creighton. I 
 think you waste him now.' 
 
 ' Hmm I 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 
 [274] 
 
KIM 
 
 wliitc! camol-colts — for luck, I would take him my- 
 self, but ' 
 
 There is a little businoHH in which lio would bo 
 most UH(jf ul — in tlio South,' said Lurgan, with 
 peculiar Huavity, (Jroj)ping hin heavy blii(!<i cyolidH. 
 
 ' E.2.'5 littH that in hand,' said Oreighton quickly. 
 * lie must no(, go down there. Hosidfm, ho knows no 
 Turki.' 
 
 ' Only tell him the shape and the smell of the let- 
 ters we want and he will bring them back,' Lurgan 
 insisted. 
 
 * No. That is a man's jol),' said Oreighton. 
 
 It was a little matter of unauthorised and incen- 
 diary correspondence between a person who claimed 
 to bo the ultimate authority in all matters of the 
 Mohamineduii religion throughout the world, and a 
 younger member of a royal house who had boon 
 brought to book for kidnapping women within British 
 territory. The Moslem Archbishop had been em- 
 phatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was 
 merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but 
 iJiere was no need ho should continue a correspond- 
 i'um which might some day compromise him. One 
 letter indeed hud been procured, but the finder was 
 later found dead by the roadside in the habit of an 
 Arab trader, as l'].2;{, taking up the work, duly re- 
 ported. 
 
 These facts, and a few others not to be published, 
 
KIM 
 
 made both Mahbub and Creighton shake their 
 heads. 
 
 ' Let him go out with his red lama/ said the 
 horse-dealer with visible effort. ' lie is fond of 
 the old man. He can learn hia paces by the ro- 
 sary.' 
 
 ' 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. ' lie beds down 
 
 at the Temple of the Tirthankers and at Buddh-Gaya 
 when he is in from the road. Them 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. Wo have watched him 
 for three years. Red lamas are not so common in 
 Hind that one loses track.' 
 
 ' Babus are very curious,' said Lurgan medita- 
 tively. ' Do you know what Hurree Babu really 
 wants ? He wants to be made a member of the Eoyal 
 Society by taking Ethnological notes. I tell you, I 
 tell him about the lama everything that Mahbub and 
 the boy have told me. Hurree Babu goes dovra to 
 Benares — at his own expense, I think.' 
 
 'I don't,' said Creighton briefly. He had paid 
 [276] 
 
K IJH 
 
 iilini:i;'t; l,rf).V<;));r)g i;Xf,(;,ii-j-M, but of II. IIU>','X livhly 
 
 * Atul \ii; tilnMm U, U;<; \:iui;i. for tuUinir.iX'fiii on 
 l/,itinih:iii, ntui <l'!yil <\tii,'-^M, ii;/'j i-,;/<;Hi; mi'i <-}iii.nu;;, 
 ;-.<!V<-ral Vuin:;: \u U/'-,;',-, r<;w ;/';!(. r«. Holy V'liyjn'. J 
 (7/iil<) )/i)v<', lol'l f)j/;( mI) U/iil, ;/<;<! !i;v, jif/^o. ( tbi/ik 
 lliirvi-.i; I',;i)/u ),-: u:'Xi'>»V, •>''' ''I'l '''''' <'"; ''''U'l. Il<! lik':;', 
 \ii:\,U;v b) '•,ii\\'-i'\. iiiiiiiii'',r,'. mci i-m-.'.S/hu;'. lui'iifintiiiiiti. 
 
 Y':)% I/O W(U/I,« to \il; 11,(1 I'.Jl.H/ 
 
 ' Hi/rr*;'! I,lii;jk« w«ll of l.lx; l»o,y, <Jo'!i',t)'(, I/';?' 
 'Ol/, v':ry i//<Jr^<;<l -wi; |/!i,v<! tisi'l i'.okk: fiU-.si-.-.iiii 
 
 f.Vt'.ll'lll^}'. «,(, Joy liUj'; |)|;i('i!— I»H(, I Ulil/I'. it, WOliM I/'! 
 
 whhI.<! t,o t,l/ro'// lii/M away wU,\i llufccc on Uio KUoio 
 lo//i<;(tl «i'l'!.' 
 
 ' Not, for II. fl/'c;t, tr/.\ti:v\i:>i':i;. How 'lo<:i', l,li;il, iil.riko 
 ,you, Miil/l/ul('< l/<;t, l,ln! l)o,y cini wil,(i f,l/<! liunit for 
 cix ino))t,l/;'„ \\i; Will (/'''■ '•,'<|"',rif;ti'',c, (KkI knowlc'l^^o 
 
 of /I. corf,.' 
 
 ' ll<! Iiii!* it, »\rfMAy, Hftlilh- im ii IImIi <'.on(,rol;i Llir; 
 wiit.iir li<! )',wii(ii', in; Ixil, for t;yt:ry ronHOd if, will Ixi 
 vviiil l,o looi',<! Iiliii from l,li<', mc.IiooI.' 
 
 ' W>;vy f/ooij, l,lnii),' Hiu<l (/'ri!i^;li 1,0)1, liiiir l,o [iiitii«;lf. 
 ' III! i-Mit go w!l,li \,\w iiunii, )uiil if lliirroo iiiiJin ciiron 
 1,0 y>) wi(,li l,li<',(ii HO oiic'li l,|ic, |)c,l,l,<!r. Jlo woti'l, \i:n(\ 
 l,lio boy iiil,o liny dovilry (i,M Miililiiih would, Ourioim 
 - lilM Wlidi l,o 1)0 )i)) VM.'n. Vtu'y })!)))))!)), l,oo. Ill) 
 in I)I!H(, o)) 1,1x1 l';t,l)))oli)/y;ir)il mIiIo lllirrun,' 
 
 Mo Djoimy i)))il ))o )))'nfr,ri))o))l, woiiM liuvo ilriiwn 
 [277] 
 
KIM 
 
 Creighton from his work on the Intelligence, but 
 deep in his heart also lay the ambition to write 
 " F.K.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 Koyal 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 noth- 
 ing of the Army move among spectroscopic experi- 
 ments, the lesser plants of the frozen tundras, electric 
 flight-measuring machines, and apparatus for slicing 
 into fractional millimetres the left eye of the fe- 
 male 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 
 [2Y8] 
 
KIM 
 
 will lie do, think you? I have never before assisted 
 at the teaching of such an one.' 
 
 ' He will come to me,' said Mahbub promptly. ' I 
 win prepare him for the road. And the rest I can 
 oversee.' 
 
 ' 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 sec- 
 ondly, he knows what would happen. Also, he is very 
 fond of Mahbub, and of me a little.' 
 
 ' Does he draw pay ? ' demanded the practical 
 horse-dealer. 
 
 ' Food and water allowance only. Twenty rupees 
 a month.' 
 
 One advantage of the Secret Service is that it 
 has no worrying audit. The service is ludicrously 
 starved, of course, but the funds are administered by 
 a few men who do not call for vouchers or present 
 itemised accounts. M ahbub'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 
 [279] 
 
KIM 
 
 of a chosen few, coming to him froln his pupil. Lur- 
 gan Sahib had made E.23 what E.23 was, out of 
 a bewildered, impertinent, lying, little Northwest 
 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 Oreighton had 
 sent for him. 
 
 ' I understand, O'Hara, that he has found you a 
 place as an assistant chainman in the Canal Depart- 
 ment: that comes of taking up mathematics. It is 
 great luck for you, for you are only seventeen ; but of 
 course you understand that you do not become pukha 
 (permanent) till you have passed the autumn exami- 
 nation. 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 puJcJca, you can rise, 
 you know, to 450 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 wefted 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 Creigh- 
 ton's interest in Kim was directly paternal; and 
 Kim, instead of retaliating, did not even use lan- 
 guage. He was thinking of the immense fun to come, 
 [280] 
 
KIM 
 
 of Mahbub's letter of the day before, all neatly writ- 
 ten in English, making appointment for that after- 
 noon in a house the very name of which would have 
 crisped the Principal's hair with horror. . . . 
 
 Said Kim to Mahbub at the railway station that 
 evening, above the luggage scales — ' I feared lest, 
 at the last, the roof would fall upon me and cheat me. 
 Is it indeed all finished, O my father ? ' 
 
 Mahbub snapped his fingers to show the utterness 
 of that end, and his eyes blazed like red coals. 
 
 ' Then where is the pistol that I may wear 
 it?' 
 
 ' Softly ! a half-year, to run without heel-ropes. I 
 begged that much from Colonel Creighton Sahib. At 
 twenty rupees a month. Old Red Hat knows that 
 thou art coming.' 
 
 ' I will pay thee dusLoorie (commission) on my pay 
 for three months,' said Eam 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 Bed 
 
 Hat>? ' 
 
 [281] 
 
KIM 
 
 ■ Do not f oi^t he made me that I am — thon^ 
 he did not know it. Year by year, he sent the monej 
 that taught me.' 
 
 ' I would hare done as much — had it stsrack my 
 thick head,' Mahbub growled. " Come away. The 
 lamps are lit now, and none wiQ mark thee in the 
 bazar. We go to Huneefa"s house.' 
 
 On the way thither, Mahbub gare him much the 
 same sort of advice as Ms mother gave to Lemuel, 
 and curiously enough, ^lahbub was exact to point out 
 how Huneefa and her likes destroyed kings. 
 
 ' And I remember,' he quoted maKciously, ' one 
 who said, '' Trust a snake before a harlot and a harlot 
 before a Fathan, Mahbub AIL" Xow, excepting as 
 to Pathans, of whom I am one, all that is true. Most 
 true is it in the Great Grame, for it is by means of 
 women that all plans come to ruin and we He out in 
 dawning with our throats cut. So it happened to 
 such a one,' — he gare the fullest particulars. 
 
 ' Then why ' Kim paused before a fil^y 
 
 staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an 
 upper chamber, in the ward that is behind Azim 
 Ullah's tobacco shop. Those wbo know it call it the 
 Bird-cage — it is so full of whisperings and whis- 
 tlings and chirrupings. 
 
 The room, witii its dirty cusMons and half-smoked 
 hookahs, smelt abominably of stale tobacco. In on© 
 comer lay a huge and ^lapeless woman clad in green- 
 [282] 
 
KIM 
 
 ish 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, bevdldered, at the 
 door-ciirtain. 
 
 ' Is that the new stuff, Mahbub ? ' said Huneefa 
 lazily, scarce troubling to remove the mouthpiece 
 from her lips. ' O Buktanoos ! ' — like most of her 
 kind, she swore by the Djinns — ' O Buktanoos ! He 
 is very good to look upon.' 
 
 ' That is part of the selling of the horse,' Mahbub 
 explained to Kim, who laughed. 
 
 ' I have heard that talk since my Sixth Day,' he 
 replied, squatting by the light. ' Whither does it 
 lead?' 
 
 ' To protection. To-night we change thy colour. 
 This peeping under roofs has blanched thee like an 
 almond. But Huneefa has the secret of a colour that 
 catches. '^o painting of a day or two. Also, we 
 fortify thee against the chances of the road. That is 
 my gift to thee. Take out all metal on thee and lay 
 them here. Make ready, Huneefa.' 
 
 Kim dragged forth his compass, Survey paint-box, 
 and the new-filled medicine box. They had all 
 accompanied his travels, and boy-like he valued them 
 immensely. 
 
 The woman rose slowly and moved with her hands 
 [283] 
 
KIM 
 
 a little spread before her. Then Kim saw that she 
 was blind. ' JSTo, 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.' 
 Huneef a 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 ex- 
 perimented on the back of his wrist, with a dab of 
 cotton-wool; but Huneef a heard him. 
 
 ' No, no,' she cried, ' the thing is not done thus, 
 but with the proper ceremonies. The colouring is 
 the least part of the spell. I give thee the full pro- 
 tection of the Eoad.' 
 
 ' Jadoo ? ' (magic), said Kim, with a half start. 
 He did not like the white, sightless eyes. Mahbub's 
 hand on his neck bowed him to the floor, nose within 
 an inch of the boards. 
 
 ' Be still. Ho harm comes to thee, my son. I 
 am thy sacrifice.' 
 
 He could not see what the woman was about, but 
 heard the clish-clash of her jewellery for many 
 [284] 
 
KIM 
 
 minutes. A TrmUh lit tip the darkuegs; he caiight the 
 well-fcaown purr and fizzlfj of grains of incense. Then 
 thf; room fi]]f;d with wnoke — heavy, aromatic, and 
 rAnjftffyhitr. Tlirongh gT-o.viijf.^ drowse he canght the 
 names of I>;vil» — of Zulbazan, son of Ebli-;, who 
 livf^K in hazarn and //ar«o«, making all tL'; sndden 
 lewd wickf-'lnosH of v/ayside halts; of Dnlhan, invis- 
 ihle ahout mo-'ju'-, iLo dweller among the :-,]ipy>er« 
 of the Faithfnl, wPio hinder-) folk from their prayers; 
 and Mnhho'A, Lord of lie,-; and j>anic. Iluneefa, now 
 whispering in his ear, nov/ talking as from an im- 
 mense distance, t^jiK-lied with horrible soft fingers, 
 but MahbnVs grip never shifted from his neck till, 
 relaxing with a sigh, the boy lost bis sensea. 
 
 ' When eartJi i,-; ko full of devils, why call np the 
 Bonn of A ir ? ' said ]\Iahbnb te-;! 11 v, ' Go on with the 
 davmt ^invocation). Give him the full protection.' 
 
 * J fearer ! TJum thai li/to/reiit, vriih ea/m. Be 
 'present, UMen,, O Hea/r&r ! ' Hnneefa moaned, her 
 dead eyes turned to the west. The dark room filled 
 with meanings and Hnoitings. 
 
 T'Vorn tbe oijtf;r balcony, a ponderous figure raised 
 a round bullet bead and coufrbed nervously. 
 
 ' Do not interrujit this ventriloquial necromanciK.-:, 
 ray friend,' it said in English. ' I opine that it is 
 very disturbing to you, but no enlightened observer 
 JH jolly well upHct.' 
 
 ' , , . I 'mil loAf (I ]>lo1, fw iJww rwm ! O prophet, 
 [ 286 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 hear with the tmbeUevers. Let thenn alone awJdle ! ' 
 Huneefa's face, turned to the nortliward, 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. Huneef a, m 
 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 Tceys of the secret things ! None 
 Tcnoweth them beside himself. He hnoweth that 
 which is in the dry la/nd 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 Katfirs.' 
 
 ' Then you think I had better go ? ' said Hurree 
 [286] 
 
KIM 
 
 Babu, half rising. ' They are, of course, dematerial- 
 ised 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 voices ceased. 
 
 ' Wah ! That work is done. May the boy be bet- 
 ter for it ; and Huneef a 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 him- 
 self. It is an awful thing still to dread the magic 
 that you contemptuously investigate — to collect 
 folk-lore for the Eoyal 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 on blind side 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 Ked Hat does not lead him beyond our reach. I 
 must get back to my horses.' 
 
 ' All raight,' said Hurree Babu. ' He is at present 
 an interesting spectacle.' 
 
 ****** 
 
 About third cock-crow, Kim woke after a sleep of 
 [287] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 opera- 
 tion, which was most interesting from ethnological 
 point of view. It was high-class dawut.' 
 
 ' Huh ! ' said Kim, recognising Hurree Babu, who 
 smiled ingratiatingly. 
 
 ' And also I had honour to bring down from Mister 
 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 excep- 
 tional on the books. I hope Mr. Lurgan vdll note 
 my action.' 
 
 Kitn 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 vdth the scents of the far North. 
 
 ' Oho ! That is inconspicuous dress of chela at- 
 tached 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 reli- 
 gion, but rather sub-variant of same. I have contrib- 
 uted notes to Asiatic Quarterly Review on these 
 subjects. Now it is curious that the old gentleman 
 himself is totally devoid of religiosity. He is not a 
 damn particular.' 
 
 [288] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 Be- 
 nares, and also at Buddh-Gaya, to interrogate him on 
 religious points and devil-worship. He is pure ag- 
 nostic in my opinion, same as me.' 
 
 Huneefa stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu 
 jumped nervously to the copper incense-burner, all 
 black and discoloured in morning light, rubbed a 
 finger in the accumulated lampblack, and drew it 
 diagonally across his face. 
 
 ' Who has died in thy house ? ' asked Kim in the 
 vernacular. 
 
 ' None. But she may have the evil eye — that 
 sorceress,' the Babu replied. 
 
 ' What dost thou do now, then ? ' 
 
 ' I will set thee on thy way to Benares, if thou 
 goest thither, and tell thee what must be known by 
 Us.' 
 
 ' I go. At what hour runs the te-rain ? ' He rose 
 to his feet, looked round the desolate chamber at the 
 yellowwax face of Huneefa as the lowsun stole across 
 the floor. ' Is there money to be paid that witch ? ' 
 19 [ 289 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 obso- 
 lete, I think, to indulge in such supersteetion. Why, 
 it is all ventriZoquy. Belly-speak — eh ? ' 
 
 Kim snapped his fingers mechanically to avert 
 whatever evil — Mahbub, he knew, meditated none 
 — might have crept in through Huneefa's ministra- 
 tions; 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 upon the heels of a man's soul if he does that. 
 
 ' !N"ow 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-dilU ' (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, 
 [290] 
 
KIM 
 
 before issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr. Lur- 
 gan, he gives them. There is no other source of 
 supply ; but it was me invented all this. It is strictly 
 unoffeecial of course, but seems convenient. 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 damn-tight 
 place. I am a fearful man — most fearful — but I 
 tell you I have been in damn-tight places more than 
 hairs on my head. Tou 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 right. 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 
 existent. You see it is all my invention. Verree 
 good. Sat Bhai has many members, and perhaps be- 
 fore they damn-well-cut-your-throat they may give 
 you just a chance for life. That is useful, anyhow. 
 And, moreover, these foolish natives — if they are 
 not too excited — they always stop to think before 
 [291 J 
 
KIM 
 
 they kill a man who says he belongs to any speecifie 
 organisation. You see ? Yon 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 — to open negotiations with 
 a stranger. Can you quite see ? Verree good. Eut 
 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 wiU 
 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 tarheean." ' 
 
 ' That is hichree — vegetable curry,' said Kim. 
 
 ' Of course it is. You say : " Let me see the 
 iarheean." Then I say : " It was cooked by a 
 ■woman, aiid perhaps it is bad for your caste." Then 
 you say : " There is no caste when men go to — look 
 for tarheean." You stop a little between those words, 
 " to — look," That is the 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 things. And so it is 
 with any other man with us. We talk sometimes 
 [292] 
 
KIM 
 
 about turquoises and sometimes about tarheean, but 
 always with that little stop in the words. It is yery 
 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 tarheean, 
 if you want to transact offeecial business with a 
 strange man. Of course, at present, you have no 
 offeecial business. You are — ah, ha ! — superniune- 
 rary on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you 
 were Asiatic of birth you might be employed right 
 off; but this half-year of leave is to make you de- 
 Englishised, you see? The lama, he expects you, 
 because I have demi-offeecially informed him you 
 have passed all your examinations, and will soon 
 obtain Government appointment. Oh ho! Excuse 
 me, there is one thing more. The amulet being un- 
 offeecial is not provided by Department. I get no- 
 profit, but it costs two rupees twelve annas. I pay 
 that, liiow I shall say good-bye, my dear fellow, and 
 I hope you — ah — will come out top side all right.' 
 Hurree Babu stepped back a pace or two into the 
 crowd at the entrance of Benares 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, the ghost-dagger 
 (Mr. Lurgan had forgotten nothing) were all to 
 hand, with medicine, paint-box, and compass, and in 
 [293] 
 
KIM 
 
 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. 
 
 [294] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 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, 
 
 BLad the spell, or loose the laugh ! 
 
 But a man who, etc., Op. 15. 
 
 Followed a sudden natural reaction. 
 
 ' N'ow am I alone — all alone/ he thought. ' In all 
 India is no one so alone as I ! If I die to-day, who 
 shall bring the news — and to whom ? If I live and 
 God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for 
 I am a Son of the Charm — I, Kim.' 
 
 A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can 
 throw themselves into a mazement as it were by re- 
 peating their own names over and over again to 
 [295] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 pia-points. In a 
 miaute — in another half second — he felt he would 
 arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle ; but 
 here, as always happens, his mind dropped away 
 from those heights with the rush of a wounded bird, 
 and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his 
 head. 
 
 A long-haired Hindu bairagi (holy man), who had 
 just bought a ticket, halted before him at that mo- 
 ment 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 ? ' 
 
 ' Towards Kashi ' (Benares). 
 
 ' There are no Gods there. I have proved them. I 
 go to Prayag (Allahabad) for the fifth time — seek- 
 [396] 
 
'They are all most holy and — most greedy . . I have walked 
 the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are 
 flayed, and the child is no whit better.' " 
 
KIM 
 
 ing the road to EuEghtenment. Of what faith art 
 thou?' 
 
 ' I too am a Seeker/ said Kim, using one of the 
 lama's pet words. ' Though ' — he forgot his North- 
 ern dress for the moment — ' though Allah alone 
 knoweth what I seek.' 
 
 The old fellow slipped the hairagi'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.' 
 
 KiTTi did not feel so lonely after this, and ere he 
 had sat out twenty miles in the crowded compart- 
 ment, was cheering his neighbours with a string of 
 most wonderful yarns about his own and his mas- 
 ter's magical gifts. 
 
 Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city, 
 though it was pleasant to find how his cloth was re- 
 spected. 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 Tirthankers, about 
 a mile outside the city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met 
 Punjabi farmer — a Kamboh from JuUunder-way 
 who had appealed in vain to every God of his home- 
 stead to cure his small son, and was trying Benares 
 as a last resort. 
 
 [29Y] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Thou art from the North ? ' he asked, shoulder- 
 ing through the press of the narrow, stinking streets 
 much like his own pet bull at home. 
 
 ' Ay, but 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 — JuUunder ? 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 Tir- 
 thankers.' 
 
 ' 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 
 kuow 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. 
 
 [298] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' And was it all worthless ? ' Kim asked, with 
 easy interest. 
 
 'AH 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 quietly. Yonder is thy temple. ISTow 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 a prompt profit 
 on the situation and gone his way without a thought ; 
 but now the very respect the Jat paid him proved 
 that he .was a man. Moreover, he had tasted fever 
 once or twice already, and knew enough to recognise 
 starvation when he saw it. 
 
 ' Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my 
 best yoke, so that the child is cured.' 
 
 Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple. 
 A white-clad Oswal hunnya 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 — vdthin 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 : 
 '0 Holy One — O disciple of the Holy One — O 
 [299] 
 
KIM 
 
 Gods above all the worlds — behold affliction sitting 
 at the gate.' That cry is so common in Benares that 
 the passers-by 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 shovsm 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 this ? ' The lama's eyes turned to Kim. 
 It was noticeable he spoke far clearer Urdu than long 
 ago, under Zam-Zammeh; but the father would allow 
 no private talk. 
 
 ' It is no more than a fever,' said 'Kim.. ' The child 
 is not well fed.' 
 
 ' He sickens at everything, and his mother is not 
 here.' 
 
 ' If it be permitted, I may cure. Holy One.' 
 
 'What! Have they made thee a healer? Wait 
 [300] 
 
Kim 
 
 here,' said the lama, and he sat down by the Jat upon 
 the lowest step of the temple, while Kim, lookiag out 
 of the corner of his eyes, slowly opened the little 
 betel-box. He had dreamed dreams at school of re- 
 turniag 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-puck- 
 ered 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 vdsdom,' 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 ! Oome again in the morning.' 
 [301 J 
 
KIM 
 
 ' But the pflce — the price,' said the Jat, and 
 threw back his sturdy shoulders. ' My son is my 
 son. Il^ow 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 ele- 
 phants went by. " driver," said he, " what will 
 you sell those little donkeys for ? " ' 
 
 The Jat burst into a roar of laughter, stifled with 
 apologies to the lama. ' It is the saying of my own 
 country — the very talk of it. So are we Jats all. I 
 will come to-morrow with the child; and the blessing 
 of the Gods of the Homesteads — who are good little 
 Gods — be on you both. . . . !N"ow, 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 vsdsely done, O Eriend 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 
 [302] 
 
KIM 
 
 the Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan fashion, 
 to touch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain 
 temple. ' M.j 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, walk- 
 ing 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-Zam- 
 meh?' 
 
 ' 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 l^Tucklao. 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 
 [303] 
 
KIM 
 
 the kindly priest whom we met in the camp of armed 
 men; but he is now gone to his own country, and I 
 send 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 inter- 
 preted 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.' 
 
 [304] 
 
KIM 
 
 Even so. In due time I take service under the 
 Government as a scribe ' 
 
 ' I^Qt as a warrior. That is well.' 
 
 ' But firgt I come to wander — with thee. There- 
 fore I am here. Who begs for thee, these day3 ? ' 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-raifi. A great and 
 a wondej-fiil land! But here, when I put in, is as 
 though I were on my own Bhotiyal.' 
 
 He looked round the little clean cell complacently. 
 A low cushion gave him a seat, on which he had dis- 
 posed himself in the cross-legged attitude of the 
 Bodhisat emerging frojn meditation; a black teak- 
 wood table, not twenty inches high, and set with 
 copper tea-cups, was before him. In one corner stood 
 a tiny altar, also of heavily carved teg,k, 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,' said 
 the lama, foUovping Kim's eye. ' When one is far 
 from one's own land such things carry remembrance ; 
 and we must reverence the liOrd for that He showed 
 the Way- See ! ' he pointed to a curiously built 
 30 [ 305 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 Uni- 
 verse 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, sink- 
 ing 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 the 
 slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he 
 had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose 
 centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Igno- 
 rance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments 
 are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of 
 human life. lEen say that the Bodhisat Himself first 
 drew it with grains of rice upon dust, to teach Hia 
 [306] 
 
KIM 
 
 disciples the cause of things. Many ages have crystal- 
 lised it into a most wonderful convention crowded 
 with hundreds of little figures whose every line car- 
 ries 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 am 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 Eiver. 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 J'dtaka.' 
 
 He told Kim the story of the elephant with 
 [307] 
 
KIM 
 
 the leg-iron, as he had told it so often to the Jain 
 priests. 
 
 ' Further testimony is not needed,' he ended 
 serenely. ' Thou wast sent for an aid. That aid re- 
 moved, my Search came to naught. Therefore we 
 will go out again together, and our Search is sure.' 
 
 ' Whither go we ? ' 
 
 'What matters, Eriend of all the World? The 
 Search, I say, is sure. If need be, the Eiver 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 Physi- 
 cian, whose altars are many in Bhotiyal. It is 
 sufficient. We are now 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 asked him for any de- 
 tails of his life at St. Xavier's, nor showed the 
 faintest curiosity as to the manners and customs of 
 Sahibs. His mind seemed all in the past, and he re- 
 vived 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 of the sunshine fade out of 
 the court, and played with his ghost-dagger and 
 [808] 
 
KIM 
 
 rosary. The olamour of Benares, oldest of all earth's 
 cities awake before the Gode, day and night, bedt 
 round the walls as the roar of a sea ronnd a break- 
 water. '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 
 crush the life otit of a living thing, A lamp tt^/inkled, 
 and there followed the sound of a prayer. Kitn 
 watched the stars as they rose one after another in 
 the still, sticky dark, till he fell asleep at the foot of 
 the altar. That night he dreamed in Hindustanee, 
 with never an English word, . . . 
 
 ' Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave the 
 medicine,' he said, about three o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, when the lama, also waking from dreams, would 
 have fared forth on pilgrimage. ' The Jat will be 
 here at the dawn.' 
 
 ' 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 mat- 
 ter. 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,' 
 [309] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' The thing was done. A Cause was put out into 
 the world, and, old or young, sick or sound, knowing 
 or unknowing, who can reiu 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 terri- 
 ble 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 Bhoti- 
 yal tea and cold rice.' 
 
 ' We cannot walk far on such stuff.' Earn felt all 
 the European's lust for flesh-meat, which is not 
 accessible in the 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 grati- 
 tude. 
 
 ' In the night the fever broke and the sweat came,' 
 he cried. ' Feel here — his sldn 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 tem- 
 ple 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. 
 [310] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Thank the Gods of the Jains, brother,' he said, 
 not knowing how the Gods were named. ' The fever 
 is indeed broken.' 
 
 ' Look ! See ! ' The lama beamed in the back- 
 ground upon his hosts of three years. ' Was there 
 ever such a chela ! He follows our Lord the Healer.' 
 
 Now the Jains officially recognise all the Gods of 
 the Hindu creed, as well as the Lingam and the 
 Snake. They wear the Brahminical thread; they 
 adhere to every claim of Hindu caste-law. But, be- 
 cause 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 a hair into seventy — 
 they murmured assent. 
 
 ' Kemember,' — Kim bent over the child, — ' this 
 trouble may come again.' 
 
 ' ISoi if thou hast the proper spell,' said the 
 Kamboh. 
 
 ' 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 l^orth. Never again shall I look upon 
 this place of my rest, O people of good vnll.' 
 
 ' But I am not a beggar.' The cultivator rose to 
 his feet, clutching the child. 
 [311 J 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Be still. Do not trouble the Holy One,' a priest 
 said. 
 
 ' Go,' TCim whispered. ' Meet ns again Under the 
 big railway bridge, and for the sake of all the Grods 
 of our Punjab, bring food — curry pulse, cakes fried 
 in fat, and sweetmeatSi Specially sweetlneats. Be 
 swift!' 
 
 The pallor of hunger suited T^iTn very well as he 
 stood, tall and slim, in his sad'-coloui'ed, 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 a young saint of a stained glaSS 
 window, whereas he was but a growing lad faint with 
 emptinesSi 
 
 Long and formal were the f arewellgj thrice ended 
 and thrice renelved. The Seeker •"- he who had in- 
 vited the lama to that haven from far-away Tibet, a 
 silve]?-f aced, hairless ascetic — took no part in it, but 
 meditated, as always, alone among the images. The 
 others were very human; pressing small cottiforts 
 upon the old man, — a betel-box, a fine Uew iroti pen- 
 case, a food-bag, and such like, — warnitig him 
 against the dangers of the world without, and proph- 
 esying a happy end to the Search. Meantime Eim, 
 lonelier than ever, squatted on the steps, and swore to 
 himself in the langua,ge of St. Xavier's. 
 
 ' But it is my own fault/ he concluded. ' With 
 [312] 
 
KIM 
 
 Mahbilbj I kte Mahbub's breads or Lurgaa Saliib's. 
 At St. Xatief's, thtfee meals a day. Here I must 
 jolly well look out for mygelf. Besides, I am not 
 in good training. Hov) 1 could eat a plate of beef 
 now ! ... Is it finished, Holy One ? ' 
 
 The lamaj both hands Raised, intoned a final bless- 
 ing in ornate Chinese^ ' I must lean on thy shoulder,' 
 said he, as the temple gates shut. ' We grow stiffj I 
 think/ 
 
 The weight of a six-foot man is not light to steady 
 through miles of crowded streets, and Kim, loaded 
 down with bundles and packages for the way, was 
 glad to reach the shadow of the railway bridge. 
 
 ' Here we eat,' he said resolutely, as the Kamboh, 
 blue-robed and smiling, hove in sight, a basket in one 
 hand and the child on the other. 
 
 ' Fall to, Holy Ones ! ' he cried from fifty yards. 
 (This was on the shoal under the first bridge-span, out 
 of sight of hnngry priests.) ' Bice and good curry, 
 cakes all warm and well scented with Jiing (asafce- 
 tida), curds and stigar. King of my fields,' this to the 
 small Son, ' let us show these holy men that we Jats 
 of JuUunder can pay a service. ... I had heard the 
 Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked, 
 but truly ' — he looked away politely over the broad 
 river — ' Where there is no eye there is no caste.' 
 
 ' And we/ sdid Kim, turning his back and heaping 
 a leaf-platter for the lama, ' are beydnd all castes.' 
 [318] 
 
KIM 
 
 They gorged themselves on the good food in si- 
 lence. Nor till he had licked the last of the sticky 
 sweet-stuff from his little finger did Kim note that 
 the Kamboh too was girt for travel. 
 
 ' If oui roads be 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 lafhi — a five- 
 foot male bamboo ringed with bands of polished iron 
 — and flourished it in the air. ' The Jats are called 
 a quarrelsome folk, 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. I^ow and 
 again, despite all municipal regulations, the fragment 
 of a half -burned body went by on the full current. 
 
 'But for thee,' said the Kamboh, drawing the child 
 into his hairy breast, ' I might to-day have gone 
 thither — with this one. The priests tell us that Be- 
 nares is holy — which none doubt — and desirable to 
 die in. But I do not know their Gods, and they ask 
 for money; arid 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 
 [314 J 
 
KIM 
 
 priests, l^o, the Punjab for me, and the soil of the 
 JuUunder doab for the best soil in it.' 
 
 ' I have said many times — in the temple I think 
 — ■ that if need be, the Eiver will open at our feet. 
 We will therefore go North,' said the lama, risiag. 
 ' I reniember 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 Saha- 
 rimpore.' Kim laughed. 
 
 ' How does the spirit move him ? Does he go afoot, 
 for the sake of past sins ? ' the Jat demanded cau- 
 tiously. ' It is a far cry to Delhi.' 
 
 ' ISTo,' said Kim promptly. ' I will beg a tikJcut 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.' 
 
 [315] 
 
EIM 
 
 They all piled into it a cduple of hours latef, and 
 slept through the heat of the day^ The Kamboh plied 
 Kim with ten thousand questions as to the lama's Wklk 
 and wotk in life, and received some cUrious answers. 
 Kim was content to be where he was^ to look otit upon 
 the flat Northwestern landscape, and to talk to th6 
 changing mob of fellow-passengers. EveU to-day, 
 tickets and ticket'Clipping are dark oppression to 
 Indian rustics. They do not understand why, when 
 they have paid for a magic piece of paper, strangers 
 should punch great pieces oiit of the charm. Soj 
 many and furious are the debates between trarellers 
 and Eurasian ticket-collectors. Kim assisted at two 
 or three with grave advice, mednt to darken counsel 
 and to show off his wisdom before the lama and the 
 admiring Kamboh. But at Somna Koad the Fates 
 sent him something to think upon. There tumbled 
 into the compartment, as the train was moving off, a 
 mean, lean little person — a Mahratta, so far as Trirn 
 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 
 dountry Cart had upset aUd nearly slain him. He was 
 going to Delhi, where his son lived. Kim watched 
 him closely. If, as he asserted^ he had been rolled 
 over and over on the earth, there should have been 
 sigUs of gravel^rash on the skin. But all his injuries 
 seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from a cart could 
 
KIM 
 
 not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As he 
 knotted up the torp plpth about his neck with shaking 
 fingers, he laid, bare an amulet of the kiud called a 
 li'eeper-up of the heart. ISTow, amulets are common 
 enough, but they are not generally strung on square- 
 plaited copper wire, and still fewer amulets are black 
 enamel on silver. There were none except the Kam- 
 boh 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 owji amu- 
 let- 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 taflceean- I was not a Son of 
 the Charm (lucky man) that day,' 
 
 ' That was a great loss,' said the Kamboh, with- 
 drawing interest. His experience of Benares had 
 made him suspicious. 
 
 ' Who cooked it ? ' said Kipi. 
 
 ' A woman.' The Mahratta raised his eyes. 
 
 ' But all women can cook tarJceean/ said the Kam- 
 boh. ' It is a good curry, as I know.' 
 
 *0h yes, it is a good curry,' said the Mah- 
 ratta. 
 
 ' And cheap,' said Kim. ' But what about caste ? ' 
 
 ^ Oh, there is no caste where men go to — look for 
 [8171 
 
KIM 
 
 tarheean/ the Mahratta replied, in the prescribed 
 cadence. ' Of whose service art thou ? ' 
 
 ' Of the service of this Holy One.' Earn pointed to 
 the happy, drovs^sy 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 — 
 the 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 Jullunder. Here is a sick one.' 
 
 ' Humph ! I have no desire to mix with chance- 
 met wastrels. My ears are not long. I am not a 
 woman wishing to overhear secrets.' The Jat slid 
 himself heavily into a far corner. 
 
 ' Art thou anything of a healer ? I am ten leagues 
 deep in calamity,' cried the Mahratta, picking up the 
 cue. 
 
 ' The man is cut and bruised all over. I go about 
 to cure him,' Kim retorted. ' None interfered be- 
 tween thy babe and me.' 
 
 ' I am rebuked,' said the Kamboh meekly. ' I am 
 [318] 
 
KIM 
 
 thy debtor for the life of my son. Thou art a miracle- 
 worker. I know it.' 
 
 ' Show me the cuts.' Kim bent over the Mah- 
 ratta's neck, his heart nearly choking him; for this 
 was the Great Game with a vengeance. ' Now tell 
 thy tale swiftly, brother, while I say a charm.' 
 
 ' I come from the South, where my work lay. One 
 of us they slew by the roadside. Hast thou heard ? ' 
 Kim shook his head. He, of course, knew nothing 
 of E.23's predecessor, slain down South in the habit 
 of an Arab trader. ' Having found a certain letter 
 which I was sent to seek, I came away. I escaped 
 from the city and ran to Mhow. So sure was I that 
 none knew, I did not change my face. At Mhow a 
 woman brought charges against me of theft of jewel- 
 lery in that city which I had left. Then I saw the cry 
 was out against me. I ran from Mhow by night, brib- 
 ing 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 Sirkar's law, and 
 east again lie Jeypur and Gwakior. Neither love 
 [319] 
 
KIM 
 
 spies, and there is no justiee. I was bunted like a 
 wet jackal; but I broke tbrougb 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 bp.ye 
 both the corpse and the witnesses waiting.' 
 
 ' But cannot the Sirkar protect ? ' 
 
 ' We of the Game are beyond protection. If we 
 die, we die. Our names are blotted from the book. 
 That is all. At Eaudakui, 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 tp recover the let- 
 ter. So sure I was I had slipped them, Thprefore 
 I did not send a tci'r (tplegram) to any one saying 
 where the letter lay. I wished the credit of it all-' 
 
 Kim nodded. He understood that feeling wpU. 
 
 ' But at Agra, walking in the streets, a man cried 
 a debt against me, and approaching with mauy wit- 
 nesses, would have me to the courts then and there. 
 Oh, they are clever in the South ! He recognised me 
 as his agent for cotton. May he burn in heU 
 for it ! ' 
 
 'And wast thou?' 
 
 ' fool ! I was the man they sought for the njat- 
 ter of the letter. I ran into the ifleshers' Ward and 
 came out by the House of the Jew, who feared a riot 
 and pushed me out. I came afoot to Somna Boad — • 
 I had only money for my tilckut to Pelhi, ftud there, 
 [320] 
 
KIM 
 
 wliile I lay in a ditch with the fever, one sprang out 
 of the bushes and beat me and cut me and searched 
 me from head to foot. Withia 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 iu Delhi 
 at the instance of lawyers, upon a proven charge of 
 murder, my body is handed over to the State that de- 
 sires 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 agaiast 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. TheHahratta twitched his fingers 
 with pain from time to time. The Kamboh in his 
 comer 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 
 21 [ 321 J 
 
KIM 
 
 am dead. Five — ten minutes alone, if I had not 
 been so pressed, and I might ' 
 
 ' Is he cured yet, miracle-worker ? ' said the Kam- 
 boh jealously. ' Thou hast chanted long enough.' 
 
 ' l!^ay. There is no cure for his hurts, as I see, ex- 
 cept he sit for three days in the habit of a iairagi.' 
 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 supersti- 
 tious 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 white medicine.' 
 
 ' We Jats are all buffaloes,' said the Kamboh, soft- 
 ening 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 speak to 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 au- 
 spicious. Was there raw turmeric among thy 
 food-stuffs?' 
 
 [322] 
 
KIM 
 
 'I — I ' 
 
 ' Open thy bundle.' 
 
 It was the usual collection of small oddments : bits 
 of cloth, quack medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful 
 of atta, — the cheap, grayish, rough-ground native 
 flour, — twists of down-country tobacco, tawdry pipe- 
 stems, and heaven knows what else, wrapped in a 
 quilt. Kim turned it over with the air of a wise 
 jackdaw, muttering a Mohammedan invocation. 
 
 ' This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs,' he 
 whispered to the lama; and here, when one thinks of 
 his training at Lurgan's, he spoke no more than the 
 truth. ' There is a great evil in this man's fortune, 
 as shown by the stars, which — which troubles him. 
 Shall I take it away ? ' 
 
 ' Friend of the Stars, thou hast done well in all 
 things. Let it be at thy pleasure. Is it another 
 healing ? ' 
 
 ' Quick ! Be quick ! ' gasped the Mahratta. ' The 
 train may stop.' 
 
 ' A healing against the shadow of death,' said Kim, 
 mixing the Kamboh's flour with the mingled charcoal 
 and tobacco ash in the red-earth bowl of the pipe. 
 E.23, without a word, slipped off his turban and shook 
 down his long black hair. 
 
 ' That is my food — priest,' the man growled. 
 
 ' A buffalo in the temple ! Hast thou dared to look 
 even thus far?' said Kim. 'I must do mysteries 
 [323] 
 
KIM 
 
 before fools; but have a care for tby eyes. Is tbere a 
 filin before them already ? I save the babe, and all 
 thou canst do — 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 
 man's 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. Oo — 
 come, child J we will play a game of hiding. Do not, 
 for my sake, look from under the cloth.' 
 
 ' I see hope,' said E.23. ' "What is thy scheme ? ' 
 
 ' This comes next,' said Kim, plucking the thin 
 body-shirt. E.23 hesitated, with all a !N"orthwest 
 man's dislike of baring his body. 
 
 ' What is caste to a cut throat ? ' said Kim, rending 
 it to the waist. ' We must make thee a yellow Saddhu 
 all over. Strip — strip swiftly, and shake thy hair 
 over thy eyes while I scatter the ash. iNow, a caste- 
 mark on thy forehead.' He dived into his bosom for 
 the little greasy paint-box and a cake of crimson lake. 
 
 ' Art thou only a beginner? ' said E.23, labouring 
 literally for the dear Hf e, as he slid out of his body- 
 wrappings and stood clear in the loin-cloth whUe Kim 
 splashed in a noble caste-mark on the smeared brow. 
 
 ' But two days entered to the Game, brother,' Kim 
 replied. ' Smear more ash on the bosom.' 
 [324] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Hast thou met — a physician of sick pearls ? ' He 
 switched out the 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 good to us. Give me that.' 
 
 It was a tin box of opium pills among the rubbish 
 of the Jat's bundle. E.23 gulped down a half hand- 
 ful. ' They are good against hunger, fear, and chill. 
 And they make the eyes red, too,' he explained. 
 ' ]!^ow I shall have heart to play the Game. We lack 
 only the Saddhu's tongs. What of the old clothes ? ' 
 
 Kim rolled them small, and stuffed them into the 
 slack folds of his bosom. With the yellow ochre cake 
 he smeared the legs and the breast, great streaks 
 against the background of flour and 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 a swamp. 'But — 
 whither went the Mahratta ? What hast thou done ? ' 
 [325] 
 
EIM 
 
 Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib ; and E.23, 
 by virtue of his business, was no bad actor. In place 
 of the tremulous, shrinking trader there lolled against 
 the corner an all but naked, ash-smeared, ochre- 
 barred, dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes — 
 opium takes quick effect on an empty stomach — 
 luminous with insolence and bestial lust, his legs 
 crossed under him, Kim's brown rosary round his 
 neck, and a scant yard of worn, flowered chintz on his 
 shoulders. The child buried his face in his amazed 
 father's arms. 
 
 ' Look up. Princeling ! We travel with warlocks, 
 but they will not hurt thee. Oh, do not cry. . . . 
 What is the sense of curing a child one day and kill- 
 ing him with fright the next ? ' 
 
 ' The child will be fortunate all his days. 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,' said the child. 
 
 ' And so thou art not frightened at anything. Eh, 
 Prince ? ' 
 
 ' I was frightened because my father was fright- 
 ened. 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- 
 [326] 
 
KIM 
 
 books, and sit by the wayside three nights to over- 
 come the malignity of his enemies. The stars are 
 against him.' 
 
 ' The fewer money-lenders, the better, say I; but, 
 Saddhn or no Saddhn, he must 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. !N"one the less, if, by any chance, O man 
 from JuUunder, thou rememberest what thou hast 
 seen, either among the elders sitting under the vil- 
 lage tree, or in thy own house, or in company of thy 
 priest when he blesses thy cattle, a murrain will come 
 among the buffaloes, and a fire in thy thatch, and rats 
 in the corn-bin, and the curse of our Gods upon thy 
 fields that they may be barren before thy feet and 
 after thy ploughshare.' This was part of an old 
 curse picked up from a faquir by the Taksali Gate 
 in the days of Kim's innocence. It lost nothing by 
 repetition. 
 
 ' Cease, Holy One ! In mercy, cease ! ' cried the 
 Jat. ' Do not curse the household. I saw nothing ! I 
 heard nothing ! I am thy cow ! ' and he made to grab 
 at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on the car- 
 riage floor. 
 
 ' But since thou hast been permitted to aid me in 
 [32Y1 
 
EIM 
 
 the matter of a pinch of flour and a little opium and 
 such trifles as I have honoured by using in my art, so 
 will the Gods return a blessing,' and he gave it at 
 length, to the man's immense relief. It was one that 
 he had learned from Lurgan Sahib. 
 
 The lama stared through his spectacles as he had 
 not stared at the business of disguisement. 
 
 ' Friend of the Stars,' he said at last, ' thou hast 
 acquired great wisdom. Beware that it do not give 
 birth to pride. No man having the Law before his 
 eyes speaks hastily of any matter which he has seen 
 or encountered.' 
 
 ' No — no — no indeed,' cried the farmer, fearful 
 lest the master should be minded to improve on the 
 pupil. E.23, with relaxed mouth, gave himself up to 
 the opium that is meat, tobacco, and medicine to the 
 spent Asiatic. 
 
 So, in a silence of awe and great miscomprehen- 
 sion, they slid into Delhi about lamp-lighting time. 
 
 [328] 
 
CHAPTEE XII 
 
 Who hath desired the Sea — the sight of salt-water un- 
 bounded ? 
 
 The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the 
 comber wind-hounded ? 
 
 The sleek-barrelled swell before storm — gray, foamless, 
 enormous, and growing ? 
 
 Stark calm on the lap of the line — or the crazy-eyed hur- 
 ricane 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 1 
 
 'I HAVE found my heart again/ said E.23, under 
 cover of the platform's tumult. ' Hunger and fear 
 make men dazed, or I might have thought of this 
 escape before. I was right. They coipie to look for 
 me. Thou hast saved my life.' 
 
 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. 
 
 [329] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' See the young Sahib reading from a paper. My 
 description is in his hand/ said E.23. ' They go car- 
 riage by carriage, like fisher-folk netting a pool.' 
 
 When the procession reached their compartment, 
 E.23 was counting his beads with a steady jerk of the 
 wrist j 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, looking furtively, gathered up his belongings. 
 
 ' JSTothing here but a parcel of holy-bolies,' said the 
 Englishman aloud, and passed on amid a ripple of un- 
 easiness; for native police^ mean extortion to the 
 native all India over. 
 
 ' The trouble now,' whispered E.23, ' lies in send- 
 ing a wire as to the place where I hid that which I 
 was sent to find. I cannot go to the tor-office in this 
 guise.' 
 
 ' Is it not enough I have saved thy neck ? ' 
 
 ' N"ot if the work be left unfinished. Did never the 
 healer of sick pearls tell thee ? Comes another Sahib ! 
 Ah!' 
 
 This was a tallish, sallowish District Superintend- 
 ent of Police, — belt, helmet, polished spurs and all, 
 — strutting and twirling his dark moustache. 
 
 ' What fools are these police Sahibs ! ' said Kim 
 genially. 
 
 E.23 glanced up under his eyelids. 'It is well 
 [330] 
 
KIM 
 
 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. 
 
 ' Turn mui? You drunk? You mustn't bang about 
 as though Delhi station belonged to you, my friend.' 
 
 E.23, not moving a muscle of his countenance, 
 answered with a stream of the filthiest abuse, at which 
 Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded him of the 
 drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa 
 in the terrible time of his first schooling. 
 
 ' My good fool,' the Englishman drawled. ' Nick- 
 lao jao! Go back to your carriage.' 
 
 Step by step, withdrawing deferentially, and drop- 
 ping his voice, the yellow Saddhu clomb back to the 
 carriage, cursing the D.S.P. to remotest posterity by 
 — here Kim almost jumped — by the curse of the 
 Queen's Stone, by the writing under the Queen's 
 Stone, and by an assortment of Gods with wholly new 
 names. 
 
 ' I don't know what you're saying,' — the English- 
 man flushed angrUy, — ' but it's some piece of blasted 
 impertinence. Come out of that ! ' 
 
 E.23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced 
 his ticket, which the Englishman wrenched angrily 
 from his hand. 
 
 ' Oh zoolum! What oppression ! ' growled the Jat 
 from his corner. ' All for the sake of a jest too.' He 
 [331] 
 
KIM 
 
 had been grmning at the freedom of the Saddhu's 
 tongue. ' Thy charms do not work well to-day, Holy 
 One!' 
 
 The Saddhn followed the policeman, fawning and 
 supplicating. The ruck of passengers, busy with their 
 babies and their bundles, had not noticed the affair. 
 Kim slipped out behind him; for it flashed through 
 his head that he had heard this angry, stupid Sahib 
 discoursing loud personalities to an old lady near Um- 
 balla three years ago. 
 
 ' It is well,' the Saddhu whispered, jammed in the 
 calling, shouting, bewildered press — a Persian grey- 
 houndbetween his feet and a cageful of yellinghawks 
 under charge of a Rajput falconer in the small of his 
 back. ' He has gone now to send word of the letter 
 which I hid. They told me he was in Peshawur. I 
 might have known he is like the crocodile — always 
 at the other ford. He has saved me from present 
 calamity, but I owe my Hfe to thee.' 
 
 ' Is he also one of Us ? ' Kim ducked under a 
 Meiwar camel-driver's greasy armpit and cannoned 
 off a covey of jabbering Sikh matrons. 
 
 ' Not less than the greatest. We are both fortu- 
 nate ! 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. 
 
 [332] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Eeturn, or they take thy place ! Have no fear f oi 
 the work, brother — or my life. Thou hast given me 
 breathing-space, and Strickland Sahib has pulled me 
 to land. We may work together on the road yet. 
 Farewell ! ' 
 
 Kim hurried to his carriage: elated, bewildered, 
 and 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. 1 
 could not have leaped into safety as did the Saddhu, 
 He knew it was darkest under the lamp. I could nol 
 have thought to tell news under pretence of cursing 
 . . . and how clever was the Sahib ! No matter, ] 
 saved the life of one. . . . Where is the Kambol 
 gone, Holy One ? ' he whispered, as he took his seat in 
 the now crowded compartment. 
 
 ' A fear took him,' the lama replied, with a touct 
 of tender malice. ' He saw thee change the Mahratta 
 to a Saddhu in the twinkling of an eye, as a protec- 
 tion 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 quid 
 trader into an impudent handier of words with the 
 Sahib-log, and he feared the like fate. Where is the 
 Saddhu?' 
 
 ' With the poKs,' said Earn. . . . ' Yet I saved 
 the Kamboh's child.' 
 
 [333] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 pride- 
 ful workings — I watched thee — and with side-long 
 glances to bewilder an old old man and a foolish 
 farmer. Whence calamity and suspicion.' 
 
 Kim controlled himself with an effort beyond his 
 years, l^ot 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 of- 
 fended 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 beiag handed in at Simla a code wire 
 reporting the arrival of E.23 at Delhi, and, more im- 
 portant, the whereabouts of a letter he had been com- 
 missioned to — abstract. Incidentally, an over-zeal- 
 ous policeman had arrested, on charge of murder 
 done in a far southern State, a horribly indignant 
 Ajmir cotton-broker, who was explaining himself to 
 a Mr. Strickland on Delhi platform while E.23 was 
 [334] 
 
KIM 
 
 paddling through byways into the locked heart of 
 Delhi city. In two hours several telegrams had 
 reached the angry minister of a southern State re- 
 porting that all trace of a somewhat bruised Mahratta 
 had been lost; and by the time the leisurely train 
 halted at Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim 
 had helped to heave was lapping against the steps of 
 a mosque in far-away Eoimi — 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, indicat- 
 ing 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 Eajputni's house.' Kim stepped 
 forth cheerily under the bundles. Early morning 
 Saharunpore-way is clean and well scented. He 
 thought of the morning classes at St. Xavier's, 
 and it topped his already thrice-heaped content- 
 ment. 
 
 ' 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 Jcos already, and, 
 tiU now, I have scarcely been alone with thee an in- 
 stant. How canst thou receive instruction aU jostled 
 [335] 
 
KIM 
 
 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. 
 
 ' Hov 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 entertain iug us — in a lit- 
 tle while — at an after occasion — softly, softly. 
 IN'ow we will wander loose-foot, waiting upon the 
 Chain of Things. The Search is great.' 
 
 So they travelled very easily across and among the 
 broad bloom-full fruit-gardens — by way of Amina- 
 bad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and little 
 Phulesa — the line of the Sewaliks always to the 
 north, and behind them again the snows. After long, 
 sweet sleep under the dry stars came the lordly, leis- 
 urely 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 
 [336] 
 
KIM 
 
 before across the fat land, and much discussed upon 
 the road. 
 
 There they told their tale, — a new one each even- 
 ing 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 f orth^ to hold flat under wiped stones, 
 and vdth a long straw to expound cycle by cycle. 
 Here sat the Gods on high — and they were dreams 
 of dreams. Here was our Heavens and thd 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 overeating — 
 bloated stomach and burning bowels. Obediently 
 then, with bowed head and brown finger alert to fol- 
 low 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, eat- 
 ing, 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 thou- 
 23 [337] 
 
KIM 
 
 sand 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 aU 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 they 
 had met a Holy One who might be moved to -re- 
 member 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. Eemem- 
 ber what befell the Mahratta.' 
 
 ' Then all doing is evil ? ' 'K\m replied, lying out 
 under a big tree at the fork of the Doon road, watch- 
 ing the little ants run over his hand. 
 
 ' To abstain from action is well — except to ac- 
 quire 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 
 [338] 
 
KIM 
 
 there is neither black nor white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. 
 We be all souls seeking escape, l^o matter what thy 
 wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we come to my 
 Eiver thou wilt be freed from all illusion — at my 
 side. Hai! my bones ache for that Eiver, as they 
 ached in the te-rainj but my spirit sits above my 
 bones, waiting. The Search is sure ! ' 
 
 ' I am answered. Is it permitted to ask a ques- 
 tion?' 
 
 The lama inclined his stately head. 
 
 ' I ate thy bread for three years — as thou know- 
 est. Holy One, whence come ' 
 
 ' There is much wealth, as men count it, in Bhoti- 
 yal,' the lama returned with composure. ' In my 
 own place I have 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 monas- 
 tery, and the novices all in order.' 
 
 And he told stories, tracing with a finger in the 
 dust, of the immense and sumptuous ritual of ava- 
 lanche-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 
 andof the Dalai Lama, whom he had seen and adored. 
 
 Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a 
 [339] 
 
KIM 
 
 laarrier 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 Kiver troubled him nothing. 
 jSTow and again, indeed, he would gaze long and long 
 at ^ 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 Cey- 
 lon, nor Buddh-G-aya, nor Bombay, nor some grass- 
 tangled ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon 
 two years ago. He spoke of them all as a scholar 
 removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in humil- 
 ity, as an old man, wise and temperate, illimiining 
 knowledge with brilliant insight. Bit by bit, discon- 
 nectedly, the story called up by some wayside sight, 
 he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; 
 and Kim, who had loved him without reason, loved 
 him now for fifty good reasons. So they enjoyed 
 themsielves in high felicity, abstaining from evil 
 words, covetous desires, not over-eating, not lying on 
 high beds, or wearing rich clothes, as the Eule de- 
 mands. Their stomach told them the time, and the 
 people gave them their food, as the saying is. They 
 were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, 
 [340] 
 
KIM 
 
 Akrola of the Ford, and little Phulesa, where Kim 
 gave the soulless woman a blessing. 
 
 But news travels fast in India, and too soon there 
 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 — beg- 
 ging 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, 
 teUing stories to a village smith's children. 
 
 ' She will only ask for another son for her daugh- 
 ter. I have not forgotten her,' he said. ' Let her 
 acquire merit. Send word that we will come.' 
 
 They covered eleven miles through the crop-lands 
 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 com- 
 pliments that would have flung European audiences 
 into unclean dismay. 
 
 [341] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 un- 
 sparingly till food and drink were brought; and in 
 the evening — the smoke-scented evening, copper- 
 dun and turquoise across the fields — it pleased her 
 to order her palanquin to be set down in the untidy 
 forecourt by smoky torch-light; and there, behind 
 not too closely drawn curtains, she gossiped. 
 
 ' Had the Holy One come alone, I should have 
 received him otherwise; but with this rogue, who can 
 be too careful ? ' 
 
 ' Maharanee,' said Kim, choosing the amplest title, 
 ' is it my fault that none other than a Sahib — a polis- 
 sahib — • called the Maharanee whose face he ' 
 
 ' Chitt ! That was on the pilgrimage. When we 
 travel — thou knowest the proverb.' 
 
 ' Called the Maharanee a Breaker of ^Hearts and a 
 Dispenser of Delights ? ' 
 
 ' To remember that ! It was true. So he did. 
 That was in the time of the bloom of my beauty.' 
 She chuckled like a contented parrot above the sugar 
 lump. ' Now tell me of thy goings and comings — 
 as much as may be without shame. How many 
 maids, and whose wives, hang upon thy eyelashes? 
 [342] 
 
 iiii'. 
 
KIM 
 
 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. JSTow in Kulu men are elephants. But I 
 would ask thy Holy One — stand aside, nut-cut — 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 vsdnd.' 
 ' Teeth — teeth — teeth,' snapped the old woman. 
 ' Cure them when they are sick,' Kim quoted rel- 
 ishingly, ' but by no means work charms. Remem- 
 ber 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, when the child was sick, she talked to 
 me.' 
 
 ' Arre ! and to whom else should I talk ? The boy's 
 mother knew nothing, and the father — in the night 
 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?' 
 
 [343] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' " To abstain from action is well — except when 
 we acquire merit." ' 
 
 ' Ah, chela, if thou desertest me, I am all alone.' 
 
 ' He found his milk-teeth easUy at any rate,' said 
 the old lady. ' But all priests are alike.' 
 
 Kim coughed severely. Being young, he did not 
 approve of her flippancy. ' To importune the wise 
 out of season is to invite calamity.' 
 
 ' There is a talking mynah ' ■ — the thrust came 
 back with the well-^remembered snap of the jewelled 
 forefinger — ' over the stables which has picked up 
 the very tone of the family priest. Maybe I forgot 
 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 for- 
 give. I am half minded to take the hakim's medi- 
 cine. 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 inauspi- 
 cious colour of the bottles.' 
 
 The lama, under cover of the monologue, had 
 faded out into the darkness towards the room pre- 
 pared. 
 
 ' Thou hast angered him, belike,' said Kim. 
 
 ' Not he. He is wearied, and I forgot, being a 
 
 grandmother. (E^one but a grandmother should ever 
 
 oversee a child. Mothers are only fit for bearing.) 
 
 To-morrow, when he sees how my daughter's son is 
 
 [344] 
 
EIM 
 
 grown, fie -will write the charm; Then, too, he can 
 judge of the new hakim's drugs.' 
 
 ' Who is the hakim, Maharanee ? ' 
 
 ' A wanderer, as thou art, but a most sober Bengali 
 from Dacca — a master of medicine. He relieved 
 me of an oppression after meat by means of a small 
 pill that wrought like a devil unchained. He travels 
 about now, vending preparations of great value. He 
 has even papers, printed in Angrezi, telling what 
 things he has done for weak-backed men and slack 
 women. He has been here four days ; but hearing ye 
 were coming (hakims and priests are snake and tiger 
 the world over) he has, as I take it, gone to cover.' 
 
 While she drew breath after this volley, the ancient 
 servant, sitting unrebuked on the edge of the torch- 
 light, muttered : ' This house is a cattle-pound, as it 
 were, for all charlatans and — priests. Let the boy 
 stop eating mangoes . . . but who can argue vsdth a 
 grandmother ? ' He raised his voice respectfully : 
 ' Sahiba, the hakim sleeps after his meat. He is in 
 the quarters behind the dovecot.' 
 
 Kim bristled like an expectant terrier. To outface 
 and down-talk a Calcutta-taught Bengali, a voluble 
 Dacca drug-vendor, would be a good game. It was 
 not seemly that the lama, and incidentally himself, 
 should be thrown aside for such an one. He knew 
 those curious bastard English advertisements at the 
 backs of native newspapers. St. Xavier's boys some- 
 [345] 
 
KIM 
 
 times 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 unamdous to play o3 
 one parasite against the other, .slunk away towards 
 the dovecot. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Eom, 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 child- 
 ren — who are not born.' 
 
 The old lady chuckled. ' Do not be envious. 
 Charms are better, eh ? / never gainsaid it. See 
 that thy Holy One writes me a good amulet by the 
 morning.' 
 
 ' JSTone but the ignorant deny ' — a thick, heavy 
 voice boomed through the darkness, as a figure came 
 to rest squatting — ' iTone 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," ' "K"im 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 
 
 [346] 
 
KIM 
 
 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,' said the voice inside the 
 palanquin. 
 
 ' I have our drugs which loosen humours of the 
 head for hot and angry men — sind 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 Salop 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 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 mis- 
 fortune and bankruptcy, studded with plentiful peti- 
 tions to the Government. ' But for my fate, which 
 overrules all, I had been now in Government em- 
 ploy. 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 
 [347] 
 
KIM 
 
 used the English word, of which she had heard so 
 much), ' how much more shall children clever as 
 some that I know bear away prizes and awards at rich 
 Calcutta.' 
 
 ' Never,' said the voice, ' have I seen a child ! Born 
 in an auspicious hour, and but for that colic which, 
 alas ! turning into black cholera, 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) iu my old age. 
 Up! Up! Take up the palanquin. Let the hakim 
 and the young priest settle it 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 immemo- 
 rial custom, but no man would have stolen or robbed 
 within her jurisdiction for any gift under Heaven, 
 l^one the less, she made great para(ie of her formal 
 inspections, the riot of which could be heard half-way 
 to Mussoorie. 
 
 [348] 
 
EIM 
 
 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 inat- 
 tention.' 
 
 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. 
 [349] 
 
KIM 
 
 Said the hakim, hardly more than shaping the 
 words with his lips : ' How do you do, Mr. O'Hara ? 
 I am jolly glad to see you again.' 
 
 Kim's hand clenched about the pipe-stem. Any- 
 where 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 an- 
 noyed 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 was hardly more than shaping the English 
 words with his lips. 
 
 ' But why come here, Babuji ? ' 
 
 ' Ah ! Thatt is the question, as Shakespeare hath 
 said. I come to congratulate you on your extraordi- 
 nary 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 damn 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, 'K\vn thrilled to the 
 clean pride (it can be a deadly pitfall, none the less) 
 of Departmental praise — ensnaring praise from 
 an equal for work appreciated by a fellow-worker. 
 Earth has nothing on the same plane to compare with 
 [350] 
 
KIM 
 
 it. But, said the Oriental in him, Babus do not 
 travel about to retail compliments. 
 
 ' Tell the tale, Babu,' he said authoritatively. 
 
 ' Oah, it is nothing. Onlee I was at Simla when 
 the wire came in about what our mutual friend said 
 
 he had hidden, and old Creighton ' He looked 
 
 to see how Kim would take this piece of audacity. 
 
 ' The Colonel Sahib,' the boy from St. Xavier's 
 corrected. 
 
 ' Of course. He found me at a loose string, and I 
 had to go down to Chitor to find that beastly letter. I 
 do not like the South — too much railway travel; but 
 I drew good travelling allowance. Ha ! Ha ! I 
 meet our mutual at Delhi on the way back. He 
 lies quiett just now, and says Saddhu disguise suits 
 him to the ground. Well, there I hear what you have 
 done so well, so quickly, upon the instantaneous spur 
 of the moment. I tell our mutual friend you take 
 the bally bun, by Jove. It was splendid. I come to 
 tell you so.' 
 
 'Umm!' 
 
 The pigs were busy in the ditches, and the moon 
 went to her setting. Some happy servant had gone 
 out to commune with the stars 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 mu- 
 tual friend you go to Saharunpore. Sq I come on. 
 [351 J 
 
KIM 
 
 Red lamas are not inconspicuous persons. 'I buy 
 myself my drug-box, and I am very good doctor 
 really. I go to Akrola by the Ford, and hear all 
 about you, and I talk here and talk there. All the 
 common people know what you do. I know when 
 the hospitable old lady sent the dooli. They have 
 great recollections of the old lama's visits here. I 
 know old ladies cannot keep their hands from medi- 
 cines. 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, grin- 
 ning face, ' I am a Sahib.' 
 
 ' My dear Mister O'Hara ' 
 
 ' And I hope to play the Great G-ame.' 
 ' 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 European, 
 Mister O'Hara. You should know a heap better at 
 your time of life.' 
 
 [352] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' But I want to know,' said Kim, laughing. ' If it 
 is the Game, I may help. How can I do anything if 
 you luhk (boggle) all round the shop? ' 
 
 Hurree Babu reached for the pipe, and sucked it 
 till it guggled again. 
 
 'Now I will speak vernacular. You sit tight, 
 Mister O'Hara. It concerns the pedigree of a white 
 stallion.' 
 
 ' Still ? That was finished long ago.' 
 
 ' When every one is dead the Great Game is fin- 
 ished. Not before. Listen to me tiU the end. There 
 were Five Kings who prepared a sudden war three 
 years ago, when thou wast given the stallion's pedi- 
 gree by Mahbub Ali. Upon them, because of that 
 news, and ere they were ready, fell our Army.' 
 
 ' Ay — eight thousand men with guns. I remem- 
 ber that night.' 
 
 ' But the war was not pushed. That is the Gov- 
 ernment 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 — Eajahs with guns — 
 undertook for a price to guard the passes against all 
 ■'coming from the North. They protested both fear 
 and friendship.' He broke off with a giggle into 
 English : ' Of course, I tell you this unoffeecially to 
 elucidate political situation. Mister O'Hara. Offee- 
 cially I am debarred from criticising any action of 
 23 [ 353 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 superior. Now I go on. — This pleased the Sirkar, 
 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 with- 
 drawn, 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 Govern- 
 ment.' 
 
 'So; and then?' 
 
 ' I tell you, it was jolly beastly cold up there too, 
 after India,' 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. IN^evah miiid thatt. I go on colloquially. 
 
 — I send word many times that these two Kings 
 were sold to the ISTorth; 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 pay- 
 ing money to the diggers were being made for the 
 feet of strangers and enemies.' 
 
 'For?' 
 
 ' For the Russians. The thing was an open jest 
 among the coolies. Then I was called down to tell 
 [354] 
 
KIM 
 
 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 mouth- 
 piece 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 Sirkar 
 knows, but does nothing. The three other Kings, 
 who were not paid for guarding the passes, tell them 
 by runners of the bad faith of Bunar and Hilas. 
 When all the evil is done, look you — when these two 
 strangers with the levels and the compasses make the 
 Five Kings to believe that a great army will sweep 
 the passes to-morrow or the next day — hill people 
 are all fools — comes the order to me, Hurree Babu, 
 " Go ISTorth and see what those strangers do." I say 
 to Creighton Sahib, " This is not a lawsuit, that we 
 go about to collect evidence." ' He 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 
 [356] 
 
KIM 
 
 you permit the observation, most reprehensible laxity 
 on your part." And Colonel Creighton, he laughed 
 at me ! It is all that beastly English pride. You 
 think no one dare conspire ! That is all tonuny-rott.' 
 
 TTiTn smoked slowly, revolving the business, so far 
 as he understood it, in his mind. 
 
 ' Then thou goest forth to follow the strangers ? ' 
 
 ' Wo ; 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 faeeelities by the Gov- 
 ernment. 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 Eussians, 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 affeeUate myself to their camp in 
 
 supernumerary capacity as perhaps interpreter, or 
 
 person mentally impotent and hungree, or some such 
 
 [356] 
 
KIM 
 
 thing. And then I must pick up what I can, I sup- 
 pose. That is as easy for me as playing Mister Doc- 
 tor to the old lady. Onlee — onlee — you see, Mister 
 O'Hara, I am unfortunately Asiatic, which is a se- 
 rious detriment in some respects. And alho 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 E'ecessity, but the fact remains in all its cui 
 hono. I am, oh, awfully fearful — I remember once 
 they wanted to cut off my head on the road to Lhassa. 
 (JSTo, I have never reached to Lhassa.) I sat down 
 and cried. Mister O'Hara, anticipating Chinese tor- 
 tures. I do not suppose these two gentlemen will 
 torture me, but I like to provide for possible contin- 
 gency with European assistance in emergency.' He 
 coughed and spat out the cardamoms. ' It is purely 
 unoffeecial request, to which you can say " JSTo, 
 Babu." If you have no pressing engagement with 
 your old man — ■ perhaps you might divert him ; per- 
 haps 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 em- 
 body 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.' 
 [357] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' 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 sup- 
 pose,' said Hurree earnestly. ' You come — eh ? I 
 go from here straight into the Doon. It is verree 
 verdant and painted meads. I shall go to Mussoorie 
 — to good old Mussoorie Pahar, as the gentlemen and 
 ladies say. Then by Eampur into Chini. That is the 
 only way they can come. I do not like waiting in the 
 cold, but we must wait foi* them. I want to walk 
 with them to Simla. You see, one Eussian is a 
 Frenchman, and I know my French pretty well. I 
 have friends in Ohundernagore.' 
 
 ' 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 to- 
 gether ' 
 
 ' Oh ! We can be quite strangers on the road, 
 if your lama prefers. I shall just be four or five 
 miles ahead. There is no hurry for Hurree. 
 That is an Europe pun, ha ! ha ! and you come 
 after. There is plenty of time; they will plot and 
 survey and map of course. I shall go to-morrow, 
 and you the next day, if you choose. Eh? You 
 go think on it till morning. By Jove, it is near 
 morning now.' He yawned ponderously, and with 
 never a civil word lumbered off to his sleeping- 
 [ 358 ] ' 
 
" Full-fleshed, heavy-haunched, bull-necked, and deep-voiced." 
 
KIM 
 
 place. But Kim slept little, and his thoughts ran 
 in Hindustanee. 
 
 ' Well is the Game called great ! I was four days 
 a scullion at Quetta, waiting on the wife of the man 
 whose book I stole. And that was part of the Great 
 Game ! From the South — God knows how far — 
 came up the Mahratta, playing the Great Game in 
 fear of his life. ISTow I shall go far and far into the 
 ■l^orth 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 Creigh- 
 ton 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 argu- 
 ments 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. 
 [359] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' In the plains,' said Kim, ' are always too many 
 people. In the hills, as I understand, there are 
 fewer.' 
 
 ' Oh ! the hiUs, and the snow upon the hills.' The 
 lama tore off a tiny square of paper fit to go in an 
 amulet. ' But what dost thou know of .the hills ? ' 
 
 ' They are very close.' Kim thrust open the door 
 and looked at the long, peaceful line of the Hima- 
 layas 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 dovecot, 
 washing his teeth with ostentatious ritual. Full- 
 fleshed, heavy-haunched, buU-necked, and deep- 
 voiced, he did not look like ' a fearful mart.' 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 after- 
 wards the old lady, more or less veiled behind a 
 window, returned to the vital business of green- 
 [360] 
 
KIM 
 
 mango colics in the young. The lama's knowledge of 
 medicine was of course sympathetic only. He be- 
 lieved that the dung of a black horse, mixed with sul- 
 phur, and carried in a snake-skin, was a sound remedy 
 for cholera; but the symbolism interested him far 
 more than the science. Hurree Babu deferred to 
 these views with enchanting politeness, so that the 
 lama called him a courteous physician. Hurree Babu 
 replied that he was no more than an inexpert dabbler 
 in the mysteries ; but at least — he thanked the Gods 
 therefor — he knew when he sat in the presence of a 
 master. He himself had been taught by the Sahibs, 
 who do not consider expense, in the lordly halls of 
 Calcutta; but, as 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 braggart drug-vendor of overnight. There re- 
 mained — 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 depre- 
 [361] 
 
KIM 
 
 dations of leopards and the eccentricities of Asiatic 
 love; 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 
 world's lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in 
 the life of this world as she who was soon to leave it, 
 squatted with his feet under the hem of his robe, 
 drinking it all in, while the lama demolished one 
 after another every theory of body-curing put for- 
 ward by Hurree Babu. 
 
 At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound 
 drug-box, took his patent-leather shoes of ceremony 
 in one hand, a gay blue and white umbrella in the 
 other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where, he 
 said, he was in demand among the lesser kings of 
 those parts. 
 
 ' We will go in the cool of the evening, chela,' said 
 the lama. ' That doctor, learned in physic and cour- 
 tesy, affirms that the people among these lower hills 
 are devout, generous, and much in need of a teacher. 
 In a very short time — so says the hakim — we come 
 to cool air and the smell of pines.' 
 
 ' Ye go to the Hills. And by Kulu road? Oh, 
 thrice happy ! ' shrilled the old lady. ' But that I 
 am a little pressed with the care of .the homestead 
 I would take palanquin . . . but that would be 
 shameless, and my reputation would be cracked. 
 Ho ! Ho ! I know the road — every march of the 
 [362] 
 
KIM 
 
 road I know. Ye will find charity throughout — it 
 is not denied to the well-looking. I will give orders 
 for provision. A servant to set you forth upon your 
 journey? JSTo. . . . Then I will at least cook ye 
 good food.' 
 
 ' What a woman is the Sahiba ! ' said the white- 
 bearded Oorya, when a tumult rose by the kitchen 
 quarters. ' She has never forgotten a friend : she 
 has never forgotten an enemy in all her years. 
 And her cookery — wah ! ' He rubbed his slim 
 stomach. 
 
 There were cakes, there were sweetmeats, there 
 was cold fowl stewed to rags with rice and prunes — 
 enough to burden Kim like a mule. 
 
 ' I am old and useless,' she said. ' None now love 
 me — and none respect — but there are few to com- 
 pare with me when I call on the Gods and squat to 
 my cookery-pots. Come again, O people of good will. 
 Holy One and disciple, come again. The room is 
 always prepared; the welcome is always ready. . . . 
 See, the women do follow thy chela too openly. / 
 know the women of Kulu. Take heed, chela, lest he 
 do not run away when he smells his hills again. . . . 
 Hai I Do not tilt the rice-bag upside down. . . . 
 Bless the household. Holy One, and forgive thy ser- 
 vant her stupidities.' 
 
 She wiped her red old eyes on a corner of her veil, 
 and clucked throatily. 
 
 [363] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Women talk/ said tlie lama at last, ' but tliat is a 
 woman's infirmity. I gave her a charm. She is upon 
 the Wheel and wholly given over to the shows of this 
 life, but none the less, chela, she is virtuous, kindly, 
 hospitable — of a whole and zealous heart. Who 
 shall say she does not acquire merit ? ' 
 
 ' Wot I, Holy One,' said Kim, reslinging the boun- 
 tiful provisions on his shoulders. ' In my mind — 
 behind my eyes — I have tried to picture such an one 
 altogether freed from the Wheel — desiring nothing, 
 causing nothing — a nun, as it were.' 
 
 ' And, imp ? ' The lama almost laughed aloud. 
 
 ' I cannot make the picture.' 
 
 ' Nor I. But there are many, many millions of 
 lives before her. She will get wisdom a little, it may 
 be, in each one.' 
 
 ' And will she forget how to make stews with saf- 
 fron upon that road ? ' 
 
 ' Thy mind is set on things unworthy. But she 
 has skill. I am refreshed all over. When we reach 
 the lower hills I shall be yet stronger. The Tiahim 
 spoke truly to me this morn when he said a breath 
 from the snows blows away twenty years from the 
 life of a man. We will go tip into the hills — the 
 high hills — up to the sound of snow-water and the 
 sound of the trees — for a little while. The hakim 
 said that at any time we may return to the plains, for 
 we do no more than skirt the pleasant places. The 
 [364] 
 
KIM 
 
 hakim is full of learning; but he is in no way proud. 
 I spoke to him — when thou wast talking to the 
 Sahiba — of a certain dizziness that lays hold upon 
 the back of my neck in the night, and he said it rose 
 from excessive heat — to be cured by cool air. Upon 
 consideration, I marvelled that I had not thought of 
 such a simple remedy.' 
 
 ' Didst thou tell him of thy Search ? ' said Kim, a 
 little jealously. He preferred to sway the lama by 
 his own speech — not through the wiles of Hurree 
 Babu. 
 
 ' Assuredly. I told him of my dream, and of the 
 manner by which I had acquired merit by causing 
 thee to be taught wisdom.' 
 
 ' Thou didst not say I was a Sahib ? ' 
 ' What need ? I have told thee many times we be 
 but two souls seeking escape. He said — and he is 
 just herein — that the Kiver of Healing will break 
 forth even as I dreamed — at my feet if need be. 
 Having found the Way, seest thou, that shall free me 
 from the Wheel, should I trouble to find a way about 
 the mere fields of earth — which are illusion ? That 
 were senseless. I have my dreams, night upon night 
 repeated; I have the Jataka; and I have thee, Friend 
 of all the World. It was written in thy horoscope 
 that a Eed Bull on a green field — I have not for- 
 gotten — should bring thee to honour. Who but I 
 saw that prophecy accomplished ? Indeed, I was the 
 [365] 
 
KIM 
 
 instrument. Thou shalt find me my Eiver, being in 
 return the instrument. The Search is great.' 
 
 He set his ivory-yellow face, serene and un- 
 troubled, towards the beckoning hills; his shadow 
 shouldering far before him in the dust. 
 
 [366] 
 
OHAPTEK XIII 
 
 Who hath desired the Sea — the immense and contemptuous 
 
 surges ? 
 The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the star-stabbing 
 
 bowsprit emerges — 
 The orderly clouds of the trade and the ridged roaring sapphire 
 
 thereunder — 
 Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails low-volleying 
 
 thunder ? 
 His Sea in no wonder the same — his Sea and the same in each 
 
 wonder. 
 
 His Sea that his being fulfils ? 
 So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise hillmen desire their 
 
 HUls! 
 
 ' Who goes to the Hills goes to his mother.' 
 They had crossed the Sewaliks and the half-tropi- 
 cal Doon, left Mussoorie behind them, and headed 
 north along the narrow hill-roads. Day after day 
 they struck deeper into the huddled mountains, and 
 day after day Kim watched the lama return to a 
 man's strength. Among the terraces of the Doon he 
 had leaned on the hoy's sh,oulder, ready to profit by 
 wayside halts. Under the great ramp to Mussoorie 
 he drew himself together as an old hunter faces a 
 well-remembered bank, and where he should have 
 dropped exhausted swung his long draperies about 
 him, drew a deep double lungful of the diamond air, 
 [36Y] 
 
KIM 
 
 and walked as only a hillman can. Kim, plains-bred 
 and plains-fed, sweated and panted astonished. 
 ' This is my country,' said the lama. ' Beside Such- 
 zen, this is flatter than a rice-field ; ' and with steady, 
 driving strokes from the loins he strode upwards. 
 But it was on the steep downhill marches, three thou- 
 sand feet in three hours, that he went utterly away 
 from Kim, whose back ached with holding back, and 
 whose big toe was nigh cut off by his grass sandal- 
 string. Through the speckled shadow of the great 
 deodar forests; through oak feathered and plumed 
 with ferus^ birch, ilex, rhododendron, and pine, out 
 on to the bare hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass, and 
 back into the woodlands' coolth again, till oak gave 
 way to bamboo and palm of the valley, he swung 
 untiring. 
 
 Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges 
 behind him and the faint, thin line of the road where- 
 by they had come, he would lay out, with a hilhnan's 
 generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the mor- 
 row; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass 
 that gave on Spite and Kulu, would stretch out his 
 hands yearningly towards the high snows of the 
 horizon. In the dawns they flamed windy red above 
 stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badjunath — kings of 
 that wilderness — took the first sunlight. All day 
 long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at 
 evening put on their jewels again. At first they 
 [368] 
 
KIM 
 
 breathed temperately upon the travellers, -winds good 
 to meet when one crawled over some gigantic hog- 
 back; but in a few days, at a height of nine or ten 
 thousand feet, those breezes bit; and Kim kindly 
 allowed a village of hilhnen to acquire merit by giv- 
 ing him a rough blanket coat. The lama was mildly 
 surprised that any one could object to the knife-edged 
 breezes that had cut the years off his shoulders. 
 
 ' These are but the lower hills, chela. There is no 
 cold till we come to the true mountains.' 
 
 ' Air and water are good, and the people are devout 
 enough, but the food is very bad,' Kim growled ; ' and 
 we walk as though we were mad — or English. It 
 freezes at night, too.' 
 
 ' A little, maybe ; but only enough to make old 
 bones rejoice in the sun. We must not always delight 
 in the soft beds and rich food.' 
 
 ' We might at the least keep to the road.' 
 Kim had all a plains-man's affection for the well- 
 trodden track, not six feet wide, that snaked among 
 the mountains; but the lama, being Tibetan, could 
 not, for the life of him, refrain from short cuts over 
 spurs and the rims of gravel-strewn slopes. As he 
 explained to his doubting disciple, a man bred among 
 mountains can prophesy the course of a mountain- 
 road, and though low-lying clouds might be a hin- 
 drance to a short-cutting stranger, they made no 
 earthly difference to a thoughtful man. Thus, after 
 24 [ 369 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 long hours of what would be reckoned very fair 
 mountaineering in civilised countries, they would 
 drop over a saddle-back, sidle past a few landslips, 
 and drop through forest at an angle of forty-five onto 
 the road again. Along their tracks lay the villages 
 of the hill-folk — mud and earth huts, timbers now 
 and then rudely carved with an axe — clinging like 
 swallows' nests against the steeps; huddled on tiny 
 flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot glissade; 
 jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled 
 and focused every wandering blast; or, for the sake 
 of summer pasture, cowering down on a neck that in 
 winter would be ten feet deep in snow. And the 
 people — the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with 
 short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux — would 
 flock out and adore. The Plains — kindly and gentle 
 — had treated the lama as a holy man among holy 
 men. But the Hills worshipped him as one in the 
 confidence of all the devils. Theirs was an almost 
 obliterated Buddhism, overlaid with a nature-wor- 
 ship fantastic as their own landscapes, elaborate as 
 the terracing of their tiny fields ; but they recognised 
 the big hat, the clicking rosary, and the rare Chinese 
 texts for great authority, and they respected lie man 
 under the hat. 
 
 ' We saw thee come down over the black breasts of 
 Eua,' said a Betah who gave them cheese, sour milk, 
 and stone-hard bread one evening. ' We do not use 
 [ 370 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 that often — except when calving cows stray in sum- 
 mer. There is a sudden wind among those stones 
 that casts men down on the stillest day. But what 
 should such folk care for the Devil of Eua ! ' 
 
 Then did Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with 
 looking down, footsore with cramping desperate toes 
 into inadequate crannies, take joy in the day's march 
 — such joy as a boy of St. Xavier's who had won the 
 quarter-mile in the flat might take in the praises of 
 his friends. The hills sweated the gJii and sugar suet 
 off his bones ; the dry air, taken sobbingly at the head 
 of cruel passes, firmed and built out his upper ribs; 
 and the tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf 
 and thigh. 
 
 They meditated often on the Wheel of Life — the 
 more so since, as the lama said, they were freed from 
 its visible temptations. Except the gray eagle and 
 an occasional far-seen bear grubbing and rooting on 
 the hillside, the vision of a furious painted leopard 
 seen at dawn in a still valley devouring a goat, and 
 now and again a bright-coloured bird, they were alone 
 with the winds and the grass singing under the wind. 
 The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the 
 two walked as they descended the mountains were 
 unlovely and unclean wives of many husbands, and 
 afflicted vrith goitre. The men were wood-cutters 
 when they were not farmers — meek, and of an in- 
 credible simplicity. But that suitable discourse 
 [371] 
 
KIM 
 
 might not fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and over- 
 taken upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, 
 who paid for his food in ointments good for goitre 
 and counsels that restore peace between men and 
 women. He seemed to know these hills as well as he 
 knew the hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of 
 the land towards Ladakh and Tibet. He said they 
 could return to the plains at any moment. Mean- 
 time, for such as loved mountains, yonder road might 
 amuse. This was not all revealed in a breath, but 
 at evening encounters on the stone threshing-floors, 
 when, patients disposed of, the doctor would smoke 
 and the lama snuff, while Kim watched the wee cows 
 grazing on the house-tops, or threw his soul after his 
 eye across the deep blue gulfs between range and 
 range. And there were talks apart in the deep woods, 
 when the doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as bud- 
 ding physician, must accompany him. 
 
 ' You see, Mister O'Hara, I do not know what the 
 deuce an' all I shall do when I find our sporting 
 friends ; but if you will kindly keep vsdthin sight of 
 my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for cadastral 
 survey, I feel much better.' 
 
 Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks. ' This 
 is not my country, hakim. Easier, I think, to find 
 one louse in a bearskin.' 
 
 ' Oah, thatt is my strong points. There is no hurry 
 for Hurree. They were at Leh not so long ago. They 
 [372] 
 
KIM 
 
 said they had come down from the Kara Korum with 
 their heads and horns and all. I am onlee afraid 
 they will have sent hack all their letters and com- 
 promising things from Leh into Enssian territoree. 
 Of course they will walk away as far to the East as 
 possible — just to show that they were never among 
 the Western States. You do not know the Hills ? ' 
 He scratched with a twig on the earth. ' Look ! 
 They should have come in by Srinagar or Abbottabad. 
 Thatt is their short road — down the river by Bunji 
 and Astor. But they have made mischief in the 
 West. So! ' He drew a. furrow from left to right. 
 ' They march and they march away East to Leh (ah ! 
 it is cold there), and down the Indus to Han-le (I 
 know that road), and then down, you see, to Bushahr 
 and Chini valley. That is ascertained by process of 
 elimination, and also by asking questions from people 
 that I cure so well. Our friends have been a long 
 time playing about and producing impressions. So 
 they are well known from far off. You will see me 
 catch them somewhere in Chini valley. Please keep 
 your eye on the umbrella.' 
 
 It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the 
 valleys and round the mountain sides, and in due 
 time the lama and Kim, who steered by compass, 
 would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders at 
 eventide. ' We came by such and such a way ! ' The 
 lama would throw a careless finger backward at the 
 [3Y3] 
 
KIM 
 
 ridges, and the umbrella would expend itself in com- 
 pliments. 
 
 They crossed a snowy pass by cold moonlight, and 
 the lama, mildly chaffing Kim, went through up to 
 his knees, like a Bactrian camel — the snow-bred, 
 shag-haired sort that come into the Kashmir Serai. 
 They dipped across beds of light snow and snow- 
 powdered shale, where they took refuge from a gale 
 in a camp of Tibetans hurrying down tiny sheep, each 
 laden with a bag of borax. They came out upon 
 grassy shoulders still snow-speckled, and through 
 forest, to pass anew. For all their marchings, 
 Kedarnath and Badrinath were not impressed; 
 and it was only after days of travel that. Kim, up- 
 lifted upon some insignificant ten-thousand-foot 
 hummock, could see that a shoulder-knot or horn of 
 the two great lords had — ever so slightly — changed 
 outline. 
 
 At last they came into a world within a world — a 
 valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned 
 of the rubble and refuse from off the knees of the 
 mountains. Here one day's march carried them no 
 farther, it seemed, than a dreamer's clogged pace 
 bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder 
 painfully for hours, and, behold, it was but an out- 
 lying boss In an outlying buttress of the main pile! 
 A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had 
 reached it, as a vast tableland running far into the 
 [374] 
 
KIM 
 
 valley. Three days later, it was but a fold in tlia 
 earth to southward. 
 
 ' Surely the Gods live here,' said Kim, beaten down 
 by the silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal 
 of the cloud-shadows after rain, ' This is no place 
 for men.' 
 
 ' Long and long ago,' said the lama, as to himself, 
 ' it was asked of the Lord whether the world were 
 everlasting. To this the Excellent One returned no 
 answer. . . . When I was in Ceylon, a wise 
 Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is writ- 
 ten in Pali. Certainly, since we know the way to 
 Freedom, the question was unprofitable, but — look, 
 and know illusion, chela! These are the true hills! 
 They are like the hills by Suchzen. l^ever were 
 such hills ! ' 
 
 Above them, still enormously above them, earth 
 towered away towards the snow-line, where from east 
 to west across hundreds of miles, ruled as with a 
 ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped. Above 
 that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove 
 to fight their heads above the white smother. Above 
 these again, changeless since the world's beginning, 
 but changing to every mood of sun and cloud, lay out 
 the eternal snow. They could see blots and blurs on 
 its face where storm and wandering wulli-wa got up 
 to dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid 
 away in a sheet of blue green for mile upon mile; 
 [375] 
 
KIM 
 
 below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of ter- 
 raced fields and steep grazing-grounds ; below the 
 village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried 
 and growled there for the moment, a pitch of twelve 
 or fifteen hundred feet gave to the moist valley where 
 the streams gather that are the mothers of young 
 Sutlej, 
 
 As usual, the lama had led Kim by cow-track and 
 byroad, far from the main route along which Hurree 
 Babu, that ' fearful man,' had bucketed three days 
 before through a storm to which nine Englishmen out 
 of ten would have given full right of way. Hurree 
 was no game shot, — the snick of a trigger made him 
 change colour, — but, as he himself would have said, 
 he was fairly ' effeecient stalker,' and he had raked 
 the huge valley with a pair of cheap binoculars to 
 some purpose. Moreover, the white of worn canvas 
 tents carries far against green. Hurree Babu had 
 seen all he wanted to see when he sat on the threshing- 
 floor of Ziglaur, twenty miles away as the eagle flies, 
 and forty by road — that is to. say, two small dots 
 which one day were just below the snow-line, and the 
 next had moved downward perhaps six inches on the 
 hillside. Once cleaned out and set to the work, his 
 fat bare legs could cover a surprising amount o^f 
 ground, and this was the reason why, while Kim and 
 the lama lay in a leaky hut at Ziglaur till the storm 
 should be overpassed, an oily, wet, but always smiling 
 [376] 
 
KIM 
 
 Bengali, talking the best of English with the vilest of 
 phrases, was ingratiating himself with two sodden 
 and rather rheumatic foreigners. He had arrived, 
 revolving many wild schemes, on the heels of a thun- 
 derstorm which had split a pine over against their 
 camp, and so convinced a dozen or two forcibly im- 
 pressed baggage-coolies the day was inauspicious for 
 further travel that with one accord they had thrown 
 doAvn their loads and jibbed. They were subjects of 
 a hill-Eajah who farmed out their services, as is the 
 custom, for his private gain; and, to add to their 
 personal distresses, the strange Sahibs had already 
 threatened them with rifles. The most of them knew 
 rifles and Sahibs of old. They were trackers and 
 shikarris of the Northern valleys, keen after bear and 
 wild goat; but they had never been thus treated in 
 their lives. So the forest took them to her bosom, 
 and, for all oaths and clamour, refused to restore. 
 There was no need to feign madness or — the Babu 
 had thought of another means of securing a welcome. 
 He wrung out his wet clothes, slipped on his patent- 
 leather shoes, opened the blue and white umbrella, 
 and with mincing gait and a heart beating against his 
 tonsils appeared as ' agent for His Eoyal Highness, 
 the Kajah of Rampur, gentlemen. What can I do for 
 you, please ? ' 
 
 The gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly 
 French, the other Eussian, but they spoke English 
 [377] 
 
KIM 
 
 not much inferior to the Babu's. They begged his 
 kind offices. Their native servants had gone sick at 
 Leh. They had pushed on because they were anxious 
 to bring the spoils of the chase to Simla ere the skins 
 grew moth-eaten. They bore a general letter of in- 
 troduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to, 
 all Government officials. No, they had not met any 
 other shooting-parties en route. They did for them- 
 selves. They had plenty of supplies. They only 
 wished to push on as soon as might be. At this he 
 waylaid a cowering hillman among the trees, and 
 after three minutes' talk and a little silver (one can- 
 not be economical upon State service, though Hurree's 
 heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies and the 
 three hangers-on reappeared. At least the Babu 
 would be a witness to oppression. 
 
 ' My royal master, he will be much annoyed, but 
 these people are onlee common people and grossly 
 ignorant. If your honours will kindly overlook 
 unfortunate affair, I shall be much pleased. In 
 a little while rain will stop and we can then 
 proceed. You have been shooting, eh ? That is fine 
 performance ! ' 
 
 He skipped nimbly from one Icilta to the next, mak- 
 ing pretence to adjust each conical basket. The 
 Englishman is not, as a rule, familiar with the Asi- 
 atic, but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly 
 Babu who had accidentally upset a Icilta with a red 
 [3Y8] 
 
oilskin top. On the other hand, he would not press 
 drink upon a Babu were he never so friendly, nor 
 would he invite him to meat. The strangers did all 
 these things, and asked many questions, — about 
 women mostly, — to which Hurree returned gay and 
 unstudied answers. They gave him a glass of whitish 
 fluid like to gin, and then more, and in a little time 
 his gravity departed from him. He became thickly 
 treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping indecency 
 of a Government which had forced upon him a white 
 man's education and neglected to supply him with a 
 white man's salary. He babbled tales of oppression 
 and vtTong till the tears ran down his cheeks for the 
 miseries of his land. Then he staggered off, singing 
 love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a 
 wet tree-trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product 
 of English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon 
 an alien. 
 
 ' They are all just of that pattern,' said one sports- 
 man to the other in French. ' When we get into India 
 proper thou vnlt see. I should like to visit his Eajah. 
 One might speak the good word there. It is possible 
 that he has heard of us and wishes to signify his good 
 will.' 
 
 ' We have not time. We must get into Simla as 
 soon as may be,' his companion replied. Tor my 
 own part, I wish our reports had been sent back 
 l^orth from Hilas, or even Leh.' 
 [3Y9] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' The English post is better and safer. Kemem- 
 ber we are given all facilities and — name of God — ■ 
 they give them to us too! It is unbelievable stu- 
 pidity.' 
 
 ' It is pride — pride that deserves and will receive 
 punishment. Yes ! To fight a fellow Continental in 
 our game is something. There is a risk attached, but 
 these people — bah! It is too easy.' 
 
 ' Pride — all pride, my friend.' 
 
 ' ITow what the deuce is good of Chundernagore 
 being so close to Calcutta and all,' said Hurree, snor- 
 ing open-mouthed on the sodden moss, ' if I cannot 
 understand their French. They talk so parificularly 
 fast! It would have been much better to cut their 
 beastly throats.' 
 
 When he presented himself again he was racked 
 with a headache — penitent, and volubly afraid that 
 in his drunkenness he might have been indiscreet. 
 He loved the British Government — it was the source 
 of all prosperity and honour, and his master of Eam- 
 pur held the very same opinion. Upon this the men 
 began to deride him and to quote past words, till step 
 by step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and leers 
 of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out of 
 his defences and forced to speak — truth. When 
 Lurgan was told the tale later, he mourned aloud 
 that he could not have been in the place of the stub- 
 born, inattentive coolies, who with grass mats over 
 [380] 
 
KIM 
 
 their heads and the raindrops puddling in their foot- 
 prints, waited on the weather. All the Sahibs of 
 their acquaintance — rough-clad men joyously re- 
 turning year after year to their chosen gullies — had 
 servants and cooks and orderlies, very often hillmen. 
 These Sahibs travelled without any retinue. There- 
 fore they were poor Sahibs, and ignorant, for no 
 Sahib in his senses would follow a Bengali's advice. 
 But the Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had 
 given them money, and would at least make shift with 
 their dialect. Used to comprehensive ill-treatment 
 from their own colour, they suspected a trap some- 
 where, and stood by to run if occasion offered. 
 
 Then through the new-washed air, steaming with 
 delicious earth-smells, the Babu led the way down the 
 slopes — walking ahead of the coolies in pride, walk- 
 ing behind the foreigners in humility. His thoughts 
 were many and various. The least of them would 
 have interested his companions beyond words. But 
 he was an agreeable guide, always keen to point out 
 the beauties of his royal master's domain. He 
 peopled the hills with anything they had a mind to 
 slay — thar, ibex, or markhor, and bears by Elisha's 
 allowance. He discoursed of botany and ethnology 
 with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of local 
 legends — he had been a trusted agent of the State 
 for fifteen years, remember — was inexhaustible. 
 
 'Decidedly this fellow is an original,' said the 
 [381] 
 
KIM 
 
 taller of the two foreigners. ' He is like the night- 
 mare of a Viennese courier.' 
 
 ' He represents in petto India in transition — the 
 monstrous hybridism of East and West/ the Eussian 
 replied. ' It is we who can deal with Orientals.' 
 
 ' He has lost his own country and has not acquired 
 any other. But he has a most complete hatred of 
 his conquerors. Listen. He confided to me last 
 night,' etc. 
 
 Under the striped umbrella Hurree Babu was 
 straining ear and brain to follow the quick-poured 
 French, and keeping both eyes on a kilta full of maps 
 and documents — an extra large one with a double 
 red oilskin cover. He did not wish to steal anything. 
 He only desired to know what to steal, and, inci- 
 dentally, how to get away when he had stolen it. He 
 thanked all the Gods of Hindustan, and Herbert 
 Spencer, that there remained some valuables to steal. 
 
 On the second day the road rose steeply to a grass 
 spur above the forest ; and it was here, about sunset, 
 that they came across an aged lama — but they 'called 
 him a honze — sitting cross-legged above a mysteri- 
 ous chart held down by stones, which he was explain- 
 ing to a young man, evidently a neophyte, of singular, 
 though unwashen, beauty. The striped umbrella had 
 been sighted half a march away, and Kim had sug- 
 gested a halt till it came up to them. 
 
 ' Ha ! ' said Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss-in- 
 [382] 
 
KIM 
 
 Boots. ' That is eminent local holy man. Probably 
 subject of my royal master.' 
 
 ' What is he doing ? It is very curious.' 
 
 ' He is expounding holy picture — all hand 
 worked.' 
 
 The two men stood bare-headed in the wash of the 
 low afternoon sunlight across the gold-coloured grass. 
 The sullen coolies, glad of the check, halted and slid 
 down their loads. 
 
 ' Look ! ' said the Frenchman. ' It is like a picture 
 for the birth of a religion — the first teacher and the 
 first disciple. Is he a Buddhist ? ' 
 
 ' Of some debased kind/ the other answered. 
 ' There are no true Buddhists among the Hills. But 
 look at the folds of the drapery. Look at his eyes • — 
 how insolent ! Why does this make one feel that we 
 are so young a people ? ' The speaker struck passion- 
 ately at a tall weed. ' We have nowhere left our 
 mark yet. !N"owhere! That, do you understand, is 
 what disquiets me.' He scowled at the placid face, 
 and the monumental calm of the pose. 
 
 ' Have patience. We shall make our mark to- 
 gether — we and you young people. Meantime, draw 
 his picture.' 
 
 The Babu advanced loftily; his back out of all 
 keeping vrith his deferential speech, or his wink 
 towards Kim. 
 
 ' Holy One, these be Sahibs. My medicines cured 
 [383] 
 
KIM 
 
 one of a flux, and I go into Simla to oversee his re- 
 covery. They wish to see thy picture ' 
 
 ' To heal the sick is always good. This is the 
 Wheel of Life,' said the lama, ' the same I showed 
 thee in the hut at Ziglaur when the rain fell.' 
 
 ' And to hear thee expound it.' 
 
 The lama's eyes lighted at the prospect of new 
 listeners. ' To expound the Most Excellent Way is 
 good. Have they any knowledge of Hindi, such as 
 had the Fountain of Wisdom ? ' 
 
 ' A little, maybe.' 
 
 Hereat, simply as a child engrossed with a new 
 game, the lama threw back his head and began the 
 full-throated invocation of the Doctor of Divinity ere 
 he opens the full doctrine. The strangers leaned on 
 their alpenstocks and listened. Kim, squatting 
 humbly, watched the low sunlight on their faces, and 
 the blend and parting of their long shadows. They 
 wore un-English leggings and curious girt-in belts 
 that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book at 
 St. Xavier's library: The Adventures of a Young 
 Naturalist in Mexico was its name. Yes, they 
 looked very like the wonderful M. Sumichrast of 
 that tale, and very unlike the ' highly unscrupulous 
 folk' of Hurree Babu's imagining. The coolies, 
 earth-coloured and mute, crouched reverently some 
 twenty or thirty yards away, and the Babu, the slack 
 of his thin gear snapping like a marking-flag in the 
 [384] 
 
KIM 
 
 chill breeze, stood by with an air of happy proprietor- 
 ship. 
 
 ' These are the men,' Hurree whispered, as the 
 ritual went on and the two whites followed the grass 
 blade sweeping from Hell to Heaven and back again. 
 ' All their books are in the large Icilta with the reddish 
 top, — books and reports and maps, — and I have 
 seen a murasla that either Hilas or Bunar have writ- 
 ten. They guard it most carefully. They have sent 
 nothing back from Hilas or Leh. That is sure.' 
 
 ' Who is with them ? ' 
 
 ' Only the heegar-oaoli&s. They have no servants. 
 They are so close. They cook their own food.' 
 
 ' But what am I to do ? ' 
 
 ' Wait and see. Only if any cEance comes to me 
 thou wilt know where to seek for the papers.' 
 
 ' This were better in Mahbub All's hands than a 
 Bengali's,' said Kim scornfully. 
 
 ' There are more ways of getting to a sweetheart 
 than butting down a wall.' 
 
 ' See here the Hell appointed for avarice and greed. 
 FlanJced upon the one side hy desire and on the other 
 hy weariness.' The lama warmed to his work, and 
 one of the strangers sketched him in the quick-fading 
 light. 
 
 ' That is enough,' the artist said brusquely. ' I 
 cannot understand him, but I want that picture. He 
 is a better artist than I. Ask him if he will sell it.' 
 25 [385] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' He says " E"o, sar," ' the Babu replied. The 
 lama, of course, would no more have parted with his 
 chart to a casual wayfarer than an archbishop would 
 sell the holy vessels of a cathedral. All Tibet is full 
 of cheap reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama 
 was an artist, as well as a wealthy abbot in his own 
 place. 
 
 ' Perhaps in three days, or four, or ten, if I per- 
 ceive that the Sahib is a Seeker and of good under- 
 standing, I may myself draw him another. But this 
 was used for the initiation of a novice. Tell him so, 
 hakim.' 
 
 ' He wishes it now — for money.' 
 
 The lama slowly shook his head and began to fold 
 up the chart. The Eussian, on his side, saw no more 
 than an unclean old man haggling over a dirty piece 
 of paper. He drew out half a handful of rupees, and 
 snatched half -jestingly at the chart, which tore in 
 the lama's grip. A low murmur of horror went up 
 from the coolies — some of whom were Spiti men 
 and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose 
 at the insult ; his hand went to the heavy iron pencase 
 that is the priest's weapon, and the Babu danced in 
 agony. 
 
 ' N^ow you see — you see why I wanted witnesses. 
 They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh Sar ! Sar ! 
 You must not hit holy man ! ' 
 
 ' Chela ! He has defiled the Written Word ! ' 
 [386] 
 
KIM 
 
 It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, 
 the Kussian struck the old man full on the face. Next 
 instant he was rolling over and over down hill with 
 Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every un- 
 known Irish devil in the boy's blood, and the sudden 
 fall of his enemy did the rest. The lama dropped to 
 his knees, half -stunned ; the coolies under their loads 
 fled up the hiU as fast as plainsmen run across the 
 level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it 
 behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils 
 of the hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran 
 towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some 
 notion of making him a hostage for his companion. 
 A shower of cutting stones — hillmen are very 
 straight shots — drove him away, and a coolie from 
 Ao-chung snatched the lama into the stampede. All 
 came about as svpiftly as the sudden mountain dark- 
 ness. 
 
 ' They have taken the baggage and all the guns,' 
 yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight. 
 
 ' All right, Sar ! All right ! Don't shoot. I go 
 to rescue,' and Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast 
 himself bodily upon the delighted and astonished 
 Kim, who was banging his breathless foe's head 
 against a boulder. 
 
 ' Go back to the coolies,' whispered the Babu in his 
 ear. ' They have the baggage. The papers are in the 
 Ulta with the red top, but look through all. Take 
 [387] 
 
KIM 
 
 their papers, and specially the murasla (King's let- 
 ter) . Go. The other man comes ! ' 
 
 Kim tore up hill. A revolver bullet rang on a 
 rock by his side, and he cowered partridge-v^ise. 
 
 ' If you shoot,' shouted Hurree, ' they -wiU descend 
 and annihilate us. I have rescued the gentleman, 
 Sar. This is par-ti-cularly dangerous.' 
 
 ' By Jove ! ' Kim was thinking hard in English. 
 ' This is damn-tight place, but I think it is self-de- 
 fenca' He felt in his bosom for Mahbub's gift, and 
 uncertainly — save for a few practice shots in the 
 Bikaner desert, he had never used the little gun — 
 pulled trigger. 
 
 ' What did I say, Sar ! ' The Babu seemed to be in 
 tears. ' Come down here and assist to resuscitate. 
 We are all up a tree, I tell you.' 
 
 The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling 
 feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, 
 swearing like a cat — or a country-bred. 
 
 'Did they wound thee, chela?' called the lama 
 above him. 
 
 ' JS'o. And thou ? ' Tie dived into a clump of 
 stunted firs. 
 
 ' Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to 
 Shamlegh under the snow.' 
 
 ' But not before we have done justice,' a voice 
 cried. ' I have got the Sahibs' guns — all four. Let 
 us go down.' 
 
 [388] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' He struck the Holjr One — we saw. it. Our cattle 
 will be barren — our wives will cease to bear. The 
 snows will slide upon us as we go home ,, . .on 
 top of all other oppression too ! ' 
 
 The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies 
 
 — panic-stricken, and in their terror capable of any- 
 thing. The man from Ao-chung clicked the breech- 
 bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go down 
 hill. 
 
 'Wait a little. Holy One. They cannot go far. 
 Wait till I return.' 
 
 ' It is this person who has suffered wrong,' said the 
 lama, his hand over his brow. 
 
 ' For that very reason,' was the reply. 
 
 ' If this person overlooks it, your hands are 
 clean. Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedi- 
 ence.' 
 
 ' Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together,' 
 the man insisted. 
 
 For a moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff 
 a cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama hesitated. 
 Then he rose to his feet, and laid a finger on the man's 
 shoulder. 
 
 ' Hast thou heard ? I say there shall be no killing 
 
 — I who was abbot of Suchzen. Is it any lust of 
 thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake under the 
 eaves — a worm in the belly of the most mean beast ? 
 Is it thy wish to ' 
 
 [389] 
 
KIM 
 
 The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the 
 voice boomed like a Tibetan devil-gong. 
 
 ' Ai ! ai ! ' cried the Spiti men. ' Do not curse ua 
 — do not curse him. It was but his zeal, Holy One ! 
 . . . Put down the rifle, fool ! ' 
 
 ' Anger on anger ! Evil on evil ! There will be 
 no killing. Let the priest-beaters go in bondage to 
 their own acts. Just and sure is the Wheel, swerving 
 not a hair. They will be bom many times — in tor- 
 ment.' His head drooped, and he leaned heavily on 
 Kim's shoulder. 
 
 ' I have come near to great evil, chela' he whis- 
 pered in that dead hush under the pines. ' I was 
 tempted to lose the Word ; and truly, in Tibet there 
 would have been a heavy and a slow dea:th for them. 
 . . . He struck me across the face . . . upon the 
 flesh . . . ' He slid to the ground, breathing heav- 
 ily, and Kim could hear the over-driven heart beat 
 and flutter. 
 
 ' Have they hurt him to the death ? ' cried the Ao- 
 chung man, while the others stood mute. 
 
 Kim knelt over the body in deadly fear. ' I^ay,' 
 he cried passionately, ' this is only a weakness.' 
 Then he remembered that he was a white man, 
 ivith a white man's camp-fittings at his service. 
 ' Open the Mltas ! The Sahibs may have a medi- 
 cine.' 
 
 ' Oho ! Then I know it,' said the Ao-chung man 
 [390] 
 
KIM 
 
 with^a laugh. ' Not for five jrears was I Yankling 
 Sahib's shiJcarri without knowing that medicine. I 
 too have tasted it. Behold ! ' 
 
 He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap whisky 
 — such as is sold to explorers at Leh — and cleverly 
 forced a little between the lama's teeth. 
 
 ' So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot 
 beyond Astor. Aha! I have already looked into 
 their hiltas — but we will make fair division at 
 Shamlegh. Give him a little more. It is good medi- 
 cine. Feel ! His heart goes better now. Lay his 
 head down and rub a little on the chest. If he had 
 waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs this 
 would never have come. But perhaps the Sahibs may 
 chase us here. Then it would not be wrong to shoot 
 them with their own guns, heh ? ' 
 
 ' One is paid, I think, already,' said Kim between 
 his teeth. ' I kicked him in the groin as we went 
 down hill. Would I had killed him ! ' 
 
 ' It is well to be brave when one does not live in 
 Rampur,' said one whose hut lay within a few miles 
 of the Eajah's rickety palace. ' If we get a bad name 
 among the Sahibs, none will employ us as shikarris 
 any more.' 
 
 ' Oh, but these are not Angrezi Sahibs — not 
 merry-minded men like Fostum Sahib or Yankling 
 Sahib. They are foreigners — they cannot speak 
 Angrezi as do Sahib logue.' 
 [391 J 
 
KIM 
 
 Here the lama coughed and sat up, groping for the 
 rosary. 
 
 ' There shall be no killing/ he murmured. ' Just 
 is the Wheel ! _Act of evil ' 
 
 ' Nay, Holy One. We are all here.' The Ao- 
 chung man timidly patted his feet. ' Except by thy 
 order, no one shall be slain. Kest awhile. We will 
 make a little camp here, and later, as the moon rises, 
 we go to Shamlegh under the snow.' 
 
 ' After a blow,' said a Spiti man sententiously, ' it 
 is best to sleep.' 
 
 'There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of my 
 neck, and a pinching in it. Let me lay my head on 
 thy lap, chela. I am an old man but not free from 
 passion. . . . We must think of the Cause of 
 Things.' 
 
 ' Give him a blanket. We dare not light a fire lest 
 the Sahibs see.' 
 
 ' Better get away to Shamlegh. None will follow 
 us to Shamlegh.' 
 
 This was the nervous Eampur man. 
 
 ' I have been Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am 
 Yankling Sahib's shikarri. I should have been with 
 Yankling Sahib now but for this cursed beegar 
 (corsSe). Let two men watch below with the guns 
 lest the Sahibs do more foolishness. I shall not leave 
 this Holy One.' 
 
 They sat down a little apart from the lama, and, 
 [392] 
 
KIM 
 
 after listening awhile, passed round a water-pipe 
 whose receiver was an old Day and Martin blacking- 
 bottle. The glow of the red charcoal as it went from 
 hand to hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the 
 high Chinese cheek-bones, and the bull throats that 
 melted away into the dark duffle folds round the 
 shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some magic 
 mine — gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while 
 they talked, the voices of the snow-waters round them 
 diminished one by one as the night frost choked and 
 clogged the runnels. 
 
 ' How he stood up against us,' said a Spiti man 
 admiring. ' I remember an old ibex, out Ladakh 
 way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a shoulder-shot, 
 seven seasons back, standing up in just like that 
 sheen. Dupont Sahib was a good shikarri/ 
 
 ' JSTot as good as Yankling Sahib.' The Ao-chung 
 man took a pull at the whisky-bottle and passed it 
 over. ' Now hear me — unless any other man thinks 
 he knows more.' 
 
 The challenge was not taken up. 
 
 ' We go to Shamlegh when the moon, rises. There 
 we will fairly divide the hiltas between us. I am 
 content with this new little rifle and all its car- 
 tridges.' 
 
 ' Are the bears only bad on thy holding ? ' said a 
 mate, sucking at the pipe. 
 
 ' No ; but mtisk-pods are worth six rupees apiece 
 [393] 
 
KIM 
 
 now, and thy women can have the canvas of the tents 
 and some of the cooking gear. We will do all that 
 at Shamlegh before dawn. Then we all go our ways, 
 remembering that we have never seen or taken ser- 
 vice with these Sahibs, who may, indeed, say that we 
 have stolen their baggage.' 
 
 ' That is well for thee, but what will our Kajah 
 say?' 
 
 ' Who is to tell him ? The Sahibs who cannot 
 speak Pahari, or the Babu who for his own ends gave 
 us money ? Will he lead an army against us ? What 
 evidence will remain ? That we do not need we shall 
 throw on Shamlegh midden, where no man has yet 
 set foot.' 
 
 ' Who is at Shamlegh this summer ? ' The place 
 was only a grazing centre of three or four huts. 
 
 ' The woman of Shamlegh. She has no love for 
 Sahibs, as we know. The others can be pleased with 
 little presents; and there is enough for us all.' He 
 patted the fat sides of the nearest Tcilia. 
 
 'But — but ' 
 
 ' I have said they are not true Sahibs. All their 
 skins and heads were bought in the bazar at Leh. I 
 know the marks. I showed them to ye last March.' 
 
 ' True. They were all bought skins and heads. 
 
 Some had even the moth in them.' That was a 
 
 shrewd argument, and the Ao-chung man knew his 
 
 fellows. ' If the worst comes to the worst, I shall tell 
 
 [394] 
 
KIM 
 
 Yankling Sahib, who is a man of a merry mind, and 
 he will laugh. We are not doing any wrong to the 
 Sahibs whom we know. They are priest-beaters. 
 They frightened us. We fled ! Who knows when we 
 dropped the baggage ? Do ye think Yankling Sahib 
 will permit down-country police to wander all over 
 the hills, disturbing his game ? It is a far cry from 
 Simla to Ohini, and farther from Shamlegh to Sham- 
 legh midden.' 
 
 ' So be it, but I carry the big hilta. The hilta with 
 the red top that the Sahibs pack themselves every 
 morning.' 
 
 ' Thus is it proved,' said the Shamlegh man 
 adroitly, ' that they are Sahibs of no account. Who 
 ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling Sahib, or 
 even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights to 
 shoot serow — I say, who ever heard of these Sahibs 
 coming into the hills without a down-country cook, 
 and a bearer, and — and all manner of well-paid, 
 high-handed and oppressive folk in their tail ? How 
 can they make trouble ? But what of the hilta? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, but that it is full of the Written Word 
 — books and papers in which they wrote, and strange 
 instrimients, as of worship.' 
 
 ' Shamlegh midden will take them all.' 
 
 ' Umm ! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods 
 thereby ? I do not like to handle the Written Word 
 in that fashion. And their brass idols are beyond 
 [395] 
 
KIM 
 
 my comprehensioii. It is no plunder for simple hill- 
 folk.' 
 
 ' The old man still sleeps. Hst ! We will ask his 
 chela.' The Ao-chung man refreshed himself, and 
 swelled with pride of leadership. 
 
 ' We have here,' he whispered, ' a Tcilta whose 
 nature we do not know.' 
 
 ' But I do,' said Kim cautiously. The lama drew 
 breath in natural, easy sleep, and Kim had been 
 thinking of Hurree's last words. As a player of the 
 Great Game, he was disposed just then to reverence 
 the Babu. ' It is a Tcilta with a red top full of very 
 wonderful things, not to be handled by fools.' 
 
 ' I said it ; I said it,' cried the bearer of that bur- 
 den. ' Thanks ! Then it will betray us ? ' 
 
 ' ISTot if it be given to me. I will draw out its 
 magic. Otherwise it will do great harm.' 
 
 ' A priest always takes his share.' Whisky was 
 demoralising the Ao-chung man. 
 
 ' It is no matter to me,' Kim answered, with the 
 craft of his mother country. ' Share it among you, 
 and see what comes ! ' 
 
 ' Not I. I was only jesting. Give the order. 
 There is more than enough for us all. We go our way 
 from Shamlegh in the dawn.' 
 
 They arranged and re-arranged their artless little 
 plans for another hour, while Kim shivered with 
 cold and pride. The humour of the situation tickled 
 [396] 
 
KIM 
 
 the Irish and the Oriental in his youth. Here were 
 the emissaries of the dread power of the North, very 
 possibly as great in their own land as Mahbub or 
 Colonel Creighton, suddenly smitten helpless. One 
 of them, he privately knew, would be lame for a 
 time. They had made promises to kings. To-night 
 they lay out somewhere below him, chartless, foodless, 
 tentless, gunless — except for Hurree Babu, guide- 
 less. And this collapse of their Great Game (Kim 
 wondered to whom they would report it), this pan- 
 icky bolt into the night, had come about through no 
 craft of Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but simply 
 beautifully and inevitably as the capture of Mahbub's 
 faquir friends by the zealous young policeman at 
 Umballa. 
 
 ' They are there — with nothing ; and, by Jove, 
 it is cold ! I am here with all their things. 
 Oh, they will be angry! I am sorry for Hurree 
 Babu.' 
 
 Kim might have saved his pity, for though at 
 that moment the Bengali was suffering acutely in 
 the flesh, his soul was puffed and lofty. A mile 
 down the hill, on the edge of a pine forest, two half- 
 frozen men — one powerfully sick at intervals — 
 were varying mutual recriminations with the most 
 poignant abuse of the Babu, who seemed distraught 
 with terror. They demanded a plan of action. He 
 explained that they were very lucky to be alive ; that 
 [397] 
 
KIM 
 
 their coolies, if not then stalkiijg them, had passed be- 
 yond recall; that the Rajah, his master, was ninety 
 miles away, and, so far from lending them money and 
 a retinue for the Simla journey, would surely cast 
 them into prison if he heard that they had hit a priest. 
 He enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they 
 bade him change the subject. Their one hope, said 
 he, was unostentatious flight from village to village 
 till they reached civilisation; and, for the hun- 
 dredth time, dissolved in tears, he demanded of 
 the high stars why the Sahibs 'had beaten holy 
 man.' 
 
 Ten steps would have taken Hurree into the creak- 
 ing gloom utterly beyond their reach — to the shelter 
 and food of the nearest village, where glib-tongued 
 doctors were scarce. But he preferred to endure cold, 
 belly-pinch, abuse, and occasional blows in the com- 
 pany of his honoured employers. Crouched against 
 a tree-trunk, he sniffed dolefully. 
 
 ' And have you thought,' said the uninjured man 
 hotly, ' what sort of spectacle we shall present wan- 
 dering through these hills among these aborigines ? ' 
 
 Hurree Babu had thought of little else for some 
 hours, but the remark was not to his address. 
 
 ' We cannot wander ! I can hardly walk,' groaned 
 Kim's victim. 
 
 ' Perhaps the holy man will be merciful in loving- 
 kindness, Sar, otherwise ■ ' 
 
 [398] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I promise myself a peculiar pleasure in empty- 
 ing my revolver into that young bonze when next we 
 meet,' was the unchristian answer. 
 
 'Kevolvers! Vengeance! Bonzes!' Hurree 
 crouched lower. The war was breaking out afresh. 
 ' Have you no consideration for our loss ? The bag- 
 gage ! The baggage ! ' He could hear the speaker 
 literally dancing on the grass. ' Everything we bore ! 
 Everything we have secured! Our gains! Eight 
 months' work ! Do you know what that means ? De- 
 cidedly. It is we who can deal with Orientals. Oh, 
 you have done well.' 
 
 They fell to it in several tongues, and Hurree 
 smiled. Kim was with the hiltas. There was no 
 means of communicating with the boy, but he could 
 be trusted. For the rest, he could so stage-manage 
 the journey through the hills that HiMs, Bunar, and 
 four hundred miles of hill-roads should tell the tale 
 for a generation. Men who cannot control their own 
 coolies are little respected in the Hills, and the Pahari 
 has a very keen sense of humour. 
 
 ' If I had done it myself,' thought Hurree, ' it 
 would not have been better ; and, by Jove, now I think 
 of it, of course I arranged it myself. How quick I 
 have been ! Just when I ran down hill I thought it ! 
 Thee outrage was accidental, but onlee me could have 
 — worked it — ah — for all it was damn well worth. 
 Consider the moral effect upon these ignorant peoples ! 
 [399] 
 
^ KIM 
 
 No treaties — no papers — no written documents at 
 all — and me to interpret for them. How I shall 
 laugh with the Colonel! I wish I had their papers 
 also, but you cannot occupy two places in space simul- 
 taneously. That is axiomatic' 
 
 [400] 
 
"'I am the woman of Shamlegh.'" 
 
CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) 
 To stone and brass in heathen-wise, 
 
 But in my brother's voice I hear 
 My own unanswered, agonies. 
 
 His God is as his Fates assign — 
 
 His prayer is all the world's — and mine. 
 
 Kabir. 
 
 At moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. 
 The lama, refreshed by his sleep and the spirit, 
 needed no more than Kim's shoulder to bear him 
 along — a silent, swift-striding man. They held the 
 shale-spriniled grass for an hour, swept round the 
 shoulder of an immortal cliff, and climbed into a 
 new country entirely blocked off from all sight of 
 Chini valley. A huge pasture-ground ran up fan- 
 shaped to the living snow. At its base was perhaps 
 half an acre of flat land, on which stood a few soil 
 and timber huts. Behind them — for, hill-fashion, 
 they were perched on the edge of all things — the 
 ground fell sheer two thousand feet to Shamlegh mid- 
 den, where never yet man has set foot. 
 
 The men made no motion to divide the plunder till 
 they had seen the lama bedded down in the best room 
 26 [ 401 J 
 
KIM 
 
 of the place, with Kim shampooing his feet, Moham- 
 medan fashion. 
 
 ' We will send food,' said the Ao-chung man, ' and 
 the red-topped Mlta. By dawn there mil be none 
 to give evidence, one way or the other. If anything 
 is not needed in the Icilta — see here ! ' 
 
 He pointed through the window — opening into 
 space that was filled with moonlight reflected from 
 the snow — and threw out an empty whisky-hottle. 
 
 ' ]N"o need to listen for the fall : this is the world's 
 end,' he said and swung off. The lama looked forth, 
 a hand on either sill, with eyes that shone like yellow 
 opals. From the enormous pit before him white 
 peaks lifted themselves yearning to the moonlight. 
 The rest was as the darkness of interstellar space. 
 
 ' Here,' he said slowly, ' are indeed my hills. Thus 
 should a man abide, perched above the world, sepa- 
 rated from delights, considering vast matters.' 
 
 ' Yes; if he has a chela to prepare tea for him, and 
 to fold a blanket for his head, and to chase out calv- 
 ing cows.' 
 
 A smoky lamp burned in a niche, but the full 
 moonlight beat it down; and by the mixed light, 
 stooping above the food-bag and cups, Kim moved 
 like a tall ghost. 
 
 ' Ai ! But now I have let the blood cool my head 
 still beats and drums, and there is a cord round the 
 back of my neck.' 
 
 [402] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' No wonder. It was a strong blow. May he who 
 dealt it ' 
 
 ' But for my own passions there would have been 
 no evil.' 
 
 ' What evil ? Thou hast saved the Sahibs from 
 death they deserved a hundred times.' 
 
 ' The lesson is not well learnt, chela.' The lama 
 came to rest on a folded blanket, as Kim went for- 
 ward with his evening routine. ' The blow was but 
 a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in itself — my legs 
 weary apace these latter days ! — it met evil in me 
 — anger, rage, and a lust to return evil. These 
 wrought in my blood, woke tumult in my stomach, 
 and dazzled my ears.' Here he drank scalding block 
 tea ceremonially, taking the hot cup from Kim's 
 hand. ' Had I been passionless, the evil blow would 
 have done only bodily evil — a scar, or a bruise — 
 which is illusion. But my mind was not abstracted. 
 Hushed in straightway a lust to let the Spiti men 
 kilh In fighting that lust, my soul was torn and 
 wrenched beyond a thousand blows. 'Not till I had 
 repeated the Blessings (he meant the Buddhist Beati- 
 tudes) did I achieve calm. But the evil planted in 
 me by that moment's carelessness works out to its 
 end. Just is the Wheel, swerving not a hair ! Learn 
 the lesson, chela.' 
 
 ' It is too high for me,' Kjm muttered. ' I am 
 still all shaken. I am glad I hurt the man.' 
 [403] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I felt that sleeping upon thy knees — in the wood 
 below. It disquieted me — my dreams — the evil in 
 thy soul working through to mine. Yet on the other 
 hand ' ■ — he loosed his rosary — ' I have acquired 
 merit by saving two lives — the lives of those that 
 wronged me. !N"ow I must see into the Cause of 
 Things. The boat of my soul staggers.' 
 
 ' Sleep, and be strong. That is v^isest.' 
 
 ' I meditate. There is need greater than thou 
 knowest.' 
 
 Till the davTn, hour after hour, as the moonlight 
 paled on the high peaks, and that which had been 
 belted blackness on the sides of the far hills showed 
 as tender green forest, the lama stared fixedly at the 
 wall. Erom time to time he groaned. Outside the 
 barred door, where discomfited kine came to ask for 
 their old stable, Shamlegh and the coolies gave itself 
 up to plunder and riotous living. The Ao-chung man 
 was their leader, and once they had opened the Sa- 
 hibs' tinned foods and found that they were very 
 good they dare not turn back. Shamlegh kitchen- 
 midden took the dunnage. 
 
 When Kim, after a night of bad dreams, stole 
 forth to brush his teeth in the morning chill, a fair- 
 coloured woman with turquoise-studded headgear 
 drew him aside. 
 
 ' The others have gone. They left thee this Tcilta 
 as the promise was. I do not love Sahibs, but thou 
 [404] 
 
KIM 
 
 wilt make us a charm in return for it. We do not 
 wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name on account of 
 the — accident. I am the woman of Shamlegh.' She 
 looked him over with bold, bright eyes, unlike the 
 usual furtive glance of hill-women. 
 
 ' Assuredly. But it must be done in secret.' 
 
 She raised the heavy hilta like a toy and slung it 
 into her own hut. 
 
 ' Out and bar the door ! Let none come near till 
 it is finished.' 
 
 ' But afterwards — we may talk ? ' 
 
 Kim tilted the Tcilta on the floor — a cascade of 
 survey instruments, books, diaries, letters, maps, and 
 queerly scented native correspondence. At the very 
 bottom was an embroidered bag covering a sealed, 
 gilded, and illuminated document such as one king 
 sends to another. Kim caught his breath with de- 
 light, and reviewed the situation from a Sahib's point 
 of view. 
 
 ' The books I do not want. Besides, they are 
 logarithms — survey, I suppose.' He laid them 
 aside. ' The letters I do not understand, but Colonel 
 Oreighton will. They must all be kept. The maps 
 — they draw better maps than me — of course. All 
 the native letters — oho ! — and particularly the 
 murasla.' He sniffed the embroidered bag. ' That 
 must be from Hilas or Bunar, and Hurree Babu spoke 
 truth. By Jove ! It is a fine haul. I wish Hurree 
 [ 405 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 could know. . . . The rest must go out of the win- 
 dow. He fingered a superb prismatic compass and 
 the shiny top of a theodolite. But after all, a Sahib 
 cannot very well steal, and the things might be incon- 
 venient evidence later. He sorted out every scrap of 
 manuscript, every map, and the native letters. They 
 made one softish slab. The three locked ferril-backed 
 books, with five worn pocket-books, he put aside. 
 
 ' The letters and the murasla I must carry inside 
 my coat and under my belt, and the written books 
 I must put into the food-bag. It will be very heavy. 
 No. I do not think there is anything more. If 
 there is, the coolies have thrown it down the Tchud, so 
 thatt is all right. INow you go too,' He repacked the 
 Tcilta with all he meant to lose, and hove it up onto the 
 window-sill. A thousand feet below lay a long, lazf, 
 round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by 
 the morning sun. A thousand feet below that was 
 an hundred-years-old pine forest. He could see the 
 green tops looking like a bed of moss when a wind 
 eddy thinned the cloud. 
 
 ' !N"o ! I don't think any one wjll go after you! ' 
 The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it 
 dropped. The theodolite hit a jutting cliff-ledge and 
 exploded like a shell; the books, inkstands, paint- 
 boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few sec- 
 onds like a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; 
 and, though Kim, hanging half out of window, 
 [406] 
 
KIM, 
 
 strained his young ears, never a sound came up from 
 the gulf. 
 
 ' Five hundred — a thousand rupees could not buy 
 them/ he thought sorrowfully. ' It was verree waste- 
 ful, but I have all their other stuff — everything 
 they did — I hope. Il^ow how the deuce am I to tell 
 Hurree Babu, and whatt the deuce am I to do ? And 
 my old man is sick. I must tie up the letters in oil- 
 cloth. That is something to do first — else they will 
 get all sweated. . . . And I am all alone ! ' He 
 bound them into a neat packet, swedging down the 
 stiff, sticky oilcloth at the corners, for his roving life 
 had made him as methodical as an old shikarri in 
 matters of the road. Then with double care he 
 packed away the books at the bottom of the food-bag. 
 
 The woman rapped at the door. 
 
 ' But thou hast made no charm,' she said, looking 
 about. 
 
 ' There is no need.' Kim had completely over- 
 looked the necessity for a little patter-talk. The 
 woman laughed at his confusion irreverently. 
 
 ' None — for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the 
 mere winking of an eye. But think of us poor people 
 when thou art gone ? They were all too drunk last 
 night to hear a woman. Thou art not drunk ? ' 
 
 ' I am a priest.' Kim had recovered himself, and, 
 the woman being atight but unlovely, thought best 
 to stand on his office. 
 
 [407] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry and 
 will make an inquisition and a report to the Rajah, 
 There is also the Babn with them. Clerks have long 
 tongues.' 
 
 ' Is that all thy trouble ? ' The plan rose fully 
 formed in Kim's mind, and he smiled ravishingly. 
 
 ' ISTot all,' quoth the woman, putting out a hard 
 brown hand all covered with turquoises set in silver. 
 
 ' I can finish that in a breath,' he went on quickly. 
 ' The Babu is the very hakim (thou hast heard of 
 him ?) who was wandering among the hills by Ziglaur. 
 I know him.' 
 
 ' He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs can- 
 not distinguish one hillman from another, but Babus 
 have eyes for men — and women.' 
 
 ' Carry a word to him from me.' 
 
 ' There is nothing I would not do for thee.' 
 
 He accepted the compliment calmly, as men must 
 in lands where women make the love, tore a leaf from 
 a note-book, and with a patent indelible pencil wrote 
 in gross Shikast — the script that bad little boys use 
 when they write dirt on walls : ' I have everything 
 that they have written : their pictures of the country, 
 and many letters. Especially the murasla. Tell me 
 what to do. I am at Shamlegh under the snow. The 
 old man is sick.' 
 
 ' Take this to him. It will altogether shut his 
 mouth. He cannot have gone far.' 
 [408] 
 
KIM 
 
 * Indeed no. They are still in the forest across 
 the spur. Our children went to watch them when the 
 light came, and have cried the news as they moved.' 
 
 Kim looked his astonishment; but from the edge of 
 the sheep pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A 
 child tending cattle had picked it up from a brother 
 or sister on the far side of the slope that commanded 
 Chini valley. 
 
 ' My husbands are also out there gathering wood.' 
 She drew a handful of walnuts from her bosom, split 
 one neatly, and began to eat. Kim affected blank 
 ignorance. 
 
 ' Dost thou not know the meaning of the walnut — 
 priest ? ' she said coyly, and handed him the half- 
 shells. 
 
 ' Well thought of.' He slipped the piece of paper 
 between them quickly. ' Hast thou a little wax to 
 close them on this ? ' 
 
 The woman sighed aloud, and Kim relented. 
 
 ' There is no payment till service has been ren- 
 dered. Carry this to the Babu, and say it was sent 
 by the Son of the Charm.' 
 
 ' Ai ! Truly ! Truly ! By a magician — who is 
 like a Sahib.' 
 
 ' ISTay. Son of the Charm ; and ask if there be any 
 
 answer.' 
 
 ' But if he offer a rudeness ? I — I am afraid.' 
 ■K\m laughed. ' He is, I make no doubt, very cold 
 [409] 
 
KIM 
 
 and very hungry. The hills make cold bed-fellows. 
 Hai, my ' — it was on the tip of his tongue to say 
 Mother, but he turned it to Sister — ' thou art a wise 
 and witty woman. By this time all the villages know 
 what has befallen the Sahibs — eh ? ' 
 
 ' True. News was at Ziglaur by midnight, and by 
 to-morrow should be at Kotgarh. The villages are 
 both afraid and angry.' 
 
 ' JSTo need. Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs 
 and pass them on, in peace. We must get them 
 quietly away from our valleys. To steal is one thing 
 — to kill another. The Babu will understand, and 
 there will be no after-complaint. Be svsdft. I must 
 tend my master when he wakes.' 
 
 ' So be it. After service — thou hast said ? — 
 comes the reward. I am the woman of Shamlegh, 
 and I hold from the Eajah. I am no common bearer 
 of babes, Shamlegh is thine: hoof and horn and 
 hide, milk and butter. Take or leave.' 
 
 She turned resolutely up hill, her silver necklaces 
 clicking on her broad breast, to meet the morning 
 sun fifteen hundred , feet above them. This time 
 Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the 
 oilskin edges of the packets. 
 
 ' How can a man follow the Way or the Great 
 
 Game when he is eternally pestered by women? 
 
 There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford; and 
 
 there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecot — 
 
 [410] 
 
KIM 
 
 not counting the others — and now conies this one ! 
 When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am 
 a man and they will not regard me as a man. Wal- 
 nuts indeed ! Ho ! ho ! It is almonds in the plains ! ' 
 He went out to levy on the village — not with a 
 begging-bowl, which might do for down-country, but 
 in the manner of a prince. Shamlegh's summer pop- 
 ulation is only three families — four women and 
 eight or nine men. They were all full of tinned meats 
 
 — and mixed drinks, from ammoniated quinine to 
 white vodka; for they had taken their full share in 
 the overnight loot. The neat Continental tents had 
 been cut up and shared long ago, and there were 
 patent aluminium saucepans abroad. 
 
 But they considered the lama's presence a perfect 
 safeguard against all consequences, and impenitently 
 brought Eam of their best — even to a drink of chang 
 
 — the barley beer that comes from Ladakh-way. 
 Then they thawed out in the sun, and sat with their 
 legs hanging over infinite abysses, chattering, laugh- 
 ing and smoking. They judged India and its Gov- 
 ernment solely from their experience of wandering 
 Sahibs who had employed them or their friends as 
 shikarris. Kim heard tales of shots missed upon ibex, 
 serow, or markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in their 
 graves — every detail lighted from behind like twigs 
 on tree-tops seen against lightning. They told him 
 of their little diseases, and, more important, the dis- 
 
 [411j 
 
KIM 
 
 eases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle ; of trips as far 
 as Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries live, and 
 beyond even to marvellous Simla, where the streets 
 are paved with silver, and any one, look you, can get 
 service with the Sahibs, who ride about in two- 
 wheeled carts and spend money with a spade. Pres- 
 ently, grave and aloof, walking very heavily, the 
 lama joined himself to the chatter under the eaves, 
 and they gave him great room. The thin air re- 
 freshed him, and he sat on the edge of precipices with 
 the best of them, and, when talk languished, flung 
 pebbles into the void. Thirty miles away, as the 
 eagle flies, lay the next range, seamed and channelled 
 and pitted with little patches of brush — forests, 
 each of a day's long march. Behind the village, 
 Shamlegh hiU itself cut off all view to southward. It 
 was like sitting in a swallow's nest under the eaves 
 of the roof of the world. 
 
 From time to time the lama stretched out his hand, 
 and with a little low-voiced prompting would point 
 out the road to Spiti and north across the Parungla. 
 
 'Beyond, where the hills lie thickest, lies De-ch'en' 
 (he meant Hanle), ' the great Monastery. S'tag- 
 stan-ras-ch'en built it, and of him there runs this tale.' 
 Whereupon he told it : a fantastic piled narrative of 
 bewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh a-gasp- 
 ing. Turning west a little, he speered for the green 
 hills of Kulu, and sought Kailung under the glaciers. 
 [412] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' For thither came I in the old, old days. From Leh 
 I came, over the Bararlachi.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; we know it,' said the far-faring people 
 of Shamlegh. 
 
 ' And I slept two nights with the priests of Kai- 
 lung. These are the hills of my delight ! Shadows 
 blessed above all other shadows! There my eyes 
 opened on this world ; there my eyes were opened to 
 this world; there I found Enlightenment; and there I 
 girt my loins for my Search. Out of the hills I came 
 — the high hills and the strong winds. Oh, just is 
 the Wheel ! ' He blessed them in detail ^- the great 
 glaciers, the naked rocks, the piled moraines and 
 tumbled shale; dry upland, hidden salt-lake, age-old 
 timber and fruitful water-shot valley one after the 
 other, as a dying man blesses his folk, and Kitn mar- 
 velled at his passion. 
 
 ' Yes — yes. There is no place like our hills,' said 
 the people of Shamlegh. And they fell to wondering 
 how a man could live in the hot terrible plains where 
 the cattle run as big as elephants, unfit to plough on 
 a hillside; where village touches village, they had 
 heard, for a hundred miles; where folk went about 
 stealing in gangs, and what the robbers spared the 
 police carried utterly away. 
 
 So the long forenoon wore through, and at the end 
 of it Kim's messenger dropped from the steep pasture 
 as unbreathed as when she had set out. 
 
 [413] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' I sent a word to the hakim,' Kim explained, as 
 she made reverence. 
 
 ' He joined himself to the idolaters ? Nay, I re- 
 member he did a healing upon one of them. He has 
 acquired merit, though the healed employed his 
 strength for evil. Just is the Wheel ! What of the 
 hakim?' 
 
 ' I feared that thou hadst been bruised and — and 
 I knew he was wise.' Kim took the waxed walnut- 
 shell and read in English on the back of his note: 
 ' 'Your favour received. Ccmnot get awa/y from pres- 
 ent company at present, hut shall take them into 
 Simla. After which, hope to rejoin you. In^scpedi- 
 ent to follow am,gry gentlemen. Return T>y same road 
 you came, and will overtake. Highly gratified about 
 correspondence due to my forethought.' ' He says. 
 Holy One, that he will escape from the idolaters, and 
 will return to us. Shall we wait awhile at Shamlegh, 
 then?' 
 
 The lama looked long and lovingly upon the hills 
 and shook his head. 
 
 ' That may not be, chela. From my bones outward 
 I do desire it, but it is forbidden. I have seen the 
 Cause of Things.' 
 
 ' Why ? when hills gave thee back thy strength 
 day by day. Eemember we were weak and fainting 
 down below there in the Doon.' 
 
 ' I became strong to do evil and to forget — a 
 [414] 
 
KIM 
 
 brawler and a swashbuckler upon the hillsides was I.' 
 Kim bit back a smile. ' Just and perfect is the 
 Wheel, swerving not a hair. When I was a man — a 
 long time ago — I did pilgrimage to Guru Ch'wan 
 among the poplars' (he pointed Bhotanwards), 
 ' where they keep the Sacred Horse.' 
 
 ' Quiet, be quiet ! ' said Shamlegh, all arow. ' He 
 speaks of Jamlesi-nisi-Kor, the Horse That Can Go 
 Eound The World In a Day.' 
 
 ' I speak to my chela only,' said the lama, in gentle 
 reproof, and they scattered like frost on south eaves 
 of a morning. ' I did not seek truth in those days, 
 but the talk of doctrine. All illusion ! I drank the 
 beer and ate the bread of Guru Ch'wan. Next day 
 one said : " We go out to fight Sangor Gutok down 
 the valley to discover (mark again how lust is tied to 
 anger!) which abbot shall bear rule in the valley, 
 and take the profit of the prayers th^y print at San- 
 gor Gutok." I went, and we fought all day.' 
 
 ^ But how, Holy One?' 
 
 ' With the long pencases as I could have shown — 
 I say, we fought under the poplars, both abbots and 
 all the monks, and one laid open my forehead to the 
 bone. See ! ' He tilted back his cap and showed a 
 puckered silvery scar. ' Just and perfect is the 
 Wheel! Yesterday the scar itched, and after fifty 
 years I recalled how it was dealt and the face of him 
 who dealt it, dwelling a little in illusion. Followed 
 [415] 
 
KIM 
 
 that which thou didst see — strife and stupidity. Just 
 is the Wheel ! The idolater's blow fell upon the sear. 
 Then I was shaken in my soul: my soul was dark- 
 ened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the waters 
 of illusion. Not till I came to Shamlegh could I medi- 
 tate upon the Cause of Things, or trace the running 
 grass roots of Evil. I have striven all the long night.' 
 
 ' But, Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil. 
 May I be thy sacrifice ! ' 
 
 Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man's sor- 
 row, and Hahbub All's phrase slipped out unawares. 
 
 ' In the dawn,' he went on more gravely, ready 
 rosary clicking between the slow sentences, ' came en- 
 lightenment. It is here. ... I am an old man 
 . . . hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among 
 my hills. Three years I travelled through Hind, but 
 — can earth be stronger than Mother Earth ? My 
 stupid body yearned to the hills and the snow of 
 the hills, down below there. I said, and it is true, 
 my Search is sure. So, at the Kulu woman's house 
 I turned hillward, over-persuaded by myself. There 
 is no blame on the hakim. He — following desire — 
 foretold that the hills would make me strong. They 
 strengthened me to do evil, to forget my Search. I 
 delighted in life and the lust of life. I desired 
 strong slopes to climb. I cast about to find them. 
 I measured the strength of my body, which is evil, 
 against the high hills. I made a mock of thee when 
 [416] 
 
KIM 
 
 thy breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested 
 when thou wonildst not face the snow of the pass.' 
 
 ' But what harm ? I was afraid. It was just. I 
 am not a hillman, and I loved thee for thy strength.' 
 
 ' More than once I remember,' he rested his cheek 
 dolefully on his hand, 'I sought thy praise and the 
 halcim's for the mere strength of my legs. Thus evil 
 followed evil till the cup was full. Just is the Wheel ! 
 All Hind for three years did me all honour. From 
 the Fountain of Wisdom in the Wonder House to ' — 
 he smiled — ' a little child playing by a big gun — 
 the world prepared my road. Why ? ' 
 
 ' Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of 
 the blow. I myself am still sick and shaken.' 
 
 ' ]^o. It was because I was upon the Way — 
 turned as are 8i-nen (cymbals) to the purpose of the 
 Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune 
 was broken. Followed the punishment. In my own 
 hills, on the edge of my own country, in the very 
 place of my evil desire, comes the buffet — here ! ' 
 He touched his brow. ' As a novice is beaten when 
 he misplaces the cups, so am I beaten, who was abbot 
 of Suchzen. I^o word, look you, but a blow, chela.' 
 
 ' But the Sahib did not know. Holy One ? ' 
 
 ' We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met 
 
 Ignorance and Lust upon the road, and they begat 
 
 Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am no better 
 
 than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who 
 
 27 [ 417 1 
 
KIM 
 
 can read the Cause of an act is half-way to Freedom ! 
 " Back to the path " says the Blow. The hills are 
 not for thee. Thou canst not choose Freedom and 
 go in Bondage to the delight of life.' 
 
 ' If we had never met that thrice-cursed Eussian ! ' 
 
 ' Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel swing 
 backward. And for my merit that I had acquired I 
 gain yet another sign.' He put his hand in his bosom, 
 and drew forth the Wheel of Life. ' Look ! I con- 
 sidered this after I had meditated. There remains 
 untorn by the idolater no more than the breadth of 
 my finger-nail.' 
 
 ' I see.' 
 
 ' So much, then, is the span of my life in this body. 
 I have served the Wheel all my days. Now the 
 Wheel serves me. But for the merit I have acquired 
 in guiding thee upon the Way, there would have been 
 added to me yet another life ere I had found my 
 Eiver. Is it plain, chela? ' 
 
 Kim stared at the brutally disfigured chart. From 
 left to right diagonally the rent ran — from the 
 Eleventh House where desire gives birth to the child 
 (as it is drawn by Buddhists) — across the human 
 and animal worlds, to the Fifth House — the empty 
 house of the senses. The logic was unanswerable. 
 
 ' Before our Lord won Enlightenment,' the lama 
 folded all away with reverence, ' He was tempted. 
 I too have been tempted, but it is finished. The 
 [418] 
 
KIM 
 
 Arrow fell in the Plains ^- not in the Hills. There- 
 fore, what do we here ? ' 
 
 ' Shall we at least wait for the hahim? ' 
 
 ' I know how long I live in this body. What can a 
 hahim do ? ' 
 
 ' But thou art all sick and shaken. Thou canst not 
 walk.' 
 
 ' How can I be sick if I see Freedom ? ' He rose 
 unsteadily to his feet. 
 
 ' Then I must get food from the village. Oh, the 
 weary road ! ' Kim felt that he too needed rest. 
 
 ' That is lawful. Let us eat and go. The Arrow 
 fell in Plains . . . but I yielded to desire. Make 
 ready, chela.' 
 
 Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise head- 
 gear who had been idly pitching pebbles over the cliff. 
 She smiled very kindly. 
 
 ' I found him like a strayed buffalo in a rice-field 
 — the Babu; snorting and sneezing with cold. He 
 was so hungry that he forgot his dignity and gave me 
 sweet words. The Sahibs have nothing.' She flung 
 out an empty palm. ' One is very sick — about the 
 stomach. Thy work ? ' 
 
 Kim nodded with a bright eye. 
 
 ' I spoke to the Bengali first — and to the people 
 
 of a near-by village after. The Sahibs will be given 
 
 food as they need it — nor will the people ask money. 
 
 The plunder is already distributed. The Babu makes 
 
 [419] 
 
KIM 
 
 lying speeches to the Sahibs. Why does he not leave 
 them?' 
 
 ' Out of the greatness of his heart.' 
 
 ' Was never a Bengali yet had one bigger than a 
 dried vs^alnut. But it is no matter. . . . Now as to 
 walnuts. After service comes reward. I have said 
 the village is thine.' 
 
 ' It is my loss/ Kim began. ' Even now I had 
 planned desirable things in my heart which ~- there 
 is no need to go through the compliments proper to 
 these occasions.' He sighed deeply . . . ' but my 
 master, led by a vision ' 
 
 ' Huh ! What can old eyes see except a full beg- 
 ging-bowl ? ' 
 
 — ' Turns from this village to the plains again.' 
 
 ' Bid him stay.' 
 
 Kim shook his head. ' T know my Holy One, and 
 his rage if he be crossed,' he replied portentously. 
 ' His curses shake the hills.' 
 
 ' Pity they did not save him from a broken head ! 
 I heard that thou wast the tiger-hearted one who 
 smote the Sahib. Let him dream a little longer. 
 Stay!' 
 
 ' Hill-woman,' said Eim, with austerity that could 
 not harden the outlines of his young oval face, ' these 
 matters are too high for thee.' 
 
 ' The Gods be good to us ! Since when have men 
 and women been other than men and women ? ' 
 [420] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' A priest is a priest. He says he will go upon this 
 hour. I am his chela, and I go with him. We need 
 food for the road. He is an honoured guest in all the 
 villages, but ' — he broke into a pure boy's grin — 
 ' the food here is good. Give me some.' 
 
 ' What if I do not give it thee ? I am the woman 
 of this village.' 
 
 ' Then I curse thee — a little — not greatly, but 
 enough to remember.' He could not help smiling. 
 
 ' Thou hast cursed me already by the down-dropped 
 eyelash and the uplifted chin. Curses ? What should 
 I care for mere words ? ' She clenched her hands 
 upon her bosom. . . . ' But I would not have thee 
 to go in anger, thinking hardly of me — a gatherer 
 of cow-dung and grass at Shamlegh, but still a 
 woman of substance.' 
 
 ' I think nothing,' said Kim, ' but that I am grieved 
 to go, for I am very tired, and that we need food. 
 Here is the bag.' 
 
 The woman snatched it angrily- ' I was foolish,' 
 said she. ' Who is thy woman in the plaias ? Pair 
 or black ? I was fair once. Laughest thou ? Once, 
 long ago, if thou canst believe me, a Sahib looked on 
 me with favour. Once, long ago, I wore European 
 clothes at the Mission-house yonder.' She pointed 
 towards Kotgarh. ' Once, long ago, I was Ker-Us- 
 ti-an and spoke English — as the Sahibs speak it. 
 Tes. My Sahib said he would return and wed me — 
 [421J 
 
KIM 
 
 yes, wed me. He went away — I had nursed him 
 when he was sick — but he never returned. Then I 
 saw that the Gods of the Kerlistians lied, and I went 
 back to my own people. ... I have never set eyes 
 on a Sahib since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit is 
 past, little priestling.) Thy face and thy walk and 
 thy fashion of speech put me in mind of my Sahib, 
 though thou art only a wandering mendicant to whom 
 I give a dole. Curse me ? Thou canst neither curse 
 nor bless ! ' She set her hands on her hips and 
 laughed bitterly. ' Thy gods are lies; thy works are 
 lies ; thy words are lies. There are no Gods under all 
 the heavens. I know it. . . . But for awhile I 
 thought it was my Sahib come back, and he was my 
 God. Yes, once I made music on a piano in the Mis- 
 sion-house at Kotgarh. Ifow I give alms to priests 
 who are heathen.' She wound up with the English 
 word, and tied the mouth of the brimming bag. 
 
 ' I wait for thee, chela,' said the lama, leaning 
 against the door-post. 
 
 The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes. 
 ' He walk ? He cannot step half a koss. Whither 
 would old bones go ? ' 
 
 At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama's col- 
 lapse and foreseeing the weight of the bag, fairly lost 
 his temper. 
 
 ' What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he 
 iV 
 
 r, 422 1 
 
KIM 
 
 'Nothing — but something to thee, priest with 
 a Sahib's face. Wilt thou carry him on thy 
 shoulders ? ' 
 
 ' I go to the plains. None must hinder my return. 
 I have wrestled with my soul till I am strengthless. 
 Help me, chela, the stupid body is spent, and we are 
 far from the plains.' 
 
 ' Behold ! ' she said simply, and drew aside to let 
 Kim see his own utter helplessness. ' Curse me. 
 Maybe it will give him strength. Make a charm! 
 Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest.' She 
 turned away. 
 
 The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the 
 door-post. One cannot strike down an old man that 
 he recovers again like a boy in a night. Weakness 
 bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on 
 Kim were alive and imploring. 
 
 ' It is all well,' said Kim. ' It is the thin air that 
 weakens thee. In a little while we go! It is the 
 mountain sickness. I too am a little sick at stomach,' 
 . . . and he knelt and comforted with such poor 
 words as came first to his lips. Then the woman re- 
 turned, more erect than ever. 
 
 ' Thy Gods useless, heh ? Try mine. I am the 
 Woman of Shamlegh.' She hailed hoarsely, and 
 there came out of a cattle-pen her two husbands and 
 three others vdth a dooli, the rude native litter of the 
 hills, that they use for carrying the sick and for visits 
 [i23] 
 
KIM 
 
 of state. * These cattle,' she did not condescend to 
 look at them, ' are thine for so long as thoti shalt 
 need.' 
 
 ' But we wiU not go Simla way. We will not go 
 near the Sahibs/ cried the first husband. 
 
 ' They will not run away as the others did, nor will 
 they steal baggage. Two I know for weaklings. 
 Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and Tares.' They 
 obeyed swiftly. ' Lower now, and lift in that holy 
 man. I will see to the village and your virtuous 
 wives till ye return.' 
 
 'When will that be?' 
 
 ' Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the 
 food-bag at the foot. It balances better so.' 
 
 ' Oh, Holy One, thy hills are kinder than our 
 plains ! ' cried Kim, relieved, as the lama tottered to 
 the litter. ' It is a very king's bed — a place of 
 honour and ease. And we owe it to ' 
 
 ' A woman of ill-omen. I need thy blessings as 
 much as I do thy curses. It is my order and none of 
 thine. Lift and away I Hear ! Hast thou money for 
 the road ? ' 
 
 She beckoned Kim to her hut, and stooped above 
 a battered English cash-box under her cot. 
 
 ' I do not need anything,' said Kim, angered 
 where he should have been grateful. ' I am already 
 rudely loaded with favours.' 
 
 She looked up with a curious smile and laid a hand 
 [424 J 
 
KIM 
 
 on his shoulder. ' At least, thank me. I am foul- 
 faced and a hill-woman, but, as thy talk goes, I have 
 acquired merit. Shall I show thee how the Sahibs 
 render thanks ? ' and her hard eyes softened. 
 
 ' I am but a wandering priest,' said Kim, his eyes 
 lighting in answer. ' Thou needest neither my bless- 
 ings nor my curses.' 
 
 ' ISTay. But for one little moment — thou canst 
 overtake the dooli in ten strides — if thou wast a 
 Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst do ? ' 
 
 ' How if I know, though ? ' said Kim, and putting 
 his arm around her waist, he kissed her on the cheek, 
 adding in English : ' Thank you verree much, my 
 dear.' 
 
 Kissing is practically unknown among Asiatics, 
 which may have been the reason that she leaned back 
 with wide-open eyes and a face of panic. 
 
 ' Next time,' Kim went on, ' you must not be so 
 sure of your heathen priests. E"ow I say good-bye.' 
 He held out his hand English fashion. She took it 
 mechanically. ' Grood-bye, my dear.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, and — and — ' she was remembering 
 her English words one by one — ' you will come back 
 again ? Good-bye, and — thee God bless you.' 
 
 Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up 
 
 the hill path that leads south-easterly from Sham- 
 
 legh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut door waving a 
 
 white rag. 
 
 [425] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' She has acquired merit beyond all others/ said 
 the lama. ' For to set a man upon the way to Eree- 
 dom is half as great as though she had herself found 
 it.' 
 
 ' Umm,' said Kim thoughtfully, considering the 
 past. ' It may be that I have acquired merit 
 also. ... At least she did not treat me like a child.' 
 He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the slab 
 of documents and maps, re-stowed the precious food- 
 bag at the lama's feet, laid his hand on the litter edge, 
 and buckled down to the slow pace of the grunting 
 husbands. 
 
 ' These also acquire merit,' said the lama, after 
 three miles. 
 
 ' More than that, they shall be paid in silver,' 
 quoth Kim. The Woman of Shamlegh had given it 
 to him; and it was only fair, he argued, that her men 
 should earn it back again. 
 
 [426] 
 
CHAPTEK XV 
 
 I'd not give room for an Emperor — 
 
 I'd hold my road for a King. 
 To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down — 
 
 But this is a different thing ! 
 /'U not fight with the Powers of Air — 
 
 Sentries pass him through ! 
 Drawbridge let fall — He's the Lord of us all — 
 
 The Dreamer whose dream came true ! 
 
 The Siege of (he Fairies. 
 
 Two hundred miles north of Chini, on tke blue 
 shade of Ladahk, lies Yankling Sahib, a merry- 
 minded man, spy-glassing wrathfuUy across the ridges 
 for some sign of his pet tracker — a man from Ao- 
 chung. But that renegade, with a new Mannlicher 
 rifle and two hundred cartridges, is elsewhere, shoot- 
 ing musk-deer for the market, and Yankling Sahib 
 will learn next season how very ill he has been. 
 
 Up the valleys of Bushahr — the far-beholding 
 eagles of the Himalayas swerve at his new blue-and- 
 white gored umbrella — hurries a Bengali, once fat 
 and well-looking, now lean and weather-worn. He 
 has received the thanks of two foreigners of distinc- 
 tion, whom he has piloted not unskilfully to Masho- 
 [427] 
 
KIM 
 
 bra tunnel whicli leads to the great and gay capital 
 of India. It was not his fault that, blanketed by wet 
 mists, he conveyed them past the telegraph station 
 and European colony of Kotgarh. It was not his 
 fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he discoursed 
 so engagingly, that he led them into the borders of 
 !N"ahan, where the Eajah of that state mistook them 
 for deserting British soldiery. Hurree Babu ex- 
 plained the greatness and glory, in their own country, 
 of his companions, till the drowsy kinglet smiled. 
 He explained it to every one who asked — many 
 times — aloud — variously. He begged food, ar- 
 ranged accommodation, proved a skilful leech for an 
 injury of the groin — such a blow as one may receive 
 rolling down a rock-covered hillside in the dark — 
 and in all things indispensable. The reason of his 
 friendliness did him credit. With millions of fellow- 
 serfs, he had learned to look upon Eussia as the great 
 deliverer from the North. He was a fearful man. 
 He had been afraid that he could not save his illus- 
 trious employers from the anger of an excited peas- 
 antry. He himself would just as lief hit a holy man 
 as not, but . . . He was deeply grateful and 
 sincerely rejoiced that he had done his ' little pos- 
 sible ' towards bringing their venture to — barring 
 the lost baggage — • a successful issue. He had for- 
 gotten the blows; denied that any blows had been 
 dealt that unseemly first night under the pines. He 
 [428] 
 
KIM 
 
 asked neither pension nor retaining fee, but, if they 
 deemed him worthy, would they write him a testi- 
 monial? It might be useful to him later, if other, 
 their friends, came oyer the passes. He begged them 
 to remember him in their future greatnesses, for he 
 ' opined subtly ' that he, even he, Mohendro Lai Dutt, 
 M.A. of Calcutta, had ' done the state some seryice.' 
 
 They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy, 
 helpfulness, and unerring skill as a guide. He put it 
 in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion; they had 
 endured so many dangers together. He led them at 
 high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance 
 Bank of Simla where they wished to establish their 
 identity. Thence he vanished like a dawn-cloud on 
 Jakko. 
 
 Behold him, too fine drawn to sweat, too pressed 
 to vaunt the drugs in his little brags-bound box, 
 ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man made perfect. 
 Watch him, all Babudom laid aside, smoking at noon 
 on a cot, while a woman with turquoise-studded head- 
 gear points south-easterly across the bare grass. 
 Litters, she says, do not travel as fast as single men, 
 but his birds should now be in the plains. The Holy 
 Man would not stay though she pressed him. The 
 Babu groans ponderously, girds up his huge loins, 
 and is off again. He does not care to trayel after 
 dusk ; but his days' marches — there is none to enter 
 them in a book — would astonish folk who laugh at 
 [429] 
 
KIM 
 
 his race. Kindly villages, remembering the Dacca 
 drug-vendor of two months ago, give him shelter 
 against evil spirits of the wood. He dreams of Ben- 
 gali gods. University text-books of his education, and 
 the Royal Society, London, England. Next dawn 
 the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes forward. 
 
 On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind 
 them and the plains laid out in golden dusk before, 
 rests a worn litter in which — all the hills know it — 
 lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing. 
 Villages have almost come to blows for the honour of 
 bearing it, and not only has the lama given them 
 blessings, but his disciple good money — full one- 
 third Sahib's prices. Twelve miles a day has the 
 dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, 
 and by roads that few Sahibs use. Over the Mlang 
 Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust filled every 
 fold of the impassive lama's drapery; between the 
 black horns of Raieng — where they heard the 
 whistle of the wild goats through the clouds ; pitching 
 and strained on the shale below; hard held between 
 shoulder and clenched jaw when they" rounded the 
 hideous curves of the Cut Road above Bhagirati; 
 swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the 
 descent into the Valley of the Waters ; pressed along 
 the steamy levels of that locked valley; up, up and 
 out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnatli; 
 set down of middays in the dun-gloom of kindly oak- 
 [4301 
 
KIM 
 
 forests; passed from village to village in dawn-chill, 
 when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at 
 impatient holy men ; or by torchlight, when the least 
 fearful think of ghosts, the dooli has reached her last 
 stage. The little hillfolk sweat in the modified heat 
 of the lower Sewaliks, and gather round the priests 
 for their blessing and their wage. 
 
 ' Ye have acquired merit,' says the lama. ' Merit 
 greater than your knowing. And ye will return to 
 the hills,' he sighs. 
 
 ' Surely. The high hills as soon as may be.' The 
 bearer rubs his shoulder, drinks water, spits it out 
 again, and readjusts his grass sandal. Kim — his 
 face is drawn and tired — pays very small silver 
 from his belt, heaves out the food-bag, sticks an oil- 
 skin packet — they are holy writings — into his 
 bosom, and helps the lama to his feet. The peace has 
 come again into the old man's eyes, and he does not 
 look for the hills to fall down and crush him as he 
 did that terrible night when they were delayed by 
 the flooded river. 
 
 The hillmen pick up the dooli and swing out of 
 sight between the scrub clumps. 
 
 The lama raises a hand to the rampart of the Hima- 
 layas. ' !N"ot with you, O blessed among all hills, fell 
 the Arrow of Our Lord ! And never shall I breathe 
 your air again.' 
 
 ' But thou art ten times the stronger man in this 
 [431] 
 
KIM 
 
 good air,' says Kim, for to his wearied soul appeal 
 the fat, well-cropped, kindly plains. ' Here, or here- 
 abouts, fell the arrow. We will go very softly, per- 
 haps a koss a day, for the Search is sure. But the 
 bag weighs heavy.' 
 
 ' Ay, our Search is sure. I have come out of great 
 temptation.' 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was never more than a couple of miles a day 
 now, and Kim's shoulders bore all the weight of it — 
 the burden of an old man, the burden of the hea'vy 
 food-bag with the locked books, the load of the writ- 
 ings on his heart, and the details of the daily routine. 
 He begged in the dawn, set blankets for the lama's 
 meditation, held the weary head on his lap through 
 the noonday heats, fanning away the flies till his 
 wrist ached, begged again in the evenings, and 
 rubbed the lama's feet, who rewarded him with prom- 
 ise of Freedom — to-day, to-morrow, or, at furthest, 
 the next day. 
 
 ' Never was such a chela. I doubt at times whether 
 Ananda more faithfully nursed our Lord. And thou 
 art a Sahib ? When I was a man — a long time ago 
 — I forgot that. !N"ow I look upon thee often, emd 
 every time I remember that thou art a Sahib. It is 
 strange.' 
 
 ' Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. 
 Why plagu,e me with this talk, Holy One ? Let me 
 [432] 
 
KIM 
 
 rub the other foot. It vexes me. I am noif a Sahib. 
 I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my 
 shoulders.' 
 
 'Patience a little! We will reach Freedom to- 
 gether. Then thou and I, upon the far bank of the 
 Eiver, will look back upon our lives as in the hills we 
 saw our day's marches laid out behind us. Perhaps 
 I was once a Sahib.' 
 
 ' Was never a Sahib like thee, I swear it.' 
 
 ' I am certain the Keeper of the Images in the 
 Wonder House was in past life a very wise Abbot. 
 But even his spectacles do not make my eyes see. 
 There fall shadows when I would look steadily. ITo 
 matter — we know the tricks of the poor stupid car- 
 cass — shadow changing to another shadow. I am 
 bound by the illusion of time and space. How far 
 came we to-day in the flesh ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps half a koss.' Three-quarters of a mile, 
 and it was a weary march. 
 
 ' Half a koss. Ha ! I went ten thousand thousand 
 in the spirit. How we are all lapped and swathed 
 and swaddled in these senseless things.' He looked 
 at his thin blue-veined hand that found the beads so 
 heavy. ' Chela, hast thou never a wish to leave me ? ' 
 
 Kim thought of the oilskin packet and the books 
 
 in the food-bag. If some one duly authorised would 
 
 only take delivery of them the Great Game might 
 
 play itself for aught he then cared. He was tired 
 
 38 [433] 
 
KIM 
 
 and hot in his head, and a cough that came from the 
 stomach worried him. 
 
 ' 'So,' he said almost sternly. ' I am not a dog or 
 a snake to bite when I have learned to love.' 
 
 ' Thou art too tender for me.' 
 
 ' Ifot that either. I have moved in one matter 
 without consulting thee. I have sent a message to 
 the Kulu woman by that woman who gave us the 
 goat's milk this morn, saying that thou wast a little 
 feeble and would need a litter. I beat myself in my 
 mind that I did not do it when we entered the Doon. 
 We stay in this place till the litter returns.' 
 
 ' I am content. She is a woman with a heart of 
 gold, as thou sayest, but a talker — something of a 
 talker.' 
 
 ' She will not weary thee. I have looked to that 
 also. Holy One, my heart is very heavy for my 
 many carelessnesses towards thee.' A catch rose in 
 his throat. ' I have walked thee too far; I have not 
 picked good food always for thee; I have not consid- 
 ered the heat; I have talked to people on the road 
 and left thee alone. ... I have — I have . . . 
 Hai mai! But I love thee . . . and it is all too 
 late. ... I was a child. . . . Oh why was I not 
 a man ? . . .' Overcome by strain, fatigue, and the 
 weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and sobbed 
 at the lama's feet. 
 
 ' What a to do is here,' said the old man gently. 
 [434] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Thou hast never stepped a hair's breadth from the 
 Way of Obedience. ISJ'eglect me ? Child — I have 
 lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime 
 of a new wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh Doun, 
 I have stolen strength from thee. Therefore, not 
 through any sin of thine, art thou weakened. It is 
 the body — the silly, stupid body — that speaks now. 
 [Mot the assured soul. Be comforted ! Know the 
 devils, at least, that thou fightest. They are earth- 
 born — children of illusion. We will go to the 
 woman from Kulu. She shall acqiiire merit in hous- 
 ing us, and specially in tending me. Thou shalt run 
 free till strength returns. I had forgotten the stupid 
 body. If there be any blame, I bear it. But we are 
 too close to the gates of deliverance to weigh blame. 
 I could praise thee, but what need ? In a little — in 
 a very little — we shall sit beyond all needs.' 
 
 And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise 
 saws and grave texts on that little understood beast, 
 our body, who, being but a delusion, insists on posing 
 as the soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the im- 
 mense multiplication of unnecessary devils. 
 
 ' Hai ! hai ! Let us talk of the woman from Kulu. 
 Think you she will ask another charm for her grand- 
 sons? When I was a young man, a very long time 
 ago, I was plagued with these vapours, and some 
 others, and I went to an abbot — a very holy man 
 and a seeker after truth, though then I knew it not. 
 [436] 
 
KIM 
 
 Sit up and listen, child of my soul ! My tale was told. 
 Said he to me, " Chela, know this. There are many 
 lies in the world, and not a few liars, but there are 
 no liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of 
 our bodies." Considering this I was comforted, and 
 of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea in his 
 presence. Suffer me now to drink tea, for I am 
 thirsty.' 
 
 With a laugh above his tears, Kim kissed the 
 lama's feet, and went about tea-makiug. 
 
 ' Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but 
 I lean on thee for all other things. Dost thou know 
 it?' 
 
 ' I have guessed maybe,' and the lama's eyes 
 twinkled. ' We must change that.' 
 
 So, when vsdth seufflings and scrapings and a hot 
 air of importance, paddled up nothing less than the 
 Sahiba's pet palanquin sent twenty miles, vfith that 
 same grizzled old Oorya servant in charge, and when 
 they reached the disorderly order of the long white 
 rambling house behind Saharunpore, the lama took 
 his own measures. 
 
 Said the Sahiba cheerily from an upper window, 
 after compliments : ' What is the good of an old 
 woman's advice to an old man ? I told thee — I told 
 thee, Holy One, to keep an eye upon the chela. How 
 didst thou do it ? E"ever answer me ! I know. He 
 has been running among the women. Look at his 
 [436] 
 
KIM 
 
 eyes — hollow and sunk I And the Betraying Line 
 from the nose down. He has been sifted out ! Me ! 
 Fie ! And a priest, too ! ' 
 
 Kim looked up almost too weary to smile, shaking 
 his head in. denial. 
 
 ' Do not jest,' said the lama. ' That time is done. 
 We are here upon great matters. A sickness of soul 
 took me in the hills, and him a sickness of the body. 
 Since then I have lived upon his strength — eating 
 him.' 
 
 ' Children together — young and old,' she sniffed, 
 but forbore to make any new jokes. ' May this pres- 
 ent hospitality restore ye. Hold awhile and I will 
 come to gossip of the high good hills.' 
 
 At evening time — her son-in-law was returned, so 
 she did not need to go on inspection round the farm 
 — she won to the meat of the matter, explained low- 
 voicedly by the lama. The two old heads nodded 
 wisely together. Kim had staggered to a room with 
 a cot in it, and was dozing soddenly. The lama had 
 forbidden him to set blankets or get food. 
 
 ' I know — I know. Who but I ? ' she cackled. 
 ' We who go down to the burning-ghats clutch at the 
 hands of those coming up from the river of life with 
 full water-jars. Yes, brimming water-jars. I did 
 the boy wrong. He lent thee his strength? It is 
 true that the old eat the young daily. Stands now 
 that we must restore him.' 
 
 [437] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Thou hast many times acquired merit.' 
 
 ' My merit. What is it ? Old bag of bones mak- 
 ing curries for men who do not ask " Who cooked 
 this ? " 'Now if it were stqred up for my grand- 
 son ' 
 
 ' He that had the belly-pain ? ' 
 
 ' To think the Holy One remembers that. I must 
 tell his mother. It is most singular honour ! " He 
 that had the belly-pain " — straightway the Holy 
 One remembered. She will be proud.' 
 
 ' Mj chela is to me as is a son to the unenlightened.' 
 
 ' Say grandson, rather. Mothers have not the wis- 
 dom of our years. If a child cries they say the 
 heavens are falling. Now a' grandmother is far 
 enough separated from the pain of bearing and the 
 pleasure of giving the breast to consider whether a 
 cry is pure wickedness or the wind. And since thou 
 speakest once again of wind, when last the Holy One 
 was here, maybe I offended, in pressing for charms.' 
 
 ' Sister,' said the lama, using that form of address 
 a Buddhist monk may soiiietimes employ towards a 
 nun, ' if charms comfort thee ' 
 
 ' They are better than ten thousand hakims.' 
 
 ' I say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of 
 Such-zen, will make as many as thou mayest desire. 
 I have never seen thy face ' 
 
 ' That even the monkeys who steal our loquats 
 count for a gain. Hee ! hee ! ' 
 [438] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' But as he who sleeps there said,' he nodded at the 
 shut door of the guest-chamber across the forecourt, 
 ' thou hast a heart of gold. . . . And he is in the 
 'Spirit my very " grandson " to me.' 
 
 ' Good ! I am the Holy One's cow,' this was pure 
 Hinduism, but the lama never heeded. ' I am old. 
 I have borne sons in the body. Oh once I could 
 please men ! l^ow I can cure them.' He heard her 
 armlets tinkle as though she bared arms for action. 
 ' I will take over the boy and dose him, and stuff him, 
 and make him all whole. Hai ! hai ! We old peo,ple 
 know something yet.' 
 
 Wherefore when Kim, aching in every bone, 
 opened his eyes, and would go to the cook-house to 
 get his master's food, he found strong coercion about 
 him, and a veiled old figure at the door, flanked by 
 the grizzled manservant, who told him precisely the 
 very things that he was on no account to do. 
 
 ' Thou must have — thou shalt have nothing. 
 What ? A locked box in which to keep holy books ? 
 Oh, that is another matter. Heavens forbid I should 
 come between a priest and his prayers! It shall be 
 brought, and thou shalt keep the key.' 
 
 They pushed the .coffer under his cot, and Kim 
 shut away Mahbub's pistol, the oilskin packet 
 of letters, and the locked books and diaries, with 
 a groan of relief. For some absurd reason their 
 weight on his shoulders was nothing to their weight 
 [439] 
 
EIM 
 
 on his poor mind. His neck ached under it of 
 nights. 
 
 ' Thine is a sickness uncommon in youth these 
 days: for young folk have given up tending their 
 betters. The remedy is sleep, and certain drugs,' 
 said the Sahiba. 
 
 She brewed drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic 
 equivalent to the still-room — drenches that smelt 
 pestilently and tasted worse. She stood over Kim till 
 they went down and inquired exhaustively after they 
 had come up. She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, 
 and enforced it by means of an armed man. It is 
 true he was seventy odd, that his scabbarded sword 
 ceased at the hilt; but he represented the authority 
 of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants, 
 calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a vsdde com- 
 pass by those parts. Best of all, when the body was 
 cleared, she cut out from the mass of poor relations 
 that crowded the back of the buildings — household 
 dogs, we name them — a cousin's widow, skilled ia 
 what Europeans, who know very little about it, call 
 massage. And the two of them, laying him east and 
 west, that the mysterious earth-currents which thrill 
 the clay of our bodies might help and not hinder, took 
 him to pieces all one long afternoon — bone by bone, 
 muscle by muscle, ligament by ligament, and lastly, 
 nerve by nerve. Kneaded to irresponsible pulp, half 
 hypnotised by the perpetual flick and readjustment 
 [440] 
 
KIM 
 
 of the uneasy chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim 
 slid ten thousand miles into slumber — thirty-six 
 hours of it — sleep that soaked like rain after 
 drought. 
 
 Then she fed him, and the house spun to her 
 clamour. She caused fowls to be slain; she sent for 
 vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking gardener, 
 nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and 
 milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks — 
 anon limes for sherbets, quails of the pit, then 
 chicken livers upon a skewer, with sliced ginger be- 
 tween. 
 
 ' I have seen something of this world,' she said 
 over the crowded trays, ' and there are but two sorts 
 of women in it — those who take the strength out of 
 a man and those who put it back. Once I was that 
 one,, and now I am this. JSTay — do not play the 
 priestling with me. Mine was but a jest. If it does 
 not hold good now, it will when thou takest the road 
 again. Cousin ' — ■ this to the poor relation, never 
 wearied of extolling her patroness's charity — ' he is 
 getting a bloom on the skin of a new-curried horse. 
 Our work is like polishing jewels to be thrown to a 
 dance-girl — eh ? ' 
 
 Trim sat up and smiled. The terrible weakness 
 
 had dropped from him like an old shoe. His tongue 
 
 itched for free speech again, and but a week back the 
 
 lightest word clogged it like ashes. The wain in his 
 
 [441] 
 
KIM 
 
 neck (he must h,ave caught it from the lama) had 
 gone with the heavy dengue-aches and the evil taste 
 in his mouth. The two old women, a little, but not 
 much more carefiil about their veils now, clucked as 
 merrily as the hens that had entered picking through 
 the open door. 
 
 ' Where is my Holy One ? ' he demanded. 
 
 ' Hear him ! Thy Holy One is well,' she snapped 
 viciously. ' Though that is none of his merit. Knew 
 I a charm to make hiru w^ise, I'd sell my jewels and 
 buy it. To refuse good food — that I cooked myself 
 — and go roving into the fields for two nights on an 
 empty belly — and to tumble into a brook at the end 
 of it. Call you that holiness? Then, when he has 
 nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with 
 anxiety he tells me that he has acquired merit. Oh 
 how like are all men ! No, that was not it — he tells 
 me that he is freed from all sin. I could have told 
 him that before he wetted himself all over. He is 
 well now — this happened a week ago — but burn 
 me such holiness! A babe of three would do 
 better. Do not fret thyself for the Holy One. He 
 keeps both eyes on thee when he is not wading our 
 brooks.' 
 
 ' I do not remember to have seen him. I remem- 
 ber that the days and nights passed like bars of white 
 and black, opening and shutting. I was not sick, I 
 was only tired.' 
 
 [442] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' A lethargy that comes by right some few score 
 years later. But it is all done now.' 
 
 'Maharanee,' Kim began, but led by the look inher 
 eye, changed it to the title of plain love — ' Mother, 
 I owe my life to thee. How shall I make thanks? 
 Ten thousand blessings upon thy house and ' 
 
 ' The house be unblessed.' (It is impossible to give 
 exactly the old lady's word.) ' Thank the Gods as a 
 priest if thou wilt, but thank me if thou carest as a 
 son. Heavens above ! Have I shifted thee and lifted 
 thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts 
 flung at my head? Somewhere a mother must have 
 borne thee — to break her heart. What used thou to 
 her? Son?' 
 
 ' I had no mother, my mother,' said Kim. ' She 
 died, they tell me, when I was young.' 
 
 ' Hai mai ! Then none can say I have robbed her 
 of any right if, when thou takest the road again and 
 this house is but one of a thousand used for shelter 
 and forgotten, after an easy flung blessing. ISTo mat- 
 ter. I need no blessings, but — but ' She 
 
 stamped her foot at the poor relation : ' Take up the 
 trays to the house. What is the good of stale food in 
 the room, oh woman of ill-omen ? ' 
 
 ' I ha — have borne a son in my time too, but he 
 died,' whimpered the bowed sister figure behind the 
 chudder. ' Thou knowest he died ! I only waited for 
 the order to take away the tray.' 
 [443] 
 
KIM 
 
 * It is I that am the woman of ill-omen,' cried the 
 old lady penitently. ' We that go down to the chat- 
 tris (the big umbrellas above the burning-ghats 
 whel'e the priests take their last dues), clutch hard at 
 the bearers of the chattis (water-jars — young folk 
 full of the pride of life, she meant, but the pun is 
 clumsy). When one cannot dance in the festival one 
 must e'en look out of the window, and grandmother- 
 ing takes all a woman's time. Thy master gives me 
 all the charms I now desire for my daughter's eldest, 
 by reason — is it ? — that he is wholly free from sin. 
 The hakim is brought very low these days. He goes 
 about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters.' 
 
 ' What hakim, mother ? ' 
 
 ' That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which 
 rent me in three pieces. He cast up like a strayed 
 camel a week ago, vowing that he and thou had been 
 blood-brothers together up Kulu way, and feigning 
 great anxiety for thy health. He was very thin and 
 hungry, so I gave orders to have him stuffed too — 
 him and his anxiety.' 
 
 ' I would see him if he is here.' 
 
 ' He eats five times a day, and lances boils for 
 the villagers to save himself from an apoplexy. He 
 is . so full of anxiety for thy health that he 
 sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself 
 with scraps. He will keep. We shall never get rid 
 of him.' 
 
 [444] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Send him here, mother,' — the twinkle returned 
 to Kim's eye for a flash — ' and I will try.' 
 
 ' I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. 
 At least he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of 
 the brook. Thus, as the Holy One did not say, ac- 
 quiring merit.' 
 
 ' He is a very wise hakim. Send him, mother.' 
 
 ' Priest praising priest, a miracle ! If he is any 
 friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last meeting) 
 I'll hale him here with horse ropes and — and give 
 him a caste dinner afterwards, my son. . . . Get 
 tip and see the world ! This lying abed is the mother 
 of seventy devils . . . my son ! my son ! ' 
 
 She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook- 
 house, and almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu, 
 robed as to the shoulders like a Koman emperor, 
 jowled like Titus, bare-headed, with new patent 
 leather shoes, in highest condition of fat, exuding joy 
 and salutations. 
 
 ' By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I am jolly glad to 
 see you. I will kindly shut the door. It is a pity 
 you are sick. Are you very sick ? ' 
 
 ' The papers — the papers from the Icilta. The 
 maps and the murasla! ' He held out the key im- 
 patiently : for the present need on his soul was to get 
 rid of the loot. 
 
 ' You are quite right. That is correct depart- 
 mental view to take. You have got everything ? ' 
 [445] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' All that was handwritten in the kilta I took. The 
 rest I threw down the hill.' He could hear the key's 
 grate in the lock, the sticky pull of the slow-rendiag 
 oil-cloth, and a quick shuffling of papers. He had 
 been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that 
 they lay below him through the sick idle days — ■ a 
 burden incommunicable. Eor that reason the blood 
 tingled through his body, when Hurree, skipping ele- 
 phantinely, shook hands again. 
 
 'This is fine! This is finest! Mister O'Hara! 
 You have — ha ! ha ! — swiped the whole bag of 
 tricks — locks, stocks, and barrels. They told me it 
 was eight months' work gone up the spouts ! By 
 Jove, how they beat me! . . . Look, here is the 
 letter from Hilas ! ' He intoned a line or two of 
 court Persian, which is the language of authorised 
 and unauthorised diplomacy. ' Mister Kaja Sahib 
 has just about put his foot in the holes. He will have 
 to explain offeecially how the deuce an' all he is writ- 
 ing love-letters to the Czar. And they are very cun- 
 ning maps . . . and there is three or four Prime 
 Ministers of these parts implicated by correspond- 
 ence. By Gad, Sar ! The British Government will 
 change the succession in Hilas and Bunar, and nomi- 
 nate new heirs to the throne. " Treason most base " 
 . . . but you do not understand ? Eh ? ' 
 
 ' Are they in thy hands ? ' said Kim. It was all he 
 cared for. 
 
 [446] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Just you jolly well bet yourself they are.' He 
 stowed the entire trove about his body, as only Orien- 
 tals can. ' They are going up to the office, too. The 
 old lady thinks I am a permanent fixture here, but I 
 shall go away with these straight off — immediately. 
 Mr. Lurgan will be proud man. You are offeecially 
 subordinate to me, but I shall embody your name in 
 my verbal report. It is a pity we are not allowed 
 written reports. We Bengalis excel in the exact 
 science.' He tossed back the key and showed the 
 box empty. 
 
 ' Good. That is good. I was very tired. My Holy 
 One was sick, too. And did he fall into ' 
 
 ' Oah yess. I am his good friend, I tell you. He 
 was behaving very strange when I came down after 
 you, and I thought perhaps he might have the papers. 
 I followed him on his meditations, and to discuss 
 ethnological points also. You see, I am verree small 
 person here nowadays, in comparison with all his 
 charms. By Jove, O'Hara, do you know, he is 
 afflicted with infirmity of fits. Yess, I tell you. Cata- 
 leptic, too, if not also epileptic. I found him in 
 such a state under a tree in articulo mortem, and he 
 jumped up and walked into a brook and he was nearly 
 drowned but for me. I pulled him out.' 
 
 ' Because I was not there,' said Kim. ' He might 
 have died.' 
 
 ' Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now, and 
 [447] 
 
KIM 
 
 asserts lie has undergone transfiguration.' The Babu 
 tapped his forehead knowingly. ' I took notes of his 
 statements for Royal Society — in posse. You 
 must make haste and be quite well and come back to 
 Simla, and I will tell you all my tale at Lurgan's. It 
 was splendid. The bottoms of their trousers were 
 quite torn, and old Nahan Eaja^ he thought they 
 were European soldiers deserting.' 
 
 ' The Russians ? How long were they with thee ? ' 
 ' One was a Frenchman. Oh, days and days and 
 days ! E"ow all the hill-people believe all Russians 
 are all beggars. By Jove! they had not one damn 
 thing that I did not get them. And I told the com- 
 mon people — oah, such tales and anecdotes ! I will 
 tell you at old Lurgan's when you come up. We will 
 have — all — a night out ! It is feather in both our 
 caps ! Yess, and they gave me a certificate. That is 
 creaming joke. You should have seen them at the 
 Alliance Bank identifying themselves. And thank 
 Almighty God you got their papers so weU ! You do 
 not laugh very much, but you shall laugh when you 
 are well. Now I will go straight to the railway and 
 get out. You shall have all sorts of credits for your 
 game. When do you come along? We are very 
 proud of you though you gave us great frights. And 
 especially Mahbub.' 
 
 ' Ay, Mahbub. And where is he ? ' 
 ' Selling horses in this vi-cinity, of course.' 
 [448] 
 
' He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man who has won 
 salvation for himself and his beloved." 
 
KIM 
 
 ' Here ! Why ? Speak slowly. There is a thick- 
 ness in my head still.' 
 
 The Babu looked shyly down his nose. ' Well, you 
 see, I am fearful man, and I do not like responsibil- 
 ity. Tou were sick, you see, and I did not know 
 where deuce and all the papers were, and if so, how 
 many. So when I bad come down here I slipped in 
 private wire to Mahbub — he was at Meerut for 
 races — and I tell him how case stands. He comes 
 up with bis men and he consorts with the lama, and 
 then he calls me a fool, and is very rude ' 
 
 ' But wherefore — wherefore ? ' 
 
 ' That is what I ask. I only suggest that if any- 
 one steals the papers I should like some good strong, 
 brave men to rob them back again. You see they are 
 vitally important, and Mahbub Ali he did not know 
 where you were.' 
 
 ' Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahiba's house ? Thou art 
 mad, Babu,' said Kim with indignation. 
 
 ' I wanted the papers. Suppose she had stole 
 them. It was only practical suggestion, I think. You 
 are not pleased, eh ? ' 
 
 A native proverb — unquotable — showed the 
 blackness of Kim's disapproval; 
 
 ' Well,' — ^Hurree shrugged his shoulders, — ' there 
 
 is no accounting for thee taste. Mahbub was angry 
 
 too. He has sold horses all about here, and he says 
 
 old lady is puhha (thorough) old lady and would not 
 
 29 [449] 
 
KIM 
 
 condescend to such ungentlemanly things. I do not 
 care. I have got the papers, and I was very glad of 
 moral support from Mahbuh. I tell you I am fearful 
 man, and, somehow or other, the more fearful I am 
 the more damn-tight places I get into. So I was glad 
 you came with me to Chini, and I am glad Mahbub 
 was close by. The old lady she is sometimes very 
 rude to me and my beautiful pills.' 
 
 ' Allah be merciful,' said Kim on his elbow, rejoic- 
 ing. ' What a beast of wonder is a Babu ! And that 
 man walked alone — if he did walk — with robbed 
 and angry foreigners.' 
 
 ' Oah, that was nothing after they had done beat- 
 ing me, but if I lost the papers it was pretty jolly seri- 
 ous. Mahbub he nearly beat me too, and he went and 
 consorted with the lama no end. I shall keep to 
 ethnological investigations henceforwards. Now 
 good-bye, Mister O'Hara. I can catch 4.25 p.m. to 
 Umballa if I am quick. It will be good times when 
 we all tell thee tale up at Mister Lurgan's. I shall 
 report you offeecially better. Good-bye, my dear 
 fallow, and when next you are under the emotions 
 please do not use the Mohammedan terms with the 
 Tibet dress.' 
 
 He shook hands twice — a Babu to his boot heels 
 — and opened the door. With the fall of the sun- 
 light upon his still triumphant face he returned to 
 the humble Dacca quack. 
 
 [450] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' He robbed them,' thought Kim, forgetting his 
 own share in the game. ' He tricked them. He lied 
 to them like a Bengali. They give him a chit (a tes- 
 timonial). He makes them a mock at the risk of his 
 life — / never would have gone down to them after 
 the pistol-shots — and he says he is a fearful man. 
 . . . And he is a fearful man. I must get into the 
 world again.' 
 
 At first his legs bent like bad pipe-stems, and the 
 flood and rush of the sunlit air dazzled him. He 
 squatted by the white wall, the mind rummaging 
 among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the 
 lama's weaknesses, and now that the stimulus of talk 
 was removed, his own great self-pity, of which, like 
 the sick, he had great store. The unnerved brain 
 edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once 
 rowelled, sidles from the spur. It was enough, amply 
 enough, that the spoil of the hilta was away — off his 
 hands — out of his possession. He tried to think of 
 the lama, — to wonder why he had tumbled into a 
 brook, — but the bigness of the world, seen between 
 the forecourt gates, swept linked thought aside. Then 
 he looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with 
 the thatched huts hidden among crops — looked with 
 strange eyes unable to take up the size and propor- 
 tion and use of things — stared for a still half -hour. 
 AU that while he felt, though he could not put it into 
 words, that his soul was out of gear with its sur- 
 [451] 
 
KIM 
 
 roundings — a cog-wheel unconnected with any ma- 
 chinery, jlist like the idle cog-wheel of a cheap 
 Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner. The 
 breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him, 
 the noises of the popidated house behind — squab- 
 bles, orders, and reproofs — hit on dead ears. 
 
 ' I am Kim. I am Kim ; and what is Kim ? ' His 
 soul repeated it again and again. 
 
 He did not want to cry, — had never felt less like 
 crying in his life, — but of a sudden easy, stupid 
 tears trickled down his nose, and with almost an au- 
 dible click he felt the wheels of his beiag lock up 
 anew on the world without. Things that rode mean- 
 ingless on his eyeball an instant before slid into 
 proper proportion. Eoads were meant to be walked 
 upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields 
 to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. 
 They were all real and true — solidly planted upon 
 the feet — perfectly comprehensible — clay of his 
 clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a 
 dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. 
 Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this 
 move : ' Let him go. I have done my share. Mother 
 Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes 
 back from meditation, tell him.' 
 
 There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll 
 half a mile away, with a young banian tree behind — 
 a look-out, as it were, above some new-ploughed lev- 
 [462] 
 
KIM 
 
 els ; and his eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew heavy as 
 he neared it. The ground was good clean dust — no 
 new herbage that, living, is half-way to death already, 
 but the hopeful dust that holds the seed of all life. 
 Kim felt it between his toes, patted it with his pahns, 
 and, joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him 
 down full length along in the shadow of the wooden- 
 pinned cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as 
 the Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the 
 poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off from 
 her good currents. His head lay powerless upon her 
 breast, . and his opened hands surrendered to her 
 strength. The races who shoe their feet with iron 
 and the skins of dead animals, who pack boards and 
 concrete between themselves and the clay of their 
 fashioning, do not understand, except when they go 
 camping, how Earth, that gives all the fevers, can 
 also take them away. The many-rooted tree above 
 him, and even the dead man-handled wood beside 
 him, knew what he sought, as he himself did not 
 know. Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep. 
 Towards evening, when the dust of returning kine 
 made all the horizons smoke, came the lama and 
 Mahbub Ali, both afoot, walking cautiously, for the 
 house had told them where he had gone. 
 
 ' Allah ! What a fool's trick to play in open 
 country,' muttered the horse-dealer. ' He could be 
 shot a hundred times — but this is not the Border.' 
 [453] 
 
KIM 
 
 ' And,' said the lama, repeating a many-times-told 
 tale, ' never was such a chela. Temperate, kindly, 
 wise, of ungrudging disposition, a merry heart upon 
 the road, never forgetting, learned, truthful, courte- 
 ous. Great is his reward ! ' 
 
 ' I know the boy — as I have said.' 
 
 ' And he was all those things ? ' 
 
 ' Some of them — but I have not yet found a Eed 
 Hat's charm for making him overly truthful. He 
 has certainly been well nursed.' 
 
 ' The Sahiba is a heart of gold,' said the lama ear- 
 nestly. ' She looks upon him as her son.' 
 
 ' Hmph ! Half Hind seems that way disposed. 
 I only wished to see that the boy had come to no harm 
 and was a free agent. As thou knowest, he and I 
 were old friends in the first days of your pilgrimage 
 together.' 
 
 ' That is a bond between us.' The lama sat down. 
 ' We are at the end of the pilgrimage.' 
 
 ' No thanks to thee thine was not cut off for good 
 and all a week back. I heard what the Sahiba said to 
 thee when we bore thee up on the cot.' Mahbub 
 laughed, and tugged his newly-dyed beard. 
 
 ' I was meditating upon other matters that tide. 
 It was the hakim from Dacca broke .my meditations.' 
 
 ' Otherwise ' — this was in Pashtu for decency's 
 sake — ' thou wouldst have ended thy meditations 
 upon the sultry side of Hell — being an unbeliever 
 [454] 
 
KIM 
 
 and an idolater for all tliy child's simplicity. But 
 now, Ked Hat, what is to be done ? ' 
 
 ' This very night,' — the words came slowly, vi- 
 brating with triumph, — ' this very night he will be 
 as free as I am from all taint of sin — assured as I 
 am when he quits this body of Freedom from the 
 Wheel of Things. I have a sign,' he laid his hand 
 above the torn chart in his bosom, ' that my time is 
 short ; but I shall have safe-guarded him throughout 
 the years. Eemember, I have reached Knowledge, 
 as I told thee only three nights back.' 
 
 ' It must be true, as the Tirah priest said when I 
 stole his cousin's wife, that I am a sufi (a free- 
 thinker); for here I sit,' said Mahbub to himself, 
 ' drinking in blasphemy unthinkable. I remember 
 the tale. On that, then, he goes to Jannatu V Adn 
 (the Gardens of Eden). . . . Wilt thou slay him or 
 drown him in that wonderful Eiver from which the 
 Babu dragged thee ? ' 
 
 ' I was dragged from no Eiver,' said the lama sim- 
 ply. ' Thou hast forgotten what befell. I found it 
 by Knowledge.' 
 
 ' Oh, ay. True,' stammered Mahbub, divided be- 
 tween high indignation and enormous mirth. ' I had 
 forgotten the true run of what happened. Thou 
 didst find it knowingly.' 
 
 ' And to say that I would take life is — not a 
 sin but a madness simple. My chela aided me to 
 [ 455 ] 
 
KIM 
 
 the Eiver, If is his right to be cleansed from sin — 
 TOth me.' 
 
 ' Ay, he needs cleansing — but afterwards, old 
 man — afterwards ? ' 
 
 ' What matter under all the heavens ? He is sure 
 of Nibban — enlightened — as I am.' 
 
 ' Well said. I had a fear he might mount Moham- 
 med's horse and fly away.' 
 
 ' Nay — he must go forth as a teacher.' 
 
 ' Aha ! Now I see ! That is the right gait for the 
 colt. Certainly he must go forth as a teacher. He is 
 somewhat urgently needed as a scribe by the State, 
 for instance.' 
 
 ' To that end he was prepared. I acquired merit 
 in that I gave alms for his sake. A good deed does 
 not die. He aided me in my Search. I aided him 
 in his. Just is the Wheel, O horse-seller from the 
 North. Let hitn be a teacher. Let him be a scribe. 
 What matter? He will have attained Freedom at 
 the end. The rest is illusion.' 
 
 ' What matter ? when I must have hitn with me 
 beyond Balkh in six months ! I come up with ten 
 lame horses and three strong-backed men — thanks 
 to that chicken of a Babu — to break a sick boy by 
 force out of an old harpy's house. It seems that I 
 stand by while a young Sahib is hoisted into Allah 
 knows what of an idolater's heaven by means of old 
 Ked Hat. And I am reckoned something of a player 
 [466] 
 
KIM 
 
 of the game myself ! But the madman is fond of the 
 boy; and I must be very reasonably mad too.' 
 
 ' What is the prayer ? ' said the lama, as the rough 
 Pashtu rumbled into the red beard. 
 
 ' 'No matter at all; but now I understand that the 
 boy, sure of Paradise, can yet enter Government ser- 
 vice, my mind is easier. I must get to my horses. It 
 grows dark. Do not wake him. I have no wish to 
 hear him call thee master.' 
 
 ' But he is my disciple. What else ? ' 
 
 ' He has told me.' Mahbub choked down his touch 
 of spleen and rose laughing. ' I am not altogether 
 of thy faith. Bed Hat — if so small a matter concern 
 thee.' 
 
 ' It is nothing,' said the lama. 
 
 ' I thought not. Therefore it will not move thee 
 sinless, new-washed and three parts drowned to boot, 
 when I call thee a good man — a very good man. 
 We have talked together some four or five evenings 
 now, and for all I am a horse-coper I can still, as the 
 saying is, see holiness beyond the legs of a horse. 
 Yes, can see, too, how our Friend of all the World 
 put his hand iu thine at the first. Use him well, and 
 suffer him to retiirn to the world as a teacher, when 
 thou hast — bathed his legs, if that is the proper 
 medicine for the colt.' 
 
 ' Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accom- 
 pany the boy ? ' 
 
 [457] 
 
KIM 
 
 Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent 
 insolence of the demand, which across the Bor- 
 der he would have paid with more than a blow. 
 Then the humour of it touched his Mohammedan 
 soul. 
 
 ' Softly — softly — one foot at a time, as the lame 
 gelding went over the UmbaUa jumps. I may come 
 to Paradise later — I have workings that way — 
 great motions — and I owe them to thy simplicity. 
 Thou hast never lied ? ' 
 
 'What need?' 
 
 ' O Allah, hear him ! " What need " in this Thy 
 world ! , Nor ever harmed a man ? ' 
 
 ' Once — with a pencase — before I was wise.' 
 
 ' Good ! I think the better of thee. Thy teachings 
 are good. Thou hast turned one man that I know 
 from the path of strife.' He laughed immensely. 
 ' He came here open-minded to commit a dacoity (a 
 house-robbery with violence). Yes, to cut, rob, kill, 
 and carry off what he desired.' 
 
 ' A great foolishness ! ' 
 
 ' Oh ! black shame too. So he thought after he had 
 seen thee — and a few others, male and female. So 
 he abandoned it; and now he goes to beat a big black 
 man.' 
 
 ' I do not understand.' 
 
 ' Allah forbid it ! Some men are strong in know- 
 ledge. Red Hat. Thy strength is stronger still. 
 [458] 
 
KIM 
 
 Keep it — I think thou wilt. If the boy is not a 
 good servant, pull his ears off.' 
 
 With a hitch of his broad Bokhariot belt the 
 Pathan swaggered off into the gloamiag, and the 
 lama came down from his clouds so far as to look at 
 the broad back. 
 
 ' That person lacks courtesy, and is deceived by 
 the shadow of appearances. But he spoke well of 
 my chela, who now enters upon his reward. Let me 
 make the prayer ! . . . Wake, O fortunate above all 
 born of women. Wake ! It is found ! ' 
 
 Kim came up from those deep wells of sleep, and 
 the lama attended his yawning pleasure; duly snap- 
 ping fingers to head off evil spirits. 
 
 ' I have slept a hundred years. Where ? 
 
 Holy One, hast thou been here long? I went out to 
 look for thee, but ' — he laughed drowsily — ' I slept 
 by the way. I am all well now. Hast thou eaten ? 
 Let us go to the house. It is many days since I 
 tended thee. And the Sahiba fed thee well ? Who 
 shampooed thy legs ? What of the weaknesses ? The 
 belly and the neck, and the beating in the ears ? ' 
 
 ' Gone — all gone. Dost thou not know ? ' 
 
 ' I know nothing, but that I have not seen thee for 
 a monkey's age. Know what ? ' 
 
 ' Strange the knowledge did not reach out to thee, 
 when all my thoughts were theeward.' 
 
 ' I cannot see the face, but the voice is like a 
 [459] 
 
KIM 
 
 gong. Has the SaHba made a young man of thee 
 by her cookery ? ' 
 
 He peered at the cross-legged figure, outlined jet- 
 black against the lemon-coloured drift of li^t. So 
 does the stone Bodhisat sit who looks down upon the 
 patent self-registering turnstiles of the Lahore 
 Museum. 
 
 The lama held his peace. Except for the click of 
 the rosary and a faint clop-clop of Mahbub's re- 
 treating feet, the soft, smoky silence of evening ia 
 India wrapped them close. 
 
 ' Hear me ! I bring news.' 
 , ' But let us ' 
 
 Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence. 
 Kim tucked his feet under his robe-edge obedi- 
 ently. 
 
 ' Hear me ! I bring news ! The Search is finished. 
 Comes now the Beward. . . , Thus. When we were 
 among the hills, I lived on thy strength till the young 
 branch bowed and nigh broke. When we came out of 
 the hills, I was troubled for thee and for other mat- 
 ters which I held in my heart. The boat of my soul 
 lacked direction; I could not see into the Cause of 
 Things. So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman 
 altogether. I took no food. I drank no water. Still 
 I saw not the Way. They pressed food upon me and 
 cried at my shut door. So I removed myself to a 
 hollow under a tree. I took no food. I took no 
 [460] 
 
KIM 
 
 water. I sat in meditation two days and two nights, 
 abstracting my mind; inbreathing and outbreathing 
 in the required manner. . . . Upon the second night 
 — so great was my reward — the wise soul loosed 
 itself from the silly body and went free. This I 
 have never before attained, though I have stood on 
 the threshold of it. Consider, for it is a marvel ! ' 
 
 'A marvel indeed. Two days and two nights 
 without food ! Where was the Sahiba ? ' said Kim 
 under his breath. 
 
 ' Yea, my soul went free, and, wheeling like an 
 eagle, saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor 
 any other soul. As a drop falls into water, so my 
 soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all 
 things. At that poirit, exalted in contemplation, I 
 saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, 
 and my own painted rocks at Suchzen; I saw every 
 camp and village, to the least, where we have ever 
 rested. I saw them at one time and in one place; 
 for they were within my soul. By this I knew the 
 soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and 
 Space and of Things. By this I knew that I was 
 free. I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw thee 
 falling down hill under the idolater — at one time, 
 in one place, in my soul, which, as I say, had touched 
 the Great Soul. Also I saw the stupid body of Teshoo 
 Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled 
 beside, shouting in its ear. Then my soul was all 
 [461] 
 
KIM 
 
 alone, and I saw nothing, for I was all things, having 
 reached the Great Soul. And I meditated a thousand 
 thousand years, passionless, well aware of the Causes 
 of all Things. Then a voice cried : " What shall come 
 to the boy if thou art dead ? " and I was shaken back 
 and forth in myself with pity for thee; and I said: 
 " I will return to my chela lest he miss the Way." 
 Upon this my soul, which is the soul of Teshoo Lama, 
 withdrew itself from the Great Soul with strivings 
 and yearnings and retchings and agonies not to be 
 told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the 
 water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from 
 the thick air; so put forth, so leaped out, so drew 
 away, so fumed up the soul of Teshoo Lama from the 
 Great Soul. Then a voice cried : " The Eiver ! Take 
 heed to the Eiver ! " and I looked down upon all the 
 world, which was as I have seen it before — one in 
 time, one in place — and I said : " Yonder is the 
 Eiver of the Arrow at my feet." At that hour my 
 soul was hampered by some evil or other whereof I 
 was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon my arms 
 and coiled round my waist ; but I put it aside, and I 
 cast forth as an eagle in my flight for the very place 
 of the Eiver. I pushed aside world upon world for 
 thy sake. I saw the Eiver below me — the Eiver of 
 the Arrow — and, descending, the waters of it closed 
 over me ; and behold I was again in the body of Te- 
 shoo Lama, but free from sin, and the haJcim from 
 [462] 
 
KIM 
 
 Dacca bore up my head in the waters of the Eiver. 
 It is behind the mango-tope here — even here ! ' 
 
 ' Allah Kerim ! Oh, weU. that the Babu was there ! 
 Wast thou very wet ? ' 
 
 ' Why should I regard? I remember the hakim 
 was concerned for the body of Teshoo Lama. He 
 haled it out of the holy water in his hands, and there 
 came afterwards a horse-seller from the North vidth a 
 cot and men, and they put the body on the cot and 
 bore it up to the Sahiba's house.' 
 
 'What said the Sahiba?' 
 
 ' I was meditating in that body, and did not hear. 
 So thus the Search is ended. For the merit that I 
 have acquired, the Eiver of the Arrow is here. It 
 broke forth at our feet, as I have said. I have found 
 it. Son of my soul, I have wrenched my soul back 
 from the Threshold of Freedom to free thee from all 
 sin — as I am free, and sinless. Just is the Wheel ! 
 Certain is our deliverance. Come ! ' 
 
 He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a 
 man may who has won Salvation for himself and his 
 beloved. 
 
 [463] 
 
t 
 
 >