Chapter 1
O ye who
tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to judgment Day,
Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!
Buddha at Kamakura.
He sat, in defiance of
municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her
brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher—the
Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.
Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon',
hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is
always first of the conqueror's loot.
There was
some justification for Kim—he had kicked Lala
Dinanath's boy off the trunnions—since the English
held the Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was
burned black as any native; though he spoke the
vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a
clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on
terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the
bazar; Kim was white—a poor white of the very
poorest. The half-caste woman who looked after him
(she smoked opium, and pretended to keep a
second-hand furniture shop by the square where the
cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was
Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been
nursemaid in a Colonel's family and had married
Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-sergeant of the
Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took a
post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and his
Regiment went home without him. The wife died of
cholera in Ferozepore, and O'Hara fell to drink and
loafing up and down the line with the keen-eyed
three-year-old baby. Societies and chaplains,
anxious for the child, tried to catch him, but
O'Hara drifted away, till he came across the woman
who took opium and learned the taste from her, and
died as poor whites die in India. His estate at
death consisted of three papers—one he called his
'ne varietur' because those words were written below
his signature thereon, and another his
'clearance-certificate'. The third was Kim's
birth-certificate. Those things, he was used to say,
in his glorious opium-hours, would yet make little
Kimball a man. On no account was Kim to part with
them, for they belonged to a great piece of
magic—such magic as men practised over yonder behind
the Museum, in the big blue-and-white Jadoo-Gher—the
Magic House, as we name the Masonic Lodge. It would,
he said, all come right some day, and Kim's horn
would be exalted between pillars—monstrous
pillars—of beauty and strength. The Colonel himself,
riding on a horse, at the head of the finest
Regiment in the world, would attend to Kim—little
Kim that should have been better off than his
father. Nine hundred first-class devils, whose God
was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to
Kim, if they had not forgotten O'Hara—poor O'Hara
that was gang-foreman on the Ferozepore line. Then
he would weep bitterly in the broken rush chair on
the veranda. So it came about after his death that
the woman sewed parchment, paper, and
birth-certificate into a leather amulet-case which
she strung round Kim's neck.
'And some
day,' she said, confusedly remembering O'Hara's
prophecies, 'there will come for you a great Red
Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his
tall horse, yes, and' dropping into English—'nine
hundred devils.'
'Ah,' said
Kim, 'I shall remember. A Red Bull and a Colonel on
a horse will come, but first, my father said, will
come the two men making ready the ground for these
matters. That is how my father said they always did;
and it is always so when men work magic.'
If the woman
had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those
papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by
the Provincial Lodge, and sent to the Masonic
Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had heard of
magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held views of his
own. As he reached the years of indiscretion, he
learned to avoid missionaries and white men of
serious aspect who asked who he was, and what he
did. For Kim did nothing with an immense success.
True, he knew the wonderful walled city of Lahore
from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; was
hand in glove with men who led lives stranger than
anything Haroun al Raschid dreamed of; and he lived
in a life wild as that of the Arabian Nights, but
missionaries and secretaries of charitable societies
could not see the beauty of it. His nickname through
the wards was 'Little Friend of all the World'; and
very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he
executed commissions by night on the crowded
housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion.
It was intrigue,—of course he knew that much, as he
had known all evil since he could speak,—but what he
loved was the game for its own sake—the stealthy
prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl
up a waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women's
world on the flat roofs, and the headlong flight
from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot
dark. Then there were holy men, ash-smeared fakirs
by their brick shrines under the trees at the
riverside, with whom he was quite familiar—greeting
them as they returned from begging-tours, and, when
no one was by, eating from the same dish. The woman
who looked after him insisted with tears that he
should wear European clothes—trousers, a shirt and a
battered hat. Kim found it easier to slip into Hindu
or Mohammedan garb when engaged on certain
businesses. One of the young men of fashion—he who
was found dead at the bottom of a well on the night
of the earthquake—had once given him a complete suit
of Hindu kit, the costume of a lowcaste street boy,
and Kim stored it in a secret place under some
baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the Punjab
High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie
seasoning after they have driven down the Ravi. When
there was business or frolic afoot, Kim would use
his properties, returning at dawn to the veranda,
all tired out from shouting at the heels of a
marriage procession, or yelling at a Hindu festival.
Sometimes there was food in the house, more often
there was not, and then Kim went out again to eat
with his native friends.
As he
drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now
and again from his king-of-the-castle game with
little Chota Lal and Abdullah the sweetmeat-seller's
son, to make a rude remark to the native policeman
on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door. The
big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old.
So did the water-carrier, sluicing water on the dry
road from his goat-skin bag. So did Jawahir Singh,
the Museum carpenter, bent over new packing-cases.
So did everybody in sight except the peasants from
the country, hurrying up to the Wonder House to view
the things that men made in their own province and
elsewhere. The Museum was given up to Indian arts
and manufactures, and anybody who sought wisdom
could ask the Curator to explain.
'Off! Off!
Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's
wheel.
'Thy father
was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi,' sang
Kim. 'All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!'
'Let me up!'
shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered
cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million
sterling, but India is the only democratic land in
the world.
'The Hindus
fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them
off. Thy father was a pastry-cook—'
He stopped;
for there shuffled round the corner, from the
roaring Motee Bazar, such a man as Kim, who thought
he knew all castes, had never seen. He was nearly
six feet high, dressed in fold upon fold of dingy
stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it
could Kim refer to any known trade or profession. At
his belt hung a long open-work iron pencase and a
wooden rosary such as holy men wear. On his head was
a gigantic sort of tam-o'-shanter. His face was
yellow and wrinkled, like that of Fook Shing, the
Chinese bootmaker in the bazar. His eyes turned up
at the corners and looked like little slits of onyx.
'Who is
that?' said Kim to his companions.
'Perhaps it
is a man,' said Abdullah, finger in mouth, staring.
'Without
doubt,' returned Kim; 'but he is no man of India
that I have ever seen.'
'A priest,
perhaps,' said Chota Lal, spying the rosary. 'See!
He goes into the Wonder House!'
'Nay, nay,'
said the policeman, shaking his head. 'I do not
understand your talk.' The constable spoke Punjabi.
'O Friend of all the World, what does he say?'
'Send him
hither,' said Kim, dropping from Zam-Zammah,
flourishing his bare heels. 'He is a foreigner, and
thou art a buffalo.'
The man
turned helplessly and drifted towards the boys. He
was old, and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of
the stinking artemisia of the mountain passes.
'O Children,
what is that big house?' he said in very fair Urdu.
'The
Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!' Kim gave him no
title—such as Lala or Mian. He could not divine the
man's creed.
'Ah! The
Wonder House! Can any enter?'
'It is
written above the door—all can enter.'
'Without
payment?'
'I go in and
out. I am no banker,' laughed Kim.
'Alas! I am
an old man. I did not know.' Then, fingering his
rosary, he half turned to the Museum.
'What is
your caste? Where is your house? Have you come far?'
Kim asked.
'I came by
Kulu—from beyond the Kailas—but what know you? From
the Hills where'—he sighed—'the air and water are
fresh and cool.'
'Aha! Khitai
[a Chinaman],' said Abdullah proudly. Fook Shing had
once chased him out of his shop for spitting at the
joss above the boots.
'Pahari [a
hillman],' said little Chota Lal.
'Aye,
child—a hillman from hills thou'lt never see. Didst
hear of Bhotiyal [Tibet]? I am no Khitai, but a
Bhotiya [Tibetan], since you must know—a lama—or,
say, a guru in your tongue.'
'A guru from
Tibet,' said Kim. 'I have not seen such a man. They
be Hindus in Tibet, then?'
'We be
followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our
lamasseries, and I go to see the Four Holy Places
before I die. Now do you, who are children, know as
much as I do who am old.' He smiled benignantly on
the boys.
'Hast thou
eaten?'
He fumbled
in his bosom and drew forth a worn, wooden
begging-bowl. The boys nodded. All priests of their
acquaintance begged.
'I do not
wish to eat yet.' He turned his head like an old
tortoise in the sunlight. 'Is it true that there are
many images in the Wonder House of Lahore?' He
repeated the last words as one making sure of an
address.
'That is
true,' said Abdullah. 'It is full of heathen busts.
Thou also art an idolater.'
'Never mind
him,' said. Kim. 'That is the Government's house and
there is no idolatry in it, but only a Sahib with a
white beard. Come with me and I will show.'
'Strange
priests eat boys,' whispered Chota Lal.
'And he is a
stranger and a but-parast [idolater],' said
Abdullah, the Mohammedan.
Kim laughed.
'He is new. Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe.
Come!'
Kim clicked
round the self-registering turnstile; the old man
followed and halted amazed. In the entrance-hall
stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist
sculptures done, savants know how long since, by
forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not
unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted
Grecian touch. There were hundreds of pieces,
friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues
and slabs crowded with figures that had encrusted
the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas
of the North Country and now, dug up and labelled,
made the pride of the Museum. In open-mouthed wonder
the lama turned to this and that, and finally
checked in rapt attention before a large alto-relief
representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord
Buddha. The Master was represented seated on a lotus
the petals of which were so deeply undercut as to
show almost detached. Round Him was an adoring
hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time Buddhas.
Below were lotus-covered waters with fishes and
water-birds. Two butterfly-winged devas held a
wreath over His head; above them another pair
supported an umbrella surmounted by the jewelled
headdress of the Bodhisat.
'The Lord!
The Lord! It is Sakya Muni himself,' the lama half
sobbed; and under his breath began the wonderful
Buddhist invocation:
To Him the
Way, the Law, apart, Whom Maya held beneath her
heart, Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat.
'And He is
here! The Most Excellent Law is here also. My
pilgrimage is well begun. And what work! What work!'
'Yonder is
the Sahib.' said Kim, and dodged sideways among the
cases of the arts and manufacturers wing. A
white-bearded Englishman was looking at the lama,
who gravely turned and saluted him and after some
fumbling drew forth a note-book and a scrap of
paper.
'Yes, that
is my name,' smiling at the clumsy, childish print.
'One of us
who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places—he is now
Abbot of the Lung-Cho Monastery—gave it me,'
stammered the lama. 'He spoke of these.' His lean
hand moved tremulously round.
'Welcome,
then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I
am here'—he glanced at the lama's face—'to gather
knowledge. Come to my office awhile.' The old man
was trembling with excitement.
The office
was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from
the sculpture-lined gallery. Kim laid himself down,
his ear against a crack in the heat-split cedar
door, and, following his instinct, stretched out to
listen and watch.
Most of the
talk was altogether above his head. The lama,
haltingly at first, spoke to the Curator of his own
lamassery, the Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks,
four months' march away. The Curator brought out a
huge book of photos and showed him that very place,
perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley
of many-hued strata.
'Ay, ay!'
The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of
Chinese work. 'Here is the little door through which
we bring wood before winter. And thou—the English
know of these things? He who is now Abbot of
Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe. The
Lord—the Excellent One—He has honour here too? And
His life is known?'
'It is all
carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art
rested.'
Out shuffled
the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside
him, went through the collection with the reverence
of a devotee and the appreciative instinct of a
craftsman.
Incident by
incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the
unfamiliar Greek convention, but delighted as a
child at each new trove. Where the sequence failed,
as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it from
his mound of books—French and German, with
photographs and reproductions.
Here was the
devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian
story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while
mother and father listened; and here were incidents
in the legend of the cousin Devadatta. Here was the
wicked woman who accused the Master of impurity, all
confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park;
the miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here
was the Bodhisat in royal state as a prince; the
miraculous birth; the death at Kusinagara, where the
weak disciple fainted; while there were almost
countless repetitions of the meditation under the
Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the alms-bowl was
everywhere. In a few minutes the Curator saw that
his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a
scholar of parts. And they went at it all over
again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his spectacles,
and talking at railway speed in a bewildering
mixture of Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the
travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fu-Hiouen and
Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was
any translation of their record. He drew in his
breath as he turned helplessly over the pages of
Beal and Stanislas Julien. ''Tis all here. A
treasure locked.' Then he composed himself
reverently to listen to fragments hastily rendered
into Urdu. For the first time he heard of the
labours of European scholars, who by the help of
these and a hundred other documents have identified
the Holy Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a
mighty map, spotted and traced with yellow. The
brown finger followed the Curator's pencil from
point to point. Here was Kapilavastu, here the
Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca of
Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the
Holy One's death. The old man bowed his head over
the sheets in silence for a while, and the Curator
lit another pipe. Kim had fallen asleep. When he
waked, the talk, still in spate, was more within his
comprehension.
'And thus it
was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go to
the Holy Places which His foot had trod—to the
Birthplace, even to Kapila; then to Mahabodhi, which
is Buddh Gaya—to the Monastery—to the Deer-park—to
the place of His death.'
The lama
lowered his voice. 'And I come here alone. For
five—seven—eighteen—forty years it was in my mind
that the Old Law was not well followed; being
overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms,
and idolatry. Even as the child outside said but
now. Ay, even as the child said, with but-parasti.'
'So it comes
with all faiths.'
'Thinkest
thou? The books of my lamassery I read, and they
were dried pith; and the later ritual with which we
of the Reformed Law have cumbered ourselves—that,
too, had no worth to these old eyes. Even the
followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud
with one another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya,
illusion. But I have another desire'—the seamed
yellow face drew within three inches of the Curator,
and the long forefinger-nail tapped on the table.
'Your scholars, by these books, have followed the
Blessed Feet in all their wanderings; but there are
things which they have not sought out. I know
nothing—nothing do I know—but I go to free myself
from the Wheel of Things by a broad and open road.'
He smiled with most simple triumph. 'As a pilgrim to
the Holy Places I acquire merit. But there is more.
Listen to a true thing. When our gracious Lord,
being as yet a youth, sought a mate, men said, in
His father's Court, that He was too tender for
marriage. Thou knowest?'
The Curator
nodded, wondering what would come next.
'So they
made the triple trial of strength against all
comers. And at the test of the Bow, our Lord first
breaking that which they gave Him, called for such a
bow as none might bend. Thou knowest?'
'It is
written. I have read.'
'And,
overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far
and far beyond sight. At the last it fell; and,
where it touched earth, there broke out a stream
which presently became a River, whose nature, by our
Lord's beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere
He freed himself, is that whoso bathes in it washes
away all taint and speckle of sin.'
'So it is
written,' said the Curator sadly.
The lama
drew a long breath. 'Where is that River? Fountain
of Wisdom, where fell the arrow?'
'Alas, my
brother, I do not know,' said the Curator.
'Nay, if it
please thee to forget—the one thing only that thou
hast not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am
an old man! I ask with my head between thy feet, O
Fountain of Wisdom. We know He drew the bow! We know
the arrow fell! We know the stream gushed! Where,
then, is the River? My dream told me to find it. So
I came. I am here. But where is the River?'
'If I knew,
think you I would not cry it aloud?'
'By it one
attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama
went on, unheeding. 'The River of the Arrow! Think
again! Some little stream, maybe—dried in the heats?
But the Holy One would never so cheat an old man.'
'I do not
know. I do not know.'
The lama
brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a
handsbreadth from the Englishman's. 'I see thou dost
not know. Not being of the Law, the matter is hid
from thee.'
'Ay—hidden—hidden.'
'We are both
bound, thou and I, my brother. But I'—he rose with a
sweep of the soft thick drapery—'I go to cut myself
free. Come also!'
'I am
bound,' said the Curator. 'But whither goest thou?'
'First to
Kashi [Benares]: where else? There I shall meet one
of the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He
also is a Seeker in secret, and from him haply I may
learn. Maybe he will go with me to Buddh Gaya.
Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there will
I seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as
I go—for the place is not known where the arrow
fell.'
'And how
wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther
to Benares.'
'By road and
the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I
came hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first
I was amazed to see those tall poles by the side of
the road snatching up and snatching up their
threads,'—he illustrated the stoop and whirl of a
telegraph-pole flashing past the train. 'But later,
I was cramped and desired to walk, as I am used.'
'And thou
art sure of thy road?' said the Curator.
'Oh, for
that one but asks a question and pays money, and the
appointed persons despatch all to the appointed
place. That much I knew in my lamassery from sure
report,' said the lama proudly.
'And when
dost thou go?' The Curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note
of India today.
'As soon as
may be. I follow the places of His life till I come
to the River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a
written paper of the hours of the trains that go
south.'
'And for
food?' Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money
somewhere about them, but the Curator wished to make
sure.
'For the
journey, I take up the Master's begging-bowl. Yes.
Even as He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my
monastery. There was with me when I left the hills a
chela [disciple] who begged for me as the Rule
demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a fever took him
and he died. I have now no chela, but I will take
the alms-bowl and thus enable the charitable to
acquire merit.' He nodded his head valiantly.
Learned doctors of a lamassery do not beg, but the
lama was an enthusiast in this quest.
'Be it so,'
said the Curator, smiling. 'Suffer me now to acquire
merit. We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is
a new book of white English paper: here be sharpened
pencils two and three—thick and thin, all good for a
scribe. Now lend me thy spectacles.'
The Curator
looked through them. They were heavily scratched,
but the power was almost exactly that of his own
pair, which he slid into the lama's hand, saying:
'Try these.'
'A feather!
A very feather upon the face.' The old man turned
his head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose. 'How
scarcely do I feel them! How clearly do I see!'
'They be
bilaur—crystal—and will never scratch. May they help
thee to thy River, for they are thine.'
'I will take
them and the pencils and the white note-book,' said
the lama, 'as a sign of friendship between priest
and priest—and now—' He fumbled at his belt,
detached the open-work iron pincers, and laid it on
the Curator's table. 'That is for a memory between
thee and me—my pencase. It is something old—even as
I am.'
It was a
piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is
not smelted these days; and the collector's heart in
the Curator's bosom had gone out to it from the
first. For no persuasion would the lama resume his
gift.
'When I
return, having found the River, I will bring thee a
written picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used
to make on silk at the lamassery. Yes—and of the
Wheel of Life,' he chuckled, 'for we be craftsmen
together, thou and I.'
The Curator
would have detained him: they are few in the world
who still have the secret of the conventional
brush-pen Buddhist pictures which are, as it were,
half written and half drawn. But the lama strode
out, head high in air, and pausing an instant before
the great statue of a Bodhisat in meditation,
brushed through the turnstiles.
Kim followed
like a shadow. What he had overheard excited him
wildly. This man was entirely new to all his
experience, and he meant to investigate further,
precisely as he would have investigated a new
building or a strange festival in Lahore city. The
lama was his trove, and he purposed to take
possession. Kim's mother had been Irish, too.
The old man
halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his eye
fell on Kim. The inspiration of his pilgrimage had
left him for awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and
very empty.
'Do not sit
under that gun,' said the policeman loftily.
'Huh! Owl!'
was Kim's retort on the lama's behalf. 'Sit under
that gun if it please thee. When didst thou steal
the milkwoman'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 bazaar boys
if need arose.
'And whom
didst thou worship within?' said Kim affably,
squatting in the shade beside the lama.
'I
worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent
Law.'
Kim accepted
this new God without emotion. He knew already a few
score.
'And what
dost thou do?'
'I beg. I
remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk.
What is the custom of charity in this town? In
silence, as we do of Tibet, or speaking aloud?'
'Those who
beg in silence starve in silence,' said Kim, quoting
a native proverb. The lama tried to rise, but sank
back again, sighing for his disciple, dead in
far-away Kulu. Kim watched head to one side,
considering and interested.
'Give me the
bowl. I know the people of this city—all who are
charitable. Give, and I will bring it back filled.'
Simply as a
child the old man handed him the bowl.
'Rest, thou.
I know the people.'
He trotted
off to the open shop of a kunjri, a low-caste
vegetable-seller, which lay opposite the
belt-tramway line down the Motee Bazar. She knew Kim
of old.
'Oho, hast
thou turned yogi with thy begging-bowl?' she cried.
'Nay.' said
Kim proudly. 'There is a new priest in the city—a
man such as I have never seen.'
'Old
priest—young tiger,' said the woman angrily. 'I am
tired of new priests! They settle on our wares like
flies. Is the father of my son a well of charity to
give to all who ask?'
'No,' said
Kim. 'Thy man is rather yagi [bad-tempered] than
yogi [a holy man]. But this priest is new. The Sahib
in the Wonder House has talked to him like a
brother. O my mother, fill me this bowl. He waits.'
'That bowl
indeed! That cow-bellied basket! Thou hast as much
grace as the holy bull of Shiv. He has taken the
best of a basket of onions already, this morn; and
forsooth, I must fill thy bowl. He comes here
again.'
The huge,
mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was
shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd,
a stolen plantain hanging out of his mouth. He
headed straight for the shop, well knowing his
privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his head, and
puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making
his choice. Up flew Kim's hard little heel and
caught him on his moist blue nose. He snorted
indignantly, and walked away across the tram-rails,
his hump quivering with rage.
'See! I have
saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now,
mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop—yes,
and some vegetable curry.'
A growl came
out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.
'He drove
away the bull,' said the woman in an undertone. 'It
is good to give to the poor.' She took the bowl and
returned it full of hot rice.
'But my yogi
is not a cow,' said Kim gravely, making a hole with
his fingers in the top of the mound. 'A little curry
is good, and a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve
would please him, I think.'
'It is a
hole as big as thy head,' said the woman fretfully.
But she filled it, none the less, with good,
steaming vegetable curry, clapped a fried cake atop,
and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed
a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side; and
Kim looked at the load lovingly.
'That is
good. When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come
to this house. He is a bold beggar-man.'
'And thou?'
laughed the woman. 'But speak well of bulls. Hast
thou not told me that some day a Red Bull will come
out of a field to help thee? Now hold all straight
and ask for the holy man's blessing upon me.
Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my daughter's sore
eyes. Ask. him that also, O thou Little Friend of
all the World.'
But Kim had
danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging
pariah dogs and hungry acquaintances.
'Thus do we
beg who know the way of it,' said he proudly to the
lama, who opened his eyes at the contents of the
bowl. 'Eat now and—I will eat with thee. Ohe,
bhisti!' he called to the water-carrier, sluicing
the crotons by the Museum. 'Give water here. We men
are thirsty.'
'We men!'
said the bhisti, laughing. 'Is one skinful enough
for such a pair? Drink, then, in the name of the
Compassionate.'
He loosed a
thin stream into Kim's hands, who drank native
fashion; but the lama must needs pull out a cup from
his inexhaustible upper draperies and drink
ceremonially.
'Pardesi [a
foreigner],' Kim explained, as the old man delivered
in an unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.
They ate
together in great content, clearing the beggingbowl.
Then the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden
snuff-gourd, fingered his rosary awhile, and so
dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the shadow of
Zam-Zammah grew long.
Kim loafed
over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively
young Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of
the brand that they sell to students of the Punjab
University who copy English customs. Then he smoked
and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the
gun, and the outcome of his thoughts was a sudden
and stealthy departure in the direction of Nila
Ram's timber-yard.
The lama did
not wake till the evening life of the city had begun
with lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed
clerks and subordinates from the Government offices.
He stared dizzily in all directions, but none looked
at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty turban and
Isabella-coloured clothes. Suddenly he bowed his
head on his knees and wailed.
'What is
this?' said the boy, standing before him. 'Hast thou
been robbed?'
'It is my
new chela [disciple] that is gone away from me, and
I know not where he is.'
'And what
like of man was thy disciple?'
'It was a
boy who came to me in place of him who died, on
account of the merit which I had gained when I bowed
before the Law within there.' He pointed towards the
Museum. 'He came upon me to show me a road which I
had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by
his talk emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the
Images, so that I was cheered and made strong. And
when I was faint with hunger he begged for me, as
would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent.
Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have
taught him the Law upon the road to Benares.'
Kim stood
amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in
the Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking
the truth, which is a thing a native on the road
seldom presents to a stranger.
'But I see
now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I
know that I shall find a certain River for which I
seek.'
'The River
of the Arrow?' said Kim, with a superior smile.
'Is this yet
another Sending?' cried the lama. 'To none have I
spoken of my search, save to the Priest of the
Images. Who art thou?'
'Thy chela,'
said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. 'I have never
seen anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go
with thee to Benares. And, too, I think that so old
a man as thou, speaking the truth to chance-met
people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.'
'But the
River—the River of the Arrow?'
'Oh, that I
heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I
lay against the door.'
The lama
sighed. 'I thought thou hadst been a guide
permitted. Such things fall sometimes—but I am not
worthy. Thou dost not, then, know the River?'
'Not 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 matters that I
forget.'
'It is not
pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,'
said the lama.
'That is all
one. Perhaps they will make me a king,' said Kim,
serenely prepared for anything.
'I will
teach thee other and better desires upon the road,'
the lama replied in the voice of authority. 'Let us
go to Benares.'
'Not by
night. Thieves are abroad. Wait till the day.'
'But there
is no place to sleep.' The old man was used to the
order of his monastery, and though he slept on the
ground, as the Rule decrees, preferred a decency in
these things.
'We shall
get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai,' said Kim,
laughing at his perplexity. 'I have a friend there.
Come!'
The hot and
crowded bazars blazed with light as they made their
way through the press of all the races in Upper
India, and the lama mooned through it like a man in
a dream. It was his first experience of a large
manufacturing city, and the crowded tram-car with
its continually squealing brakes frightened him.
Half pushed, half towed, he arrived at the high gate
of the Kashmir Serai: that huge open square over
against the railway station, surrounded with arched
cloisters, where the camel and horse caravans put up
on their return from Central Asia. Here were all
manner of Northern folk, tending tethered ponies and
kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales and
bundles; drawing water for the evening meal at the
creaking well-windlasses; piling grass before the
shrieking, wild-eyed stallions; cuffing the surly
caravan dogs; paying off camel-drivers; taking on
new grooms; swearing, shouting, arguing, and
chaffering in the packed square. The cloisters,
reached by three or four masonry steps, made a haven
of refuge around this turbulent sea. Most of them
were rented to traders, as we rent the arches of a
viaduct; the space between pillar and pillar being
bricked or boarded off into rooms, which were
guarded by heavy wooden doors and cumbrous native
padlocks. Locked doors showed that the owner was
away, and a few rude—sometimes very rude—chalk or
paint scratches told where he had gone. Thus: 'Lutuf
Ullah is gone to Kurdistan.' Below, in coarse verse:
'O Allah, who sufferest lice to live on the coat of
a Kabuli, why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to
live so long?'
Kim, fending
the lama between excited men and excited beasts,
sidled along the cloisters to the far end, nearest
therailway station, where Mahbub Ali, the
horse-trader, lived when he came in from that
mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North.
Kim had had
many dealings with Mahbub in his little life,
especially between his tenth and his thirteenth
year—and the big burly Afghan, his beard dyed
scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not
wish his grey hairs to show), knew the boy's value
as a gossip. Sometimes he would tell Kim to watch a
man who had nothing whatever to do with horses: to
follow him for one whole day and report every soul
with whom he talked. Kim would deliver himself of
his tale at evening, and Mahbub would listen without
a word or gesture. It was intrigue of some kind, Kim
knew; but its worth lay in saying nothing whatever
to anyone except Mahbub, who gave him beautiful
meals all hot from the cookshop at the head of the
serai, and once as much as eight annas in money.
'He is
here,' said Kim, hitting a bad-tempered camel on the
nose. 'Ohe. Mahbub Ali!' He halted at a dark arch
and slipped behind the bewildered lama.
The
horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt
unloosed, was lying on a pair of silk carpet
saddle-bags, pulling lazily at an immense silver
hookah. He turned his head very slightly at the cry;
and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in
his deep chest.
'Allah! A
lama! A Red Lama! It is far from Lahore to the
Passes. What dost thou do here?'
The lama
held out the begging-bowl mechanically.
'God's curse
on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub. 'I do not give to
a lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder
behind the camels. They may value your blessings.
Oh, horseboys, here is a countryman of yours. See if
he be hungry.'
A shaven,
crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses,
and who was nominally some sort of degraded
Buddhist, fawned upon the priest, and in thick
gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the
horseboys' fire.
'Go!' said
Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away,
leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister.
'Go!' said
Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. 'Little Hindu,
run away. God's curse on all unbelievers! Beg from
those of my tail who are of thy faith.'
'Maharaj,'
whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and
thoroughly enjoying the situation; 'my father is
dead—my mother is dead—my stomach is empty.'
'Beg from my
men among the horses, I say. There must be some
Hindus in my tail.'
'Oh, Mahbub
Ali, but am I a Hindu?' said Kim in English.
The trader
gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under
shaggy eyebrows.
'Little
Friend of all the World,' said he, 'what is this?'
'Nothing. I
am now that holy man's disciple; and we go a
pilgrimage together—to Benares, he says. He is quite
mad, and I am tired of Lahore city. I wish new air
and water.'
'But for
whom dost thou work? Why come to me?' The voice was
harsh with suspicion.
'To whom
else should I come? I have no money. It is not good
to go about without money. Thou wilt sell many
horses to the officers. They are very fine horses,
these new ones: I have seen them. Give me a rupee,
Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give
thee a bond and pay.'
'Um!' said
Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. 'Thou hast never
before lied to me. Call that lama—stand back in the
dark.'
'Oh, our
tales will agree,' said Kim, laughing.
'We go to
Benares,' said the lama, as soon as he understood
the drift of Mahbub Ali's questions. 'The boy and I,
I go to seek for a certain River.'
'Maybe—but
the boy?'
'He is my
disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that
River. Sitting under a gun was I when he came
suddenly. Such things have befallen the fortunate to
whom guidance was allowed. But I remember now, he
said he was of this world—a Hindu.'
'And his
name?'
'That I did
not ask. Is he not my disciple?'
'His
country—his race—his village? Mussalman—Sikh
Hindu—Jain—low caste or high?'
'Why should
I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle
Way. If he is my chela—does—will—can anyone take him
from me? for, look you, without him I shall not find
my River.' He wagged his head solemnly.
'None shall
take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis,' said
Mahbub Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the
promise.
'Is he not
quite mad?' said Kim, coming forward to the light
again. 'Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?'
Mahbub
puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost
whispering: 'Umballa is on the road to Benares—if
indeed ye two go there.'
'Tck! Tck! I
tell thee he does not know how to lie—as we two
know.'
'And if thou
wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I
will give thee money. It concerns a horse—a white
stallion which I have sold to an officer upon the
last time I returned from the Passes. But then—stand
nearer and hold up hands as begging—the pedigree of
the white stallion was not fully established, and
that officer, who is now at Umballa, bade me make it
clear.' (Mahbub here described the horse and the
appearance of the officer.) 'So the message to that
officer will be: "The pedigree of the white stallion
is fully established." By this will he know that
thou comest from me. He will then say "What proof
hast thou?" and thou wilt answer: "Mahbub Ali has
given me the proof."'
'And all for
the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a
giggle, his eyes aflame.
'That
pedigree I will give thee now—in my own fashion and
some hard words as well.' A shadow passed behind
Kim, and a feeding camel. Mahbub Ali raised his
voice.
'Allah! Art
thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is
dead. Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them.
Well, well—'
He turned as
feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of
soft, greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. 'Go and lie
down among my horseboys for tonight—thou and the
lama. Tomorrow I may give thee service.'
Kim slunk
away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected,
he found a small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped
in oilskin, with three silver rupees—enormous
largesse. He smiled and thrust money and paper into
his leather amulet-case. The lama, sumptuously fed
by Mahbub's Baltis, was already asleep in a corner
of one of the stalls. Kim lay down beside him and
laughed. He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub
Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe
the tale of the stallion's pedigree.
But Kim did
not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the
best horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and
enterprising trader, whose caravans penetrated far
and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered in
one of the locked books of the Indian Survey
Department as C25 IB. Twice or thrice yearly C25
would send in a little story, baldly told but most
interesting, and generally—it was checked by the
statements of R17 and M4—quite true. It concerned
all manner of out-of-the-way mountain
principalities, explorers of nationalities other
than English, and the guntrade—was, in brief, a
small portion of that vast mass of 'information
received' on which the Indian Government acts. But,
recently, five confederated Kings, who had no
business to confederate, had been informed by a
kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage of
news from their territories into British India. So
those Kings' Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed
and took steps, after the Oriental fashion. They
suspected, among many others, the bullying,
red-bearded horsedealer whose caravans ploughed
through their fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At
least, his caravan that season had been ambushed and
shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub's men
accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or
might not, have been hired for the job. Therefore
Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city
of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to
Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he
anticipated curious developments.
And there
was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep
an hour longer than was necessary—a wad of closely
folded tissue-paper, wrapped in oilskin—an
impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five
microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most
scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings,
the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu banker in
Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an
important, semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the
south. This last was R17's work, which Mahbub had
picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying in
for R17, who, owing to circumstances over which he
had no control, could not leave his post of
observation. Dynamite was milky and innocuous beside
that report of C25; and even an Oriental, with an
Oriental's views of the value of time, could see
that the sooner it was in the proper hands the
better. Mahbub had no particular desire to die by
violence, because two or three family blood-feuds
across the Border hung unfinished on his hands, and
when these scores were cleared he intended to settle
down as a more or less virtuous citizen. He had
never passed the serai gate since his arrival two
days ago, but had been ostentatious in sending
telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some of his
money; to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own clan
was selling horses to the agent of a Rajputana
state; and to Umballa, where an Englishman was
excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white
stallion. The public letter-writer, who knew
English, composed excellent telegrams, such as:
'Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa. Horse is Arabian
as already advised. Sorrowful delayed pedigree which
am translating.' And later to the same address:
'Much sorrowful delay. Will forward pedigree.' To
his sub-partner at Delhi he wired: 'Lutuf Ullah.
Have wired two thousand rupees your credit Luchman
Narain's bank—' This was entirely in the way of
trade, but every one of those telegrams was
discussed and 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 on the
road.
When, in
Mahbub's own picturesque language, he had muddied
the wells of inquiry with the stick of precaution,
Kim had dropped on him, sent from Heaven; and, being
as prompt as he was unscrupulous, Mahbub Ali used to
taking all sorts of gusty chances, pressed him into
service on the spot.
A wandering
lama with a low-caste boy-servant might attract a
moment's interest as they wandered about India, the
land of pilgrims; but no one would suspect them or,
what was more to the point, rob.
He called
for a new light-ball to his hookah, and considered
the case. If the worst came to the worst, and the
boy came to harm, the paper would incriminate
nobody. And he would go up to Umballa leisurely
and—at a certain risk of exciting fresh
suspicion—repeat his tale by word of mouth to the
people concerned.
But R17's
report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it
would be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to
come to hand. However, God was great, and Mahbub Ali
felt he had done all he could for the time being.
Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told
him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on
Kim's character if Mahbub had not known that to
others, for his own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim
could lie like an Oriental.
Then Mahbub
Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the
Harpies who paint their eyes and trap the stranger,
and was at some pains to call on the one girl who,
he had reason to believe, was a particular friend of
a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had waylaid his
simple Balti in the matter of the telegrams. It was
an utterly foolish thing to do; because they fell to
drinking perfumed brandy against the Law of the
Prophet, and Mahbub grew wonderfully drunk, and the
gates of his mouth were loosened, and he pursued the
Flower of Delight with the feet of intoxication till
he fell flat among the cushions, where the Flower of
Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit,
searched him from head to foot most thoroughly.
About the
same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub's deserted
stall. The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left
his door unlocked, and his men were busy celebrating
their return to India with a whole sheep of Mahbub's
bounty. A sleek young gentleman from Delhi, armed
with a bunch of keys which the Flower had unshackled
from the senseless one's belt, went through every
single box, bundle, mat, and saddle-bag in Mahbub's
possession even more systematically than the Flower
and the pundit were searching the owner.
'And I
think.' said the Flower scornfully an hour later,
one rounded elbow on the snoring carcass, 'that he
is no more than a pig of an Afghan horse-dealer,
with no thought except women and horses. Moreover,
he may have sent it away by now—if ever there were
such a thing.'
'Nay—in a
matter touching Five Kings it would be next his
black heart,' said the pundit. 'Was there nothing?'
The Delhi
man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered.
'I searched between the soles of his slippers as the
Flower searched his clothes. This is not the man but
another. I leave little unseen.'
'They did
not say he was the very man,' said the pundit
thoughtfully. 'They said, "Look if he be the man,
since our counsels are troubled."'
'That North
country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of
lice. There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and
Farrukh Shah all heads of kafilas [caravans]—who
deal there,' said the Flower.
'They have
not yet come in,' said the pundit. 'Thou must
ensnare them later.'
Phew!' said
the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head
from her lap. 'I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a
bear, Ali Beg a swashbuckler, and old Sikandar
Khan—yaie! Go! I sleep now. This swine will not stir
till dawn.'
When Mahbub
woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin
of drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have
outmanoeuvred an enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared
his throat, tightened his belt, and staggered forth
under the early morning stars, he came very near to
it.
'What a
colt's trick!' said he to himself. 'As if every girl
in Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done.
Now God He knows how many more there be upon the
Road who have orders to test me—perhaps with the
knife. So it stands that the boy must go to Umballa—and
by rail—for the writing is something urgent. I abide
here, following the Flower and drinking wine as an
Afghan coper should.'
He halted at
the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the
lama.
'Up!' He
stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here
last even—the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?'
'Nay,'
grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second
cockcrow saying he would go to Benares, and the
young one led him away.'
'The curse
of Allah on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub heartily,
and climbed into his own stall, growling in his
beard.
But it was
Kim who had wakened the lama—Kim with one eye laid
against a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen
the Delhi man's search through the boxes. This was
no common thief that turned over letters, bills, and
saddles—no mere burglar who ran a little knife
sideways into the soles of Mahbub's slippers, or
picked the seams of the saddle-bags so deftly. At
first Kim had been minded to give the alarm—the
long-drawn choor—choor! [thief! thief!] that sets
the serai ablaze of nights; but he looked more
carefully, and, hand on amulet, drew his own
conclusions.
'It must be
the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie,' said he,
'the thing that I carry to Umballa. Better that we
go now. Those who search bags with knives may
presently search bellies with knives. Surely there
is a woman behind this. Hai! Hai! in a whisper to
the light-sleeping old man. 'Come. It is time—time
to go to Benares.'
The lama
rose obediently, and they passed out of the serai
like shadows.

Chapter 2
And whoso
will, from Pride released;
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East.
About him at Kamakura.
Buddha at Kamakura.
They entered the fort-like
railway station, black in the end of night; the
electrics sizzling over the goods-yard where they
handle the heavy Northern grain-traffic.
'This is the
work of devils!' said the lama, recoiling from the
hollow echoing darkness, the glimmer of rails
between the masonry platforms, and the maze of
girders above. He stood in a gigantic stone hall
paved, it seemed, with the sheeted dead third-class
passengers who had taken their tickets overnight and
were sleeping in the waiting-rooms. All hours of the
twenty-four are alike to Orientals, and their
passenger traffic is regulated accordingly.
'This is
where the fire-carriages come. One stands behind
that hole'—Kim pointed to the ticket-office—'who
will give thee a paper to take thee to Umballa.'
'But we go
to Benares,' he replied petulantly.
'All one.
Benares then. Quick: she comes!'
'Take thou
the purse.'
The lama,
not so well used to trains as he had pretended,
started as the 3.25 a.m. south-bound roared in. The
sleepers sprang to life, and the station filled with
clamour and shoutings, cries of water and sweetmeat
vendors, shouts of native policemen, and shrill
yells of women gathering up their baskets, their
families, and their husbands.
'It is the
train—only the te-rain. It will not come here.
Wait!' Amazed at the lama's immense simplicity (he
had handed him a small bag full of rupees), Kim
asked and paid for a ticket to Umballa. A sleepy
clerk grunted and flung out a ticket to the next
station, just six miles distant.
'Nay,' said
Kim, scanning it with a grin. 'This may serve for
farmers, but I live in the city of Lahore. It was
cleverly done, Babu. Now give the ticket to
Umballa.'
The Babu
scowled and dealt the proper ticket.
'Now another
to Amritzar,' said Kim, who had no notion of
spending Mahbub Ali's money on anything so crude as
a paid ride to Umballa. 'The price is so much. The
small money in return is just so much. I know the
ways of the te-rain ... Never did yogi need chela as
thou dost,' he went on merrily to the bewildered
lama. 'They would have flung thee out at Mian Mir
but for me. This way! Come!' He returned the money,
keeping only one anna in each rupee of the price of
the Umballa ticket as his commission—the immemorial
commission of Asia.
The lama
jibbed at the open door of a crowded third-class
carriage. 'Were it not better to walk?' said he
weakly.
A burly Sikh
artisan thrust forth his bearded head. 'Is he
afraid? Do not be afraid. I remember the time when I
was afraid of the te-rain. Enter! This thing is the
work of the Government.'
'I do not
fear,' said the lama. 'Have ye room within for two?'
'There is no
room even for a mouse,' shrilled the wife of a
well-to-do cultivator—a Hindu Jat from the rich
Jullundur, district. Our night trains are not as
well looked after as the day ones, where the sexes
are very strictly kept to separate carriages.
'Oh, mother
of my son, we can make space,' said the blueturbaned
husband. 'Pick up the child. It is a holy man,
see'st thou?'
'And my lap
full of seventy times seven bundles! Why not bid him
sit on my knee, Shameless? But men are ever thus!'
She looked round for approval. An Amritzar courtesan
near the window sniffed behind her head drapery.
'Enter!
Enter!' cried a fat Hindu money-lender, his folded
account-book in a cloth under his arm. With an oily
smirk: 'It is well to be kind to the poor.'
'Ay, at
seven per cent a month with a mortgage on the unborn
calf,' said a young Dogra soldier going south on
leave; and they all laughed.
'Will it
travel to Benares?' said the lama.
'Assuredly.
Else why should we come? Enter, or we are left,'
cried Kim.
'See!'
shrilled the Amritzar girl. 'He has never entered a
train. Oh, see!'
'Nay, help,'
said the cultivator, putting out a large brown hand
and hauling him in. 'Thus is it done, father.'
'But—but—I
sit on the floor. It is against the Rule to sit on a
bench,' said the lama. 'Moreover, it cramps me.'
'I say,'
began the money-lender, pursing his lips, 'that
there is not one rule of right living which these
te-rains do not cause us to break. We sit, for
example, side by side with all castes and peoples.'
'Yea, and
with most outrageously shameless ones,' said the
wife, scowling at the Amritzar girl making eyes at
the young sepoy.
'I said we
might have gone by cart along the road,' said the
husband, 'and thus have saved some money.'
'Yes—and
spent twice over what we saved on food by the way.
That was talked out ten thousand times.'
'Ay, by ten
thousand tongues,' grunted he.
'The Gods
help us poor women if we may not speak. Oho! He is
of that sort which may not look at or reply to a
woman.' For the lama, constrained by his Rule, took
not the faintest notice of her. 'And his disciple is
like him?'
'Nay,
mother,' said Kim most promptly. 'Not when the woman
is well-looking and above all charitable to the
hungry.'
'A beggar's
answer,' said the Sikh, laughing. 'Thou hast brought
it on thyself, sister!' Kim's hands were crooked in
supplication.
'And whither
goest thou?' said the woman, handing him the half of
a cake from a greasy package.
'Even to
Benares.'
'Jugglers
belike?' the young soldier suggested. 'Have ye any
tricks to pass the time? Why does not that yellow
man answer?'
'Because,' said Kim
stoutly, 'he is holy, and thinks upon matters hidden
from thee.'
'That may be
well. We of the Ludhiana Sikhs'—he rolled it out
sonorously—'do not trouble our heads with doctrine.
We fight.'
'My sister's
brother's son is naik [corporal] in that regiment,'
said the Sikh craftsman quietly. 'There are also
some Dogra companies there.' The soldier glared, for
a Dogra is of other caste than a Sikh, and the
banker tittered.
'They are
all one to me,' said the Amritzar girl.
'That we
believe,' snorted the cultivator's wife malignantly.
'Nay, but
all who serve the Sirkar with weapons in their hands
are, as it were, one brotherhood. There is one
brotherhood of the caste, but beyond that again'—she
looked round timidly—'the bond of the Pulton—the
Regiment—eh?'
'My brother
is in a Jat regiment,' said the cultivator. 'Dogras
be good men.'
'Thy Sikhs
at least were of that opinion,' said the soldier,
with a scowl at the placid old man in the corner.
'Thy Sikhs thought so when our two companies came to
help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the face of eight
Afridi standards on the ridge not three months
gone.'
He told the
story of a Border action in which the Dogra
companies of the Ludhiana Sikhs had acquitted
themselves well. The Amritzar girl smiled; for she
knew the talk was to win her approval.
'Alas!' said
the cultivator's wife at the end. 'So their villages
were burnt and their little children made homeless?'
'They had
marked our dead. They paid a great payment after we
of the Sikhs had schooled them. So it was. Is this
Amritzar?'
'Ay, and
here they cut our tickets,' said the banker,
fumbling at his belt.
The lamps
were paling in the dawn when the half-caste guard
came round. Ticket-collecting is a slow business in
the East, where people secrete their tickets in all
sorts of curious places. Kim produced his and was
told to get out.
'But I go to
Umballa,' he protested. 'I go with this holy man.'
'Thou canst
go to Jehannum for aught I care. This ticket is
only—'
Kim burst
into a flood of tears, protesting that the lama was
his father and his mother, that he was the prop of
the lama's declining years, and that the lama would
die without his care. All the carriage bade the
guard be merciful—the banker was specially eloquent
here—but the guard hauled Kim on to the platform.
The lama blinked—he could not overtake the situation
and Kim lifted up his voice and wept outside the
carriage window.
'I am very
poor. My father is dead—my mother is dead. O
charitable ones, if I am left here, who shall tend
that old man?'
'What—what
is this?' the lama repeated. 'He must go to Benares.
He must come with me. He is my chela. If there is
money to be paid—'
'Oh, be
silent,' whispered Kim; 'are we Rajahs to throw away
good silver when the world is so charitable?'
The Amritzar
girl stepped out with her bundles, and it was on her
that Kim kept his watchful eye. Ladies of that
persuasion, he knew, were generous.
'A ticket—a
little tikkut to Umballa—O Breaker of Hearts!' She
laughed. 'Hast thou no charity?'
'Does the
holy man come from the North?'
'From far
and far in the North he comes,' cried Kim. 'From
among the hills.'
'There is
snow among the pine-trees in the North—in the hills
there is snow. My mother was from Kulu. Get thee a
ticket. Ask him for a blessing.'
'Ten
thousand blessings,' shrilled Kim. 'O Holy One, a
woman has given us in charity so that I can come
with thee—a woman with a golden heart. I run for the
tikkut.'
The girl
looked up at the lama, who had mechanically followed
Kim to the platform. He bowed his head that he might
not see her, and muttered in Tibetan as she passed
on with the crowd.
'Light
come—light go,' said the cultivator's wife
viciously.
'She has
acquired merit,' returned the lama. 'Beyond doubt it
was a nun.'
'There be
ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar alone. Return,
old man, or the te-rain may depart without thee,'
cried the banker.
'Not only
was it sufficient for the ticket, but for a little
food also,' said Kim, leaping to his place. 'Now
eat, Holy One. Look. Day comes!'
Golden,
rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists smoked
away across the flat green levels. All the rich
Punjab lay out in the splendour of the keen sun. The
lama flinched a little as the telegraph-posts swung
by.
'Great is
the speed of the te-rain,' said the banker, with a
patronizing grin. 'We have gone farther since Lahore
than thou couldst walk in two days: at even, we
shall enter Umballa.'
'And that is
still far from Benares,' said the lama wearily,
mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered. They all
unloosed their bundles and made their morning meal.
Then the banker, the cultivator, and the soldier
prepared their pipes and wrapped the compartment in
choking, acrid smoke, spitting and coughing and
enjoying themselves. The Sikh and the cultivator's
wife chewed pan; the lama took snuff and told his
beads, while Kim, cross-legged, smiled over the
comfort of a full stomach.
'What rivers
have ye by Benares?' said the lama of a sudden to
the carriage at large.
'We have
Gunga,' returned the banker, when the little titter
had subsided.
'What
others?'
'What other
than Gunga?'
'Nay, but in
my mind was the thought of a certain River of
healing.'
'That is
Gunga. Who bathes in her is made clean and goes to
the Gods. Thrice have I made pilgrimage to Gunga.'
He looked round proudly.
'There was
need,' said the young sepoy drily, and the
travellers' laugh turned against the banker.
'Clean—to
return again to the Gods,' the lama muttered. 'And
to go forth on the round of lives anew—still tied to
the Wheel.' He shook his head testily. 'But maybe
there is a mistake. Who, then, made Gunga in the
beginning?'
'The Gods.
Of what known faith art thou?' the banker said,
appalled.
'I follow
the Law—the Most Excellent Law. So it was the Gods
that made Gunga. What like of Gods were they?'
The carriage
looked at him in amazement. It was inconceivable
that anyone should be ignorant of Gunga.
'What—what
is thy God?' said the money-lender at last.
'Hear!' said
the lama, shifting the rosary to his hand. 'Hear:
for I speak of Him now! O people of Hind, listen!'
He began in
Urdu the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his
own thoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned
texts from a Chinese book of the Buddha's life. The
gentle, tolerant folk looked on reverently. All
India is full of holy men stammering gospels in
strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of
their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries:
as it has been from the beginning and will continue
to the end.
'Um!' said
the soldier of the Ludhiana Sikhs. 'There was a
Mohammedan regiment lay next to us at the Pirzai
Kotal, and a priest of theirs—he was, as I remember,
a naik—when the fit was on him, spake prophecies.
But the mad all are in God's keeping. His officers
overlooked much in that man.'
The lama
fell back on Urdu, remembering that he was in a
strange land. 'Hear the tale of the Arrow which our
Lord loosed from the bow,' he said.
This was
much more to their taste, and they listened
curiously while he told it. 'Now, O people of Hind,
I go to seek that River. Know ye aught that may
guide me, for we be all men and women in evil case.'
'There is
Gunga—and Gunga alone—who washes away sin.' ran the
murmur round the carriage.
'Though past
question we have good Gods Jullundur-way,' said the
cultivator's wife, looking out of the window. 'See
how they have blessed the crops.'
'To search
every river in the Punjab is no small matter,' said
her husband. 'For me, a stream that leaves good silt
on my land suffices, and I thank Bhumia, the God of
the Home-stead.' He shrugged one knotted, bronzed
shoulder.
'Think you
our Lord came so far North?' said the lama, turning
to Kim.
'It may be,'
Kim replied soothingly, as he spat red pan-juice on
the floor.
'The last of
the Great Ones,' said the Sikh with authority, 'was
Sikander Julkarn [Alexander the Great]. He paved the
streets of Jullundur and built a great tank near
Umballa. That pavement holds to this day; and the
tank is there also. I never heard of thy God.'
'Let thy
hair grow long and talk Punjabi,' said the young
soldier jestingly to Kim, quoting a Northern
proverb. 'That is all that makes a Sikh.' But he did
not say this very loud.
The lama
sighed and shrank into himself, a dingy, shapeless
mass. In the pauses of their talk they could hear
the low droning 'Om mane pudme hum! Om mane pudme
hum!'—and the thick click of the wooden rosary
beads.
'It irks
me,' he said at last. 'The speed and the clatter irk
me. Moreover, my chela, I think that maybe we have
over-passed that River.'
'Peace,
peace,' said Kim. 'Was not the River near Benares?
We are yet far from the place.'
'But—if our
Lord came North, it may be any one of these little
ones that we have run across.'
'I do not
know.'
'But thou
wast sent to me—wast thou sent to me?—for the merit
I had acquired over yonder at Such-zen. From beside
the cannon didst thou come—bearing two faces—and two
garbs.'
'Peace. One
must not speak of these things here,' whispered Kim.
'There was but one of me. Think again and thou wilt
remember. A boy—a Hindu boy—by the great green
cannon.'
'But was
there not also an Englishman with a white beard holy
among images—who himself made more sure my assurance
of the River of the Arrow?'
'He—we—went
to the Ajaib-Gher in Lahore to pray before the Gods
there,' Kim explained to the openly listening
company. 'And the Sahib of the Wonder House talked
to him—yes, this is truth as a brother. He is a very
holy man, from far beyond the Hills. Rest, thou. In
time we come to Umballa.'
'But my
River—the River of my healing?'
'And then,
if it please thee, we will go hunting for that River
on foot. So that we miss nothing—not even a little
rivulet in a field-side.'
'But thou
hast a Search of thine own?' The lama—very pleased
that he remembered so well—sat bolt upright.
'Ay,' said
Kim, humouring him. The boy was entirely happy to be
out chewing pan and seeing new people in the great
good-tempered world.
'It was a
bull—a Red Bull that shall come and help thee and
carry thee—whither? I have forgotten. A Red Bull on
a green field, was it not?'
'Nay, it
will carry me nowhere,' said Kim. 'It is but a tale
I told thee.'
'What is
this?' The cultivator's wife leaned forward, her
bracelets clinking on her arm. 'Do ye both dream
dreams? A Red Bull on a green field, that shall
carry thee to the heavens or what? Was it a vision?
Did one make a prophecy? We have a Red Bull in our
village behind Jullundur city, and he grazes by
choice in the very greenest of our fields!'
'Give a
woman an old wife's tale and a weaver-bird a leaf
and a thread', they will weave wonderful things,'
said the Sikh. 'All holy men dream dreams, and by
following holy men their disciples attain that
power.'
'A Red Bull
on a green field, was it?' the lama repeated. 'In a
former life it may be thou hast acquired merit, and
the Bull will come to reward thee.'
'Nay—nay—it
was but a tale one told to me—for a jest belike. But
I will seek the Bull about Umballa, and thou canst
look for thy River and rest from the clatter of the
train.'
'It may be
that the Bull knows—that he is sent to guide us
both.' said the lama, hopefully as a child. Then to
the company, indicating Kim: 'This one was sent to
me but yesterday. He is not, I think, of this
world.'
'Beggars
aplenty have I met, and holy men to boot, but never
such a yogi nor such a disciple,' said the woman.
Her husband
touched his forehead lightly with one finger and
smiled. But the next time the lama would eat they
took care to give him of their best.
And at
last—tired, sleepy, and dusty—they reached Umballa
City Station.
'We abide
here upon a law-suit,' said the cultivator's wife to
Kim. 'We lodge with my man's cousin's younger
brother. There is room also in the courtyard for thy
yogi and for thee. Will—will he give me a blessing?'
'O holy man!
A woman with a heart of gold gives us lodging for
the night. It is a kindly land, this land of the
South. See how we have been helped since the dawn!'
The lama
bowed his head in benediction.
'To fill my
cousin's younger brother's house with wastrels—' the
husband began, as he shouldered his heavy bamboo
staff.
'Thy
cousin's younger brother owes my father's cousin
something yet on his daughter's marriage-feast,'
said the woman crisply. 'Let him put their food to
that account. The yogi will beg, I doubt not.'
'Ay, I beg
for him,' said Kim, anxious only to get the lama
under shelter for the night, that he might seek
Mahbub Ali's Englishman and deliver himself of the
white stallion's pedigree.
'Now,' said
he, when the lama had come to an anchor in the inner
courtyard of a decent Hindu house behind the
cantonments, 'I go away for a while—to—to buy us
victual in the bazar. Do not stray abroad till I
return.'
'Thou wilt
return? Thou wilt surely return?' The old man caught
at his wrist. 'And thou wilt return in this very
same shape? Is it too late to look tonight for the
River?'
'Too late
and too dark. Be comforted. Think how far thou art
on the road—an hundred miles from Lahore already.'
'Yea—and
farther from my monastery. Alas! It is a great and
terrible world.'
Kim stole
out and away, as unremarkable a figure as ever
carried his own and a few score thousand other
folk's fate slung round his neck. Mahbub Ali's
directions left him little doubt of the house in
which his Englishman lived; and a groom, bringing a
dog-cart home from the Club, made him quite sure. It
remained only to identify his man, and Kim slipped
through the garden hedge and hid in a clump of
plumed grass close to the veranda. The house blazed
with lights, and servants moved about tables dressed
with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth
came an Englishman, dressed in black and white,
humming a tune. It was too dark to see his face, so
Kim, beggar-wise, tried an old experiment.
'Protector
of the Poor!'
The man
backed towards the voice.
'Mahbub Ali
says—'
'Hah! What
says Mahbub Ali?' He made no attempt to look for the
speaker, and that showed Kim that he knew.
'The
pedigree of the white stallion is fully
established.'
'What proof
is there?' The Englishman switched at the rose-hedge
in the side of the drive.
'Mahbub Ali
has given me this proof.' Kim flipped the wad of
folded paper into the air, and it fell in the path
beside the man, who put his foot on it as a gardener
came round the corner. When the servant passed he
picked it up, dropped a rupee—Kim could hear the
clink—and strode into the house, never turning
round. Swiftly Kim took up the money; but for all
his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon
silver the least part of any game. What he desired
was the visible effect of action; so, instead of
slinking away, he lay close in the grass and wormed
nearer to the house.
He
saw—Indian bungalows are open through and
through—the Englishman return to a small
dressing-room, in a comer of the veranda, that was
half office, littered with papers and
despatch-boxes, and sit down to study Mahbub Ali's
message. His face, by the full ray of the kerosene
lamp, changed and darkened, and Kim, used as every
beggar must be to watching countenances, took good
note.
'Will! Will,
dear!' called a woman's voice. 'You ought to be in
the drawing-room. They'll be here in a minute.'
The man
still read intently.
'Will!' said
the voice, five minutes later. 'He's come. I can
hear the troopers in the drive.'
The man
dashed out bareheaded as a big landau with four
native troopers behind it halted at the veranda, and
a tall, black haired man, erect as an arrow, swung
out, preceded by a young officer who laughed
pleasantly.
Flat on his
belly lay Kim, almost touching the high wheels. His
man and the black stranger exchanged two sentences.
'Certainly,
sir,' said the young officer promptly. 'Everything
waits while a horse is concerned.'
'We shan't
be more than twenty minutes,' said Kim's man. 'You
can do the honours—keep 'em amused, and all that.'
'Tell one of
the troopers to wait,' said the tall man, and they
both passed into the dressing-room together as the
landau rolled away. Kim saw their heads bent over
Mahbub Ali's message, and heard the voices—one low
and deferential, the other sharp and decisive.
'It isn't a
question of weeks. It is a question of days—hours
almost,' said the elder. 'I'd been expecting it for
some time, but this'—he tapped Mahbub Ali's
paper—'clinches it. Grogan's dining here to-night,
isn't he?'
'Yes, sir,
and Macklin too.'
'Very good.
I'll speak to them myself. The matter will be
referred to the Council, of course, but this is a
case where one is justified in assuming that we take
action at once. Warn the Pined and Peshawar
brigades. It will disorganize all the summer
reliefs, but we can't help that. This comes of not
smashing them thoroughly the first time. Eight
thousand should be enough.'
'What about
artillery, sir?'
'I must
consult Macklin.'
'Then it
means war?'
'No.
Punishment. When a man is bound by the action of his
predecessor—'
'But C25 may
have lied.'
'He bears
out the other's information. Practically, they
showed their hand six months back. But Devenish
would have it there was a chance of peace. Of course
they used it to make themselves stronger. Send off
those telegrams at once—the new code, not the
old—mine and Wharton's. I don't think we need keep
the ladies waiting any longer. We can settle the
rest over the cigars. I thought it was coming. It's
punishment—not war.'
As the
trooper cantered off, Kim crawled round to the back
of the house, where, going on his Lahore
experiences, he judged there would be food—and
information. The kitchen was crowded with excited
scullions, one of whom kicked him.
'Aie,' said
Kim, feigning tears. 'I came only to wash dishes in
return for a bellyful.'
'All Umballa
is on the same errand. Get hence. They go in now
with the soup. Think you that we who serve Creighton
Sahib need strange scullions to help us through a
big dinner?'
'It is a
very big dinner,' said Kim, looking at the plates.
'Small
wonder. The guest of honour is none other than the
Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief].'
'Ho!' said
Kim, with the correct guttural note of wonder. He
had learned what he wanted, and when the scullion
turned he was gone.
'And all
that trouble,' said he to himself, thinking as usual
in Hindustani, 'for a horse's pedigree! Mahbub Ali
should have come to me to learn a little lying.
Every time before that I have borne a message it
concerned a woman. Now it is men. Better. The tall
man said that they will loose a great army to punish
someone—somewhere—the news goes to Pindi and
Peshawur. There are also guns. Would I had crept
nearer. It is big news!'
He returned
to find the cultivator's cousin's younger brother
discussing the family law-suit in all its bearings
with the cultivator and his wife and a few friends,
while the lama dozed. After the evening meal some
one passed him a water-pipe; and Kim felt very much
of a man as he pulled at the smooth coconut-shell,
his legs spread abroad in the moonlight, his tongue
clicking in remarks from time to time. His hosts
were most polite; for the cultivator's wife had told
them of his vision of the Red Bull, and of his
probable descent from another world. Moreover, the
lama was a great and venerable curiosity.
The family priest, an old,
tolerant Sarsut Brahmin, dropped in later, and
naturally started a theological argument to impress
the family. By creed, of course, they were all on
their priest's side, but the lama was the guest and
the novelty. His gentle kindliness, and his
impressive Chinese quotations, that sounded like
spells, delighted them hugely; and in this
sympathetic, simple air, he expanded like the
Bodhisat's own lotus, speaking of his life in the
great hills of Such-zen, before, as he said, 'I rose
up to seek enlightenment.'
Then it came
out that in those worldly days he had been a
master-hand at casting horoscopes and nativities;
and the family priest led him on to describe his
methods; each giving the planets names that the
other could not understand, and pointing upwards as
the big stars sailed across the dark. The children
of the house tugged unrebuked at his rosary; and he
clean forgot the Rule which forbids looking at women
as he talked of enduring snows, landslips, blocked
passes, the remote cliffs where men find sapphires
and turquoise, and that wonderful upland road that
leads at last into Great China itself.
'How
thinkest thou of this one?' said the cultivator
aside to the priest.
'A holy
man—a holy man indeed. His Gods are not the Gods,
but his feet are upon the Way,' was the answer. 'And
his methods of nativities, though that is beyond
thee, are wise and sure.'
'Tell me,'
said Kim lazily, 'whether I find my Red Bull on a
green field, as was promised me.'
'What
knowledge hast thou of thy birth-hour?' the priest
asked, swelling with importance.
'Between
first and second cockcrow of the first night in
May.'
'Of what
year?'
'I do not
know; but upon the hour that I cried first fell the
great earthquake in Srinagar which is in Kashmir.'
This Kim had from the woman who took care of him,
and she again from Kimball O'Hara. The earthquake
had been felt in India, and for long stood a leading
date in the Punjab.
'Ai!' said a
woman excitedly. This seemed to make Kim's
supernatural origin more certain. 'Was not such an
one's daughter born then—'
'And her
mother bore her husband four sons in four years all
likely boys,' cried the cultivator's wife, sitting
outside the circle in the shadow.
'None reared
in the knowledge,' said the family priest, 'forget
how the planets stood in their Houses upon that
night.' He began to draw in the dust of the
courtyard. 'At least thou hast good claim to a half
of the House of the Bull. How runs thy prophecy?'
'Upon a
day,' said Kim, delighted at the sensation he was
creating, 'I shall be made great by means of a Red
Bull on a green field, but first there will enter
two men making all things ready.'
'Yes: thus
ever at the opening of a vision. A thick darkness
that clears slowly; anon one enters with a broom
making ready the place. Then begins the Sight. Two
men—thou sayest? Ay, ay. The Sun, leaving the House
of the Bull, enters that of the Twins. Hence the two
men of the prophecy. Let us now consider. Fetch me a
twig, little one.'
He knitted
his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and scratched
again in the dust mysterious signs—to the wonder of
all save the lama, who, with fine instinct, forbore
to interfere.
At the end
of half an hour, he tossed the twig from him with a
grunt.
'Hm! Thus
say the stars. Within three days come the two men to
make all things ready. After them follows the Bull;
but the sign over against him is the sign of War and
armed men.'
'There was
indeed a man of the Ludhiana Sikhs in the carriage
from Lahore,' said the cultivator's wife hopefully.
'Tck! Armed
men—many hundreds. What concern hast thou with war?'
said the priest to Kim. 'Thine is a red and an angry
sign of War to be loosed very soon.'
'None—none.'
said the lama earnestly. 'We seek only peace and our
River.'
Kim smiled,
remembering what he had overheard in the
dressing-room. Decidedly he was a favourite of the
stars.
The priest
brushed his foot over the rude horoscope. 'More than
this I cannot see. In three days comes the Bull to
thee, boy.'
'And my
River, my River,' pleaded the lama. 'I had hoped his
Bull would lead us both to the River.'
'Alas, for
that wondrous River, my brother,' the priest
replied. 'Such things are not common.'
Next
morning, though they were pressed to stay, the lama
insisted on departure. They gave Kim a large bundle
of good food and nearly three annas in copper money
for the needs of the road, and with many blessings
watched the two go southward in the dawn.
'Pity it is
that these and such as these could not be freed
from—'
'Nay, then
would only evil people be left on the earth, and who
would give us meat and shelter?' quoth Kim, stepping
merrily under his burden.
'Yonder is a
small stream. Let us look,' said the lama, and he
led from the white road across the fields; walking
into a very hornets' nest of pariah dogs.

Chapter 3
Yea, voice
of every Soul that clung
To life that strove from rung to rung
When Devadatta's rule was young,
The warm wind brings Kamakura.
Buddha at Kamakura.
Behind them an angry farmer
brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener,
Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for
Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.
'Such an
one,' said the lama, disregarding the dogs, 'is
impolite to strangers, intemperate of speech and
uncharitable. Be warned by his demeanour, my
disciple.'
'Ho,
shameless beggars!' shouted the farmer. 'Begone! Get
hence!'
'We go,' the
lama returned, with quiet dignity. 'We go from these
unblessed fields.'
'Ah,' said
Kim, sucking in his breath. 'If the next crops fail,
thou canst only blame thine own tongue.'
The man
shuffled uneasily in his slippers. 'The land is full
of beggars,' he began, half apologetically.
'And by what
sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O
Mali?' said Kim tartly, using the name that a
market-gardener least likes. 'All we sought was to
look at that river beyond the field there.'
'River,
forsooth!' the man snorted. 'What city do ye hail
from not to know a canal-cut? It runs as straight as
an arrow, and I pay for the water as though it were
molten silver. There is a branch of a river beyond.
But if ye need water I can give that—and milk.'
'Nay, we
will go to the river,' said the lama, striding out.
'Milk and a
meal.' the man stammered, as he looked at the
strange tall figure. 'I—I would not draw evil upon
myself—or my crops. But beggars are so many in these
hard days.'
'Take
notice.' The lama turned to Kim. 'He was led to
speak harshly by the Red Mist of anger. That
clearing from his eyes, he becomes courteous and of
an affable heart. May his fields be blessed! Beware
not to judge men too hastily, O farmer.'
'I have met
holy ones who would have cursed thee from
hearthstone to byre,' said Kim to the abashed man.
'Is he not wise and holy? I am his disciple.'
He cocked
his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the
narrow field-borders with great dignity.
'There is no
pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no
pride among such as follow the Middle Way.'
'But thou
hast said he was low-caste and discourteous.'
'Low-caste I
did not say, for how can that be which is not?
Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot
the offence. Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon
the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way
of deliverance.' He halted at a little runlet among
the fields, and considered the hoof-pitted bank.
'Now, how
wilt thou know thy River?' said Kim, squatting in
the shade of some tall sugar-cane.
'When I find
it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I
feel, is not the place. O littlest among the waters,
if only thou couldst tell me where runs my River!
But be thou blessed to make the fields bear!'
'Look!
Look!' Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back.
A yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple
rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to
the water, drank, and lay still—a big cobra with
fixed, lidless eyes.
'I have no
stick—I have no stick,' said Kim. 'I will get me one
and break his back.'
'Why? He is
upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or
descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil
must the soul have done that is cast into this
shape.'
'I hate all
snakes,' said Kim. No native training can quench the
white man's horror of the Serpent.
'Let him
live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half
opened its hood. 'May thy release come soon,
brother!' the lama continued placidly. 'Hast thou
knowledge, by chance, of my River?'
'Never have
I seen such a man as thou art,' Kim whispered,
overwhelmed. 'Do the very snakes understand thy
talk?'
'Who knows?'
He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head.
It flattened itself among the dusty coils.
'Come,
thou!' he called over his shoulder.
'Not I,'
said Kim'. 'I go round.'
'Come. He
does no hurt.'
Kim
hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by
some droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a
charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and
the snake, indeed, made no sign.
'Never have
I seen such a man.' Kim wiped the sweat from his
forehead. 'And now, whither go we?'
'That is for
thee to say. I am old, and a stranger—far from my
own place. But that the rail-carriage fills my head
with noises of devil-drums I would go in it to
Benares now ... Yet by so going we may miss the
River. Let us find another river.'
Where the
hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a
year through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long
white radishes, and nol-kol, all that day they
strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse of
water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at
noonday; the lama replying to the volleyed questions
with an unswerving simplicity. They sought a River:
a River of miraculous healing. Had any one knowledge
of such a stream?
Sometimes
men laughed, but more often heard the story out to
the end and offered them a place in the shade, a
drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always
kind, and the little children as children are the
world over, alternately shy and venturesome.
Evening
found them at rest under the village tree of a
mud-walled, mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the
headman as the cattle came in from the
grazing-grounds and the women prepared the day's
last meal. They had passed beyond the belt of
market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and were among
the mile-wide green of the staple crops.
He was a
white-bearded and affable elder, used to
entertaining strangers. He dragged out a string
bedstead for the lama, set warm cooked food before
him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening
ceremonies being finished in the village temple,
sent for the village priest.
Kim told the
older children tales of the size and beauty of
Lahore, of railway travel, and such-like city
things, while the men talked, slowly as their cattle
chew the cud.
'I cannot
fathom it,' said the headman at last to the priest.
'How readest thou this talk?' The lama, his tale
told, was silently telling his beads.
'He is a
Seeker.' the priest answered. 'The land is full of
such. Remember him who came only last, month—the
fakir with the tortoise?'
'Ay, but
that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself
appeared in a vision promising him Paradise without
the burning-pyre if he journeyed to Prayag. This man
seeks no God who is within my knowledge.'
'Peace, he
is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,' the
smooth-shaven priest replied. 'Hear me.' He turned
to the lama. 'Three koss [six miles] to the westward
runs the great road to Calcutta.'
'But I would
go to Benares—to Benares.'
'And to
Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of
Hind. Now my word to thee, Holy One, is rest here
till tomorrow. Then take the road' (it was the Grand
Trunk Road he meant) 'and test each stream that it
overpasses; for, as I understand, the virtue of thy
River lies neither in one pool nor place, but
throughout its length. Then, if thy Gods will, be
assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom.'
'That is
well said.' The lama was much impressed by the plan.
'We will begin tomorrow, and a blessing on thee for
showing old feet such a near road.' A deep,
sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the sentence.
Even the priest was impressed, and the headman
feared an evil spell: but none could look at the
lama's simple, eager face and doubt him long.
'Seest thou
my chela?' he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with
an important sniff. It was his duty to repay
courtesy with courtesy.
'I see—and
hear.' The headman rolled his eye where Kim was
chatting to a girl in blue as she laid crackling
thorns on a fire.
'He also has
a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a
Red Bull on a green field will some day raise him to
honour. He is, I think, not altogether of this
world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me in this
search, and his name is Friend of all the World.'
The priest
smiled. 'Ho, there, Friend of all the World,' he
cried across the sharp-smelling smoke, 'what art
thou?'
'This Holy
One's disciple,' said Kim.
'He says
thou are a but [a spirit].'
'Can buts
eat?' said Kim, with a twinkle. 'For I am hungry.'
'It is no
jest,' cried the lama. 'A certain astrologer of that
city whose name I have forgotten—'
'That is no
more than the city of Umballa where we slept last
night,' Kim whispered to the priest.
'Ay, Umballa
was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my
chela should find his desire within two days. But
what said he of the meaning of the stars, Friend of
all the World?'
Kim cleared
his throat and looked around at the village
greybeards.
'The meaning
of my Star is War,' he replied pompously.
Somebody
laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on
the brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a
native would have lain down, Kim's white blood set
him upon his feet.
'Ay, War,'
he answered.
'That is a
sure prophecy,' rumbled a deep voice. 'For there is
always war along the Border—as I know.'
It was an
old, withered man, who had served the Government in
the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a
newly raised cavalry regiment. The Government had
given him a good holding in the village, and though
the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded officers
on their own account, had impoverished him, he was
still a person of consequence. English
officials—Deputy Commissioners even—turned aside
from the main road to visit him, and on those
occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of
ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.
'But this
shall be a great war—a war of eight thousand.' Kim's
voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd,
astonishing himself.
'Redcoats or
our own regiments?' the old man snapped, as though
he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect
Kim.
'Redcoats,'
said Kim at a venture. 'Redcoats and guns.'
'But—but the
astrologer said no word of this,' cried the lama,
snuffing prodigiously in his excitement.
'But I know.
The word has come to me, who am this Holy One's
disciple. There will rise a war—a war of eight
thousand redcoats. From Pindi and Peshawur they will
be drawn. This is sure.'
'The boy has
heard bazar-talk,' said the priest.
'But he was
always by my side,' said the lama. 'How should he
know? I did not know.'
'He will
make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,'
muttered the priest to the headman. 'What new trick
is this?'
'A sign.
Give me a sign,' thundered the old soldier suddenly.
'If there were war my sons would have told me.'
'When all is
ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is
a long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands
these things lie.' Kim warmed to the game, for it
reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying
line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended
to know more than he knew. But now he was playing
for larger things—the sheer excitement and the sense
of power. He drew a new breath and went on.
'Old man,
give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of
eight thousand redcoats—with guns?'
'No.' Still
the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.
'Dost thou
know who He is, then, that gives the order?'
'I have seen
Him.'
'To know
again?'
'I have
known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana
(the Artillery).'
'A tall man.
A tall man with black hair, walking thus?' Kim took
a few paces in a stiff, wooden style.
'Ay. But
that anyone may have seen.' The crowd were
breathless—still through all this talk.
'That is
true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now.
First the great man walks thus. Then He thinks
thus.' (Kim drew a forefinger over his forehead and
downwards till it came to rest by the angle of the
jaw.) 'Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He
thrusts his hat under his left armpit.' Kim
illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.
The old man
groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd
shivered.
'So—so—so.
But what does He when He is about to give an order?'
'He rubs the
skin at the back of his neck—thus. Then falls one
finger on the table and He makes a small sniffing
noise through his nose. Then He speaks, saying:
"Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such
guns."'
The old man
rose stiffly and saluted.
'"For"'—Kim
translated into the vernacular the clinching
sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at
Umballa—'"For," says He, "we should have done this
long ago. It is not war—it is a chastisement.
Snff!"'
'Enough. I
believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of
battles. Seen and heard. It is He!'
'I saw no
smoke'—Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of
the wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness.
First came a man to make things clear. Then came
horsemen. Then came He standing in a ring of light.
The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I
spoken truth?'
'It is He.
Past all doubt it is He.'
The crowd
drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately
at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim
against the purple twilight.
'Said I
not—said I not he was from the other world?' cried
the lama proudly. 'He is the Friend of all the
World. He is the Friend of the Stars!'
'At least it
does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young
soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all
seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister
to thy Bull for aught I know—'
'Or I care,'
said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with
thy cattle.'
'Nay, but
she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a
buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better.
Tell me if she recover?'
Had Kim been
at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the
play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least
of all the fakirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen
years without also knowing human nature.
The priest
looked at him sideways, something bitterly—a dry and
blighting smile.
'Is there no
priest, then, in the village? I thought I had seen a
great one even now,' cried Kim.
'Ay—but—'
the woman began.
'But thou
and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a
handful of thanks.' The shot told: they were
notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the
village. 'It is not well to cheat the temples. Give
a young calf to thine own priest, and, unless thy
Gods are angry past recall, she will give milk
within a month.'
'A
master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest
approvingly. 'Not the cunning of forty years could
have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man
rich?'
'A little
flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,'
Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still
cautious—'Does one grow rich on that? And, as thou
canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn
the road at least.'
He knew what
the fakirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they
talked among themselves, and copied the very
inflection of their lewd disciples.
'Is his
Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may
be treasure.'
'He is
mad—many times mad. There is nothing else.'
Here the old
soldier bobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his
hospitality for the night. The priest recommended
him to do so, but insisted that the honour of
entertaining the lama belonged to the temple—at
which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from
one face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.
'Where is
the money?' he whispered, beckoning the old man off
into the darkness.
'In my
bosom. Where else?'
'Give it me.
Quietly and swiftly give it me.'
'But why?
Here is no ticket to buy.'
'Am I thy
chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet
about the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will
return it.' He slipped his hand above the lama's
girdle and brought away the purse.
'Be it so—be
it so.' The old man nodded his head. 'This is a
great and terrible world. I never knew there were so
many men alive in it.'
Next morning
the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama
was quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most
interesting evening with the old man, who brought
out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry
knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains
thirty years in their graves, till Kim dropped off
to sleep.
'Certainly
the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I
sleep lightly, as do all old men; but last night I
slept unwaking till broad day. Even now I am heavy.'
'Drink a
draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not
a few such remedies to opium-smokers of his
acquaintance. 'It is time to take the Road again.'
'The long
Road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,' said
the lama gaily. 'Let us go. But how thinkest thou,
chela, to recompense these people, and especially
the priest, for their great kindness? Truly they are
but parast, but in other lives, maybe, they will
receive enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The
thing within is no more than stone and red paint,
but the heart of man we must acknowledge when and
where it is good.'
'Holy One,
hast thou ever taken the Road alone?' Kim looked up
sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the
fields.
'Surely,
child: from Kulu to Pathankot—from Kulu, where my
first chela died. When men were kind to us we made
offerings, and all men were well-disposed throughout
all the Hills.'
'It is
otherwise in Hind,' said Kim drily. 'Their Gods are
many-armed and malignant. Let them alone.'
'I would set
thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the
World, thou and thy yellow man.' The old soldier
ambled up the village street, all shadowy in the
dawn, on a punt, scissor-hocked pony. 'Last night
broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried
heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly there
is war abroad in the air. I smell it. See! I have
brought my sword.'
He sat
long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword
at his side—hand dropped on the pommel—staring
fiercely over the flat lands towards the North.
'Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come up
and sit behind me. The beast will carry two.'
'I am this
Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared the
village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to
be rid of them, but the priest's farewell was cold
and distant. He had wasted some opium on a man who
carried no money.
'That is
well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but
respect is always good. There is no respect in these
days—not even when a Commissioner Sahib comes to see
me. But why should one whose Star leads him to war
follow a holy man?'
'But he is a
holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in
talk and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I
have never seen such an one. We be not
fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'
'Thou art
not. That I can see. But I do not know that other.
He marches well, though.'
The first
freshness of the day carried the lama forward with
long, easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in
meditation, mechanically clicking his rosary.
They
followed the rutted and worn country road that wound
across the flat between the great dark-green
mango-groves, the line of the snowcapped Himalayas
faint to the eastward. All India was at work in the
fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting
of ploughmen behind their cattle, and the clamour of
the crows. Even the pony felt the good influence and
almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on the
stirrup-leather.
'It repents
me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said
the lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.
The old
soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for
the first time was aware of him.
'Seekest
thou the River also?' said he, turning.
'The day is
new,' was the reply. 'What need of a river save to
water at before sundown? I come to show thee a short
lane to the Big Road.'
'That is a
courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will. But
why the sword?'
The old
soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in
his game of make-believe.
'The sword,'
he said, fumbling it. 'Oh, that was a fancy of mine
an old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that
no man must bear weapons throughout Hind, but'—he
cheered up and slapped the hilt—'all the constabeels
hereabout know me.'
'It is not a
good fancy,' said the lama. 'What profit to kill
men?'
'Very
little—as I know; but if evil men were not now and
then slain it would not be a good world for
weaponless dreamers. I do not speak without
knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south
awash with blood.'
'What
madness was that, then?'
'The Gods,
who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate
into all the Army, and they turned against their
officers. That was the first evil, but not past
remedy if they had then held their hands. But they
chose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then
came the Sahibs from over the sea and called them to
most strict account.'
'Some such
rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They
called it the Black Year, as I remember.'
'What manner
of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A
rumour indeed! All earth knew, and trembled!'
'Our earth
never shook but once—upon the day that the Excellent
One received Enlightenment.'
'Umph! I saw
Delhi shake at least—and Delhi is the navel of the
world.'
'So they
turned against women and children? That was a bad
deed, for which the punishment cannot be avoided.'
'Many strove
to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in
a regiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and
eighty sabres stood fast to their salt—how many,
think you? Three. Of whom I was one.'
'The greater
merit.'
'Merit! We
did not consider it merit in those days. My people,
my friends, my brothers fell from me. They said:
"The time of the English is accomplished. Let each
strike out a little holding for himself." But I had
talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chilianwallah, of
Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: "Abide a little and
the wind turns. There is no blessing in this work."
In those days I rode seventy miles with an English
Memsahib and her babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow! That
was a horse fit for a man!) I placed them in safety,
and back came I to my officer—the one that was not
killed of our five. "Give me work," said I, "for I
am an outcast among my own kind, and my cousin's
blood is wet on my sabre." "Be content," said he.
"There is great work forward. When this madness is
over there is a recompense."'
'Ay, there
is a recompense when the madness is over, surely?'
the lama muttered half to himself.
'They did
not hang medals in those days on all who by accident
had heard a gun fired. No! In nineteen pitched
battles was I; in six-and-forty skirmishes of horse;
and in small affairs without number. Nine wounds I
bear; a medal and four clasps and the medal of an
Order, for my captains, who are now generals,
remembered me when the Kaisar-i-Hind had
accomplished fifty years of her reign, and all the
land rejoiced. They said: "Give him the Order of
Berittish India." I carry it upon my neck now. I
have also my jaghir [holding] from the hands of the
State—a free gift to me and mine. The men of the old
days—they are now Commissioners—come riding to me
through the crops—high upon horses so that all the
village sees—and we talk out the old skirmishes, one
dead man's name leading to another.'
'And after?'
said the lama.
'Oh,
afterwards they go away, but not before my village
has seen.'
'And at the
last what wilt thou do?'
'At the last
I shall die.'
'And after?'
'Let the
Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with
prayers. I do not think They will pester me. Look
you, I have noticed in my long life that those who
eternally break in upon Those Above with complaints
and reports and bellowings and weepings are
presently sent for in haste, as our Colonel used to
send for slack-jawed down-country men who talked too
much. No, I have never wearied the Gods. They will
remember this, and give me a quiet place where I can
drive my lance in the shade, and wait to welcome my
sons: I have no less than three Rissaldar—majors
all—in the regiments.'
'And they
likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life
to life—from despair to despair,' said the lama
below his breath, 'hot, uneasy, snatching.'
'Ay,' the
old soldier chuckled. 'Three Rissaldar—majors in
three regiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I.
They must be well mounted; and one cannot take the
horses as in the old days one took women. Well,
well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou?
It is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I
do not know how to ask save at the lance's point.
Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and they feign
penitence, but behind my back I know they call me a
toothless old ape.'
'Hast thou
never desired any other thing?'
'Yes—yes—a
thousand times! A straight back and a close-clinging
knee once more; a quick wrist and a keen eye; and
the marrow that makes a man. Oh, the old days—the
good days of my strength!'
'That
strength is weakness.'
'It has
turned so; but fifty years since I could have proved
it otherwise,' the old soldier retorted, driving his
stirrup-edge into the pony's lean flank.
'But I know
a River of great healing.'
'I have
drank Gunga-water to the edge of dropsy. All she
gave me was a flux, and no sort of strength.'
'It is not
Gunga. The River that I know washes from all taint
of sin. Ascending the far bank one is assured of
Freedom. I do not know thy life, but thy face is the
face of the honourable and courteous. Thou hast
clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was
hard to give, in that Black Year of which I now
remember other tales. Enter now upon the Middle Way
which is the path to Freedom. Hear the Most
Excellent Law, and do not follow dreams.'
'Speak,
then, old man,' the soldier smiled, half saluting.
'We be all babblers at our age.'
The lama
squatted under the shade of a mango, whose shadow
played checkerwise over his face; the soldier sat
stiffly on the pony; and Kim, making sure that there
were no snakes, lay down in the crotch of the
twisted roots.
There was a
drowsy buzz of small life in hot sunshine, a cooing
of doves, and a sleepy drone of well-wheels across
the fields. Slowly and impressively the lama began.
At the end of ten minutes the old soldier slid from
his pony, to hear better as he said, and sat with
the reins round his wrist. The lama's voice
faltered, the periods lengthened. Kim was busy
watching a grey squirrel. When the little scolding
bunch of fur, close pressed to the branch,
disappeared, preacher and audience were fast asleep,
the old officer's strong-cut head pillowed on his
arm, the lama's thrown back against the tree-bole,
where it showed like yellow ivory. A naked child
toddled up, stared, and, moved by some quick impulse
of reverence, made a solemn little obeisance before
the lama—only the child was so short and fat that it
toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the
sprawling, chubby legs. The child, scared and
indignant, yelled aloud.
'Hai! Hai!'
said the soldier, leaping to his feet. 'What is it?
What orders? ... It is ... a child! I dreamed it was
an alarm. Little one—little one—do not cry. Have I
slept? That was discourteous indeed!'
'I fear! I
am afraid!' roared the child.
'What is it
to fear? Two old men and a boy? How wilt thou ever
make a soldier, Princeling?'
The lama had
waked too, but, taking no direct notice of the
child, clicked his rosary.
'What is
that?' said the child, stopping a yell midway. 'I
have never seen such things. Give them me.'
'Aha.' said
the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop of it on the
grass:
This is a
handful of cardamoms, This is a lump of ghi: This is
millet and chillies and rice, A supper for thee and
me!
The child
shrieked with joy, and snatched at the dark,
glancing beads.
'Oho!' said
the old soldier. 'Whence hadst thou that song,
despiser of this world?'
'I learned
it in Pathankot—sitting on a doorstep,' said the
lama shyly. 'It is good to be kind to babes.'
'As I
remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst
told me that marriage and bearing were darkeners of
the true light, stumbling-blocks upon the Way. Do
children drop from Heaven in thy country? Is it the
Way to sing them songs?'
'No man is
all perfect,' said the lama gravely, recoiling the
rosary. 'Run now to thy mother, little one.'
'Hear him!'
said the soldier to Kim. 'He is ashamed for that he
has made a child happy. There was a very good
householder lost in thee, my brother. Hai, child!'
He threw it a pice. 'Sweetmeats are always sweet.'
And as the little figure capered away into the
sunshine: 'They grow up and become men. Holy One, I
grieve that I slept in the midst of thy preaching.
Forgive me.'
'We be two
old men,' said the lama. 'The fault is mine. I
listened to thy talk of the world and its madness,
and one fault led to the next.'
'Hear him!
What harm do thy Gods suffer from play with a babe?
And that song was very well sung. Let us go on and I
will sing thee the song of Nikal Seyn before
Delhi—the old song.'
And they
fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old
man's high, shrill voice ringing across the field,
as wail by long-drawn wail he unfolded the story of
Nikal Seyn [Nicholson]—the song that men sing in the
Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama
listened with deep interest.
'Ahi! Nikal
Seyn is dead—he died before Delhi! Lances of the
North, take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered
it out to the end, marking the trills with the flat
of his sword on the pony's rump.
'And now we
come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the
compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly
silent. 'It is long since I have ridden this way,
but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, Holy One—the
Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For
the most part it is shaded, as here, with four lines
of trees; the middle road—all hard—takes the quick
traffic. In the days before rail-carriages the
Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now
there are only country-carts and such like. Left and
right is the rougher road for the heavy carts—grain
and cotton and timber, fodder, lime and hides. A man
goes in safety here for at every few koss is a
police-station. The police are thieves and
extortioners (I myself would patrol it with
cavalry—young recruits under a strong captain), but
at least they do not suffer any rivals. All castes
and kinds of men move here.
'Look!
Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers
and bunnias, pilgrims and potters—all the world
going and coming. It is to me as a river from which
I am withdrawn like a log after a flood.'
And truly
the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It
runs straight, bearing without crowding India's
traffic for fifteen hundred miles—such a river of
life as nowhere else exists in the world. They
looked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length of
it, the white breadth speckled with slow-pacing
folk; and the two-roomed police-station opposite.
'Who bears
arms against the law?' a constable called out
laughingly, as he caught sight of the soldier's
sword. 'Are not the police enough to destroy
evil-doers?'
'It was
because of the police I bought it,' was the answer.
'Does all go well in Hind?'
'Rissaldar
Sahib, all goes well.'
'I am like
an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out
from the bank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the
Road of Hindustan. All men come by this way...'
'Son of a
swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee
to scratch thy back upon? Father of all the
daughters of shame and husband of ten thousand
virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted to a devil,
being led thereto by her mother. Thy aunts have
never had a nose for seven generations! Thy
sister—What Owl's folly told thee to draw thy carts
across the road? A broken wheel? Then take a broken
head and put the two together at leisure!'
The voice
and a venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of
dust fifty yards away, where a cart had broken down.
A thin, high Kathiawar mare, with eyes and nostrils
aflame, rocketed out of the jam, snorting and
wincing as her rider bent her across the road in
chase of a shouting man. He was tall and
grey-bearded, sitting the almost mad beast as a
piece of her, and scientifically lashing his victim
between plunges.
The old
man's face lit with pride. 'My child!' said he
briefly, and strove to rein the pony's neck to a
fitting arch.
'Am I to be
beaten before the police?' cried the carter.
'Justice! I will have Justice—'
'Am I to be
blocked by a shouting ape who upsets ten thousand
sacks under a young horse's nose? That is the way to
ruin a mare.'
'He speaks
truth. He speaks truth. But she follows her man
close,' said the old man. The carter ran under the
wheels of his cart and thence threatened all sorts
of vengeance.
'They are
strong men, thy sons,' said the policeman serenely,
picking his teeth.
The horseman
delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and
came on at a canter.
'My father!'
He reigned back ten yards and dismounted.
The old man
was off his pony in an instant, and they embraced as
do father and son in the East.

Chapter 4
Good Luck,
she is never a lady,
But the cursedest quean alive,
Tricksy, wincing, and jady—
Kittle to lead or drive.
Greet her—she's hailing a stranger!
Meet her—she's busking to leave!
Let her alone for a shrew to the bone
And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve!
Largesse! Largesse, O Fortune!
Give or hold at your will.
If I've no care for Fortune,
Fortune must follow me still!
The Wishing-Caps.
Then, lowering their
voices, they spoke together. Kim came to rest under
a tree, but the lama tugged impatiently at his
elbow.
'Let us go
on. The River is not here.'
'Hai mai!
Have we not walked enough for a little? Our River
will not run away. Patience, and he will give us a
dole.'
'This.' said
the old soldier suddenly, 'is the Friend of the
Stars. He brought me the news yesterday. Having seen
the very man Himself, in a vision, giving orders for
the war.'
'Hm!' said
his son, all deep in his broad chest. 'He came by a
bazar-rumour and made profit of it.'
His father
laughed. 'At least he did not ride to me begging for
a new charger, and the Gods know how many rupees.
Are thy brothers' regiments also under orders?'
'I do not
know. I took leave and came swiftly to thee in
case—'
'In case
they ran before thee to beg. O gamblers and
spendthrifts all! But thou hast never yet ridden in
a charge. A good horse is needed there, truly. A
good follower and a good pony also for the marching.
Let us see—let us see.' He thrummed on the pommel.
'This is no
place to cast accounts in, my father. Let us go to
thy house.'
'At least
pay the boy, then: I have no pice with me, and he
brought auspicious news. Ho! Friend of all the
World, a war is toward as thou hast said.'
'Nay, as I
know, the war,' returned Kim composedly.
'Eh?' said
the lama, fingering his beads, all eager for the
road.
'My master
does not trouble the Stars for hire. We brought the
news bear witness, we brought the news, and now we
go.' Kim half-crooked his hand at his side.
The son
tossed a silver coin through the sunlight, grumbling
something about beggars and jugglers. It was a
four-anna piece, and would feed them well for days.
The lama, seeing the flash of the metal, droned a
blessing.
'Go thy way,
Friend of all the World,' piped the old soldier,
wheeling his scrawny mount. 'For once in all my days
I have met a true prophet—who was not in the Army.'
Father and
son swung round together: the old man sitting as
erect as the younger.
A Punjabi
constable in yellow linen trousers slouched across
the road. He had seen the money pass.
'Halt!' he
cried in impressive English. 'Know ye not that there
is a takkus of two annas a head, which is four
annas, on those who enter the Road from this
side-road? It is the order of the Sirkar, and the
money is spent for the planting of trees and the
beautification of the ways.'
'And the
bellies of the police,' said Kim, slipping out of
arm's reach. 'Consider for a while, man with a mud
head. Think you we came from the nearest pond like
the frog, thy father-in-law? Hast thou ever heard
the name of thy brother?'
'And who was
he? Leave the boy alone,' cried a senior constable,
immensely delighted, as he squatted down to smoke
his pipe in the veranda.
'He took a
label from a bottle of belaitee-pani [soda-water],
and, affixing it to a bridge, collected taxes for a
month from those who passed, saying that it was the
Sirkar's order. Then came an Englishman and broke
his head. Ah, brother, I am a town-crow, not a
village-crow!'
The
policeman drew back abashed, and Kim hooted at him
all down the road.
'Was there
ever such a disciple as I?' he cried merrily to the
lama. 'All earth would have picked thy bones within
ten mile of Lahore city if I had not guarded thee.'
'I consider
in my own mind whether thou art a spirit, sometimes,
or sometimes an evil imp,' said the lama, smiling
slowly.
'I am thy
chela.' Kim dropped into step at his side—that
indescribable gait of the long-distance tramp all
the world over.
'Now let us
walk,' muttered the lama, and to the click of his
rosary they walked in silence mile upon mile. The
lama as usual, was deep in meditation, but Kim's
bright eyes were open wide. This broad, smiling
river of life, he considered, was a vast improvement
on the cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There
were new people and new sights at every
stride—castes he knew and castes that were
altogether out of his experience.
They met a
troop of long-haired, strong-scented Sansis with
baskets of lizards and other unclean food on their
backs, their lean dogs sniffing at their heels.
These people kept their own side of the road',
moving at a quick, furtive jog-trot, and all other
castes gave them ample room; for the Sansi is deep
pollution. Behind them, walking wide and stiffly
across the strong shadows, the memory of his
leg-irons still on him, strode one newly released
from the jail; his full stomach and shiny skin to
prove that the Government fed its prisoners better
than most honest men could feed themselves. Kim knew
that walk well, and made broad jest of it as they
passed. Then an Akali, a wild-eyed, wild-haired Sikh
devotee in the blue-checked clothes of his faith,
with polished-steel quoits glistening on the cone of
his tall blue turban, stalked past, returning from a
visit to one of the independent Sikh States, where
he had been singing the ancient glories of the
Khalsa to College-trained princelings in top-boots
and white-cord breeches. Kim was careful not to
irritate that man; for the Akali's temper is short
and his arm quick. Here and there they met or were
overtaken by the gaily dressed crowds of whole
villages turning out to some local fair; the women,
with their babes on their hips, walking behind the
men, the older boys prancing on sticks of
sugar-cane, dragging rude brass models of
locomotives such as they sell for a halfpenny, or
flashing the sun into the eyes of their betters from
cheap toy mirrors. One could see at a glance what
each had bought; and if there were any doubt it
needed only to watch the wives comparing, brown arm
against brown arm, the newly purchased dull glass
bracelets that come from the North-West. These
merry-makers stepped slowly, calling one to the
other and stopping to haggle with sweetmeat-sellers,
or to make a prayer before one of the wayside
shrines—sometimes Hindu, sometimes Mussalman—which
the low-caste of both creeds share with beautiful
impartiality. A solid line of blue, rising and
falling like the back of a caterpillar in haste,
would swing up through the quivering dust and trot
past to a chorus of quick cackling. That was a gang
of changars—the women who have taken all the
embankments of all the Northern railways under their
charge—a flat-footed, big-bosomed, strong-limbed,
blue-petticoated clan of earth-carriers, hurrying
north on news of a job, and wasting no time by the
road. They belong to the caste whose men do not
count, and they walked with squared elbows, swinging
hips, and heads on high, as suits women who carry
heavy weights. A little later a marriage procession
would strike into the Grand Trunk with music and
shoutings, and a smell of marigold and jasmine
stronger even than the reek of the dust. One could
see the bride's litter, a blur of red and tinsel,
staggering through the haze, while the bridegroom's
bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful
from a passing fodder-cart. Then Kim would join the
Kentish-fire of good wishes and bad jokes, wishing
the couple a hundred sons and no daughters, as the
saying is. Still more interesting and more to be
shouted over it was when a strolling juggler with
some half-trained monkeys, or a panting, feeble
bear, or a woman who tied goats' horns to her feet,
and with these danced on a slack-rope, set the
horses to shying and the women to shrill, long-drawn
quavers of amazement.
The lama
never raised his eyes. He did not note the
money-lender on his goose-rumped pony, hastening
along to collect the cruel interest; or the
long-shouting, deep-voiced little mob—still in
military formation—of native soldiers on leave,
rejoicing to be rid of their breeches and puttees,
and saying the most outrageous things to the most
respectable women in sight. Even the seller of
Ganges-water he did not see, and Kim expected that
he would at least buy a bottle of that precious
stuff. He looked steadily at the ground, and strode
as steadily hour after hour, his soul busied
elsewhere. But Kim was in the seventh heaven of joy.
The Grand Trunk at this point was built on an
embankment to guard against winter floods from the
foothills, so that one walked, as it were, a little
above the country, along a stately corridor, seeing
all India spread out to left and right. It was
beautiful to behold the many-yoked grain and cotton
wagons crawling over the country roads: one could
hear their axles, complaining a mile away, coming
nearer, till with shouts and yells and bad words
they climbed up the steep incline and plunged on to
the hard main road, carter reviling carter. It was
equally beautiful to watch the people, little clumps
of red and blue and pink and white and saffron,
turning aside to go to their own villages,
dispersing and growing small by twos and threes
across the level plain. Kim felt these things,
though he could not give tongue to his feelings, and
so contented himself with buying peeled sugar-cane
and spitting the pith generously about his path.
From time to time the lama took snuff, and at last
Kim could endure the silence no longer.
'This is a
good land—the land of the South!' said he. 'The air
is good; the water is good. Eh?'
'And they
are all bound upon the Wheel,' said the lama. 'Bound
from life after life. To none of these has the Way
been shown.' He shook himself back to this world.
'And now we
have walked a weary way,' said Kim. 'Surely we shall
soon come to a parao [a resting-place]. Shall we
stay there? Look, the sun is sloping.'
'Who will
receive us this evening?'
'That is all
one. This country is full of good folk. Besides' he
sunk his voice beneath a whisper—'we have money.'
The crowd
thickened as they neared the resting-place which
marked the end of their day's journey. A line of
stalls selling very simple food and tobacco, a stack
of firewood, a police-station, a well, a
horse-trough, a few trees, and, under them, some
trampled ground dotted with the black ashes of old
fires, are all that mark a parao on the Grand Trunk;
if you except the beggars and the crows—both hungry.
By this time
the sun was driving broad golden spokes through the
lower branches of the mango-trees; the parakeets and
doves were coming home in their hundreds; the
chattering, grey-backed Seven Sisters, talking over
the day's adventures, walked back and forth in twos
and threes almost under the feet of the travellers;
and shufflings and scufflings in the branches showed
that the bats were ready to go out on the
night-picket. Swiftly the light gathered itself
together, painted for an instant the faces and the
cartwheels and the bullocks' horns as red as blood.
Then the night fell, changing the touch of the air,
drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer veil of
blue, across the face of the country, and bringing
out, keen and distinct, the smell of wood-smoke and
cattle and the good scent of wheaten cakes cooked on
ashes. The evening patrol hurried out of the
police-station with important coughings and
reiterated orders; and a live charcoal ball in the
cup of a wayside carter's hookah glowed red while
Kim's eye mechanically watched the last flicker of
the sun on the brass tweezers.
The life of
the parao was very like that of the Kashmir Serai on
a small scale. Kim dived into the happy Asiatic
disorder which, if you only allow time, will bring
you everything that a simple man needs.
His wants
were few, because, since the lama had no caste
scruples, cooked food from the nearest stall would
serve; but, for luxury's sake, Kim bought a handful
of dung-cakes to build a fire. All about, coming and
going round the little flames, men cried for oil, or
grain, or sweetmeats, or tobacco, jostling one
another while they waited their turn at the well;
and under the men's voices you heard from halted,
shuttered carts the high squeals and giggles of
women whose faces should not be seen in public.
Nowadays,
well-educated natives are of opinion that when their
womenfolk travel—and they visit a good deal—it is
better to take them quickly by rail in a properly
screened compartment; and that custom is spreading.
But there are always those of the old rock who hold
by the use of their forefathers; and, above all,
there are always the old women—more conservative
than the men—who toward the end of their days go on
a pilgrimage. They, being withered and undesirable,
do not, under certain circumstances, object to
unveiling. After their long seclusion, during which
they have always been in business touch with a
thousand outside interests, they love the bustle and
stir of the open road, the gatherings at the
shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip
with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a
longsuffering family that a strong-tongued,
iron-willed old lady should disport herself about
India in this fashion; for certainly pilgrimage is
grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the
most remote places, as in the most public, you find
some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge of
an old lady who is more or less curtained and hid
away in a bullock-cart. Such men are staid and
discreet, and when a European or a high-caste native
is near will net their charge with most elaborate
precautions; but in the ordinary haphazard chances
of pilgrimage the precautions are not taken. The old
lady is, after all, intensely human, and lives to
look upon life.
Kim marked
down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock-cart,
with a broidered canopy of two domes, like a
double-humped camel, which had just been drawn into
the par. Eight men made its retinue, and two of the
eight were armed with rusty sabres—sure signs that
they followed a person of distinction, for the
common folk do not bear arms. An increasing cackle
of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a
European would have been bad language, came from
behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used
to command.
Kim looked
over the retinue critically. Half of them were
thin-legged, grey-bearded Ooryas from down country.
The other half were duffle-clad, felt-hatted hillmen
of the North; and that mixture told its own tale,
even if he had not overheard the incessant sparring
between the two divisions. The old lady was going
south on a visit—probably to a rich relative, most
probably to a son-in-law, who had sent up an escort
as a mark of respect. The hillmen would be of her
own people—Kulu or Kangra folk. It was quite clear
that she was not taking her daughter down to be
wedded, or the curtains would have been laced home
and the guard would have allowed no one near the
car. A merry and a high-spirited dame, thought Kim,
balancing the dung-cake in one hand, the cooked food
in the other, and piloting the lama with a nudging
shoulder. Something might be made out of the
meeting. The lama would give him no help, but, as a
conscientious chela, Kim was delighted to beg for
two.
He built his
fire as close to the cart as he dared, waiting for
one of the escort to order him away. The lama
dropped wearily to the ground, much as a heavy
fruit-eating bat cowers, and returned to his rosary.
'Stand
farther off, beggar!' The order was shouted in
broken Hindustani by one of the hillmen.
'Huh! It is
only a pahari [a hillman]', said Kim over his
shoulder. 'Since when have the hill-asses owned all
Hindustan?'
The retort
was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim's pedigree
for three generations.
'Ah!' Kim's
voice was sweeter than ever, as he broke the
dung-cake into fit pieces. 'In my country we call
that the beginning of love-talk.'
A harsh,
thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on
his mettle for a second shot.
'Not so
bad—not so bad,' said Kim with calm. 'But have a
care, my brother, lest we—we, I say—be minded to
give a curse or so in return. And our curses have
the knack of biting home.'
The Ooryas
laughed; the hillman sprang forward threateningly.
The lama suddenly raised his head, bringing his huge
tam-o'-shanter hat into the full light of Kim's
new-started fire.
'What is
it?' said he.
The man
halted as though struck to stone. 'I—I—am saved from
a great sin,' he stammered.
'The
foreigner has found him a priest at last,' whispered
one of the Ooryas.
'Hai! Why is
that beggar-brat not well beaten?' the old woman
cried.
The hillman
drew back to the cart and whispered something to the
curtain. There was dead silence, then a muttering.
'This goes
well,' thought Kim, pretending neither to see nor
hear.
'When—when—he has eaten'—the hillman fawned on
Kim—'it—it is requested that the Holy One will do
the honour to talk to one who would speak to him.'
'After he
has eaten he will sleep,' Kim returned loftily. He
could not quite see what new turn the game had
taken, but stood resolute to profit by it. 'Now I
will get him his food.' The last sentence, spoken
loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness.
'I—I myself
and the others of my people will look to that—if it
is permitted.'
'It is
permitted,' said Kim, more loftily than ever. 'Holy
One, these people will bring us food.'
'The land is
good. All the country of the South is good—a great
and a terrible world,' mumbled the lama drowsily.
'Let him
sleep,' said Kim, 'but look to it that we are well
fed when he wakes. He is a very holy man.'
Again one of
the Ooryas said something contemptuously.
'He is not a
fakir. He is not a down-country beggar,' Kim went on
severely, addressing the stars. 'He is the most holy
of holy men. He is above all castes. I am his
chela.'
'Come here!'
said the flat thin voice behind the curtain; and Kim
came, conscious that eyes he could not see were
staring at him. One skinny brown finger heavy with
rings lay on the edge of the cart, and the talk went
this way:
'Who is that
one?'
'An
exceedingly holy one. He comes from far off. He
comes from Tibet.'
'Where in
Tibet?'
'From behind
the snows—from a very far place. He knows the stars;
he makes horoscopes; he reads nativities. But he
does not do this for money. He does it for kindness
and great charity. I am his disciple. I am called
also the Friend of the Stars.'
'Thou art no
hillman.'
'Ask him. He
will tell thee I was sent to him from the Stars to
show him an end to his pilgrimage.'
'Humph!
Consider, brat, that I am an old woman and not
altogether a fool. Lamas I know, and to these I give
reverence, but thou art no more a lawful chela than
this my finger is the pole of this wagon. Thou art a
casteless Hindu—a bold and unblushing beggar,
attached, belike, to the Holy One for the sake of
gain.'
'Do we not
all work for gain?' Kim changed his tone promptly to
match that altered voice. 'I have heard'—this was a
bow drawn at a venture—'I have heard—'
'What hast
thou heard?' she snapped, rapping with the finger.
'Nothing
that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars,
which is doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs—small
Hill Rajahs—'
'But none
the less of good Rajput blood.'
'Assuredly
of good blood. That these even sell the more comely
of their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell
them—to zemindars and such—all of Oudh.'
If there be
one thing in the world that the small Hill Rajahs
deny it is just this charge; but it happens to be
one thing that the bazars believe, when they discuss
the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The old lady
explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whisper,
precisely what manner and fashion of malignant liar
he was. Had Kim hinted this when she was a girl, he
would have been pommelled to death that same evening
by an elephant. This was perfectly true.
'Ahai! I am
only a beggar's brat, as the Eye of Beauty has
said,' he wailed in extravagant terror.
'Eye of
Beauty, forsooth! Who am I that thou shouldst fling
beggar-endearments at me?' And yet she laughed at
the long-forgotten word. 'Forty years ago that might
have been said, and not without truth. Ay. thirty
years ago. But it is the fault of this gadding up
and down Hind that a king's widow must jostle all
the scum of the land, and be made a mock by
beggars.'
'Great
Queen,' said Kim promptly, for he heard her shaking
with indignation, 'I am even what the Great Queen
says I am; but none the less is my master holy. He
has not yet heard the Great Queen's order that—'
'Order? I
order a Holy One—a Teacher of the Law—to come and
speak to a woman? Never!'
'Pity my
stupidity. I thought it was given as an order—'
'It was not.
It was a petition. Does this make all clear?'
A silver
coin clicked on the edge of the cart. Kim took it
and salaamed profoundly. The old lady recognized
that, as the eyes and the ears of the lama, he was
to be propitiated.
'I am but
the Holy One's disciple. When he has eaten perhaps
he will come.'
'Oh, villain
and shameless rogue!' The jewelled forefinger shook
itself at him reprovingly; but he could hear the old
lady's chuckle.
'Nay, what
is it?' he said, dropping into his most caressing
and confidential tone—the one, he well knew, that
few could resist. 'Is—is there any need of a son in
thy family? Speak freely, for we priests—' That last
was a direct plagiarism from a fakir by the Taksali
Gate.
'We priests!
Thou art not yet old enough to—' She checked the
joke with another laugh. 'Believe me, now and again,
we women, O priest, think of other matters than
sons. Moreover, my daughter has borne her
man-child.'
'Two arrows
in the quiver are better than one; and three are
better still.' Kim quoted the proverb with a
meditative cough, looking discreetly earthward.
'True—oh,
true. But perhaps that will come. Certainly those
down-country Brahmins are utterly useless. I sent
gifts and monies and gifts again to them, and they
prophesied.'
'Ah,'
drawled Kim, with infinite contempt, 'they
prophesied!' A professional could have done no
better.
'And it was
not till I remembered my own Gods that my prayers
were heard. I chose an auspicious hour, and—perhaps
thy Holy One has heard of the Abbot of the Lung-Cho
lamassery. It was to him I put the matter, and
behold in the due time all came about as I desired.
The Brahmin in the house of the father of my
daughter's son has since said that it was through
his prayers—which is a little error that I will
explain to him when we reach our journey's end. And
so afterwards I go to Buddh Gaya, to make shraddha
for the father of my children.'
'Thither go
we.'
'Doubly
auspicious,' chirruped the old lady. 'A second son
at least!'
'O Friend of
all the World!' The lama had waked, and, simply as a
child bewildered in a strange bed, called for Kim.
'I come! I
come, Holy One!' He dashed to the fire, where he
found the lama already surrounded by dishes of food,
the hillmen visibly adoring him and the Southerners
looking sourly.
'Go back!
Withdraw!' Kim cried. 'Do we eat publicly like
dogs?' They finished the meal in silence, each
turned a little from the other, and Kim topped it
with a native-made cigarette.
'Have I not
said an hundred times that the South is a good land?
Here is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill
Rajah on pilgrimage, she says, to Buddha Gay. She it
is sends us those dishes; and when thou art well
rested she would speak to thee.'
'Is this
also thy work?' The lama dipped deep into his
snuff-gourd.
'Who else
watched over thee since our wonderful journey
began?' Kim's eyes danced in his head as he blew the
rank smoke through his nostrils and stretched him on
the dusty ground. 'Have I failed to oversee thy
comforts, Holy One?'
'A blessing
on thee.' The lama inclined his solemn head. 'I have
known many men in my so long life, and disciples not
a few. But to none among men, if so be thou art
woman-born, has my heart gone out as it has to
thee—thoughtful, wise, and courteous; but something
of a small imp.'
'And I have
never seen such a priest as thou.' Kim considered
the benevolent yellow face wrinkle by wrinkle. 'It
is less than three days since we took the road
together, and it is as though it were a hundred
years.'
'Perhaps in
a former life it was permitted that I should have
rendered thee some service. Maybe'—he smiled—'I
freed thee from a trap; or, having caught thee on a
hook in the days when I was not enlightened, cast
thee back into the river.'
'Maybe,'
said Kim quietly. He had heard this sort of
speculation again and again, from the mouths of many
whom the English would not consider imaginative.
'Now, as regards that woman in the bullock-cart. I
think she needs a second son for her daughter.'
'That is no
part of the Way,' sighed the lama. 'But at least she
is from the Hills. Ah, the Hills, and the snow of
the Hills!'
He rose and
stalked to the cart. Kim would have given his ears
to come too, but the lama did not invite him; and
the few words he caught were in an unknown tongue,
for they spoke some common speech of the mountains.
The woman seemed to ask questions which the lama
turned over in his mind before answering. Now and
again he heard the singsong cadence of a Chinese
quotation. It was a strange picture that Kim watched
between drooped eyelids. The lama, very straight and
erect, the deep folds of his yellow clothing slashed
with black in the light of the parao fires precisely
as a knotted tree-trunk is slashed with the shadows
of the low sun, addressed a tinsel and lacquered
ruth which burned like a many-coloured jewel in the
same uncertain light. The patterns on the
gold-worked curtains ran up and down, melting and
reforming as the folds shook and quivered to the
night wind; and when the talk grew more earnest the
jewelled forefinger snapped out little sparks of
light between the embroideries. Behind the cart was
a wall of uncertain darkness speckled with little
flames and alive with half-caught forms and faces
and shadows. The voices of early evening had settled
down to one soothing hum whose deepest note was the
steady chumping of the bullocks above their chopped
straw, and whose highest was the tinkle of a Bengali
dancing-girl's sitar. Most men had eaten and pulled
deep at their gurgling, grunting hookahs, which in
full blast sound like bull-frogs.
At last the
lama returned. A hillman walked behind him with a
wadded cotton-quilt and spread it carefully by the
fire.
'She
deserves ten thousand grandchildren,' thought Kim.
'None the less, but for me, those gifts would not
have come.'
'A virtuous
woman—and a wise one.' The lama slackened off, joint
by joint, like a slow camel. 'The world is full of
charity to those who follow the Way.' He flung a
fair half of the quilt over Kim.
'And what
said she?' Kim rolled up in his share of it.
'She asked
me many questions and propounded many problems—the
most of which were idle tales which she had heard
from devil-serving priests who pretend to follow the
Way. Some I answered, and some I said were foolish.
Many wear the Robe, but few keep the Way.'
'True. That
is true.' Kim used the thoughtful, conciliatory tone
of those who wish to draw confidences.
'But by her
lights she is most right-minded. She desires greatly
that we should go with her to Buddh Gaya; her road
being ours, as I understand, for many days' journey
to the southward.'
'And?'
'Patience a
little. To this I said that my Search came before
all things. She had heard many foolish legends, but
this great truth of my River she had never heard.
Such are the priests of the lower hills! She knew
the Abbot of Lung-Cho, but she did not know of my
River—nor the tale of the Arrow.'
'And?'
'I spoke
therefore of the Search, and of the Way, and of
matters that were profitable; she desiring only that
I should accompany her and make prayer for a second
son.'
'Aha! "We
women" do not think of anything save children,' said
Kim sleepily.
'Now, since
our roads run together for a while, I do not see
that we in any way depart from our Search if so be
we accompany her—at least as far as—I have forgotten
the name of the city.'
'Ohe!' said
Kim, turning and speaking in a sharp whisper to one
of the Ooryas a few yards away. 'Where is your
master's house?'
'A little
behind Saharunpore, among the fruit gardens.' He
named the village.
'That was
the place,' said the lama. 'So far, at least, we can
go with her.'
'Flies go to
carrion,' said the Oorya, in an abstracted voice.
'For the
sick cow a crow; for the sick man a Brahmin.' Kim
breathed the proverb impersonally to the shadow-tops
of the trees overhead.
The Oorya
grunted and held his peace.
'So then we
go with her, Holy One?'
'Is there
any reason against? I can still step aside and try
all the rivers that the road overpasses. She desires
that I should come. She very greatly desires it.'
Kim stifled
a laugh in the quilt. When once that imperious old
lady had recovered from her natural awe of a lama he
thought it probable that she would be worth
listening to.
He was
nearly asleep when the lama suddenly quoted a
proverb: 'The husbands of the talkative have a great
reward hereafter.' Then Kim heard him snuff thrice,
and dozed off, still laughing.
The
diamond-bright dawn woke men and crows and bullocks
together. Kim sat up and yawned, shook himself, and
thrilled with delight. This was seeing the world in
real truth; this was life as he would have
it—bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and
beating of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting
of fires and cooking of food, and new sights at
every turn of the approving eye. The morning mist
swept off in a whorl of silver, the parrots shot
away to some distant river in shrieking green hosts:
all the well-wheels within ear-shot went to work.
India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of it,
more awake and more excited than anyone, chewing on
a twig that he would presently use as a toothbrush;
for he borrowed right- and left-handedly from all
the customs of the country he knew and loved. There
was no need to worry about food—no need to spend a
cowrie at the crowded stalls. He was the disciple of
a holy man annexed by a strong-willed old lady. All
things would be prepared for them, and when they
were respectfully invited so to do they would sit
and eat. For the rest—Kim giggled here as he cleaned
his teeth—his hostess would rather heighten the
enjoyment of the road. He inspected her bullocks
critically, as they came up grunting and blowing
under the yokes. If they went too fast—it was not
likely—there would be a pleasant seat for himself
along the pole; the lama would sit beside the
driver. The escort, of course, would walk. The old
lady, equally of course, would talk a great deal,
and by what he had heard that conversation would not
lack salt. She was already ordering, haranguing,
rebuking, and, it must be said, cursing her servants
for delays.
'Get her her
pipe. In the name of the Gods, get her her pipe and
stop her ill-omened mouth,' cried an Oorya, tying up
his shapeless bundles of bedding. 'She and the
parrots are alike. They screech in the dawn.'
'The
lead-bullocks! Hai! Look to the lead-bullocks!' They
were backing and wheeling as a grain-cart's axle
caught them by the horns. 'Son of an owl, where dost
thou go?' This to the grinning carter.
'Ai! Yai!
Yai! That within there is the Queen of Delhi going
to pray for a son,' the man called back over his
high load. 'Room for the Queen of Delhi and her
Prime Minister the grey monkey climbing up his own
sword!' Another cart loaded with bark for a
down-country tannery followed close behind, and its
driver added a few compliments as the ruth-bullocks
backed and backed again.
From behind
the shaking curtains came one volley of invective.
It did not last long, but in kind and quality, in
blistering, biting appropriateness, it was beyond
anything that even Kim had heard. He could see the
carter's bare chest collapse with amazement, as the
man salaamed reverently to the voice, leaped from
the pole, and helped the escort haul their volcano
on to the main road. Here the voice told him
truthfully what sort of wife he had wedded, and what
she was doing in his absence.
'Oh,
shabash!' murmured Kim, unable to contain himself,
as the man slunk away.
'Well done,
indeed? It is a shame and a scandal that a poor
woman may not go to make prayer to her Gods except
she be jostled and insulted by all the refuse of
Hindustan—that she must eat gali [abuse] as men eat
ghi. But I have yet a wag left to my tongue—a word
or two well spoken that serves the occasion. And
still am I without my tobacco! Who is the one-eyed
and luckless son of shame that has not yet prepared
my pipe?'
It was
hastily thrust in by a hillman, and a trickle of
thick smoke from each corner of the curtains showed
that peace was restored.
If Kim had
walked proudly the day before, disciple of a holy
man, today he paced with tenfold pride in the train
of a semi-royal procession, with a recognized place
under the patronage of an old lady of charming
manners and infinite resource. The escort, their
heads tied up native-fashion, fell in on either side
the cart, shuffling enormous clouds of dust.
The lama and
Kim walked a little to one side; Kim chewing his
stick of sugarcane, and making way for no one under
the status of a priest. They could hear the old
lady's tongue clack as steadily as a rice-husker.
She bade the escort tell her what was going on on
the road; and so soon as they were clear of the
parao she flung back the curtains and peered out,
her veil a third across her face. Her men did not
eye her directly when she addressed them, and thus
the proprieties were more or less observed.
A dark,
sallowish District Superintendent of Police,
faultlessly uniformed, an Englishman, trotted by on
a tired horse, and, seeing from her retinue what
manner of person she was, chaffed her.
'O mother,'
he cried, 'do they do this in the zenanas? Suppose
an Englishman came by and saw that thou hast no
nose?'
'What?' she
shrilled back. 'Thine own mother has no nose? Why
say so, then, on the open road?'
It was a
fair counter. The Englishman threw up his hand with
the gesture of a man hit at sword-play. She laughed
and nodded.
'Is this a
face to tempt virtue aside?' She withdrew all her
veil and stared at him.
It was by no
means lovely, but as the man gathered up his reins
he called it a Moon of Paradise, a Disturber of
Integrity, and a few other fantastic epithets which
doubled her up with mirth.
'That is a
nut-cut [rogue],' she said. 'All police-constables
are nut-cuts; but the police-wallahs are the worst.
Hai, my son, thou hast never learned all that since
thou camest from Belait [Europe]. Who suckled thee?'
'A
pahareen—a hillwoman of Dalhousie, my mother. Keep
thy beauty under a shade—O Dispenser of Delights,'
and he was gone.
'These be
the sort'—she took a fine judicial tone, and stuffed
her mouth with pan—'These be the sort to oversee
justice. They know the land and the customs of the
land. The others, all new from Europe, suckled by
white women and learning our tongues from books, are
worse than the pestilence. They do harm to Kings.'
Then she told a long, long tale to the world at
large, of an ignorant young policeman who had
disturbed some small Hill Rajah, a ninth cousin of
her own, in the matter of a trivial land-case,
winding up with a quotation from a work by no means
devotional.
Then her
mood changed, and she bade one of the escort ask
whether the lama would walk alongside and discuss
matters of religion. So Kim dropped back into the
dust and returned to his sugar-cane. For an hour or
more the lama's tam-o'shanter showed like a moon
through the haze; and, from all he heard, Kim
gathered that the old woman wept. One of the Ooryas
half apologized for his rudeness overnight, saying
that he had never known his mistress of so bland a
temper, and he ascribed it to the presence of the
strange priest. Personally, he believed in Brahmins,
though, like all natives, he was acutely aware of
their cunning and their greed. Still, when Brahmins
but irritated with begging demands the mother of his
master's wife, and when she sent them away so angry
that they cursed the whole retinue (which was the
real reason of the second off-side bullock going
lame, and of the pole breaking the night before), he
was prepared to accept any priest of any other
denomination in or out of India. To this Kim
assented with wise nods, and bade the Oorya observe
that the lama took no money, and that the cost of
his and Kim's food would be repaid a hundred times
in the good luck that would attend the caravan
henceforward. He also told stories of Lahore city,
and sang a song or two which made the escort laugh.
As a town-mouse well acquainted with the latest
songs by the most fashionable composers—they are
women for the most part—Kim had a distinct advantage
over men from a little fruit-village behind
Saharunpore, but he let that advantage be inferred.
At noon they
turned aside to eat, and the meal was good,
plentiful, and well-served on plates of clean
leaves, in decency, out of drift of the dust. They
gave the scraps to certain beggars, that all
requirements might be fulfilled, and sat down to a
long, luxurious smoke. The old lady had retreated
behind her curtains, but mixed most freely in the
talk, her servants arguing with and contradicting
her as servants do throughout the East. She compared
the cool and the pines of the Kangra and Kulu hills
with the dust and the mangoes of the South; she told
a tale of some old local Gods at the edge of her
husband's territory; she roundly abused the tobacco
which she was then smoking, reviled all Brahmins,
and speculated without reserve on the coming of many
grandsons.

Chapter 5
Here come I
to my own again
Fed, forgiven, and known again
Claimed by bone of my bone again,
And sib to flesh of my flesh!
The fatted calf is dressed for me,
But the husks have greater zest for me ...
I think my pigs will be best for me,
So I'm off to the styes afresh.
The Prodigal Son.
Once more the lazy,
string-tied, shuffling procession got under way, and
she slept till they reached the next halting-stage.
It was a very short march, and time lacked an hour
to sundown, so Kim cast about for means of
amusement.
'But why not
sit and rest?' said one of the escort. 'Only the
devils and the English walk to and fro without
reason.'
'Never make
friends with the Devil, a Monkey, or a Boy. No man
knows what they will do next,' said his fellow.
Kim turned a
scornful back—he did not want to hear the old story
how the Devil played with the boys and repented of
it and walked idly across country.
The lama
strode after him. All that day, whenever they passed
a stream, he had turned aside to look at it, but in
no case had he received any warning that he had
found his River. Insensibly, too, the comfort of
speaking to someone in a reasonable tongue, and of
being properly considered and respected as her
spiritual adviser by a well-born woman, had weaned
his thoughts a little from the Search. And further,
he was prepared to spend serene years in his quest;
having nothing of the white man's impatience, but a
great faith.
'Where goest
thou?' he called after Kim.
'Nowhither—it was a small march, and all this'—Kim
waved his hands abroad—'is new to me.'
'She is
beyond question a wise and a discerning woman. But
it is hard to meditate when—'
'All women
are thus.' Kim spoke as might have Solomon.
'Before the
lamassery was a broad platform,' the lama muttered,
looping up the well-worn rosary, 'of stone. On that
I have left the marks of my feet—pacing to and fro
with these.'
He clicked
the beads, and began the 'Om mane pudme hum's of his
devotion; grateful for the cool, the quiet, and the
absence of dust.
One thing
after another drew Kim's idle eye across the plain.
There was no purpose in his wanderings, except that
the build of the huts near by seemed new, and he
wished to investigate.
They came
out on a broad tract of grazing-ground, brown and
purple in the afternoon light, with a heavy clump of
mangoes in the centre. It struck Kim as curious that
no shrine stood in so eligible a spot: the boy was
observing as any priest for these things. Far across
the plain walked side by side four men, made small
by the distance. He looked intently under his curved
palms and caught the sheen of brass.
'Soldiers.
White soldiers!' said he. 'Let us see.'
'It is
always soldiers when thou and I go out alone
together. But I have never seen the white soldiers.'
'They do no
harm except when they are drunk. Keep behind this
tree.'
They stepped
behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the
mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two
came forward uncertainly. They were the
advance-party of a regiment on the march, sent out,
as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot
sticks with fluttering flags, and called to each
other as they spread over the flat earth.
At last they
entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.
'It's here
or hereabouts—officers' tents under the trees, I
take it, an' the rest of us can stay outside. Have
they marked out for the baggage-wagons behind?'
They cried
again to their comrades in the distance, and the
rough answer came back faint and mellowed.
'Shove the
flag in here, then,' said one.
'What do
they prepare?' said the lama, wonderstruck. 'This is
a great and terrible world. What is the device on
the flag?'
A soldier
thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted
discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with
his companion, who looked up and down the shaded
cave of greenery, and returned it.
Kim stared
with all his eyes, his breath coming short and sharp
between his teeth. The soldiers stamped off into the
sunshine.
'O Holy
One!' he gasped. 'My horoscope! The drawing in the
dust by the priest at Umballa! Remember what he
said. First come two—ferashes—to make all things
ready—in a dark place, as it is always at the
beginning of a vision.'
'But this is
not vision,' said the lama. 'It is the world's
Illusion, and no more.'
'And after
them comes the Bull—the Red Bull on the green field.
Look! It is he!'
He pointed
to the flag that was snap snapping in the evening
breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an
ordinary camp marking-flag; but the regiment, always
punctilious in matters of millinery, had charged it
with the regimental device, the Red Bull, which is
the crest of the Mavericks—the great Red Bull on a
background of Irish green.
'I see, and
now I remember.' said the lama. 'Certainly it is thy
Bull. Certainly, also, the two men came to make all
ready.'
'They are
soldiers—white soldiers. What said the priest? "The
sign over against the Bull is the sign of War and
armed men." Holy One, this thing touches my Search.'
'True. It is
true.' The lama stared fixedly at the device that
flamed like a ruby in the dusk. 'The priest at
Umballa said that thine was the sign of War.'
'What is to
do now?'
'Wait. Let
us wait.'
'Even now
the darkness clears,' said Kim. It was only natural
that the descending sun should at last strike
through the tree-trunks, across the grove, filling
it with mealy gold light for a few minutes; but to
Kim it was the crown of the Umballa Brahmin's
prophecy.
'Hark!' said
the lama. 'One beats a drum—far off!'
At first the
sound, carrying diluted through the still air,
resembled the beating of an artery in the head. Soon
a sharpness was added.
'Ah! The
music,' Kim explained. He knew the sound of a
regimental band, but it amazed the lama.
At the far
end of the plain a heavy, dusty column crawled in
sight. Then the wind brought the tune:
We crave your
condescension
To tell you what we know
Of marching in the Mulligan Guards
To Sligo Port below!
Here broke
in the shrill-tongued fifes:
We shouldered
arms,
We marched—we marched away.
From Phoenix Park
We marched to Dublin Bay.
The drums and the fifes,
Oh, sweetly they did play,
As we marched—marched—marched—with the
Mulligan Guards!
It was the
band of the Mavericks playing the regiment to camp;
for the men were route-marching with their baggage.
The rippling column swung into the level—carts
behind it divided left and right, ran about like an
ant-hill, and ...
'But this is
sorcery!' said the lama.
The plain
dotted itself with tents that seemed to rise, all
spread, from the carts. Another rush of men invaded
the grove, pitched a huge tent in silence, ran up
yet eight or nine more by the side of it, unearthed
cooking-pots, pans, and bundles, which were taken
possession of by a crowd of native servants; and
behold the mango-tope turned into an orderly town as
they watched!
'Let us go,'
said the lama, sinking back afraid, as the fires
twinkled and white officers with jingling swords
stalked into the Mess-tent.
'Stand back
in the shadow. No one can see beyond the light of a
fire,' said Kim, his eyes still on the flag. He had
never before watched the routine of a seasoned
regiment pitching camp in thirty minutes.
'Look! look!
look!' clucked the lama. 'Yonder comes a priest.' It
was Bennett, the Church of England Chaplain of the
regiment, limping in dusty black. One of his flock
had made some rude remarks about the Chaplain's
mettle; and to abash him Bennett had marched step by
step with the men that day. The black dress, gold
cross on the watch-chain, the hairless face, and the
soft, black wideawake hat would have marked him as a
holy man anywhere in all India. He dropped into a
camp-chair by the door of the Mess-tent and slid off
his boots. Three or four officers gathered round
him, laughing and joking over his exploit.
'The talk of
white men is wholly lacking in dignity,' said the
lama, who judged only by tone. 'But I considered the
countenance of that priest and I think he is
learned. Is it likely that he will understand our
talk? I would talk to him of my Search.'
'Never speak
to a white man till he is fed,' said Kim, quoting a
well-known proverb. 'They will eat now, and—and I do
not think they are good to beg from. Let us go back
to the resting-place. After we have eaten we will
come again. It certainly was a Red Bull—my Red
Bull.'
They were
both noticeably absent-minded when the old lady's
retinue set their meal before them; so none broke
their reserve, for it is not lucky to annoy guests.
'Now,' said
Kim, picking his teeth, 'we will return to that
place; but thou, O Holy One, must wait a little way
off, because thy feet are heavier than mine and I am
anxious to see more of that Red Bull.'
'But how
canst thou understand the talk? Walk slowly. The
road is dark,' the lama replied uneasily.
Kim put the
question aside. 'I marked a place near to the
trees,' said he, 'where thou canst sit till I call.
Nay,' as the lama made some sort of protest,
'remember this is my Search—the Search for my Red
Bull. The sign in the Stars was not for thee. I know
a little of the customs of white soldiers, and I
always desire to see some new things.'
'What dost
thou not know of this world?' The lama squatted
obediently in a little hollow of the ground not a
hundred yards from the hump of the mango-trees dark
against the star-powdered sky.
'Stay till I
call.' Kim flitted into the dusk. He knew that in
all probability there would be sentries round the
camp, and smiled to himself as he heard the thick
boots of one. A boy who can dodge over the roofs of
Lahore city on a moonlight night, using every little
patch and corner of darkness to discomfit his
pursuer, is not likely to be checked by a line of
well-trained soldiers. He paid them the compliment
of crawling between a couple, and, running and
halting, crouching and dropping flat, worked his way
toward the lighted Mess-tent where, close pressed
behind the mango-tree, he waited till some chance
word should give him a returnable lead.
The one
thing now in his mind was further information as to
the Red Bull. For aught he knew, and Kim's
limitations were as curious and sudden as his
expansions, the men, the nine hundred thorough
devils of his father's prophecy, might pray to the
beast after dark, as Hindus pray to the Holy Cow.
That at least would be entirely right and logical,
and the padre with the gold cross would be therefore
the man to consult in the matter. On the other hand,
remembering sober-faced padres whom he had avoided
in Lahore city, the priest might be an inquisitive
nuisance who would bid him learn. But had it not
been proven at Umballa that his sign in the high
heavens portended War and armed men? Was he not the
Friend of the Stars as well as of all the World,
crammed to the teeth with dreadful secrets?
Lastly—and firstly as the undercurrent of all his
quick thoughts—this adventure, though he did not
know the English word, was a stupendous lark—a
delightful continuation of his old flights across
the housetops, as well as the fulfilment of sublime
prophecy. He lay belly-flat and wriggled towards the
Mess-tent door, a hand on the amulet round his neck.
It was as he
suspected. The Sahibs prayed to their God; for in
the centre of the Mess-table—its sole ornament when
they were on the line of march—stood a golden bull
fashioned from old-time loot of the Summer Palace at
Pekin—a red-gold bull with lowered head, ramping
upon a field of Irish green. To him the Sahibs held
out their glasses and cried aloud confusedly.
Now the
Reverend Arthur Bennett always left Mess after that
toast, and being rather tired by his march his
movements were more abrupt than usual. Kim, with
slightly raised head, was still staring at his totem
on the table, when the Chaplain stepped on his right
shoulder-blade. Kim flinched under the leather, and,
rolling sideways, brought down the Chaplain, who,
ever a man of action, caught him by the throat and
nearly choked the life out of him. Kim then kicked
him desperately in the stomach. Mr Bennett gasped
and doubled up, but without relaxing his grip,
rolled over again, and silently hauled Kim to his
own tent. The Mavericks were incurable practical
jokers; and it occurred to the Englishman that
silence was best till he had made complete inquiry.
'Why, it's a
boy!' he said, as he drew his prize under the light
of the tent-pole lantern, then shaking him severely
cried: 'What were you doing? You're a thief. Choor?
Mallum?' His Hindustani was very limited, and the
ruffled and disgusted Kim intended to keep to the
character laid down for him. As he recovered his
breath he was inventing a beautifully plausible tale
of his relations to some scullion, and at the same
time keeping a keen eye on and a little under the
Chaplain's left arm-pit. The chance came; he ducked
for the doorway, but a long arm shot out and
clutched at his neck, snapping the amulet-string and
closing on the amulet.
'Give it me.
O, give it me. Is it lost? Give me the papers.'
The words
were in English—the tinny, saw-cut English of the
native-bred, and the Chaplain jumped.
'A
scapular,' said he, opening his hand. 'No, some sort
of heathen charm. Why—why, do you speak English?
Little boys who steal are beaten. You know that?'
'I do not—I
did not steal.' Kim danced in agony like a terrier
at a lifted stick. 'Oh, give it me. It is my charm.
Do not thieve it from me.'
The Chaplain
took no heed, but, going to the tent door, called
aloud. A fattish, clean-shaven man appeared.
'I want your
advice, Father Victor,' said Bennett. 'I found this
boy in the dark outside the Mess-tent. Ordinarily, I
should have chastised him and let him go, because I
believe him to be a thief. But it seems he talks
English, and he attaches some sort of value to a
charm round his neck. I thought perhaps you might
help me.'
Between
himself and the Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Irish
contingent lay, as Bennett believed, an unbridgeable
gulf, but it was noticeable that whenever the Church
of England dealt with a human problem she was very
likely to call in the Church of Rome. Bennett's
official abhorrence of the Scarlet Woman and all her
ways was only equalled by his private respect for
Father Victor.
'A thief
talking English, is it? Let's look at his charm. No,
it's not a scapular, Bennett.' He held out his hand.
'But have we
any right to open it? A sound whipping—'
'I did not
thieve,' protested Kim. 'You have hit me kicks all
over my body. Now give me my charm and I will go
away.'
'Not quite
so fast. We'll look first,' said Father Victor,
leisurely rolling out poor Kimball O'Hara's 'ne
varietur' parchment, his clearance-certificate, and
Kim's baptismal certificate. On this last
O'Hara—with some confused idea that he was doing
wonders for his son—had scrawled scores of times:
'Look after the boy. Please look after the
boy'—signing his name and regimental number in full.
'Powers of
Darkness below!' said Father Victor, passing all
over to Mr Bennett. 'Do you know what these things
are?'
'Yes.' said
Kim. 'They are mine, and I want to go away.'
'I do not
quite understand,' said Mr Bennett. 'He probably
brought them on purpose. It may be a begging trick
of some kind.'
'I never saw
a beggar less anxious to stay with his company,
then. There's the makings of a gay mystery here. Ye
believe in Providence, Bennett?'
'I hope so.'
'Well, I
believe in miracles, so it comes to the same thing.
Powers of Darkness! Kimball O'Hara! And his son! But
then he's a native, and I saw Kimball married myself
to Annie Shott. How long have you had these things,
boy?'
'Ever since
I was a little baby.'
Father
Victor stepped forward quickly and opened the front
of Kim's upper garment. 'You see, Bennett, he's not
very black. What's your name?'
'Kim.'
'Or
Kimball?'
'Perhaps.
Will you let me go away?'
'What else?'
'They call
me Kim Rishti ke. That is Kim of the Rishti.'
'What is
that—"Rishti"?'
'Eye-rishti—that was the Regiment—my father's.'
'Irish—oh, I
see.'
'Yess. That
was how my father told me. My father, he has lived.'
'Has lived
where?'
'Has lived.
Of course he is dead—gone-out.'
'Oh! That's
your abrupt way of putting it, is it?'
Bennett
interrupted. 'It is possible I have done the boy an
injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently
neglected. I am sure I must have bruised him. I do
not think spirits—'
'Get him a
glass of sherry, then, and let him squat on the cot.
Now, Kim,' continued Father Victor, 'no one is going
to hurt you. Drink that down and tell us about
yourself. The truth, if you've no objection.'
Kim coughed
a little as he put down the empty glass, and
considered. This seemed a time for caution and
fancy. Small boys who prowl about camps are
generally turned out after a whipping. But he had
received no stripes; the amulet was evidently
working in his favour, and it looked as though the
Umballa horoscope and the few words that he could
remember of his father's maunderings fitted in most
miraculously. Else why did the fat padre seem so
impressed, and why the glass of hot yellow drink
from the lean one?
'My father,
he is dead in Lahore city since I was very little.
The woman, she kept kabarri shop near where the
hire-carriages are.' Kim began with a plunge, not
quite sure how far the truth would serve him.
'Your
mother?'
'No!'—with a
gesture of disgust. 'She went out when I was born.
My father, he got these papers from the Jadoo-Gher
what do you call that?' (Bennett nodded) 'because he
was in good-standing. What do you call that?' (again
Bennett nodded). 'My father told me that. He said,
too, and also the Brahmin who made the drawing in
the dust at Umballa two days ago, he said, that I
shall find a Red Bull on a green field and that the
Bull shall help me.'
'A
phenomenal little liar,' muttered Bennett.
'Powers of
Darkness below, what a country!' murmured Father
Victor. 'Go on, Kim.'
'I did not
thieve. Besides, I am just now disciple of a very
holy man. He is sitting outside. We saw two men come
with flags, making the place ready. That is always
so in a dream, or on account of a—a—prophecy. So I
knew it was come true. I saw the Red Bull on the
green field, and my father he said: "Nine hundred
pukka devils and the Colonel riding on a horse will
look after you when you find the Red Bull!" I did
not know what to do when I saw the Bull, but I went
away and I came again when it was dark. I wanted to
see the Bull again, and I saw the Bull again with
the—the Sahibs praying to it. I think the Bull shall
help me. The holy man said so too. He is sitting
outside. Will you hurt him, if I call him a shout
now? He is very holy. He can witness to all the
things I say, and he knows I am not a thief.'
'"Sahibs
praying to a bull!" What in the world do you make of
that?' said Bennett. "'Disciple of a holy man!" Is
the boy mad?'
'It's
O'Hara's boy, sure enough. O'Hara's boy leagued with
all the Powers of Darkness. It's very much what his
father would have done if he was drunk. We'd better
invite the holy man. He may know something.'
'He does not
know anything,' said Kim. 'I will show you him if
you come. He is my master. Then afterwards we can
go.'
'Powers of
Darkness!' was all that Father Victor could say, as
Bennett marched off, with a firm hand on Kim's
shoulder.
They found
the lama where he had dropped.
'The Search
is at an end for me,' shouted Kim in the vernacular.
'I have found the Bull, but God knows what comes
next. They will not hurt you. Come to the fat
priest's tent with this thin man and see the end. It
is all new, and they cannot talk Hindi. They are
only uncurried donkeys.'
'Then it is
not well to make a jest of their ignorance,' the
lama returned. 'I am glad if thou art rejoiced,
chela.'
Dignified
and unsuspicious, he strode into the little tent,
saluted the Churches as a Churchman, and sat down by
the open charcoal brazier. The yellow lining of the
tent reflected in the lamplight made his face
red-gold.
Bennett
looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of
the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under
the title of 'heathen'.
'And what
was the end of the Search? What gift has the Red
Bull brought?' The lama addressed himself to Kim.
'He says,
"What are you going to do?"' Bennett was staring
uneasily at Father Victor, and Kim, for his own
ends, took upon himself the office of interpreter.
'I do not
see what concern this fakir has with the boy, who is
probably his dupe or his confederate,' Bennett
began. 'We cannot allow an English boy—Assuming that
he is the son of a Mason, the sooner he goes to the
Masonic Orphanage the better.'
'Ah! That's
your opinion as Secretary to the Regimental Lodge,'
said Father Victor; 'but we might as well tell the
old man what we are going to do. He doesn't look
like a villain.'
'My
experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental
mind. Now, Kimball, I wish you to tell this man what
I say word for word.'
Kim gathered
the import of the next few sentences and began thus:
'Holy One,
the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am
the son of a Sahib.'
'But how?'
'Oh, it is
true. I knew it since my birth, but he could only
find it out by rending the amulet from my neck and
reading all the papers. He thinks that once a Sahib
is always a Sahib, and between the two of them they
purpose to keep me in this Regiment or to send me to
a madrissah [a school]. It has happened before. I
have always avoided it. The fat fool is of one mind
and the camel-like one of another. But that is no
odds. I may spend one night here and perhaps the
next. It has happened before. Then I will run away
and return to thee.'
'But tell
them that thou art my chela. Tell them how thou
didst come to me when I was faint and bewildered.
Tell them of our Search, and they will surely let
thee go now.'
'I have
already told them. They laugh, and they talk of the
police.'
'What are
you saying?' asked Mr Bennett.
'Oah. He
only says that if you do not let me go it will stop
him in his business—his ur-gent private af-fairs.'
This last was a reminiscence of some talk with a
Eurasian clerk in the Canal Department, but it only
drew a smile, which nettled him. 'And if you did
know what his business was you would not be in such
a beastly hurry to interfere.'
'What is it
then?' said Father Victor, not without feeling, as
he watched the lama's face.
'There is a
River in this country which he wishes to find so
verree much. It was put out by an Arrow which—' Kim
tapped his foot impatiently as he translated in his
own mind from the vernacular to his clumsy English.
'Oah, it was made by our Lord God Buddha, you know,
and if you wash there you are washed away from all
your sins and made as white as cotton-wool.' (Kim
had heard mission-talk in his time.) 'I am his
disciple, and we must find that River. It is so
verree valuable to us.'
'Say that
again,' said Bennett. Kim obeyed, with
amplifications.
'But this is
gross blasphemy!' cried the Church of England.
'Tck! Tck!'
said Father Victor sympathetically. 'I'd give a good
deal to be able to talk the vernacular. A river that
washes away sin! And how long have you two been
looking for it?'
'Oh, many
days. Now we wish to go away and look for it again.
It is not here, you see.'
'I see,'
said Father Victor gravely. 'But he can't go on in
that old man's company. It would be different, Kim,
if you were not a soldier's son. Tell him that the
Regiment will take care of you and make you as good
a man as your—as good a man as can be. Tell him that
if he believes in miracles he must believe that—'
'There is no
need to play on his credulity,' Bennett interrupted.
'I'm doing
no such thing. He must believe that the boy's coming
here—to his own Regiment—in search of his Red Bull
is in the nature of a miracle. Consider the chances
against it, Bennett. This one boy in all India, and
our Regiment of all others on the line o' march for
him to meet with! It's predestined on the face of
it. Yes, tell him it's Kismet. Kismet, mallum? [Do
you understand?]'
He turned
towards the lama, to whom he might as well have
talked of Mesopotamia.
'They
say,'—the old man's eye lighted at Kim's speech
'they say that the meaning of my horoscope is now
accomplished, and that being led back—though as thou
knowest I went out of curiosity—to these people and
their Red Bull I must needs go to a madrissah and be
turned into a Sahib. Now I make pretence of
agreement, for at the worst it will be but a few
meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away
and follow down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore,
Holy One, keep with that Kulu woman—on no account
stray far from her cart till I come again. Past
question, my sign is of War and of armed men. See
how they have given me wine to drink and set me upon
a bed of honour! My father must have been some great
person. So if they raise me to honour among them,
good. If not, good again. However it goes, I will
run back to thee when I am tired. But stay with the
Rajputni, or I shall miss thy feet ... Oah yess,'
said the boy, 'I have told him everything you tell
me to say.'
'And I
cannot see any need why he should wait,' said
Bennett, feeling in his trouser-pocket. 'We can
investigate the details later—and I will give him a
ru—'
'Give him
time. Maybe he's fond of the lad,' said Father
Victor, half arresting the clergyman's motion.
The lama
dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge
hat-brim over his eyes.
'What can he
want now?'
'He
says'—Kim put up one hand. 'He says: "Be quiet." He
wants to speak to me by himself. You see, you do not
know one little word of what he says, and I think if
you talk he will perhaps give you very bad curses.
When he takes those beads like that, you see, he
always wants to be quiet.'
The two
Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in
Bennett's eye that promised ill for Kim when he
should be relaxed to the religious arm.
'A Sahib and
the son of a Sahib—' The lama's voice was harsh with
pain. 'But no white man knows the land and the
customs of the land as thou knowest. How comes it
this is true?'
'What
matter, Holy One?—but remember it is only for a
night or two. Remember, I can change swiftly. It
will all be as it was when I first spoke to thee
under Zam-Zammah the great gun—'
'As a boy in
the dress of white men—when I first went to the
Wonder House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu.
What shall the third incarnation be?' He chuckled
drearily. 'Ah, chela, thou has done a wrong to an
old man because my heart went out to thee.'
'And mine to
thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would
bring me to this business?'
The lama
covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the
rosary. Kim squatted beside him and laid hold upon a
fold of his clothing.
'Now it is
understood that the boy is a Sahib?' he went on in a
muffled tone. 'Such a Sahib as was he who kept the
images in the Wonder House.' The lama's experience
of white men was limited. He seemed to be repeating
a lesson. 'So then it is not seemly that he should
do other than as the Sahibs do. He must go back to
his own people.'
'For a day
and a night and a day,' Kim pleaded.
'No, ye
don't!' Father Victor saw Kim edging towards the
door, and interposed a strong leg.
'I do not
understand the customs of white men. The Priest of
the Images in the Wonder House in Lahore was more
courteous than the thin one here. This boy will be
taken from me. They will make a Sahib of my
disciple? Woe to me! How shall I find my River? Have
they no disciples? Ask.'
'He says he
is very sorree that he cannot find the River now any
more. He says, Why have you no disciples, and stop
bothering him? He wants to be washed of his sins.'
Neither
Bennett nor Father Victor found any answer ready.
Said Kim in
English, distressed for the lama's agony: 'I think
if you will let me go now we will walk away quietly
and not steal. We will look for that River like
before I was caught. I wish I did not come here to
find the Red Bull and all that sort of thing. I do
not want it.'
'It's the
very best day's work you ever did for yourself,
young man,' said Bennett.
'Good
heavens, I don't know how to console him,' said
Father Victor, watching the lama intently. 'He can't
take the boy away with him, and yet he's a good
man—I'm sure he's a good man. Bennett, if you give
him that rupee he'll curse you root and branch!'
They
listened to each other's breathing—three—five full
minutes. Then the lama raised his head, and looked
forth across them into space and emptiness.
'And I am a
Follower of the Way,' he said bitterly. 'The sin is
mine and the punishment is mine. I made believe to
myself for now I see it was but make-belief—that
thou wast sent to me to aid in the Search. So my
heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy
courtesy and the wisdom of thy little years. But
those who follow the Way must permit not the fire of
any desire or attachment, for that is all Illusion.
As says ...' He quoted an old, old Chinese text,
backed it with another, and reinforced these with a
third. 'I stepped aside from the Way, my chela. It
was no fault of thine. I delighted in the sight of
life, the new people upon the roads, and in thy joy
at seeing these things. I was pleased with thee who
should have considered my Search and my Search
alone. Now I am sorrowful because thou art taken
away and my River is far from me. It is the Law
which I have broken!'
'Powers of
Darkness below!' said Father Victor, who, wise in
the confessional, heard the pain in every sentence.
'I see now
that the sign of the Red Bull was a sign for me as
well as for thee. All Desire is red—and evil. I will
do penance and find my River alone.'
'At least go
back to the Kulu woman,' said Kim, 'otherwise thou
wilt be lost upon the roads. She will feed thee till
I run back to thee.'
The lama
waved a hand to show that the matter was finally
settled in his mind.
'Now,'—his
tone altered as he turned to Kim,—'what will they do
with thee? At least I may, acquiring merit, wipe out
past ill.'
'Make me a
Sahib—so they think. The day after tomorrow I
return. Do not grieve.'
'Of what
sort? Such an one as this or that man?' He pointed
to Father Victor. 'Such an one as those I saw this
evening, men wearing swords and stamping heavily?'
'Maybe.'
'That is not
well. These men follow desire and come to emptiness.
Thou must not be of their sort.'
'The Umballa
priest said that my Star was War,' Kim interjected.
'I will ask these fools—but there is truly no need.
I will run away this night, for all I wanted to see
the new things.'
Kim put two
or three questions in English to Father Victor,
translating the replies to the lama.
Then: 'He
says, "You take him from me and you cannot say what
you will make him." He says, "Tell me before I go,
for it is not a small thing to make a child."'
'You will be
sent to a school. Later on, we shall see. Kimball, I
suppose you'd like to be a soldier?'
'Gorah-log
[white-folk]. No-ah! No-ah!' Kim shook his head
violently. There was nothing in his composition to
which drill and routine appealed. 'I will not be a
soldier.'
'You will be
what you're told to be,' said Bennett; 'and you
should be grateful that we're going to help you.'
Kim smiled
compassionately. If these men lay under the delusion
that he would do anything that he did not fancy, so
much the better.
Another long
silence followed. Bennett fidgeted with impatience,
and suggested calling a sentry to evict the fakir.
'Do they
give or sell learning among the Sahibs? Ask them,'
said the lama, and Kim interpreted.
'They say
that money is paid to the teacher—but that money the
Regiment will give ... What need? It is only for a
night.'
'And—the
more money is paid the better learning is given?'
The lama disregarded Kim's plans for an early
flight. 'It is no wrong to pay for learning. To help
the ignorant to wisdom is always a merit.' The
rosary clicked furiously as an abacus. Then he faced
his oppressors.
'Ask them
for how much money do they give a wise and suitable
teaching? And in what city is that teaching given?'
'Well,' said
Father Victor in English, when Kim had translated,
'that depends. The Regiment would pay for you all
the time you are at the Military Orphanage; or you
might go on the Punjab Masonic Orphanage's list (not
that he or you 'ud understand what that means); but
the best schooling a boy can get in India is, of
course, at St Xavier's in Partibus at Lucknow.' This
took some time to interpret, for Bennett wished to
cut it short.
'He wants to
know how much?' said Kim placidly.
'Two or
three hundred rupees a year.' Father Victor was long
past any sense of amazement. Bennett, impatient, did
not understand.
'He says:
"Write that name and the money upon a paper and give
it him." And he says you must write your name below,
because he is going to write a letter in some days
to you. He says you are a good man. He says the
other man is a fool. He is going away.'
The lama
rose suddenly. 'I follow my Search,' he cried, and
was gone.
'He'll run
slap into the sentries,' cried Father Victor,
jumping up as the lama stalked out; 'but I can't
leave the boy.' Kim made swift motion to follow, but
checked himself. There was no sound of challenge
outside. The lama had disappeared.
Kim settled
himself composedly on the Chaplain's cot. At least
the lama had promised that he would stay with the
Raiput woman from Kulu, and the rest was of the
smallest importance. It pleased him that the two
padres were so evidently excited. They talked long
in undertones, Father Victor urging some scheme on
Mr Bennett, who seemed incredulous. All this was
very new and fascinating, but Kim felt sleepy. They
called men into the tent—one of them certainly was
the Colonel, as his father had prophesied—and they
asked him an infinity of questions, chiefly about
the woman who looked after him, all of which Kim
answered truthfully. They did not seem to think the
woman a good guardian.
After all,
this was the newest of his experiences. Sooner or
later, if he chose, he could escape into great,
grey, formless India, beyond tents and padres and
colonels. Meantime, if the Sahibs were to be
impressed, he would do his best to impress them. He
too was a white man.
After much
talk that he could not comprehend, they handed him
over to a sergeant, who had strict instructions not
to let him escape. The Regiment would go on to
Umballa, and Kim would be sent up, partly at the
expense of the Lodge and in part by subscription, to
a place called Sanawar.
'It's
miraculous past all whooping, Colonel,' said Father
Victor, when he had talked without a break for ten
minutes. 'His Buddhist friend has levanted after
taking my name and address. I can't quite make out
whether he'll pay for the boy's education or whether
he is preparing some sort of witchcraft on his own
account.' Then to Kim: 'You'll live to be grateful
to your friend the Red Bull yet. We'll make a man of
you at Sanawar—even at the price o' making you a
Protestant.'
'Certainly—most certainly,' said Bennett.
'But you
will not go to Sanawar,' said Kim.
'But we will
go to Sanawar, little man. That's the order of the
Commander-in-Chief, who's a trifle more important
than O'Hara's son.'
'You will
not go to Sanawar. You will go to thee War.'
There was a
shout of laughter from the full tent.
'When you
know your own Regiment a trifle better you won't
confuse the line of march with line of battle, Kim.
We hope to go to "thee War" sometime.'
'Oah, I know
all thatt.' Kim drew his bow again at a venture. If
they were not going to the war, at least they did
not know what he knew of the talk in the veranda at
Umballa.
'I know you
are not at thee war now; but I tell you that as soon
as you get to Umballa you will be sent to the
war—the new war. It is a war of eight thousand men,
besides the guns.'
'That's
explicit. D'you add prophecy to your other gifts?
Take him along, sergeant. Take up a suit for him
from the Drums, an' take care he doesn't slip
through your fingers. Who says the age of miracles
is gone by? I think I'll go to bed. My poor mind's
weakening.'
At the far
end of the camp, silent as a wild animal, an hour
later sat Kim, newly washed all over, in a horrible
stiff suit that rasped his arms and legs.
'A most
amazin' young bird,' said the sergeant. 'He turns up
in charge of a yellow-headed buck-Brahmin priest,
with his father's Lodge certificates round his neck,
talkin' God knows what all of a red bull. The
buck-Brahmin evaporates without explanations, an'
the bhoy sets cross-legged on the Chaplain's bed
prophesyin' bloody war to the men at large. Injia's
a wild land for a God-fearin' man. I'll just tie his
leg to the tent-pole in case he'll go through the
roof. What did ye say about the war?'
'Eight
thousand men, besides guns,' said Kim. 'Very soon
you will see.'
'You're a
consolin' little imp. Lie down between the Drums an'
go to bye-bye. Those two boys will watch your
slumbers.'

Chapter 6
Now I
remember comrades—
Old playmates on new seas—
Whenas we traded orpiment
Among the savages.
Ten thousand leagues to southward,
And thirty years removed—
They knew not noble Valdez,
But me they knew and loved.
Song of Diego Valdez.
Very early in the morning
the white tents came down and disappeared as the
Mavericks took a side-road to Umballa. It did not
skirt the resting-place, and Kim, trudging beside a
baggage-cart under fire of comments from soldiers'
wives, was not so confident as overnight. He
discovered that he was closely watched—Father Victor
on the one side, and Mr Bennett on the other.
In the
forenoon the column checked. A camel-orderly handed
the Colonel a letter. He read it, and spoke to a
Major. Half a mile in the rear, Kim heard a hoarse
and joyful clamour rolling down on him through the
thick dust. Then someone beat him on the back,
crying: 'Tell us how ye knew, ye little limb of
Satan? Father dear, see if ye can make him tell.'
A pony
ranged alongside, and he was hauled on to the
priest's saddlebow.
'Now, my
son, your prophecy of last night has come true. Our
orders are to entrain at Umballa for the Front
tomorrow.'
'What is
thatt?' said Kim, for 'front' and 'entrain' were
newish words to him.
'We are
going to "thee War," as you called it.'
'Of course
you are going to thee War. I said last night.'
'Ye did;
but, Powers o' Darkness, how did ye know?'
Kim's eyes
sparkled. He shut his lips, nodded his head, and
looked unspeakable things. The Chaplain moved on
through the dust, and privates, sergeants, and
subalterns called one another's attention to the
boy. The Colonel, at the head of the column, stared
at him curiously. 'It was probably some bazar
rumour.' he said; 'but even then—' He referred to
the paper in his hand. 'Hang it all, the thing was
only decided within the last forty-eight hours.'
'Are there
many more like you in India?' said Father Victor,
'or are you by way o' being a lusus naturae?'
'Now I have
told you,' said the boy, 'will you let me go back to
my old man? If he has not stayed with that woman
from Kulu, I am afraid he will die.'
'By what I
saw of him he's as well able to take care of himself
as you. No. Ye've brought us luck, an' we're goin'
to make a man of you. I'll take ye back to your
baggage-cart and ye'll come to me this evening.'
For the rest
of the day Kim found himself an object of
distinguished consideration among a few hundred
white men. The story of his appearance in camp, the
discovery of his parentage, and his prophecy, had
lost nothing in the telling. A big, shapeless white
woman on a pile of bedding asked him mysteriously
whether he thought her husband would come back from
the war. Kim reflected gravely, and said that he
would, and the woman gave him food. In many
respects, this big procession that played music at
intervals—this crowd that talked and laughed so
easily—resembled a festival in Lahore city. So far,
there was no sign of hard work, and he resolved to
lend the spectacle his patronage. At evening there
came out to meet them bands of music, and played the
Mavericks into camp near Umballa railway station.
That was an interesting night. Men of other
regiments came to visit the Mavericks. The Mavericks
went visiting on their own account. Their pickets
hurried forth to bring them back, met pickets of
strange regiments on the same duty; and, after a
while, the bugles blew madly for more pickets with
officers to control the tumult. The Mavericks had a
reputation for liveliness to live up to. But they
fell in on the platform next morning in perfect
shape and condition; and Kim, left behind with the
sick, women, and boys, found himself shouting
farewells excitedly as the trains drew away. Life as
a Sahib was amusing so far; but he touched it with a
cautious hand. Then they marched him back in charge
of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks,
whose floors were covered with rubbish and string
and paper, and whose ceilings gave back his lonely
footfall. Native-fashion, he curled himself up on a
stripped cot and went to sleep. An angry man stumped
down the veranda, woke him up, and said he was a
schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim, and he
retired into his shell. He could just puzzle out the
various English Police notices in Lahore city,
because they affected his comfort; and among the
many guests of the woman who looked after him had
been a queer German who painted scenery for the
Parsee travelling theatre. He told Kim that he had
been 'on the barricades in 'Forty-eight,' and
therefore—at least that was how it struck Kim—he
would teach the boy to write in return for food. Kim
had been kicked as far as single letters, but did
not think well of them.
'I do not
know anything. Go away!' said Kim, scenting evil.
Hereupon the man caught him by the ear, dragged him
to a room in a far-off wing where a dozen
drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and told him to
be still if he could do nothing else. This he
managed very successfully. The man explained
something or other with white lines on a black board
for at least half an hour, and Kim continued his
interrupted nap. He much disapproved of the present
aspect of affairs, for this was the very school and
discipline he had spent two-thirds of his young life
in avoiding. Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to
him, and he wondered that he had not thought of it
before.
The man
dismissed them, and first to spring through the
veranda into the open sunshine was Kim.
''Ere, you!
'Alt! Stop!' said a high voice at his heels. 'I've
got to look after you. My orders are not to let you
out of my sight. Where are you goin'?'
It was the
drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the
forenoon—a fat and freckled person of about
fourteen, and Kim loathed him from the soles of his
boots to his cap-ribbons.
'To the
bazar—to get sweets—for you,' said Kim, after
thought.
'Well, the
bazar's out o' bounds. If we go there we'll get a
dressing-down. You come back.'
'How near
can we go?' Kim did not know what bounds meant, but
he wished to be polite—for the present.
''Ow near?
'Ow far, you mean! We can go as far as that tree
down the road.'
'Then I will
go there.'
'All right.
I ain't goin'. It's too 'ot. I can watch you from
'ere. It's no good your runnin' away. If you did,
they'd spot you by your clothes. That's regimental
stuff you're wearin'. There ain't a picket in
Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you
started out.'
This did not
impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his
raiment would tire him out if he tried to run. He
slouched to the tree at the corner of a bare road
leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives
passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the
lowest caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly
retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence, in
the natural belief that the European boy could not
follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim
put his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late
chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best.
'And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the
bazar and tell him to come here. I would write a
letter.'
'But—but
what manner of white man's son art thou to need a
bazar letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in
the barracks?'
'Ay; and
Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you—you
Od! Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant
of Lal Beg' (Kim knew the God of the sweepers), 'run
on my business or we will talk again.'
The sweeper
shuffled off in haste. 'There is a white boy by the
barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white
boy,' he stammered to the first bazar letter-writer
he came across. 'He needs thee.'
'Will he
pay?' said the spruce scribe, gathering up his desk
and pens and sealing-wax all in order.
'I do not
know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is
well worth.'
Kim danced
with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in
sight. As soon as his voice could carry he cursed
him volubly.
'First I
will take my pay,' the letter-writer said. 'Bad
words have made the price higher. But who art thou,
dressed in that fashion, to speak in this fashion?'
'Aha! That
is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was
such a tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer
will serve me. Umballa city is as full of them as is
Lahore.'
'Four
annas,' said the writer, sitting down and spreading
his cloth in the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.
Mechanically
Kim squatted beside him—squatted as only the natives
can—in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.
The writer
regarded him sideways.
'That is the
price to ask of Sahibs,' said Kim. 'Now fix me a
true one.'
'An anna and
a half. How do I know, having written the letter,
that thou wilt not run away?'
I must not
go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to
be considered.'
'I get no
commission on the price of the stamp. Once more,
what manner of white boy art thou?'
'That shall
be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the
horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is
my friend.'
'Wonder on
wonder!' murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed
in the inkstand. 'To be written in Hindi?'
'Assuredly.
To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! I have come down with the
old man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I
carried the news of the bay mare's pedigree.' After
what he had seen in the garden, he was not going to
write of white stallions.
'Slower a
little. What has a bay mare to do ... Is it Mahbub
Ali, the great dealer?'
'Who else? I
have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. As
the order was, so I did it. We then went on foot
towards Benares, but on the third day we found a
certain regiment. Is that down?'
'Ay,
pulton,' murmured the writer, all ears.
'I went into
their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm
about my neck, which thou knowest, it was
established that I was the son of some man in the
regiment: according to the prophecy of the Red Bull,
which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.'
Kim waited for this shaft to sink into the
letter-writer's heart, cleared his throat, and
continued: 'A priest clothed me and gave me a new
name ... One priest, however, was a fool. The
clothes are very heavy, but I am a Sahib and my
heart is heavy too. They send me to a school and
beat me. I do not like the air and water here. Come
then and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money,
for I have not sufficient to pay the writer who
writes this.'
'"Who writes
this." It is my own fault that I was tricked. Thou
art as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury
stamps at Nucklao. But what a tale! What a tale! Is
it true by any chance?'
'It does not
profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali. It is better to
help his friends by lending them a stamp. When the
money comes I will repay.'
The writer
grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his
desk, sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, and
departed. Mahbub Ali's was a name of power in
Umballa.
'That is the
way to win a good account with the Gods,' Kim
shouted after him.
'Pay me
twice over when the money comes,' the man cried over
his shoulder.
'What was
you bukkin' to that nigger about?' said the
drummer-boy when Kim returned to the veranda. 'I was
watch-in' you.'
'I was only
talkin' to him.'
'You talk
the same as a nigger, don't you?'
'No-ah!
No-ah! I onlee speak a little. What shall we do
now?'
'The
bugles'll go for dinner in arf a minute. My Gawd! I
wish I'd gone up to the Front with the Regiment.
It's awful doin' nothin' but school down 'ere. Don't
you 'ate it?'
'Oah yess!'
I'd run away
if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in
this bloomin' Injia you're only a prisoner at large.
You can't desert without bein' took back at once.
I'm fair sick of it.'
'You have
been in Be—England?'
'W'y, I only
come out last troopin' season with my mother. I
should think I 'ave been in England. What a ignorant
little beggar you are! You was brought up in the
gutter, wasn't you?'
'Oah yess.
Tell me something about England. My father he came
from there.'
Though he
would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every
word the drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool
suburb which was his England. It passed the heavy
time till dinner—a most unappetizing meal served to
the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a
barrack-room. But that he had written to Mahbub Ali,
Kim would have been almost depressed. The
indifference of native crowds he was used to; but
this strong loneliness among white men preyed on
him. He was grateful when, in the course of the
afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father
Victor, who lived in another wing across another
dusty parade-ground. The priest was reading an
English letter written in purple ink. He looked at
Kim more curiously than ever.
'An' how do
you like it, my son, as far as you've gone? Not
much, eh? It must be hard—very hard on a wild
animal. Listen now. I've an amazin' epistle from
your friend.'
'Where is
he? Is he well? Oah! If he knows to write me
letters, it is all right.'
'You're fond
of him then?'
'Of course I
am fond of him. He was fond of me.'
'It seems so
by the look of this. He can't write English, can
he?'
'Oah no. Not
that I know, but of course he found a letter-writer
who can write English verree well, and so he wrote.
I do hope you understand.'
'That
accounts for it. D'you know anything about his money
affairs?' Kim's face showed that he did not.
'How can I
tell?'
'That's what
I'm askin'. Now listen if you can make head or tail
o' this. We'll skip the first part ... It's written
from Jagadhir Road ... "Sitting on wayside in grave
meditation, trusting to be favoured with your
Honour's applause of present step, which recommend
your Honour to execute for Almighty God's sake.
Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts.
Otherwise no earthly use." Faith, the old man's hit
the bull's-eye that time! "If your Honour
condescending giving my boy best educations Xavier"
(I suppose that's St Xavier's in Partibus) "in terms
of our conversation dated in your tent 15th instant"
(a business-like touch there!) "then Almighty God
blessing your Honour's succeedings to third an'
fourth generation and"—now listen!—"confide in your
Honour's humble servant for adequate remuneration
per hoondi per annum three hundred rupees a year to
one expensive education St Xavier, Lucknow, and
allow small time to forward same per hoondi sent to
any part of India as your Honour shall address
yourself. This servant of your Honour has presently
no place to lay crown of his head, but going to
Benares by train on account of persecution of old
woman talking so much and unanxious residing
Saharunpore in any domestic capacity." Now what in
the world does that mean?'
'She has
asked him to be her puro—her clergyman—at
Saharunpore, I think. He would not do that on
account of his River. She did talk.'
'It's clear
to you, is it? It beats me altogether. "So going to
Benares, where will find address and forward rupees
for boy who is apple of eye, and for Almighty God's
sake execute this education, and your petitioner as
in duty bound shall ever awfully pray. Written by
Sobrao Satai, Failed Entrance Allahabad University,
for Venerable Teshoo Lama the priest of Such-zen
looking for a River, address care of Tirthankars'
Temple, Benares. P. M.—Please note boy is apple of
eye, and rupees shall be sent per hoondi three
hundred per annum. For God Almighty's sake." Now, is
that ravin' lunacy or a business proposition? I ask
you, because I'm fairly at my wits' end.'
'He says he
will give me three hundred rupees a year? So he will
give me them.'
'Oh, that's
the way you look at it, is it?'
'Of course.
If he says so!'
The priest
whistled; then he addressed Kim as an equal. 'I
don't believe it; but we'll see. You were goin' off
today to the Military Orphanage at Sanawar, where
the Regiment would keep you till you were old enough
to enlist. Ye'd be brought up to the Church of
England. Bennett arranged for that. On the other
hand, if ye go to St Xavier's ye'll get a better
education an—an can have the religion. D'ye see my
dilemma? Kim saw nothing save a vision of the lama
going south in a train with none to beg for him.
'Like most
people, I'm going to temporize. If your friend sends
the money from Benares—Powers of Darkness below,
where's a street-beggar to raise three hundred
rupees?—ye'll go down to Lucknow and I'll pay your
fare, because I can't touch the subscription-money
if I intend, as I do, to make ye a Catholic. If he
doesn't, ye'll go to the Military Orphanage at the
Regiment's expense. I'll allow him three days'
grace, though I don't believe it at all. Even then,
if he fails in his payments later on ... but it's
beyond me. We can only walk one step at a time in
this world, praise God! An' they sent Bennett to the
Front an' left me behind. Bennett can't expect
everything.'
'Oah yess,'
said Kim vaguely.
The priest
leaned forward. 'I'd give a month's pay to find
what's goin' on inside that little round head of
yours.'
'There is
nothing,' said Kim, and scratched it. He was
wondering whether Mahbub Ali would send him as much
as a whole rupee. Then he could pay the
letter-writer and write letters to the lama at
Benares. Perhaps Mahbub Ali would visit him next
time he came south with horses. Surely he must know
that Kim's delivery of the letter to the officer at
Umballa had caused the great war which the men and
boys had discussed so loudly over the barrack
dinner-tables. But if Mahbub Ali did not know this,
it would be very unsafe to tell him so. Mahbub Ali
was hard upon boys who knew, or thought they knew,
too much.
'Well, till
I get further news'—Father Victor's voice
interrupted the reverie. 'Ye can run along now and
play with the other boys. They'll teach ye
something—but I don't think ye'll like it.'
The day
dragged to its weary end. When he wished to sleep he
was instructed how to fold up his clothes and set
out his boots; the other boys deriding. Bugles waked
him in the dawn; the schoolmaster caught him after
breakfast, thrust a page of meaningless characters
under his nose, gave them senseless names and
whacked him without reason. Kim meditated poisoning
him with opium borrowed from a barrack-sweeper, but
reflected that, as they all ate at one table in
public (this was peculiarly revolting to Kim, who
preferred to turn his back on the world at meals),
the stroke might be dangerous. Then he attempted
running off to the village where the priest had
tried to drug the lama—the village where the old
soldier lived. But far-seeing sentries at every exit
headed back the little scarlet figure. Trousers and
jacket crippled body and mind alike so he abandoned
the project and fell back, Oriental-fashion, on time
and chance. Three days of torment passed in the big,
echoing white rooms. He walked out of afternoons
under escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard
from his companions were the few useless words which
seemed to make two-thirds of the white man's abuse.
Kim knew and despised them all long ago. The boy
resented his silence and lack of interest by beating
him, as was only natural. He did not care for any of
the bazars which were in bounds. He styled all
natives 'niggers'; yet servants and sweepers called
him abominable names to his face, and, misled by
their deferential attitude, he never understood.
This somewhat consoled Kim for the beatings.
On the
morning of the fourth day a judgement overtook that
drummer. They had gone out together towards Umballa
racecourse. He returned alone, weeping, with news
that young O'Hara, to whom he had been doing nothing
in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger
on horseback; that the nigger had then and there
laid into him with a peculiarly adhesive quirt,
picked up young O'Hara, and borne him off at full
gallop. These tidings came to Father Victor, and he
drew down his long upper lip. He was already
sufficiently startled by a letter from the Temple of
the Tirthankars at Benares, enclosing a native
banker's note of hand for three hundred rupees, and
an amazing prayer to 'Almighty God'. The lama would
have been more annoyed than the priest had he known
how the bazar letter-writer had translated his
phrase 'to acquire merit.'
'Powers of
Darkness below!' Father Victor fumbled with the
note. 'An' now he's off with another of his
peep-o'-day friends. I don't know whether it will be
a greater relief to me to get him back or to have
him lost. He's beyond my comprehension. How the
Divil—yes, he's the man I mean—can a street-beggar
raise money to educate white boys?'
Three miles
off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a
grey Kabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was
saying:
'But, Little
Friend of all the World, there is my honour and
reputation to be considered. All the officer-Sahibs
in all the regiments, and all Umballa, know Mahbub
Ali. Men saw me pick thee up and chastise that boy.
We are seen now from far across this plain. How can
I take thee away, or account for thy disappearing if
I set thee down and let thee run off into the crops?
They would put me in jail. Be patient. Once a Sahib,
always a Sahib. When thou art a man—who knows?—thou
wilt be grateful to Mahbub Ali.'
'Take me
beyond their sentries where I can change this red.
Give me money and I will go to Benares and be with
my lama again. I do not want to be a Sahib, and
remember I did deliver that message.'
The stallion
bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven
home the sharp-edged stirrup. (He was not the new
sort of fluent horse-dealer who wears English boots
and spurs.) Kim drew his own conclusions from that
betrayal.
'That was a
small matter. It lay on the straight road to
Benares. I and the Sahib have by this time forgotten
it. I send so many letters and messages to men who
ask questions about horses, I cannot well remember
one from the other. Was it some matter of a bay mare
that Peters Sahib wished the pedigree of?'
Kim saw the
trap at once. If he had said 'bay mare' Mahbub would
have known by his very readiness to fall in with the
amendment that the boy suspected something. Kim
replied therefore:
'Bay mare.
No. I do not forget my messages thus. It was a white
stallion.'
'Ay, so it
was. A white Arab stallion. But thou didst write
"bay mare" to me.'
'Who cares
to tell truth to a letter-writer?' Kim answered,
feeling Mahbub's palm on his heart.
'Hi! Mahbub,
you old villain, pull up!' cried a voice, and an
Englishman raced alongside on a little polo-pony.
'I've been chasing you half over the country. That
Kabuli of yours can go. For sale, I suppose?'
'I have some
young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the
delicate and difficult polo-game. He has no equal.
He—'
'Plays polo
and waits at table. Yes. We know all that. What the
deuce have you got there?'
'A. boy,'
said Mahbub gravely. 'He was being beaten by another
boy. His father was once a white soldier in the big
war. The boy was a child in Lahore city. He played
with my horses when he was a babe. Now I think they
will make him a soldier. He has been newly caught by
his father's Regiment that went up to the war last
week. But I do not think he wants to be a soldier. I
take him for a ride. Tell me where thy barracks are
and I will set thee there.'
'Let me go.
I can find the barracks alone.'
'And if thou
runnest away who will say it is not my fault?'
'He'll run
back to his dinner. Where has he to run to?' the
Englishman asked.
'He was born
in the land. He has friends. He goes where he
chooses. He is a chabuk sawai [a sharp chap]. It
needs only to change his clothing, and in a
twinkling he would be a low-caste Hindu boy.'
'The deuce
he would!' The Englishman looked critically at the
boy as Mahbub headed towards the barracks. Kim
ground his teeth. Mahbub was mocking him, as
faithless Afghans will; for he went on:
'They will
send him to a school and put heavy boots on his feet
and swaddle him in these clothes. Then he will
forget all he knows. Now, which of the barracks is
thine?'
Kim
pointed—he could not speak—to Father Victor's wing,
all staring white near by.
'Perhaps he
will make a good soldier,' said Mahbub reflectively.
'He will
make a good orderly at least. I sent him to deliver
a message once from Lahore. A message concerning the
pedigree of a white stallion.'
Here was
deadly insult on deadlier injury—and the Sahib to
whom he had so craftily given that war-waking letter
heard it all. Kim beheld Mahbub Ali frying in flame
for his treachery, but for himself he saw one long
grey vista of barracks, schools, and barracks again.
He gazed imploringly at the clear-cut face in which
there was no glimmer of recognition; but even at
this extremity it never occurred to him to throw
himself on the white man's mercy or to denounce the
Afghan. And Mahbub stared deliberately at the
Englishman, who stared as deliberately at Kim,
quivering and tongue-tied.
'My horse is
well trained,' said the dealer. 'Others would have
kicked, Sahib.'
'Ah,' said
the Englishman at last, rubbing his pony's damp
withers with his whip-butt. 'Who makes the boy a
soldier?'
'He says the
Regiment that found him, and especially the
Padre-sahib of that regiment.
'There is
the Padre!' Kim choked as bare-headed Father Victor
sailed down upon them from the veranda.
'Powers O'
Darkness below, O'Hara! How many more mixed friends
do you keep in Asia?' he cried, as Kim slid down and
stood helplessly before him.
'Good
morning, Padre,' the Englishman said cheerily. 'I
know you by reputation well enough. Meant to have
come over and called before this. I'm Creighton.'
'Of the
Ethnological Survey?' said Father Victor. The
Englishman nodded. 'Faith, I'm glad to meet ye then;
an' I owe you some thanks for bringing back the
boy.'
'No thanks
to me, Padre. Besides, the boy wasn't going away.
You don't know old Mahbub Ali.' The horse-dealer sat
impassive in the sunlight. 'You will when you have
been in the station a month. He sells us all our
crocks. That boy is rather a curiosity. Can you tell
me anything about him?'
'Can I tell
you?' puffed Father Victor. 'You'll be the one man
that could help me in my quandaries. Tell you!
Powers o' Darkness, I'm bursting to tell someone who
knows something o' the native!'
A groom came
round the corner. Colonel Creighton raised his
voice, speaking in Urdu. 'Very good, Mahbub Ali, but
what is the use of telling me all those stories
about the pony? Not one pice more than three hundred
and fifty rupees will I give.'
'The Sahib
is a little hot and angry after riding,' the
horse-dealer returned, with the leer of a privileged
jester. 'Presently, he will see my horse's points
more clearly. I will wait till he has finished his
talk with the Padre. I will wait under that tree.'
'Confound
you!' The Colonel laughed. 'That comes of looking at
one of Mahbub's horses. He's a regular old leech,
Padre. Wait, then, if thou hast so much time to
spare, Mahbub. Now I'm at your service, Padre. Where
is the boy? Oh, he's gone off to collogue with
Mahbub. Queer sort of boy. Might I ask you to send
my mare round under cover?'
He dropped
into a chair which commanded a clear view of Kim and
Mahbub Ali in conference beneath the tree. The Padre
went indoors for cheroots.
Creighton
heard Kim say bitterly: 'Trust a Brahmin before a
snake, and a snake before an harlot, and an harlot
before a Pathan, Mahbub Ali.'
'That is all
one.' The great red beard wagged solemnly. 'Children
should not see a carpet on the loom till the pattern
is made plain. Believe me, Friend of all the World,
I do thee great service. They will not make a
soldier of thee.'
'You crafty
old sinner!' thought Creighton. 'But you're not far
wrong. That boy mustn't be wasted if he is as
advertised.'
'Excuse me
half a minute,' cried the Padre from within, 'but
I'm gettin' the documents in the case.'
'If through
me the favour of this bold and wise Colonel Sahib
comes to thee, and thou art raised to honour, what
thanks wilt thou give Mahbub Ali when thou art a
man?'
'Nay, nay! I
begged thee to let me take the Road again, where I
should have been safe; and thou hast sold me back to
the English. What will they give thee for
blood-money?'
'A cheerful
young demon!' The Colonel bit his cigar, and turned
politely to Father Victor.
'What are
the letters that the fat priest is waving before the
Colonel? Stand behind the stallion as though looking
at my bridle!' said Mahbub Ali.
'A letter
from my lama which he wrote from Jagadhir Road,
saying that he will pay three hundred rupees by the
year for my schooling.'
'Oho! Is old
Red Hat of that sort? At which school?'
'God knows.
I think in Nucklao.'
'Yes. There
is a big school there for the sons of Sahibs—and
half-Sahibs. I have seen it when I sell horses
there. So the lama also loved the Friend of all the
World?'
'Ay; and he
did not tell lies, or return me to captivity.'
'Small
wonder the Padre does not know how to unravel the
thread. How fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib!'
Mahbub Ali chuckled. 'By Allah!' the keen eyes swept
the veranda for an Instant—'thy lama has sent what
to me looks like a note of hand. I have had some few
dealings in hoondis. The Colonel Sahib is looking at
it.'
'What good
is all this to me?' said Kim wearily. 'Thou wilt go
away, and they will return me to those empty rooms
where there is no good place to sleep and where the
boys beat me.'
'I do not
think that. Have patience, child. All Pathans are
not faithless—except in horseflesh.'
Five—ten—fifteen minutes passed, Father Victor
talking energetically or asking questions which the
Colonel answered.
'Now I've
told you everything that I know about the boy from
beginnin to end; and it's a blessed relief to me.
Did ye ever hear the like?'
'At any
rate, the old man has sent the money. Gobind Sahai's
notes of hand are good from here to China,' said the
Colonel. 'The more one knows about natives the less
can one say what they will or won't do.'
'That's
consolin'—from the head of the Ethnological Survey.
It's this mixture of Red Bulls and Rivers of Healing
(poor heathen, God help him!) an' notes of hand and
Masonic certificates. Are you a Mason, by any
chance?'
'By Jove, I
am, now I come to think of it. That's an additional
reason,' said the Colonel absently.
'I'm glad ye
see a reason in it. But as I said, it's the mixture
o' things that's beyond me. An' his prophesyin' to
our Colonel, sitting on my bed with his little
shimmy torn open showing his white skin; an' the
prophecy comin' true! They'll cure all that nonsense
at St Xavier's, eh?'
'Sprinkle
him with holy water,' the Colonel laughed.
'On my word,
I fancy I ought to sometimes. But I'm hoping he'll
be brought up as a good Catholic. All that troubles
me is what'll happen if the old beggar-man—'
'Lama, lama,
my dear sir; and some of them are gentlemen in their
own country.'
'The lama,
then, fails to pay next year. He's a fine business
head to plan on the spur of the moment, but he's
bound to die some day. An' takin' a heathen's money
to give a child a Christian education—'
'But he said
explicitly what he wanted. As soon as he knew the
boy was white he seems to have made his arrangements
accordingly. I'd give a month's pay to hear how he
explained it all at the Tirthankars' Temple at
Benares. Look here, Padre, I don't pretend to know
much about natives, but if he says he'll pay, he'll
pay—dead or alive. I mean, his heirs will assume the
debt. My advice to you is, send the boy down to
Lucknow. If your Anglican Chaplain thinks you've
stolen a march on him—'
'Bad luck to
Bennett! He was sent to the Front instead o' me.
Doughty certified me medically unfit. I'll
excommunicate Doughty if he comes back alive! Surely
Bennett ought to be content with—'
'Glory,
leaving you the religion. Quite so! As a matter of
fact I don't think Bennett will mind. Put the blame
on me. I—er—strongly recommend sending the boy to St
Xavier's. He can go down on pass as a soldier's
orphan, so the railway fare will be saved. You can
buy him an outfit from the Regimental subscription.
The Lodge will be saved the expense of his
education, and that will put the Lodge in a good
temper. It's perfectly easy. I've got to go down to
Lucknow next week. I'll look after the boy on the
way—give him in charge of my servants, and so on.'
'You're a
good man.'
'Not in the
least. Don't make that mistake. The lama has sent us
money for a definite end. We can't very well return
it. We shall have to do as he says. Well, that's
settled, isn't it? Shall we say that, Tuesday next,
you'll hand him over to me at the night train south?
That's only three days. He can't do much harm in
three days.'
'It's a
weight off my mind, but—this thing here?'—he waved
the note of hand—'I don't know Gobind Sahai: or his
bank, which may be a hole in a wall.'
'You've
never been a subaltern in debt. I'll cash it if you
like, and send you the vouchers in proper order.'
'But with
all your own work too! It's askin'—'
'It's not
the least trouble indeed. You see, as an
ethnologist, the thing's very interesting to me. I'd
like to make a note of it for some Government work
that I'm doing. The transformation of a regimental
badge like your Red Bull into a sort of fetish that
the boy follows is very interesting.'
'But I can't
thank you enough.'
'There's one
thing you can do. All we Ethnological men are as
jealous as jackdaws of one another's discoveries.
They're of no interest to anyone but ourselves, of
course, but you know what book-collectors are like.
Well, don't say a word, directly or indirectly,
about the Asiatic side of the boy's character—his
adventures and his prophecy, and so on. I'll worm
them out of the boy later on and—you see?'
'I do. Ye'll
make a wonderful account of it. Never a word will I
say to anyone till I see it in print.'
'Thank you.
That goes straight to an ethnologist's heart. Well,
I must be getting back to my breakfast. Good
Heavens! Old Mahbub here still?' He raised his
voice, and the horse-dealer came out from under the
shadow of the tree, 'Well, what is it?'
'As regards
that young horse,' said Mahbub, 'I say that when a
colt is born to be a polo-pony, closely following
the ball without teaching—when such a colt knows the
game by divination—then I say it is a great wrong to
break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!'
'So say I
also, Mahbub. The colt will be entered for polo
only. (These fellows think of nothing in the world
but horses, Padre.) I'll see you tomorrow, Mahbub,
if you've anything likely for sale.'
The dealer
saluted, horseman-fashion, with a sweep of the off
hand. 'Be patient a little, Friend of all the
World,' he whispered to the agonized Kim. 'Thy
fortune is made. In a little while thou goest to
Nucklao, and—here is something to pay the
letter-writer. I shall see thee again, I think, many
times,' and he cantered off down the road.
'Listen to
me,' said the Colonel from the veranda, speaking in
the vernacular. 'In three days thou wilt go with me
to Lucknow, seeing and hearing new things all the
while. Therefore sit still for three days and do not
run away. Thou wilt go to school at Lucknow.'
'Shall I
meet my Holy One there?' Kim whimpered.
'At least
Lucknow is nearer to Benares than Umballa. It may be
thou wilt go under my protection. Mahbub Ali knows
this, and he will be angry if thou returnest to the
Road now. Remember—much has been told me which I do
not forget.'
'I will
wait,' said Kim, 'but the boys will beat me.'
Then the
bugles blew for dinner.

Chapter 7
Unto whose
use the pregnant suns are poised
With idiot moons and stars retracing stars?
Creep thou betweene—thy coming's all unnoised.
Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars.
Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fraye
(By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);
Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say
Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars?
Sir John Christie.
In the afternoon the
red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had been
'struck off the strength', which conveyed no meaning
to him till he was ordered to go away and play. Then
he ran to the bazar, and found the young
letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.
'Now I pay,'
said Kim royally, 'and now I need another letter to
be written.'
'Mahbub Ali
is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily. He was, by
virtue of his office, a bureau of general
misinformation.
'This is not
to Mahbub, but to a priest. Take thy pen and write
quickly. To Teshoo Lama, the Holy One from Bhotiyal
seeking for a River, who is now in the Temple of the
Tirthankars at Benares. Take more ink! In three days
I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at Nucklao.
The name of the school is Xavier. I do not know
where that school is, but it is at Nucklao.'
'But I know
Nucklao,' the writer interrupted. 'I know the
school.'
'Tell him
where it is, and I give half an anna.'
The reed pen
scratched busily. 'He cannot mistake.' The man
lifted his head. 'Who watches us across the street?'
Kim looked
up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creighton in
tennis-flannels.
'Oh, that is
some Sahib who knows the fat priest in the barracks.
He is beckoning me.'
'What dost
thou?' said the Colonel, when Kim trotted up.
'I—I am not
running away. I send a letter to my Holy One at
Benares.'
'I had not
thought of that. Hast thou said that I take thee to
Lucknow?'
'Nay, I have
not. Read the letter, if there be a doubt.'
'Then why
hast thou left out my name in writing to that Holy
One?' The Colonel smiled a queer smile. Kim took his
courage in both hands.
'It was said
once to me that it is inexpedient to write the names
of strangers concerned in any matter, because by the
naming of names many good plans are brought to
confusion.'
'Thou hast
been well taught,' the Colonel replied, and Kim
flushed. 'I have left my cheroot-case in the Padre's
veranda. Bring it to my house this even.'
'Where is
the house?' said Kim. His quick wit told him that he
was being tested in some fashion or another, and he
stood on guard.
'Ask anyone
in the big bazar.' The Colonel walked on.
'He has
forgotten his cheroot-case,' said Kim, returning. 'I
must bring it to him this evening. That is all my
letter except, thrice over, Come to me! Come to me!
Come to me! Now I will pay for a stamp and put it in
the post. He rose to go, and as an afterthought
asked: 'Who is that angry-faced Sahib who lost the
cheroot-case?'
'Oh, he is
only Creighton Sahib—a very foolish Sahib, who is a
Colonel Sahib without a regiment.'
'What is his
business?'
'God knows.
He is always buying horses which he cannot ride, and
asking riddles about the works of God—such as plants
and stones and the customs of people. The dealers
call him the father of fools, because he is so
easily cheated about a horse. Mahbub Ali says he is
madder than most other Sahibs.'
'Oh!' said
Kim, and departed. His training had given him some
small knowledge of character, and he argued that
fools are not given information which leads to
calling out eight thousand men besides guns. The
Commander-in-Chief of all India does not talk, as
Kim had heard him talk, to fools. Nor would Mahbub
Ali's tone have changed, as it did every time he
mentioned the Colonel's name, if the Colonel had
been a fool. Consequently—and this set Kim to
skipping—there was a mystery somewhere, and Mahbub
Ali probably spied for the Colonel much as Kim had
spied for Mahbub. And, like the horse-dealer, the
Colonel evidently respected people who did not show
themselves to be too clever.
He rejoiced that he had not
betrayed his knowledge of the Colonel's house; and
when, on his return to barracks, he discovered that
no cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with
delight. Here was a man after his own heart—a
tortuous and indirect person playing a hidden game.
Well, if he could be a fool, so could Kim.
He showed
nothing of his mind when Father Victor, for three
long mornings, discoursed to him of an entirely new
set of Gods and Godlings—notably of a Goddess called
Mary, who, he gathered, was one with Bibi Miriam of
Mahbub Ali's theology. He betrayed no emotion when,
after the lecture, Father Victor dragged him from
shop to shop buying articles of outfit, nor when
envious drummer-boys kicked him because he was going
to a superior school did he complain, but awaited
the play of circumstances with an interested soul.
Father Victor, good man, took him to the station,
put him into an empty second-class next to Colonel
Creighton's first, and bade him farewell with
genuine feeling.
'They'll
make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St Xavier's—a white
man, an', I hope, a good man. They know all about
your comin', an' the Colonel will see that ye're not
lost or mislaid anywhere on the road. I've given you
a notion of religious matters,—at least I hope
so,—and you'll remember, when they ask you your
religion, that you're a Cath'lic. Better say Roman
Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the word.'
Kim lit a
rank cigarette—he had been careful to buy a stock in
the bazar—and lay down to think. This solitary
passage was very different from that joyful
down-journey in the third-class with the lama.
'Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,' he
reflected.
'Hai mai! I
go from one place to another as it might be a
kickball. It is my Kismet. No man can escape his
Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam, and I am a
Sahib.' He looked at his boots ruefully. 'No; I am
Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who
is Kim?' He considered his own identity, a thing he
had never done before, till his head swam. He was
one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl
of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.
Presently
the Colonel sent for him, and talked for a long
time. So far as Kim could gather, he was to be
diligent and enter the Survey of India as a
chain-man. If he were very good, and passed the
proper examinations, he would be earning thirty
rupees a month at seventeen years old, and Colonel
Creighton would see that he found suitable
employment.
Kim
pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in
three of this talk. Then the Colonel, seeing his
mistake, turned to fluent and picturesque Urdu and
Kim was contented. No man could be a fool who knew
the language so intimately, who moved so gently and
silently, and whose eyes were so different from the
dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.
'Yes, and
thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and
mountains and rivers, to carry these pictures in
thine eye till a suitable time comes to set them
upon paper. Perhaps some day, when thou art a
chain-man, I may say to thee when we are working
together: "Go across those hills and see what lies
beyond." Then one will say: "There are bad people
living in those hills who will slay the chain-man if
he be seen to look like a Sahib." What then?'
Kim thought.
Would it be safe to return the Colonel's lead?
'I would
tell what that other man had said.'
'But if I
answered: "I will give thee a hundred rupees for
knowledge of what is behind those hills—for a
picture of a river and a little news of what the
people say in the villages there"?'
'How can I
tell? I am only a boy. Wait till I am a man.' Then,
seeing the Colonel's brow clouded, he went on: 'But
I think I should in a few days earn the hundred
rupees.'
'By what
road?'
Kim shook
his head resolutely. 'If I said how I would earn
them, another man might hear and forestall me. It is
not good to sell knowledge for nothing.'
'Tell now.'
The Colonel held up a rupee. Kim's hand half reached
towards it, and dropped.
'Nay, Sahib;
nay. I know the price that will be paid for the
answer, but I do not know why the question is
asked.'
'Take it for
a gift, then,' said Creighton, tossing it over.
'There is a good spirit in thee. Do not let it be
blunted at St Xavier's. There are many boys there
who despise the black men.'
'Their
mothers were bazar-women,' said Kim. He knew well
there is no hatred like that of the half-caste for
his brother-in-law.
'True; but
thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Therefore,
do not at any time be led to contemn the black men.
I have known boys newly entered into the service of
the Government who feigned not to understand the
talk or the customs of black men. Their pay was cut
for ignorance. There is no sin so great as
ignorance. Remember this.'
Several
times in the course of the long twenty-four hours'
run south did the Colonel send for Kim, always
developing this latter text.
'We be all
on one lead-rope, then,' said Kim at last, 'the
Colonel, Mahbub Ali, and I—when I become a
chain-man. He will use me as Mahbub Ali employed me,
I think. That is good, if it allows me to return to
the Road again. This clothing grows no easier by
wear.'
When they
came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no
sign of the lama. He swallowed his disappointment,
while the Colonel bundled him into a ticca-gharri
with his neat belongings and despatched him alone to
St Xavier's.
'I do not
say farewell, because we shall meet again,' he
cried. 'Again, and many times, if thou art one of
good spirit. But thou art not yet tried.'
'Not when I
brought thee'—Kim actually dared to use the turn of
equals—'a white stallion's pedigree that night?'
'Much is
gained by forgetting, little brother,' said the
Colonel, with a look that pierced through Kim's
shoulder-blades as he scuttled into the carriage.
It took him
nearly five minutes to recover. Then he sniffed the
new air appreciatively. 'A rich city,' he said.
'Richer than Lahore. How good the bazars must be!
Coachman, drive me a little through the bazars
here.'
'My order is
to take thee to the school.' The driver used the
'thou', which is rudeness when applied to a white
man. In the clearest and most fluent vernacular Kim
pointed out his error, climbed on to the box-seat,
and, perfect understanding established, drove for a
couple of hours up and down, estimating, comparing,
and enjoying. There is no city—except Bombay, the
queen of all—more beautiful in her garish style than
Lucknow, whether you see her from the bridge over
the river, or from the top of the Imambara looking
down on the gilt umbrellas of the Chutter Munzil,
and the trees in which the town is bedded. Kings
have adorned her with fantastic buildings, endowed
her with charities, crammed her with pensioners, and
drenched her with blood. She is the centre of all
idleness, intrigue, and luxury, and shares with
Delhi the claim to talk the only pure Urdu.
'A fair
city—a beautiful city.' The driver, as a Lucknow
man, was pleased with the compliment, and told Kim
many astounding things where an English guide would
have talked of the Mutiny.
'Now we will
go to the school,' said Kim at last. The great old
school of St Xavier's in Partibus, block on block of
low white buildings, stands in vast grounds over
against the Gumti River, at some distance from the
city.
'What like
of folk are they within?' said Kim.
'Young
Sahibs—all devils. But to speak truth, and I drive
many of them to and fro from the railway station, I
have never seen one that had in him the making of a
more perfect devil than thou—this young Sahib whom I
am now driving.'
Naturally,
for he was never trained to consider them in any way
improper, Kim had passed the time of day with one or
two frivolous ladies at upper windows in a certain
street, and naturally, in the exchange of
compliments, had acquitted himself well. He was
about to acknowledge the driver's last insolence,
when his eye—it was growing dusk—caught a figure
sitting by one of the white plaster gate-pillars in
the long sweep of wall.
'Stop!' he
cried. 'Stay here. I do not go to the school at
once.'
'But what is
to pay me for this coming and re-coming?' said the
driver petulantly. 'Is the boy mad? Last time it was
a dancing-girl. This time it is a priest.'
Kim was in
the road headlong, patting the dusty feet beneath
the dirty yellow robe.
'I have
waited here a day and a half,' the lama's level
voice began. 'Nay, I had a disciple with me. He that
was my friend at the Temple of the Tirthankars gave
me a guide for this journey. I came from Benares in
the te-rain, when thy letter was given me. Yes, I am
well fed. I need nothing.'
'But why
didst thou not stay with the Kulu woman, O Holy One?
In what way didst thou get to Benares? My heart has
been heavy since we parted.'
'The woman
wearied me by constant flux of talk and requiring
charms for children. I separated myself from that
company, permitting her to acquire merit by gifts.
She is at least a woman of open hands, and I made a
promise to return to her house if need arose. Then,
perceiving myself alone in this great and terrible
world, I bethought me of the te-rain to Benares,
where I knew one abode in the Tirthankars' Temple
who was a Seeker, even as I.'
'Ah! Thy
River,' said Kim. 'I had forgotten the River.'
'So soon, my
chela? I have never forgotten it. But when I had
left thee it seemed better that I should go to the
Temple and take counsel, for, look you, India is
very large, and it may be that wise men before us,
some two or three, have left a record of the place
of our River. There is debate in the Temple of the
Tirthankars on this matter; some saying one thing,
and some another. They are courteous folk.'
'So be it;
but what dost thou do now?'
'I acquire
merit in that I help thee, my chela, to wisdom. The
priest of that body of men who serve the Red Bull
wrote me that all should be as I desired for thee. I
sent the money to suffice for one year, and then I
came, as thou seest me, to watch for thee going up
into the Gates of Learning. A day and a half have I
waited, not because I was led by any affection
towards thee—that is no part of the Way—but, as they
said at the Tirthankars' Temple, because, money
having been paid for learning, it was right that I
should oversee the end of the matter. They resolved
my doubts most clearly. I had a fear that, perhaps,
I came because I wished to see thee—misguided by the
Red Mist of affection. It is not so ... Moreover, I
am troubled by a dream.'
'But surely,
Holy One, thou hast not forgotten the Road and all
that befell on it. Surely it was a little to see me
that thou didst come?'
'The horses
are cold, and it is past their feeding-time,' whined
the driver.
'Go to
Jehannum and abide there with thy reputationless
aunt!' Kim snarled over his shoulder. 'I am all
alone in this land; I know not where I go nor what
shall befall me. My heart was in that letter I sent
thee. Except for Mahbub Ali, and he is a Pathan, I
have no friend save thee, Holy One. Do not
altogether go away.'
'I have
considered that also,' the lama replied, in a
shaking voice. 'It is manifest that from time to
time I shall acquire merit if before that I have not
found my River—by assuring myself that thy feet are
set on wisdom. What they will teach thee I do not
know, but the priest wrote me that no son of a Sahib
in all India will be better taught than thou. So
from time to time, therefore, I will come again.
Maybe thou wilt be such a Sahib as he who gave me
these spectacles'—the lama wiped them
elaborately—'in the Wonder House at Lahore. That is
my hope, for he was a Fountain of Wisdom—wiser than
many abbots .... Again, maybe thou wilt forget me
and our meetings.'
'If I eat
thy bread,' cried Kim passionately, 'how shall I
ever forget thee?'
'No—no.' He
put the boy aside. 'I must go back to Benares. From
time to time, now that I know the customs of
letter-writers in this land, I will send thee a
letter, and from time to time I will come and see
thee.'
'But whither
shall I send my letters?' wailed Kim, clutching at
the robe, all forgetful that he was a Sahib.
'To the
Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares. That is the
place I have chosen till I find my River. Do not
weep; for, look you, all Desire is Illusion and a
new binding upon the Wheel. Go up to the Gates of
Learning. Let me see thee go ... Dost thou love me?
Then go, or my heart cracks ... I will come again.
Surely I will come again.
The lama
watched the ticca-gharri rumble into the compound,
and strode off, snuffing between each long stride.
'The Gates
of Learning' shut with a clang.
The country
born and bred boy has his own manners and customs,
which do not resemble those of any other land; and
his teachers approach him by roads which an English
master would not understand. Therefore, you would
scarcely be interested in Kim's experiences as a St
Xavier's boy among two or three hundred precocious
youths, most of whom had never seen the sea. He
suffered the usual penalties for breaking out of
bounds when there was cholera in the city. This was
before he had learned to write fair English, and so
was obliged to find a bazar letter-writer. He was,
of course, indicted for smoking and for the use of
abuse more full-flavoured than even St Xavier's had
ever heard. He learned to wash himself with the
Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born, who in
his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty. He
played the usual tricks on the patient coolies
pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the
boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales
till the dawn; and quietly he measured himself
against his self-reliant mates.
They were
sons of subordinate officials in the Railway,
Telegraph, and Canal Services; of warrant-officers,
sometimes retired and sometimes acting as
commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah's army; of
captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners,
planters, Presidency shopkeepers, and missionaries.
A few were cadets of the old Eurasian houses that
have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah—Pereiras, De
Souzas, and D'Silvas. Their parents could well have
educated them in England, but they loved the school
that had served their own youth, and generation
followed sallow-hued generation at St Xavier's.
Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people
to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar;
lost tea-gardens Shillong-way; villages where their
fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the
Deccan; Mission-stations a week from the nearest
railway line; seaports a thousand miles south,
facing the brazen Indian surf; and
cinchona-plantations south of all. The mere story of
their adventures, which to them were no adventures,
on their road to and from school would have crisped
a Western boy's hair. They were used to jogging off
alone through a hundred miles of jungle, where there
was always the delightful chance of being delayed by
tigers; but they would no more have bathed in the
English Channel in an English August than their
brothers across the world would have lain still
while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin. There
were boys of fifteen who had spent a day and a half
on an islet in the middle of a flooded river, taking
charge, as by right, of a camp of frantic pilgrims
returning from a shrine. There were seniors who had
requisitioned a chance-met Rajah's elephant, in the
name of St Francis Xavier, when the Rains once
blotted out the cart-track that led to their
father's estate, and had all but lost the huge beast
in a quicksand. There was a boy who, he said, and
none doubted, had helped his father to beat off with
rifles from the veranda a rush of Akas in the days
when those head-hunters were bold against lonely
plantations.
And every
tale was told in the even, passionless voice of the
native-born, mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed
unconsciously from native foster-mothers, and turns
of speech that showed they had been that instant
translated from the vernacular. Kim watched,
listened, and approved. This was not insipid,
single-word talk of drummer-boys. It dealt with a
life he knew and in part understood. The atmosphere
suited him, and he throve by inches. They gave him a
white drill suit as the weather warmed, and he
rejoiced in the new-found bodily comforts as he
rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over the tasks
they set him. His quickness would have delighted an
English master; but at St Xavier's they know the
first rush of minds developed by sun and
surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that
sets in at twenty-two or twenty-three.
None the
less he remembered to hold himself lowly. When tales
were told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board
with his reminiscences; for St Xavier's looks down
on boys who 'go native all-together.' One must never
forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when
examinations are passed, one will command natives.
Kim made a note of this, for he began to understand
where examinations led.
Then came
the holidays from August to October—the long
holidays imposed by the heat and the Rains. Kim was
informed that he would go north to some station in
the hills behind Umballa, where Father Victor would
arrange for him.
'A
barrack-school?' said Kim, who had asked many
questions and thought more.
'Yes, I
suppose so,' said the master. 'It will not do you
any harm to keep you out of mischief. You can go up
with young De Castro as far as Delhi.'
Kim
considered it in every possible light. He had been
diligent, even as the Colonel advised. A boy's
holiday was his own property—of so much the talk of
his companions had advised him,—and a barrack-school
would be torment after St Xavier's. Moreover—this
was magic worth anything else—he could write. In
three months he had discovered how men can speak to
each other without a third party, at the cost of
half an anna and a little knowledge. No word had
come from the lama, but there remained the Road. Kim
yearned for the caress of soft mud squishing up
between the toes, as his mouth watered for mutton
stewed with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled
with strong scented cardamoms, for the
saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the
forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars. They
would feed him raw beef on a platter at the
barrack-school, and he must smoke by stealth. But
again, he was a Sahib and was at St Xavier's, and
that pig Mahbub Ali ... No, he would not test
Mahbub's hospitality—and yet ... He thought it out
alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion
he had been unjust to Mahbub.
The school
was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away;
Colonel Creighton's railway pass lay in his hand,
and Kim puffed himself that he had not spent Colonel
Creighton's or Mahbub's money in riotous living. He
was still lord of two rupees seven annas. His new
bullock-trunk, marked 'K. O'H.', and bedding-roll
lay in the empty sleeping-room.
'Sahibs are
always tied to their baggage,' said Kim, nodding at
them. 'You will stay here' He went out into the warm
rain, smiling sinfully, and sought a certain house
whose outside he had noted down some time before...
'Arre'! Dost
thou know what manner of women we be in this
quarter? Oh, shame!'
'Was I born
yesterday?' Kim squatted native-fashion on the
cushions of that upper room. 'A little dyestuff and
three yards of cloth to help out a jest. Is it much
to ask?'
'Who is she?
Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, for this
devilry.'
'Oh, she?
She is the daughter of a certain schoolmaster of a
regiment in the cantonments. He has beaten me twice
because I went over their wall in these clothes. Now
I would go as a gardener's boy. Old men are very
jealous.'
'That is
true. Hold thy face still while I dab on the juice.'
'Not too
black, Naikan. I would not appear to her as a hubshi
(nigger).'
'Oh, love
makes nought of these things. And how old is she?'
'Twelve
years, I think,' said the shameless Kim. 'Spread it
also on the breast. It may be her father will tear
my clothes off me, and if I am piebald—' he laughed.
The girl
worked busily, dabbing a twist of cloth into a
little saucer of brown dye that holds longer than
any walnut-juice.
'Now send
out and get me a cloth for the turban. Woe is me, my
head is all unshaved! And he will surely knock off
my turban.'
'I am not a
barber, but I will make shift. Thou wast born to be
a breaker of hearts! All this disguise for one
evening? Remember, the stuff does not wash away.'
She shook with laughter till her bracelets and
anklets jingled. 'But who is to pay me for this?
Huneefa herself could not have given thee better
stuff.'
'Trust in
the Gods, my sister,' said Kim gravely, screwing his
face round as the stain dried. 'Besides, hast thou
ever helped to paint a Sahib thus before?'
'Never
indeed. But a jest is not money.'
'It is worth
much more.'
'Child, thou
art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of
Shaitan that I have ever known to take up a poor
girl's time with this play, and then to say: "Is not
the jest enough?" Thou wilt go very far in this
world.' She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in
mockery.
'All one.
Make haste and rough-cut my head.' Kim shifted from
foot to foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he
thought of the fat days before him. He gave the girl
four annas, and ran down the stairs in the likeness
of a low-caste Hindu boy—perfect in every detail. A
cookshop was his next point of call, where he
feasted in extravagance and greasy luxury.
On Lucknow
station platform he watched young De Castro, all
covered with prickly-heat, get into a second-class
compartment. Kim patronized a third, and was the
life and soul of it. He explained to the company
that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him
behind sick with fever, and that he would pick up
his master at Umballa. As the occupants of the
carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned it
with all the shoots of a budding fancy, the more
rampant for being held off native speech so long. In
all India that night was no human being so joyful as
Kim. At Umballa he got out and headed eastward,
plashing over the sodden fields to the village where
the old soldier lived.
About this
time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from
Lucknow by wire that young O'Hara had disappeared.
Mahbub Ali was in town selling horses, and to him
the Colonel confided the affair one morning
cantering round Annandale racecourse.
'Oh, that is
nothing,' said the horse-dealer. 'Men are like
horses. At certain times they need salt, and if that
salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from
the earth. He has gone back to the Road again for a
while. The madrissak wearied him. I knew it would.
Another time, I will take him upon the Road myself.
Do not be troubled, Creighton Sahib. It is as though
a polo-pony, breaking loose, ran out to learn the
game alone.'
'Then he is
not dead, think you?'
'Fever might
kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A
monkey does not fall among trees.'
Next
morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion
ranged alongside the Colonel.
'It is as I
had thought,' said the horse-dealer. 'He has come
through Umballa at least, and there he has written a
letter to me, having learned in the bazar that I was
here.'
'Read,' said
the Colonel, with a sigh of relief. It was absurd
that a man of his position should take an interest
in a little country-bred vagabond; but the Colonel
remembered the conversation in the train, and often
in the past few months had caught himself thinking
of the queer, silent, self-possessed boy. His
evasion, of course, was the height of insolence, but
it argued some resource and nerve.
Mahbub's
eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of
the cramped little plain, where none could come near
unseen.
'"The Friend
of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World—"'
'What is
this?'
'A name we
give him in Lahore city. "The Friend of all the
World takes leave to go to his own places. He will
come back upon the appointed day. Let the box and
the bedding-roll be sent for; and if there has been
a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the
Whip of Calamity." There is yet a little more, but—'
'No matter,
read.'
'"Certain
things are not known to those who eat with forks. It
is better to eat with both hands for a while. Speak
soft words to those who do not understand this that
the return may be propitious." Now the manner in
which that was cast is, of course, the work of the
letter-writer, but see how wisely the boy has
devised the matter of it so that no hint is given
except to those who know!'
'Is this the
Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity?'
laughed the Colonel.
'See how
wise is the boy. He would go back to the Road again,
as I said. Not knowing yet thy trade—'
'I am not at
all sure of that,' the Colonel muttered.
'He turns to
me to make a peace between you. Is he not wise? He
says he will return. He is but perfecting his
knowledge. Think, Sahib! He has been three months at
the school. And he is not mouthed to that bit. For
my part, I rejoice. The pony learns the game.'
'Ay, but
another time he must not go alone.'
'Why? He
went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahib's
protection. When he comes to the Great Game he must
go alone—alone, and at peril of his head. Then, if
he spits, or sneezes, or sits down other than as the
people do whom he watches, he may be slain. Why
hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The
jackal that lives in the wilds of Mazanderan can
only be caught by the hounds of Mazanderan.'
'True. It is
true, Mahbub Ali. And if he comes to no harm, I do
not desire anything better. But it is great
insolence on his part.'
'He does not
tell me, even, whither he goes,' said Mahbub. 'He is
no fool. When his time is accomplished he will come
to me. It is time the healer of pearls took him in
hand. He ripens too quickly—as Sahibs reckon.'
This
prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month later.
Mahbub had gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh
consignment of horses, and Kim met him on the Kalka
road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms of him,
was sworn at, and replied in English. There was
nobody within earshot to hear Mahbub's gasp of
amazement.
'Oho! And
where hast thou been?'
'Up and
down—down and up.'
'Come under
a tree, out of the wet, and tell.'
'I stayed
for a while with an old man near Umballa; anon with
a household of my acquaintance in Umballa. With one
of these I went as far as Delhi to the southward.
That is a wondrous city. Then I drove a bullock for
a teli [an oilman] coming north; but I heard of a
great feast forward in Patiala, and thither went I
in the company of a firework-maker. It was a great
feast' (Kim rubbed his stomach). 'I saw Rajahs, and
elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they
lit all the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men
were killed, my fire-work-maker among them, and I
was blown across a tent but took no harm. Then I
came back to the rel with a Sikh horseman, to whom I
was groom for my bread; and so here.'
'Shabash!'
said Mahbub Ali.
'But what
does the Colonel Sahib say? I do not wish to be
beaten.'
'The Hand of
Friendship has averted the Whip of Calamity; but
another time, when thou takest the Road it will be
with me. This is too early.'
'Late enough
for me. I have learned to read and to write English
a little at the madrissah. I shall soon be
altogether a Sahib.'
'Hear him!'
laughed Mahbub, looking at the little drenched
figure dancing in the wet. 'Salaam—Sahib,' and he
saluted ironically.
'Well, art
tired of the Road, or wilt thou come on to Umballa
with me and work back with the horses?'
'I come with
thee, Mahbub Ali.'

Chapter 8
Something I
owe to the soil that grew—
More to the life that fed—
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.
I would go without shirts or shoes,
Friends, tobacco or bread
Sooner than for an instant lose
Either side of my head.'
The Two-Sided Man.
'Then in God's name take
blue for red,' said Mahbub, alluding to the Hindu
colour of Kim's disreputable turban.
Kim
countered with the old proverb, 'I will change my
faith and my bedding, but thou must pay for it.'
The dealer
laughed till he nearly fell from his horse. At a
shop on the outskirts of the city the change was
made, and Kim stood up, externally at least, a
Mohammedan.
Mahbub hired
a room over against the railway station, sent for a
cooked meal of the finest with the almond-curd
sweet-meats [balushai we call it] and fine-chopped
Lucknow tobacco.
'This is
better than some other meat that I ate with the
Sikh,' said Kim, grinning as he squatted, 'and
assuredly they give no such victuals at my madrissah.'
'I have a
desire to hear of that same madrissah.' Mahbub
stuffed himself with great boluses of spiced mutton
fried in fat with cabbage and golden-brown onions.
'But tell me first, altogether and truthfully, the
manner of thy escape. For, O Friend of all the
World,'—he loosed his cracking belt—'I do not think
it is often that a Sahib and the son of a Sahib runs
away from there.'
'How should
they? They do not know the land. It was nothing,'
said Kim, and began his tale. When he came to the
disguisement and the interview with the girl in the
bazar, Mahbub Ali's gravity went from him. He
laughed aloud and beat his hand on his thigh.
'Shabash!
Shabash! Oh, well done, little one! What will the
healer of turquoises say to this? Now, slowly, let
us hear what befell afterwards—step by step,
omitting nothing.'
Step by step
then, Kim told his adventures between coughs as the
full-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs.
'I said,'
growled Mahbub Ali to himself, 'I said it was the
pony breaking out to play polo. The fruit is ripe
already—except that he must learn his distances and
his pacings, and his rods and his compasses. Listen
now. I have turned aside the Colonel's whip from thy
skin, and that is no small service.'
'True.' Kim
pulled serenely. 'That is true.'
'But it is
not to be thought that this running out and in is
any way good.'
'It was my
holiday, Hajji. I was a slave for many weeks. Why
should I not run away when the school was shut?
Look, too, how I, living upon my friends or working
for my bread, as I did with the Sikh, have saved the
Colonel Sahib a great expense.'
Mahbub's
lips twitched under his well-pruned Mohammedan
moustache.
'What are a
few rupees'—the Pathan threw out his open hand
carelessly—'to the Colonel Sahib? He spends them for
a purpose, not in any way for love of thee.'
'That,' said
Kim slowly, 'I knew a very long time ago.'
'Who told?'
'The Colonel
Sahib himself. Not in those many words, but plainly
enough for one who is not altogether a mud-head.
Yea, he told me in the te-rain when we went down to
Lucknow.'
'Be it so.
Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World,
though in the telling I lend thee my head.'
'It was
forfeit to me,' said Kim, with deep relish, 'in
Umballa, when thou didst pick me up on the horse
after the drummer-boy beat me.'
'Speak a
little plainer. All the world may tell lies save
thou and I. For equally is thy life forfeit to me if
I chose to raise my finger here.'
'And this is
known to me also,' said Kim, readjusting the live
charcoal-ball on the weed. 'It is a very sure tie
between us. Indeed, thy hold is surer even than
mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to death, or,
it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Most
people here and in Simla and across the passes
behind the Hills would, on the other hand, say:
"What has come to Mahbub Ali?" if he were found dead
among his horses. Surely, too, the Colonel Sahib
would make inquiries. But again,'—Kim's face
puckered with cunning,—'he would not make overlong
inquiry, lest people should ask: "What has this
Colonel Sahib to do with that horse-dealer?" But
I—if I lived—'
'As thou
wouldst surely die—'
'Maybe; but
I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, would know that
one had come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to
Mahbub Ali's bulkhead in the serai, and there had
slain him, either before or after that thief had
made a full search into his saddlebags and between
the soles of his slippers. Is that news to tell to
the Colonel, or would he say to me—(I have not
forgotten when he sent me back for a cigar-case that
he had not left behind him)—"What is Mahbub Ali to
me?"?'
Up went a
gout of heavy smoke. There was a long pause: then
Mahbub Ali spoke in admiration: 'And with these
things on thy mind, dost thou lie down and rise
again among all the Sahibs' little sons at the
madrissah and meekly take instruction from thy
teachers?'
'It is an
order,' said Kim blandly. 'Who am I to dispute an
order?'
'A most
finished Son of Eblis,' said Mahbub Ali. 'But what
is this tale of the thief and the search?'
'That which
I saw,' said Kim, 'the night that my lama and I lay
next thy place in the Kashmir Seral. The door was
left unlocked, which I think is not thy custom,
Mahbub. He came in as one assured that thou wouldst
not soon return. My eye was against a knot-hole in
the plank. He searched as it were for something—not
a rug, not stirrups, nor a bridle, nor brass
pots—something little and most carefully hid. Else
why did he prick with an iron between the soles of
thy slippers?'
'Ha!' Mahbub
Ali smiled gently. 'And seeing these things, what
tale didst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the
Truth?'
'None. I put
my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my
skin, and, remembering the pedigree of a white
stallion that I had bitten out of a piece of
Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa perceiving
that a heavy trust was laid upon me. At that hour,
had I chosen, thy head was forfeit. It needed only
to say to that man, "I have here a paper concerning
a horse which I cannot read." And then?' Kim peered
at Mahbub under his eyebrows.
'Then thou
wouldst have drunk water twice—perhaps thrice,
afterwards. I do not think more than thrice,' said
Mahbub simply.
'It is true.
I thought of that a little, but most I thought that
I loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa,
as thou knowest, but (and this thou dost not know) I
lay hid in the garden-grass to see what Colonel
Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white
stallion's pedigree.'
'And what
did he?' for Kim had bitten off the conversation.
'Dost thou
give news for love, or dost thou sell it?' Kim
asked.
'I sell
and—I buy.' Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his
belt and held it up.
'Eight!'
said Kim, mechanically following the huckster
instinct of the East.
Mahbub
laughed, and put away the coin. 'It is too easy to
deal in that market, Friend of all the World. Tell
me for love. Our lives lie in each other's hand.'
'Very good.
I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief]
come to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's
office. I saw the two read the white stallion's
pedigree. I heard the very orders given for the
opening of a great war.'
'Hah!'
Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. 'The game is
well played. That war is done now, and the evil, we
hope, nipped before the flower—thanks to me—and
thee. What didst thou later?'
'I made the
news as it were a hook to catch me victual and
honour among the villagers in a village whose priest
drugged my lama. But I bore away the old man's
purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So next
morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the
news when I fell into the hands of that white
Regiment with their Bull!'
'That was
foolishness.' Mahbub scowled. 'News is not meant to
be thrown about like dung-cakes, but used
sparingly—like bhang.'
'So I think
now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good. But
that was very long ago,' he made as to brush it all
away with a thin brown hand—'and since then, and
especially in the nights under the punkah at the
madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'
'Is it
permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought
might have led?' said Mahbub, with an elaborate
sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet beard.
'It is
permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone.
'They say at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black
man that he has made a fault.'
Mahbub's
hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a
'black man' [kala admi] is a blood-insult. Then he
remembered and laughed. 'Speak, Sahib. Thy black man
hears.'
'But,' said
Kim, 'I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to
curse thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when
I thought I was betrayed by a Pathan. I was
senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished
to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now,
Hajji, that it was well done; and I see my road all
clear before me to a good service. I will stay in
the madrissah till I am ripe.'
'Well said.
Especially are distances and numbers and the manner
of using compasses to be learned in that game. One
waits in the Hills above to show thee.'
'I will
learn their teaching upon a condition—that my time
is given to me without question when the madrissah
is shut. Ask that for me of the Colonel.'
'But why not
ask the Colonel in the Sahibs' tongue?'
'The Colonel
is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither
and yon at a word, and must consider his own
advancement. (See how much I have already learned at
Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since three
months only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six
years. So! To the madrissah I will go. At the
madrissah I will learn. In the madrissah I will be a
Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must I
be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!'
'And who are
thy people, Friend of all the World?'
'This great
and beautiful land,' said Kim, waving his paw round
the little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in
its niche burned heavily through the tobacco-smoke.
'And, further, I would see my lama again. And,
further, I need money.'
'That is the
need of everyone,' said Mahbub ruefully. 'I will
give thee eight annas, for much money is not picked
out of horses' hooves, and it must suffice for many
days. As to all the rest, I am well pleased, and no
further talk is needed. Make haste to learn, and in
three years, or it may be less, thou wilt be an
aid—even to me.'
'Have I been
such a hindrance till now?' said Kim, with a boy's
giggle.
'Do not give
answers,' Mahbub grunted. 'Thou art my new
horse-boy. Go and bed among my men. They are near
the north end of the station, with the horses.'
'They will
beat me to the south end of the station if I come
without authority.'
Mahbub felt
in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese
ink, and dabbed the impression on a piece of soft
native paper. From Balkh to Bombay men know that
rough-ridged print with the old scar running
diagonally across it.
'That is
enough to show my headman. I come in the morning.'
'By which
road?' said Kim.
'By the road
from the city. There is but one, and then we return
to Creighton Sahib. I have saved thee a beating.'
'Allah! What
is a beating when the very head is loose on the
shoulders?'
Kim slid out
quietly into the night, walked half round the house,
keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the
station for a mile or so. Then, fetching a wide
compass, he worked back at leisure, for he needed
time to invent a story if any of Mahbub's retainers
asked questions.
They were
camped on a piece of waste ground beside the
railway, and, being natives, had not, of course,
unloaded the two trucks in which Mahbub's animals
stood among a consignment of country-breds bought by
the Bombay tram-company. The headman, a broken-down,
consumptive-looking Mohammedan, promptly challenged
Kim, but was pacified at sight of Mahbub's
sign-manual.
'The Hajji
has of his favour given me service,' said Kim
testily. 'If this be doubted, wait till he comes in
the morning. Meantime, a place by the fire.'
Followed the
usual aimless babble that every low-caste native
must raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim
lay out behind the little knot of Mahbub's
followers, almost under the wheels of a horse-truck,
a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among
brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night,
between overcrowded horses and unwashed Baltis,
would not appeal to many white boys; but Kim was
utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and
surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils,
and thinking of the neat white cots of St Xavier's
all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as
the repetition of the multiplication-table in
English.
'I am very
old,' he thought sleepily. 'Every month I become a
year more old. I was very young, and a fool to boot,
when I took Mahbub's message to Umballa. Even when I
was with that white Regiment I was very young and
small and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day,
and in three years the Colonel will take me out of
the madrissah and let me go upon the Road with
Mahbub hunting for horses' pedigrees, or maybe I
shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama
and go with him. Yes; that is best. To walk again as
a chela with my lama when he comes back to Benares.'
The thoughts
came more slowly and disconnectedly. He was plunging
into a beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a
whisper, thin and sharp, above the monotonous babble
round the fire. It came from behind the iron-skinned
horse-truck.
'He is not
here, then?'
'Where
should he be but roystering in the city. Who looks
for a rat in a frog-pond? Come away. He is not our
man.'
'He must not
go back beyond the Passes a second time. It is the
order.'
'Hire some
woman to drug him. It is a few rupees only, and
there is no evidence.'
'Except the
woman. It must be more certain; and remember the
price upon his head.'
'Ay, but the
police have a long arm, and we are far from the
Border. If it were in Peshawur, now!'
'Yes—in
Peshawur,' the second voice sneered. 'Peshawur, full
of his blood-kin—full of bolt-holes and women behind
whose clothes he will hide. Yes, Peshawur or
Jehannum would suit us equally well.'
'Then what
is the plan?'
'O fool,
have I not told it a hundred times? Wait till he
comes to lie down, and then one sure shot. The
trucks are between us and pursuit. We have but to
run back over the lines and go our way. They will
not see whence the shot came. Wait here at least
till the dawn. What manner of fakir art thou, to
shiver at a little watching?'
'Oho!'
thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes. 'Once again it
is Mahbub. Indeed a white stallion's pedigree is not
a good thing to peddle to Sahibs! Or maybe Mahbub
has been selling other news. Now what is to do, Kim?
I know not where Mahbub houses, and if he comes here
before the dawn they will shoot him. That would be
no profit for thee, Kim. And this is not a matter
for the police. That would be no profit for Mahbub;
and'—he giggled almost aloud—'I do not remember any
lesson at Nucklao which will help me. Allah! Here is
Kim and yonder are they. First, then, Kim must wake
and go away, so that they shall not suspect. A bad
dream wakes a man—thus—'
He threw the
blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly
with the terrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the
Asiatic roused by nightmare.
'Urr-urr-urr-urr! Ya-la-la-la-la! Narain! The
churel! The churel!'
A churel is
the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has
died in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet
are turned backwards on the ankles, and she leads
men to torment.
Louder rose
Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his
feet and staggered off sleepily, while the camp
cursed him for waking them. Some twenty yards
farther up the line he lay down again, taking care
that the whisperers should hear his grunts and
groans as he recomposed himself. After a few minutes
he rolled towards the road and stole away into the
thick darkness.
He paddled
along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped
behind it, his chin on a level with the
coping-stone. Here he could command all the
night-traffic, himself unseen.
Two or three
carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a
coughing policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or
two who sang to keep off evil spirits. Then rapped
the shod feet of a horse.
'Ah! This is
more like Mahbub,' thought Kim, as the beast shied
at the little head above the culvert.
'Ohe',
Mahbub Ali,' he whispered, 'have a care!'
The horse
was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced
towards the culvert.
'Never
again,' said Mahbub, 'will I take a shod horse for
night-work. They pick up all the bones and nails in
the city.' He stooped to lift its forefoot, and that
brought his head within a foot of Kim's.
'Down—keep
down,' he muttered. 'The night is full of eyes.'
'Two men
wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will
shoot thee at thy lying down, because there is a
price on thy head. I heard, sleeping near the
horses.'
'Didst thou
see them? ... Hold still, Sire of Devils!' This
furiously to the horse.
'No.'
'Was one
dressed belike as a fakir?'
'One said to
the other, "What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver
at a little watching?"'
'Good. Go
back to the camp and lie down. I do not die
tonight.'
Mahbub
wheeled his horse and vanished. Kim tore back down
the ditch till he reached a point opposite his
second resting-place, slipped across the road like a
weasel, and re-coiled himself in the blanket.
'At least
Mahbub knows,' he thought contentedly. 'And
certainly he spoke as one expecting it. I do not
think those two men will profit by tonight's watch.'
An hour
passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep
awake all night, he slept deeply. Now and again a
night train roared along the metals within twenty
feet of him; but he had all the Oriental's
indifference to mere noise, and it did not even
weave a dream through his slumber.
Mahbub was
anything but asleep. It annoyed him vehemently that
people outside his tribe and unaffected by his
casual amours should pursue him for the life. His
first and natural impulse was to cross the line
lower down, work up again, and, catching his
well-wishers from behind, summarily slay them. Here,
he reflected with sorrow, another branch of the
Government, totally unconnected with Colonel
Creighton, might demand explanations which would be
hard to supply; and he knew that south of the Border
a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse
or so. He had not been troubled in this way since he
sent Kim to Umballa with the message, and hoped that
suspicion had been finally diverted.
Then a most
brilliant notion struck him.
'The English
do eternally tell the truth,' he said, 'therefore we
of this country are eternally made foolish. By
Allah, I will tell the truth to an Englishman! Of
what use is the Government police if a poor Kabuli
be robbed of his horses in their very trucks. This
is as bad as Peshawur! I should lay a complaint at
the station. Better still, some young Sahib on the
Railway! They are zealous, and if they catch thieves
it is remembered to their honour.'
He tied up
his horse outside the station, and strode on to the
platform.
'Hullo,
Mahbub Ali' said a young Assistant District Traffic
Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line—a
tall, tow-haired, horsey youth in dingy white linen.
'What are you doing here? Selling weeds—eh?'
'No; I am
not troubled for my horses. I come to look for Lutuf
Ullah. I have a truck-load up the line. Could anyone
take them out without the Railway's knowledge?'
'Shouldn't
think so, Mahbub. You can claim against us if they
do.'
'I have seen
two men crouching under the wheels of one of the
trucks nearly all night. Fakirs do not steal horses,
so I gave them no more thought. I would find Lutuf
Ullah, my partner.'
'The deuce
you did? And you didn't bother your head about it?
'Pon my word, it's just almost as well that I met
you. What were they like, eh?'
'They were
only fakirs. They will no more than take a little
grain, perhaps, from one of the trucks. There are
many up the line. The State will never miss the
dole. I came here seeking for my partner, Lutuf
Ullah.'
'Never mind
your partner. Where are your horse-trucks?'
'A little to
this side of the farthest place where they make
lamps for the trains.'—
'The
signal-box! Yes.'
'And upon
the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand
side—looking up the line thus. But as regards Lutuf
Ullah—a tall man with a broken nose, and a Persian
greyhound Aie!'
The boy had
hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic
policeman; for, as he said, the Railway had suffered
much from depredations in the goods-yard. Mahbub Ali
chuckled in his dyed beard.
'They will
walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they
will wonder why there are no fakirs. They are very
clever boys—Barton Sahib and Young Sahib.'
He waited
idly for a few minutes, expecting to see them hurry
up the line girt for action. A light engine slid
through the station, and he caught a glimpse of
young Barton in the cab.
'I did that
child an injustice. He is not altogether a fool,'
said Mahbub Ali. 'To take a fire-carriage for a
thief is a new game!'
When Mahbub
Ali came to his camp in the dawn, no one thought it
worth while to tell him any news of the night. No
one, at least, but one small horseboy, newly
advanced to the great man's service, whom Mahbub
called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing.
'It is all
known to me,' whispered Kim, bending above
saddlebags. 'Two Sahibs came up on a te-train. I was
running to and fro in the dark on this side of the
trucks as the te-train moved up and down slowly.
They fell upon two men sitting under this
truck—Hajji, what shall I do with this lump of
tobacco? Wrap it in paper and put it under the
salt-bag? Yes—and struck them down. But one man
struck at a Sahib with a fakir's buck's horn' (Kim
meant the conjoined black-buck horns, which are a
fakir's sole temporal weapon)—'the blood came. So
the other Sahib, first smiting his own man
senseless, smote the stabber with a short gun which
had rolled from the first man's hand. They all raged
as though mad together.'
Mahbub
smiled with heavenly resignation. 'No! That is not
so much dewanee [madness, or a case for the civil
court—the word can be punned upon both ways] as
nizamut [a criminal case]. A gun, sayest thou? Ten
good years in jail.'
'Then they
both lay still, but I think they were nearly dead
when they were put on the te-train. Their heads
moved thus. And there is much blood on the line.
Come and see?'
'I have seen
blood before. Jail is the sure place—and assuredly
they will give false names, and assuredly no man
will find them for a long time. They were unfriends
of mine. Thy fate and mine seem on one string. What
a tale for the healer of pearls! Now swiftly with
the saddle-bags and the cooking-platter. We will
take out the horses and away to Simla.'
Swiftly—as
Orientals understand speed—with long explanations,
with abuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a
hundred checks for little things forgotten, the
untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen stiff
and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh
of the rain-swept dawn. Kim, regarded as Mahbub
Ali's favourite by all who wished to stand well with
the Pathan, was not called upon to work. They
strolled on by the easiest of stages, halting every
few hours at a wayside shelter. Very many Sahibs
travel along the Kalka road; and, as Mahbub Ali
says, every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a
judge of a horse, and, though he be over head in
debt to the money-lender, must make as if to buy.
That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib, rolling
along in a stage-carriage, would stop and open talk.
Some would even descend from their vehicles and feel
the horses' legs; asking inane questions, or,
through sheer ignorance of the vernacular, grossly
insulting the imperturbable trader.
'When first
I dealt with Sahibs, and that was when Colonel Soady
Sahib was Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the
Commissioner's camping-ground for spite,' Mahbub
confided to Kim as the boy filled his pipe under a
tree, 'I did not know how greatly they were fools,
and this made me wroth. As thus—,' and he told Kim a
tale of an expression, misused in all innocence,
that doubled Kim up with mirth. 'Now I see,
however,'—he exhaled smoke slowly—'that it is with
them as with all men—in certain matters they are
wise, and in others most foolish. Very foolish it is
to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the
heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger
to know that? He is more like to search truth with a
dagger.'
'True. True
talk,' said Kim solemnly. 'Fools speak of a cat when
a woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have
heard them.'
'Therefore,
in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves
thee to remember this with both kinds of faces.
Among Sahibs, never forgetting thou art a Sahib;
among the folk of Hind, always remembering thou
art—' He paused, with a puzzled smile.
'What am I?
Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard
knot.'
'Thou art
beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou
wilt be damned. So says my Law—or I think it does.
But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World,
and I love thee. So says my heart. This matter of
creeds is like horseflesh. The wise man knows horses
are good—that there is a profit to be made from all;
and for myself—but that I am a good Sunni and hate
the men of Tirah—I could believe the same of all the
Faiths. Now manifestly a Kathiawar mare taken from
the sands of her birthplace and removed to the west
of Bengal founders—nor is even a Balkh stallion (and
there are no better horses than those of Balkh, were
they not so heavy in the shoulder) of any account in
the great Northern deserts beside the snow-camels I
have seen. Therefore I say in my heart the Faiths
are like the horses. Each has merit in its own
country.'
'But my lama
said altogether a different thing.'
'Oh, he is
an old dreamer of dreams from Bhotiyal. My heart is
a little angry, Friend of all the World, that thou
shouldst see such worth in a man so little known.'
'It is true,
Hajji; but that worth do I see, and to him my heart
is drawn.'
'And his to
thine, I hear. Hearts are like horses. They come and
they go against bit or spur. Shout Gul Sher Khan
yonder to drive in that bay stallion's pickets more
firmly. We do not want a horse-fight at every
resting-stage, and the dun and the black will be
locked in a little ... Now hear me. Is it necessary
to the comfort of thy heart to see that lama?'
'It is one
part of my bond,' said Kim. 'If I do not see him,
and if he is taken from me, I will go out of that
madrissah in Nucklao and, and—once gone, who is to
find me again?'
'It is true.
Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than
thou.' Mahbub nodded his head.
'Do not be
afraid.' Kim spoke as though he could have vanished
on the moment. 'My lama has said that he will come
to see me at the madrissah—'
'A beggar
and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa—'
'Not all!'
Kim cut in with a snort. 'Their eyes are blued and
their nails are blackened with low-caste blood, many
of them. Sons of mehteranees—brothers-in-law to the
bhungi [sweeper].'
We need not
follow the rest of the pedigree; but Kim made his
little point clearly and without heat, chewing a
piece of sugar-cane the while.
'Friend of
all the World,' said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe
for the boy to clean, 'I have met many men, women,
and boys, and not a few Sahibs. I have never in all
my days met such an imp as thou art.'
'And why?
When I always tell thee the truth.'
'Perhaps the
very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest
men.' Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground, girt
in his belt, and went over to the horses.
'Or sell
it?'
There was
that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn.
'What new devilry?'
'Eight
annas, and I will tell,' said Kim, grinning. 'It
touches thy peace.'
'O Shaitan!'
Mahbub gave the money.
'Rememberest
thou the little business of the thieves in the dark,
down yonder at Umballa?'
'Seeing they
sought my life, I have not altogether forgotten.
Why?'
'Rememberest
thou the Kashmir Serai?'
'I will
twist thy ears in a moment—Sahib.'
'No
need—Pathan. Only, the second fakir, whom the Sahibs
beat senseless, was the man who came to search thy
bulkhead at Lahore. I saw his face as they helped
him on the engine. The very same man.'
'Why didst
thou not tell before?'
'Oh, he will
go to jail, and be safe for some years. There is no
need to tell more than is necessary at any one time.
Besides, I did not then need money for sweetmeats.'
'Allah
kerim!' said Mahbub Ah. 'Wilt thou some day sell my
head for a few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee?'
Kim will
remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from
Umballa, through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near
by, up to Simla. A sudden spate in the Gugger River
swept down one horse (the most valuable, be sure),
and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders.
Farther up the road the horses were stampeded by a
Government elephant, and being in high condition of
grass food, it cost a day and a half to get them
together again. Then they met Sikandar Khan coming
down with a few unsaleable screws—remnants of his
string—and Mahbub, who has more of horse-coping in
his little fingernail than Sikandar Khan in all his
tents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that
meant eight hours' laborious diplomacy and untold
tobacco. But it was all pure delight—the wandering
road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the
growing spurs; the flush of the morning laid along
the distant snows; the branched cacti, tier upon
tier on the stony hillsides; the voices of a
thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys;
the solemn deodars, climbing one after another with
down-drooped branches; the vista of the Plains
rolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging
of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led
horses when a tonga swung round a curve; the halts
for prayers (Mahbub was very religious in
dry-washings and bellowings when time did not
press); the evening conferences by the
halting-places, when camels and bullocks chewed
solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the
news of the Road—all these things lifted Kim's heart
to song within him.
'But, when
the singing and dancing is done,' said Mahbub Ali,
'comes the Colonel Sahib's, and that is not so
sweet.'
'A fair
land—a most beautiful land is this of Hind—and the
land of the Five Rivers is fairer than all,' Kim
half chanted. 'Into it I will go again if Mahbub Ali
or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me. Once
gone, who shall find me? Look, Hajji, is yonder the
city of Simla? Allah, what a city!'
'My father's
brother, and he was an old man when Mackerson
Sahib's well was new at Peshawur, could recall when
there were but two houses in it.'
He led the
horses below the main road into the lower Simla
bazar—the crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from
the valley to the Town Hall at an angle of
forty-five. A man who knows his way there can defy
all the police of India's summer capital, so
cunningly does veranda communicate with veranda,
alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with
bolt-hole. Here live those who minister to the wants
of the glad city—jhampanis who pull the pretty
ladies' 'rickshaws by night and gamble till the
dawn; grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors,
firewood-dealers, priests, pickpockets, and native
employees of the Government. Here are discussed by
courtesans the things which are supposed to be
profoundest secrets of the India Council; and here
gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the Native
States. Here, too, Mahbub Ali rented a room, much
more securely locked than his bulkhead at Lahore, in
the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer. It was a
place of miracles, too, for there went in at
twilight a Mohammedan horseboy, and there came out
an hour later a Eurasian lad—the Lucknow girl's dye
was of the best—in badly-fitting shop-clothes.
'I have
spoken with Creighton Sahib,' quoth Mahbub Ali, 'and
a second time has the Hand of Friendship averted the
Whip of Calamity. He says that thou hast altogether
wasted sixty days upon the Road, and it is too late,
therefore, to send thee to any Hill-school.'
'I have said
that my holidays are my own. I do not go to school
twice over. That is one part of my bond.'
'The Colonel
Sahib is not yet aware of that contract. Thou art to
lodge in Lurgan Sahib's house till it is time to go
again to Nucklao.'
'I had
sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub.'
'Thou dost
not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for
thee. Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road
atop, and there thou must forget for a while that
thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub Ali, who
sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not
know. Remember this order.'
Kim nodded.
'Good,' said he, 'and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay'—he
caught Mahbub's sword-keen glance—'indeed I have
never heard his name. Is he by chance—he lowered his
voice—'one of us?'
'What talk
is this of us, Sahib?' Mahbub Ali returned, in the
tone he used towards Europeans. 'I am a Pathan; thou
art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has
a shop among the European shops. All Simla knows it.
Ask there ... and, Friend of all the World, he is
one to be obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes.
Men say he does magic, but that should not touch
thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here begins the Great
Game.'

Chapter 9
S' doaks
was son of Yelth the wise—
Chief of the Raven clan.
Itswoot the Bear had him in care
To make him a medicine-man.
He was quick and quicker to learn—
Bold and bolder to dare:
He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance
To tickle Itswoot the Bear!
Oregon Legend
Kim flung himself
whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel. He
would be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so
soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla
Town Hall, he cast about for one to impress. A Hindu
child, some ten years old, squatted under a
lamp-post.
'Where is Mr
Lurgan's house?' demanded Kim.
'I do not
understand English,' was the answer, and Kim shifted
his speech accordingly.
'I will
show.'
Together
they set off through the mysterious dusk, full of
the noises of a city below the hillside, and the
breath of a cool wind in deodar-crowned Jakko,
shouldering the stars. The house-lights, scattered
on every level, made, as it were, a double
firmament. Some were fixed, others belonged to the
'rickshaws of the careless, open-spoken English
folk, going out to dinner.
'It is
here,' said Kim's guide, and halted in a veranda
flush with the main road. No door stayed them, but a
curtain of beaded reeds that split up the lamplight
beyond.
'He is
come,' said the boy, in a voice little louder than a
sigh, and vanished. Kim felt sure that the boy had
been posted to guide him from the first, but,
putting a bold face on it, parted the curtain. A
black-bearded man, with a green shade over his eyes,
sat at a table, and, one by one, with short, white
hands, picked up globules of light from a tray
before him, threaded them on a glancing silken
string, and hummed to himself the while. Kim was
conscious that beyond the circle of light the room
was full of things that smelt like all the temples
of all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of
sandal-wood, and a breath of sickly jessamine-oil
caught his opened nostrils.
'I am here,'
said Kim at last, speaking in the vernacular: the
smells made him forget that he was to be a Sahib.
'Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one,' the man counted
to himself, stringing pearl after pearl so quickly
that Kim could scarcely follow his fingers. He slid
off the green shade and looked fixedly at Kim for a
full half-minute. The pupils of the eye dilated and
closed to pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a
fakir by the Taksali Gate who had just this gift and
made money by it, especially when cursing silly
women. Kim stared with interest. His disreputable
friend could further twitch his ears, almost like a
goat, and Kim was disappointed that this new man
could not imitate him.
'Do not be
afraid,' said Lurgan Sahib suddenly.
'Why should
I fear?'
'Thou wilt
sleep here tonight, and stay with me till it is time
to go again to Nucklao. It is an order.'
'It is an
order,' Kim repeated. 'But where shall I sleep?'
'Here, in
this room.' Lurgan Sahib waved his hand towards the
darkness behind him.
'So be it,'
said Kim composedly. 'Now?'
He nodded
and held the lamp above his head. As the light swept
them, there leaped out from the walls a collection
of Tibetan devil-dance masks, hanging above the
fiend-embroidered draperies of those ghastly
functions—horned masks, scowling masks, and masks of
idiotic terror. In a corner, a Japanese warrior,
mailed and plumed, menaced him with a halberd, and a
score of lances and khandas and kuttars gave back
the unsteady gleam. But what interested Kim more
than all these things—he had seen devil-dance masks
at the Lahore Museum—was a glimpse of the soft-eyed
Hindu child who had left him in the doorway, sitting
cross-legged under the table of pearls with a little
smile on his scarlet lips.
'I think
that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid. And I am
sure that that devil's brat below the table wishes
to see me afraid.
'This
place,' he said aloud, 'is like a Wonder House.
Where is my bed?'
Lurgan Sahib
pointed to a native quilt in a corner by the
loathsome masks, picked up the lamp, and left the
room black.
'Was that
Lurgan Sahib?' Kim asked as he cuddled down. No
answer. He could hear the Hindu boy breathing,
however, and, guided by the sound, crawled across
the floor, and cuffed into the darkness, crying:
'Give answer, devil! Is this the way to lie to a
Sahib?'
From the
darkness he fancied he could hear the echo of a
chuckle. It could not be his soft-fleshed companion,
because he was weeping. So Kim lifted up his voice
and called aloud:
'Lurgan
Sahib! O Lurgan Sahib! Is it an order that thy
servant does not speak to me?'
'It is an
order.' The voice came from behind him and he
started.
'Very good.
But remember,' he muttered, as he resought the
quilt, 'I will beat thee in the morning. I do not
love Hindus.'
That was no
cheerful night; the room being overfull of voices
and music. Kim was waked twice by someone calling
his name. The second time he set out in search, and
ended by bruising his nose against a box that
certainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort
of human accent. It seemed to end in a tin trumpet
and to be joined by wires to a smaller box on the
floor—so far, at least, as he could judge by touch.
And the voice, very hard and whirring, came out of
the trumpet. Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious,
thinking, as usual, in Hindi.
'This with a
beggar from the bazar might be good, but—I am a
Sahib and the son of a Sahib and, which is twice as
much more beside, a student of Nucklao. Yess' (here
he turned to English), 'a boy of St Xavier's. Damn
Mr Lurgan's eyes!—It is some sort of machinery like
a sewing-machine. Oh, it is a great cheek of him—we
are not frightened that way at Lucknow—No!' Then in
Hindi: 'But what does he gain? He is only a trader—I
am in his shop. But Creighton Sahib is a Colonel—and
I think Creighton Sahib gave orders that it should
be done. How I will beat that Hindu in the morning!
What is this?'
The
trumpet-box was pouring out a string of the most
elaborate abuse that even Kim had ever heard, in a
high uninterested voice, that for a moment lifted
the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing
drew breath, Kim was reassured by the soft,
sewing-machine-like whirr.
'Chup! [Be
still]' he cried, and again he heard a chuckle that
decided him. 'Chup—or I break your head.'
The box took
no heed. Kim wrenched at the tin trumpet and
something lifted with a click. He had evidently
raised a lid. If there were a devil inside, now was
its time, for—he sniffed—thus did the
sewing-machines of the bazar smell. He would clean
that shaitan. He slipped off his jacket, and plunged
it into the box's mouth. Something long and round
bent under the pressure, there was a whirr and the
voice stopped—as voices must if you ram a
thrice-doubled coat on to the wax cylinder and into
the works of an expensive phonograph. Kim finished
his slumbers with a serene mind.
In the
morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib looking down on
him.
'Oah!' said
Kim, firmly resolved to cling to his Sahib-dom.
'There was a box in the night that gave me bad talk.
So I stopped it. Was it your box?'
The man held
out his hand.
'Shake
hands, O'Hara,' he said. 'Yes, it was my box. I keep
such things because my friends the Rajahs like them.
That one is broken, but it was cheap at the price.
Yes, my friends, the Kings, are very fond of
toys—and so am I sometimes.'
Kim looked
him over out of the corners of his eyes. He was a
Sahib in that he wore Sahib's clothes; the accent of
his Urdu, the intonation of his English, showed that
he was anything but a Sahib. He seemed to understand
what moved in Kim's mind ere the boy opened his
mouth, and he took no pains to explain himself as
did Father Victor or the Lucknow masters. Sweetest
of all—he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiatic
side.
'I am sorry
you cannot beat my boy this morning. He says he will
kill you with a knife or poison. He is jealous, so I
have put him in the corner and I shall not speak to
him today. He has just tried to kill me. You must
help me with the breakfast. He is almost too jealous
to trust, just now.'
Now a
genuine imported Sahib from England would have made
a great to-do over this tale. Lurgan Sahib stated it
as simply as Mahbub Ali was used to record his
little affairs in the North.
The back
veranda of the shop was built out over the sheer
hillside, and they looked down into their
neighbours' chimney-pots, as is the custom of Simla.
But even more than the purely Persian meal cooked by
Lurgan Sahib with his own hands, the shop fascinated
Kim. The Lahore Museum was larger, but here were
more wonders—ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels from
Tibet; turquoise and raw amber necklaces; green jade
bangles; curiously packed incense-sticks in jars
crusted over with raw garnets; the devil-masks of
overnight and a wall full of peacock-blue draperies;
gilt figures of Buddha, and little portable lacquer
altars; Russian samovars with turquoises on the lid;
egg-shell china sets in quaint octagonal cane boxes;
yellow ivory crucifixes—from Japan of all places in
the world, so Lurgan Sahib said; carpets in dusty
bales, smelling atrociously, pushed back behind torn
and rotten screens of geometrical work; Persian
water-jugs for the hands after meals; dull copper
incense-burners neither Chinese nor Persian, with
friezes of fantastic devils running round them;
tarnished silver belts that knotted like raw hide;
hairpins of jade, ivory, and plasma; arms of all
sorts and kinds, and a thousand other oddments were
cased, or piled, or merely thrown into the room,
leaving a clear space only round the rickety deal
table, where Lurgan Sahib worked.
'Those
things are nothing,' said his host, following Kim's
glance. 'I buy them because they are pretty, and
sometimes I sell—if I like the buyer's look. My work
is on the table—some of it.'
It blazed in
the morning light—all red and blue and green
flashes, picked out with the vicious blue-white
spurt of a diamond here and there. Kim opened his
eyes.
'Oh, they
are quite well, those stones. It will not hurt them
to take the sun. Besides, they are cheap. But with
sick stones it is very different.' He piled Kim's
plate anew. 'There is no one but me can doctor a
sick pearl and re-blue turquoises. I grant you
opals—any fool can cure an opal—but for a sick pearl
there is only me. Suppose I were to die! Then there
would be no one ... Oh no! You cannot do anything
with jewels. It will be quite enough if you
understand a little about the Turquoise—some day.'
He moved to
the end of the veranda to refill the heavy, porous
clay water-jug from the filter.
'Do you want
drink?'
Kim nodded.
Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet off, laid one hand on the
jar. Next instant, it stood at Kim's elbow, full to
within half an inch of the brim—the white cloth only
showing, by a small wrinkle, where it had slid into
place.
'Wah!' said
Kim in most utter amazement. 'That is magic.' Lurgan
Sahib's smile showed that the compliment had gone
home.
'Throw it
back.'
'It will
break.'
'I say,
throw it back.'
Kim pitched
it at random. It fell short and crashed into fifty
pieces, while the water dripped through the rough
veranda boarding.
'I said it
would break.'
'All one.
Look at it. Look at the largest piece.'
That lay
with a sparkle of water in its curve, as it were a
star on the floor. Kim looked intently. Lurgan Sahib
laid one hand gently on the nape of his neck,
stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered: 'Look! It
shall come to life again, piece by piece. First the
big piece shall join itself to two others on the
right and the left—on the right and the left. Look!'
To save his
life, Kim could not have turned his head. The light
touch held him as in a vice, and his blood tingled
pleasantly through him. There was one large piece of
the jar where there had been three, and above them
the shadowy outline of the entire vessel. He could
see the veranda through it, but it was thickening
and darkening with each beat of his pulse. Yet the
jar—how slowly the thoughts came!—the jar had been
smashed before his eyes. Another wave of prickling
fire raced down his neck, as Lurgan Sahib moved his
hand.
'Look! It is
coming into shape,' said Lurgan Sahib.
So far Kim
had been thinking in Hindi, but a tremor came on
him, and with an effort like that of a swimmer
before sharks, who hurls himself half out of the
water, his mind leaped up from a darkness that was
swallowing it and took refuge in—the
multiplication-table in English!
'Look! It is
coming into shape,' whispered Lurgan Sahib.
The jar had
been smashed—yess, smashed—not the native word, he
would not think of that—but smashed—into fifty
pieces, and twice three was six, and thrice three
was nine, and four times three was twelve. He clung
desperately to the repetition. The shadow-outline of
the jar cleared like a mist after rubbing eyes.
There were the broken shards; there was the spilt
water drying in the sun, and through the cracks of
the veranda showed, all ribbed, the white house-wall
below—and thrice twelve was thirty-six!
'Look! Is it
coming into shape?' asked Lurgan Sahib.
'But it is
smashed—smashed,' he gasped—Lurgan Sahib had been
muttering softly for the last half-minute. Kim
wrenched his head aside. 'Look! Dekho! It is there
as it was there.'
'It is there
as it was there,' said Lurgan, watching Kim closely
while the boy rubbed his neck. 'But you are the
first of many who has ever seen it so.' He wiped his
broad forehead.
'Was that
more magic?' Kim asked suspiciously. The tingle had
gone from his veins; he felt unusually wide awake.
'No, that
was not magic. It was only to see if there was—a
flaw in a jewel. Sometimes very fine jewels will fly
all to pieces if a man holds them in his hand, and
knows the proper way. That is why one must be
careful before one sets them. Tell me, did you see
the shape of the pot?'
'For a
little time. It began to grow like a flower from the
ground.'
'And then
what did you do? I mean, how did you think?'
'Oah! I knew
it was broken, and so, I think, that was what I
thought—and it was broken.'
'Hm! Has
anyone ever done that same sort of magic to you
before?'
'If it was,'
said Kim 'do you think I should let it again? I
should run away.'
'And now you
are not afraid—eh?'
'Not now.'
Lurgan Sahib
looked at him more closely than ever. 'I shall ask
Mahbub Ali—not now, but some day later,' he
muttered. 'I am pleased with you—yes; and I am
pleased with you—no. You are the first that ever
saved himself. I wish I knew what it was that ...
But you are right. You should not tell that—not even
to me.'
He turned
into the dusky gloom of the shop, and sat down at
the table, rubbing his hands softly. A small, husky
sob came from behind a pile of carpets. It was the
Hindu child obediently facing towards the wall. His
thin shoulders worked with grief.
'Ah! He is
jealous, so jealous. I wonder if he will try to
poison me again in my breakfast, and make me cook it
twice.
'Kubbee—kubbee nahin [Never—never. No!]', came the
broken answer.
'And whether
he will kill this other boy?'
'Kubbee—kubbee nahin.'
'What do you
think he will do?' He turned suddenly on Kim.
'Oah! I do
not know. Let him go, perhaps. Why did he want to
poison you?'
'Because he
is so fond of me. Suppose you were fond of someone,
and you saw someone come, and the man you were fond
of was more pleased with him than he was with you,
what would you do?'
Kim thought.
Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the
vernacular. 'I should not poison that man,' said Kim
reflectively, 'but I should beat that boy—if that
boy was fond of my man. But first, I would ask that
boy if it were true.'
'Ah! He
thinks everyone must be fond of me.'
'Then I
think he is a fool.'
'Hearest
thou?' said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking shoulders.
'The Sahib's son thinks thou art a little fool. Come
out, and next time thy heart is troubled, do not try
white arsenic quite so openly. Surely the Devil
Dasim was lord of our table-cloth that day! It might
have made me ill, child, and then a stranger would
have guarded the jewels. Come!'
The child,
heavy-eyed with much weeping, crept out from behind
the bale and flung himself passionately at Lurgan
Sahib's feet, with an extravagance of remorse that
impressed even Kim.
'I will look
into the ink-pools—I will faithfully guard the
jewels! Oh, my Father and my Mother, send him away!'
He indicated Kim with a backward jerk of his bare
heel.
'Not yet—not
yet. In a little while he will go away again. But
now he is at school—at a new madrissah—and thou
shalt be his teacher. Play the Play of the Jewels
against him. I will keep tally.'
The child
dried his tears at once, and dashed to the back of
the shop, whence he returned with a copper tray.
'Give me!'
he said to Lurgan Sahib. 'Let them come from thy
hand, for he may say that I knew them before.'
'Gently—gently,' the man replied, and from a drawer
under the table dealt a half-handful of clattering
trifles into the tray.
'Now,' said
the child, waving an old newspaper. 'Look on them as
long as thou wilt, stranger. Count and, if need be,
handle. One look is enough for me.' He turned his
back proudly.
'But what is
the game?'
'When thou
hast counted and handled and art sure that thou
canst remember them all, I cover them with this
paper, and thou must tell over the tally to Lurgan
Sahib. I will write mine.'
'Oah!' The
instinct of competition waked in his breast. He bent
over the tray. There were but fifteen stones on it.
'That is easy,' he said after a minute. The child
slipped the paper over the winking jewels and
scribbled in a native account-book.
'There are
under that paper five blue stones—one big, one
smaller, and three small,' said Kim, all in haste.
'There are four green stones, and one with a hole in
it; there is one yellow stone that I can see
through, and one like a pipe-stem. There are two red
stones, and—and—I made the count fifteen, but two I
have forgotten. No! Give me time. One was of ivory,
little and brownish; and—and—give me time...'
'One—two'—Lurgan Sahib counted him out up to ten.
Kim shook his head.
'Hear my
count!' the child burst in, trilling with laughter.
'First, are two flawed sapphires—one of two ruttees
and one of four as I should judge. The four-ruttee
sapphire is chipped at the edge. There is one
Turkestan turquoise, plain with black veins, and
there are two inscribed—one with a Name of God in
gilt, and the other being cracked across, for it
came out of an old ring, I cannot read. We have now
all five blue stones. Four flawed emeralds there
are, but one is drilled in two places, and one is a
little carven-'
'Their
weights?' said Lurgan Sahib impassively.
'Three—five—five—and four ruttees as I judge it.
There is one piece of old greenish pipe amber, and a
cut topaz from Europe. There is one ruby of Burma,
of two ruttees, without a flaw, and there is a
balas-ruby, flawed, of two ruttees. There is a
carved ivory from China representing a rat sucking
an egg; and there is last—ah ha!—a ball of crystal
as big as a bean set on a gold leaf.'
He clapped
his hands at the close.
'He is thy
master,' said Lurgan Sahib, smiling.
'Huh! He
knew the names of the stones,' said Kim, flushing.
'Try again! With common things such as he and I both
know.'
They heaped
the tray again with odds and ends gathered from the
shop, and even the kitchen, and every time the child
won, till Kim marvelled.
'Bind my
eyes—let me feel once with my fingers, and even then
I will leave thee opened-eyed behind,' he
challenged.
Kim stamped
with vexation when the lad made his boast good.
'If it were
men—or horses,' he said, 'I could do better. This
playing with tweezers and knives and scissors is too
little.'
'Learn
first—teach later,' said Lurgan Sahib. 'Is he thy
master?'
'Truly. But
how is it done?'
'By doing it
many times over till it is done perfectly—for it is
worth doing.'
The Hindu
boy, in highest feather, actually patted Kim on the
back.
'Do not
despair,' he said. 'I myself will teach thee.'
'And I will
see that thou art well taught,' said Lurgan Sahib,
still speaking in the vernacular, 'for except my boy
here—it was foolish of him to buy so much white
arsenic when, if he had asked, I could have given
it—except my boy here I have not in a long time met
with one better worth teaching. And there are ten
days more ere thou canst return to Lucknao where
they teach nothing—at the long price. We shall, I
think, be friends.'
They were a
most mad ten days, but Kim enjoyed himself too much
to reflect on their craziness. In the morning they
played the Jewel Game—sometimes with veritable
stones, sometimes with piles of swords and daggers,
sometimes with photo-graphs of natives. Through the
afternoons he and the Hindu boy would mount guard in
the shop, sitting dumb behind a carpet-bale or a
screen and watching Mr Lurgan's many and very
curious visitors. There were small Rajahs, escorts
coughing in the veranda, who came to buy
curiosities—such as phonographs and mechanical toys.
There were ladies in search of necklaces, and men,
it seemed to Kim—but his mind may have been vitiated
by early training—in search of the ladies; natives
from independent and feudatory Courts whose
ostensible business was the repair of broken
necklaces—rivers of light poured out upon the
table—but whose true end seemed to be to raise money
for angry Maharanees or young Rajahs. There were
Babus to whom Lurgan Sahib talked with austerity and
authority, but at the end of each interview he gave
them money in coined silver and currency notes.
There were occasional gatherings of long-coated
theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics in
English and Bengali, to Mr Lurgan's great
edification. He was always interested in religions.
At the end of the day, Kim and the Hindu boy—whose
name varied at Lurgan's pleasure—were expected to
give a detailed account of all that they had seen
and heard—their view of each man's character, as
shown in his face, talk, and manner, and their
notions of his real errand. After dinner, Lurgan
Sahib's fancy turned more to what might be called
dressing-up, in which game he took a most informing
interest. He could paint faces to a marvel; with a
brush-dab here and a line there changing them past
recognition. The shop was full of all manner of
dresses and turbans, and Kim was apparelled
variously as a young Mohammedan of good family, an
oilman, and once—which was a joyous evening—as the
son of an Oudh landholder in the fullest of full
dress. Lurgan Sahib had a hawk's eye to detect the
least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn
teak-wood couch, would explain by the half-hour
together how such and such a caste talked, or
walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since
'hows' matter little in this world, the 'why' of
everything. The Hindu child played this game
clumsily. That little mind, keen as an icicle where
tally of jewels was concerned, could not temper
itself to enter another's soul; but a demon in Kim
woke up and sang with joy as he put on the changing
dresses, and changed speech and gesture therewith.
Carried away
by enthusiasm, he volunteered to show Lurgan Sahib
one evening how the disciples of a certain caste of
fakir, old Lahore acquaintances, begged doles by the
roadside; and what sort of language he would use to
an Englishman, to a Punjabi farmer going to a fair,
and to a woman without a veil. Lurgan Sahib laughed
immensely, and begged Kim to stay as he was,
immobile for half an hour—cross-legged, ash-smeared,
and wild-eyed, in the back room. At the end of that
time entered a hulking, obese Babu whose stockinged
legs shook with fat, and Kim opened on him with a
shower of wayside chaff. Lurgan Sahib—this annoyed
Kim—watched the Babu and not the play.
'I think,'
said the Babu heavily, lighting a cigarette, 'I am
of opeenion that it is most extraordinary and
effeecient performance. Except that you had told me
I should have opined that—that—that you were pulling
my legs. How soon can he become approximately
effeecient chain-man? Because then I shall indent
for him.'
'That is
what he must learn at Lucknow.'
'Then order
him to be jolly-dam'-quick. Good-night, Lurgan.' The
Babu swung out with the gait of a bogged cow.
When they
were telling over the day's list of visitors, Lurgan
Sahib asked Kim who he thought the man might be.
'God knows!'
said Kim cheerily. The tone might almost have
deceived Mahbub Ali, but it failed entirely with the
healer of sick pearls.
'That is
true. God, He knows; but I wish to know what you
think.'
Kim glanced
sideways at his companion, whose eye had a way of
compelling truth.
'I—I think
he will want me when I come from the school,
but'—confidentially, as Lurgan Sahib nodded
approval—'I do not understand how he can wear many
dresses and talk many tongues.'
'Thou wilt
understand many things later. He is a writer of
tales for a certain Colonel. His honour is great
only in Simla, and it is noticeable that he has no
name, but only a number and a letter—that is a
custom among us.'
'And is
there a price upon his head too—as upon Mah—all the
others?'
'Not yet;
but if a boy rose up who is now sitting here and
went—look, the door is open!—as far as a certain
house with a red-painted veranda, behind that which
was the old theatre in the Lower Bazar, and
whispered through the shutters: "Hurree Chunder
Mookerjee bore the bad news of last month", that boy
might take away a belt full of rupees.'
'How many?'
said Kim promptly.
'Five
hundred—a thousand—as many as he might ask for.'
'Good. And
for how long might such a boy live after the news
was told?' He smiled merrily at Lurgan's Sahib's
very beard.
'Ah! That is
to be well thought of. Perhaps if he were very
clever, he might live out the day—but not the night.
By no means the night.'
'Then what
is the Babu's pay if so much is put upon his head?'
'Eighty—perhaps a hundred—perhaps a hundred and
fifty rupees; but the pay is the least part of the
work. From time to time, God causes men to be
born—and thou art one of them—who have a lust to go
abroad at the risk of their lives and discover
news—today it may be of far-off things, tomorrow of
some hidden mountain, and the next day of some
near-by men who have done a foolishness against the
State. These souls are very few; and of these few,
not more than ten are of the best. Among these ten I
count the Babu, and that is curious. How great,
therefore, and desirable must be a business that
brazens the heart of a Bengali!'
'True. But
the days go slowly for me. I am yet a boy, and it is
only within two months I learned to write Angrezi.
Even now I cannot read it well. And there are yet
years and years and long years before I can be even
a chain-man.'
'Have
patience, Friend of all the World'—Kim started at
the title. 'Would I had a few of the years that so
irk thee. I have proved thee in several small ways.
This will not be forgotten when I make my report to
the Colonel Sahib.' Then, changing suddenly into
English with a deep laugh:
'By Jove!
O'Hara, I think there is a great deal in you; but
you must not become proud and you must not talk. You
must go back to Lucknow and be a good little boy and
mind your book, as the English say, and perhaps,
next holidays if you care, you can come back to me!'
Kim's face fell. 'Oh, I mean if you like. I know
where you want to go.'
Four days
later a seat was booked for Kim and his small trunk
at the rear of a Kalka tonga. His companion was the
whale-like Babu, who, with a fringed shawl wrapped
round his head, and his fat openwork-stockinged left
leg tucked under him, shivered and grunted in the
morning chill.
'How comes
it that this man is one of us?' thought Kim
considering the jelly back as they jolted down the
road; and the reflection threw him into most
pleasant day-dreams. Lurgan Sahib had given him five
rupees—a splendid sum—as well as the assurance of
his protection if he worked. Unlike Mahbub, Lurgan
Sahib had spoken most explicitly of the reward that
would follow obedience, and Kim was content. If
only, like the Babu, he could enjoy the dignity of a
letter and a number—and a price upon his head! Some
day he would be all that and more. Some day he might
be almost as great as Mahbub Ali! The housetops of
his search should be half India; he would follow
Kings and Ministers, as in the old days he had
followed vakils and lawyers' touts across Lahore
city for Mahbub Ali's sake. Meantime, there was the
present, and not at all unpleasant, fact of St
Xavier's immediately before him. There would be new
boys to condescend to, and there would be tales of
holiday adventures to hear. Young Martin, son of the
tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that he would go
to war, with a rifle, against the head-hunters.
That might
be, but it was certain young Martin had not been
blown half across the forecourt of a Patiala palace
by an explosion of fireworks; nor had he... Kim fell
to telling himself the story of his own adventures
through the last three months. He could paralyse St
Xavier's—even the biggest boys who shaved—with the
recital, were that permitted. But it was, of course,
out of the question. There would be a price upon his
head in good time, as Lurgan Sahib had assured him;
and if he talked foolishly now, not only would that
price never be set, but Colonel Creighton would cast
him off—and he would be left to the wrath of Lurgan
Sahib and Mahbub Ali—for the short space of life
that would remain to him.
'So I should
lose Delhi for the sake of a fish,' was his
proverbial philosophy. It behoved him to forget his
holidays (there would always remain the fun of
inventing imaginary adventures) and, as Lurgan Sahib
had said, to work. Of all the boys hurrying back to
St Xavier's, from Sukkur in the sands to Galle
beneath the palms, none was so filled with virtue as
Kimball O'Hara, jiggeting down to Umballa behind
Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, whose name on the books of
one section of the Ethnological Survey was R.17.
And if
additional spur were needed, the Babu supplied it.
After a huge meal at Kalka, he spoke
uninterruptedly. Was Kim going to school? Then he,
an M A of Calcutta University, would explain the
advantages of education. There were marks to be
gained by due attention to Latin and Wordsworth's
Excursion (all this was Greek to Kim). French, too
was vital, and the best was to be picked up in
Chandernagore a few miles from Calcutta. Also a man
might go far, as he himself had done, by strict
attention to plays called Lear and Julius Caesar,
both much in demand by examiners. Lear was not so
full of historical allusions as Julius Caesar; the
book cost four annas, but could be bought
second-hand in Bow Bazar for two. Still more
important than Wordsworth, or the eminent authors,
Burke and Hare, was the art and science of
mensuration. A boy who had passed his examination in
these branches—for which, by the way, there were no
cram-books—could, by merely marching over a country
with a compass and a level and a straight eye, carry
away a picture of that country which might be sold
for large sums in coined silver. But as it was
occasionally inexpedient to carry about
measuring-chains a boy would do well to know the
precise length of his own foot-pace, so that when he
was deprived of what Hurree Chunder called
adventitious aids' he might still tread his
distances. To keep count of thousands of paces,
Hurree Chunder's experience had shown him nothing
more valuable than a rosary of eighty-one or a
hundred and eight beads, for 'it was divisible and
sub-divisible into many multiples and
sub-multiples'. Through the volleying drifts of
English, Kim caught the general trend of the talk,
and it interested him very much. Here was a new
craft that a man could tuck away in his head and by
the look of the large wide world unfolding itself
before him, it seemed that the more a man knew the
better for him.
Said the
Babu when he had talked for an hour and a half 'I
hope some day to enjoy your offeecial acquaintance.
Ad interim, if I may be pardoned that expression, I
shall give you this betel-box, which is highly
valuable article and cost me two rupees only four
years ago.' It was a cheap, heart-shaped brass thing
with three compartments for carrying the eternal
betel-nut, lime and pan-leaf; but it was filled with
little tabloid-bottles.
'That is
reward of merit for your performance in character of
that holy man. You see, you are so young you think
you will last for ever and not take care of your
body. It is great nuisance to go sick in the middle
of business. I am fond of drugs myself, and they are
handy to cure poor people too. These are good
Departmental drugs—quinine and so on. I give it you
for souvenir. Now good-bye. I have urgent private
business here by the roadside.'
He slipped
out noiselessly as a cat, on the Umballa road,
hailed a passing cart and jingled away, while Kim,
tongue-tied, twiddled the brass betel-box in his
hands.
The record
of a boy's education interests few save his parents,
and, as you know, Kim was an orphan. It is written
in the books of St Xavier's in Partibus that a
report of Kim's progress was forwarded at the end of
each term to Colonel Creighton and to Father Victor,
from whose hands duly came the money for his
schooling. It is further recorded in the same books
that he showed a great aptitude for mathematical
studies as well as map-making, and carried away a
prize (The Life of Lord Lawrence, tree-calf, two
vols., nine rupees, eight annas) for proficiency
therein; and the same term played in St Xavier's
eleven against the Alighur Mohammedan College, his
age being fourteen years and ten months. He was also
re-vaccinated (from which we may assume that there
had been another epidemic of smallpox at Lucknow)
about the same time. Pencil notes on the edge of an
old muster-roll record that he was punished several
times for 'conversing with improper persons', and it
seems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for
'absenting himself for a day in the company of a
street beggar'. That was when he got over the gate
and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down
the banks of the Gumti to accompany him on the Road
next holidays—for one month—for a little week; and
the lama set his face as a flint against it,
averring that the time had not yet come. Kim's
business, said the old man as they ate cakes
together, was to get all the wisdom of the Sahibs
and then he would see. The Hand of Friendship must
in some way have averted the Whip of Calamity, for
six weeks later Kim seems to have passed an
examination in elementary surveying 'with great
credit', his age being fifteen years and eight
months. From this date the record is silent. His
name does not appear in the year's batch of those
who entered for the subordinate Survey of India, but
against it stand the words 'removed on appointment.'
Several
times in those three years, cast up at the Temple of
the Tirthankars in Benares the lama, a little
thinner and a shade yellower, if that were possible,
but gentle and untainted as ever. Sometimes it was
from the South that he came—from south of Tuticorin,
whence the wonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon where
are priests who know Pali; sometimes it was from the
wet green West and the thousand cotton-factory
chimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North,
where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to
talk for a day with the Keeper of the Images in the
Wonder House. He would stride to his cell in the
cool, cut marble—the priests of the Temple were good
to the old man,—wash off the dust of travel, make
prayer, and depart for Lucknow, well accustomed now
to the way of the rail, in a third-class carriage.
Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend the
Seeker pointed out to the head-priest, that he
ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River,
or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life,
but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a
certain mysterious chela whom no man of the Temple
had ever seen. Yes, he had followed the traces of
the Blessed Feet throughout all India. (The Curator
has still in his possession a most marvellous
account of his wanderings and meditations.) There
remained nothing more in life but to find the River
of the Arrow. Yet it was shown to him in dreams that
it was a matter not to be undertaken with any hope
of success unless that seeker had with him the one
chela appointed to bring the event to a happy issue,
and versed in great wisdom—such wisdom as
white-haired Keepers of Images possess. For example
(here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain
priests made haste to be silent):
'Long and
long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares—let all
listen to the Tataka!—an elephant was captured for a
time by the king's hunters and ere he broke free,
beringed with a grievous legiron. This he strove to
remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and
hurrying up and down the forests, besought his
brother-elephants to wrench it asunder. One by one,
with their strong trunks, they tried and failed. At
the last they gave it as their opinion that the ring
was not to be broken by any bestial power. And in a
thicket, new-born, wet with moisture of birth, lay a
day-old calf of the herd whose mother had died. The
fettered elephant, forgetting his own agony, said:
"If I do not help this suckling it will perish under
our feet." So he stood above the young thing, making
his legs buttresses against the uneasily moving
herd; and he begged milk of a virtuous cow, and the
calf throve, and the ringed elephant was the calf's
guide and defence. Now the days of an elephant—let
all listen to the Tataka!—are thirty-five years to
his full strength, and through thirty-five Rains the
ringed elephant befriended the younger, and all the
while the fetter ate into the flesh.
'Then one
day the young elephant saw the half-buried iron, and
turning to the elder said: "What is this?" "It is
even my sorrow," said he who had befriended him.
Then that other put out his trunk and in the
twinkling of an eyelash abolished the ring, saying:
"The appointed time has come." So the virtuous
elephant who had waited temperately and done kind
acts was relieved, at the appointed time, by the
very calf whom he had turned aside to cherish—let
all listen to the Tataka! for the Elephant was
Ananda, and the Calf that broke the ring was none
other than The Lord Himself...'
Then he
would shake his head benignly, and over the
ever-clicking rosary point out how free that
elephant-calf was from the sin of pride. He was as
humble as a chela who, seeing his master sitting in
the dust outside the Gates of Learning, over-leapt
the gates (though they were locked) and took his
master to his heart in the presence of the
proud-stomached city. Rich would be the reward of
such a master and such a chela when the time came
for them to seek freedom together!
So did the
lama speak, coming and going across India as softly
as a bat. A sharp-tongued old woman in a house among
the fruit-trees behind Saharunpore honoured him as
the woman honoured the prophet, but his chamber was
by no means upon the wall. In an apartment of the
forecourt overlooked by cooing doves he would sit,
while she laid aside her useless veil and chattered
of spirits and fiends of Kulu, of grandchildren
unborn, and of the free-tongued brat who had talked
to her in the resting-place. Once, too, he strayed
alone from the Grand Trunk Road below Umballa to the
very village whose priest had tried to drug him; but
the kind Heaven that guards lamas sent him at
twilight through the crops, absorbed and
unsuspicious, to the Rissaldar's door. Here was like
to have been a grave misunderstanding, for the old
soldier asked him why the Friend of the Stars had
gone that way only six days before.
'That may
not be,' said the lama. 'He has gone back to his own
people.'
'He sat in
that corner telling a hundred merry tales five
nights ago,' his host insisted. 'True, he vanished
somewhat suddenly in the dawn after foolish talk
with my granddaughter. He grows apace, but he is the
same Friend of the Stars as brought me true word of
the war. Have ye parted?'
'Yes—and
no,' the lama replied. 'We—we have not altogether
parted, but the time is not ripe that we should take
the Road together. He acquires wisdom in another
place. We must wait.'
'All one—but
if it were not the boy how did he come to speak so
continually of thee?'
'And what
said he?' asked the lama eagerly.
'Sweet
words—an hundred thousand—that thou art his father
and mother and such all. Pity that he does not take
the Qpeen's service. He is fearless.'
This news
amazed the lama, who did not then know how
religiously Kim kept to the contract made with
Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by Colonel
Creighton...
'There is no
holding the young pony from the game,' said the
horse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that
vagabonding over India in holiday time was absurd.
'If permission be refused to go and come as he
chooses, he will make light of the refusal. Then who
is to catch him? Colonel Sahib, only once in a
thousand years is a horse born so well fitted for
the game as this our colt. And we need men.'
Chapter 10
Your
tiercel's too long at hack, Sire. He's no eyass
But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,
Dangerously free o' the air. Faith! were he mine
(As mine's the glove he binds to for his tirings)
I'd fly him with a make-hawk. He's in yarak
Plumed to the very point—so manned, so weathered...
Give him the firmament God made him for,
And what shall take the air of him?
Gow's Watch
Lurgan Sahib did not use as
direct speech, but his advice tallied with Mahbub's;
and the upshot was good for Kim. He knew better now
than to leave Lucknow city in native garb, and if
Mahbub were anywhere within reach of a letter, it
was to Mahbub's camp he headed, and made his change
under the Pathan's wary eye. Could the little Survey
paint-box that he used for map-tinting in term-time
have found a tongue to tell of holiday doings, he
might have been expelled. Once Mahbub and he went
together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay,
with three truckloads of tram-horses, and Mahbub
nearly melted when Kim proposed a sail in a dhow
across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs, which, he
understood from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul
Rahman, fetched better prices than mere Kabulis.
He dipped
his hand into the dish with that great trader when
Mahbub and a few co-religionists were invited to a
big Haj dinner. They came back by way of Karachi by
sea, when Kim took his first experience of
sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a
coasting-steamer, well persuaded he had been
poisoned. The Babu's famous drug-box proved useless,
though Kim had restocked it at Bombay. Mahbub had
business at Quetta, and there Kim, as Mahbub
admitted, earned his keep, and perhaps a little
over, by spending four curious days as scullion in
the house of a fat Commissariat sergeant, from whose
office-box, in an auspicious moment, he removed a
little vellum ledger which he copied out—it seemed
to deal entirely with cattle and camel sales—by
moonlight, lying behind an outhouse, all through one
hot night. Then he returned the ledger to its place,
and, at Mahbub's word, left that service unpaid,
rejoining him six miles down the road, the clean
copy in his bosom.
'That
soldier is a small fish,' Mahbub Ali explained, 'but
in time we shall catch the larger one. He only sells
oxen at two prices—one for himself and one for the
Government—which I do not think is a sin.'
'Why could
not I take away the little book and be done with
it?'
'Then he
would have been frightened, and he would have told
his master. Then we should miss, perhaps, a great
number of new rifles which seek their way up from
Quetta to the North. The Game is so large that one
sees but a little at a time.'
'Oho!' said
Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon
holidays, after he had taken the prize for
mathematics. The Christmas holidays he
spent—deducting ten days for private amusements—with
Lurgan Sahib, where he sat for the most part in
front of a roaring wood-fire—Jakko road was four
feet deep in snow that year—and—the small Hindu had
gone away to be married—helped Lurgan to thread
pearls. He made Kim learn whole chapters of the
Koran by heart, till he could deliver them with the
very roll and cadence of a mullah. Moreover, he told
Kim the names and properties of many native drugs,
as well as the runes proper to recite when you
administer them. And in the evenings he wrote charms
on parchment—elaborate pentagrams crowned with the
names of devils—Murra, and Awan the Companion of
Kings—all fantastically written in the corners. More
to the point, he advised Kim as to the care of his
own body, the cure of fever-fits, and simple
remedies of the Road. A week before it was time to
go down, Colonel Creighton Sahib—this was
unfair—sent Kim a written examination paper that
concerned itself solely with rods and chains and
links and angles.
Next
holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the
way, he nearly died of thirst, plodding through the
sand on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikanir,
where the wells are four hundred feet deep, and
lined throughout with camel-bone. It was not an
amusing trip from Kim's point of view, because—in
defiance of the contract—the Colonel ordered him to
make a map of that wild, walled city; and since
Mohammedan horse-boys and pipe-tenders are not
expected to drag Survey-chains round the capital of
an independent Native State, Kim was forced to pace
all his distances by means of a bead rosary. He used
the compass for bearings as occasion served—after
dark chiefly, when the camels had been fed—and by
the help of his little Survey paint-box of six
colour-cakes and three brushes, he achieved
something not remotely unlike the city of Jeysulmir.
Mahbub laughed a great deal, and advised him to make
up a written report as well; and in the back of the
big account-book that lay under the flap of Mahbub's
pet saddle Kim fell to work..
'It must
hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or
considered. Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib
himself had come by stealth with a vast army
outsetting to war.'
'How great
an army?'
'Oh, half a
lakh of men.'
'Folly!
Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand.
Not a thousand thirsty men could come near by here.'
'Then write
that down—also all the old breaches in the walls and
whence the firewood is cut—and what is the temper
and disposition of the King. I stay here till all my
horses are sold. I will hire a room by the gateway,
and thou shalt be my accountant. There is a good
lock to the door.'
The report
in its unmistakable St Xavier's running script, and
the brown, yellow, and lake-daubed map, was on hand
a few years ago (a careless clerk filed it with the
rough notes of E's second Seistan survey), but by
now the pencil characters must be almost illegible.
Kim translated it, sweating under the light of an
oil-lamp, to Mahbub, the second day of their
return-journey.
The Pathan
rose and stooped over his dappled saddle-bags.
'I knew it
would be worthy a dress of honour, and so I made one
ready,' he said, smiling. 'Were I Amir of
Afghanistan (and some day we may see him), I would
fill thy mouth with gold.' He laid the garments
formally at Kim's feet. There was a gold-embroidered
Peshawur turban-cap, rising to a cone, and a big
turban-cloth ending in a broad fringe of gold. There
was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a
milky white shirt, fastening to the right, ample and
flowing; green pyjamas with twisted silk
waist-string; and that nothing might be lacking,
russia-leather slippers, smelling divinely, with
arrogantly curled tips.
'Upon a
Wednesday, and in the morning, to put on new clothes
is auspicious,' said Mahbub solemnly. 'But we must
not forget the wicked folk in the world. So!'
He capped
all the splendour, that was taking Kim's delighted
breath away, with a mother-of-pearl, nickel-plated,
self-extracting .450 revolver.
'I had
thought of a smaller bore, but reflected that this
takes Government bullets. A man can always come by
those—especially across the Border. Stand up and let
me look.' He clapped Kim on the shoulder. 'May you
never be tired, Pathan! Oh, the hearts to be broken!
Oh, the eyes under the eyelashes, looking sideways!'
Kim turned
about, pointed his toes, stretched, and felt
mechanically for the moustache that was just
beginning. Then he stooped towards Mahbub's feet to
make proper acknowledgment with fluttering,
quick-patting hands; his heart too full for words.
Mahbub forestalled and embraced him.
'My son,
said he, 'what need of words between us? But is not
the little gun a delight? All six cartridges come
out at one twist. It is borne in the bosom next the
skin, which, as it were, keeps it oiled. Never put
it elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt some day
kill a man with it.'
'Hai mai!'
said Kim ruefully. 'If a Sahib kills a man he is
hanged in the jail.'
'True: but
one pace beyond the Border, men are wiser. Put it
away; but fill it first. Of what use is a gun
unfed?'
'When I go back to the
madrissah I must return it. They do not allow little
guns. Thou wilt keep it for me?'
'Son, I am wearied of that
madrissah, where they take the best years of a man
to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road.
The folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom.
No matter. Maybe thy written report shall save thee
further bondage; and God He knows we need men more
and more in the Game.'
They
marched, jaw-bound against blowing sand, across the
salt desert to Jodhpur, where Mahbub and his
handsome nephew Habib Ullah did much trading; and
then sorrowfully, in European clothes, which he was
fast outgrowing, Kim went second-class to St
Xavier's. Three weeks later, Colonel Creighton,
pricing Tibetan ghost-daggers at Lurgan's shop,
faced Mahbub Ali openly mutinous. Lurgan Sahib
operated as support in reserve.
'The pony is
made—finished—mouthed and paced, Sahib! From now on,
day by day, he will lose his manners if he is kept
at tricks. Drop the rein on his back and let go,'
said the horse-dealer. 'We need him.'
'But he is
so young, Mahbub—not more than sixteen—is he?'
'When I was
fifteen, I had shot my man and begot my man, Sahib.'
'You
impenitent old heathen!' Creighton turned to Lurgan.
The black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the
Afghan's dyed scarlet.
'I should
have used him long ago,' said Lurgan. 'The younger
the better. That is why I always have my really
valuable jewels watched by a child. You sent him to
me to try. I tried him in every way: he is the only
boy I could not make to see things.'
'In the
crystal—in the ink-pool?' demanded Mahbub.
'No. Under
my hand, as I told you. That has never happened
before. It means that he is strong enough—but you
think it skittles, Colonel Creighton—to make anyone
do anything he wants. And that is three years ago. I
have taught him a good deal since, Colonel
Creighton. I think you waste him now.'
'Hmm! Maybe
you're right. But, as you know, there is no Survey
work for him at present.'
'Let him out
let him go,' Mahbub interrupted. 'Who expects any
colt to carry heavy weight at first? Let him run
with the caravans—like our white camel-colts—for
luck. I would take him myself, but—'
'There is a
little business where he would be most useful—in the
South,' said Lurgan, with peculiar suavity, dropping
his heavy blued eyelids.
'E.23 has
that in hand,' said Creighton quickly. 'He must not
go down there. Besides, he knows no Turki.'
'Only tell
him the shape and the smell of the letters we want
and he will bring them back,' Lurgan insisted.
'No. That is
a man's job,' said Creighton.
It was a
wry-necked matter of unauthorized and incendiary
correspondence between a person who claimed to be
the ultimate authority in all matters of the
Mohammedan religion throughout the world, and a
younger member of a royal house who had been brought
to book for kidnapping women within British
territory. The Moslem Archbishop had been emphatic
and over-arrogant; the young prince was merely sulky
at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was
no need he should continue a correspondence which
might some day compromise him. One letter indeed had
been procured, but the finder was later found dead
by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader, as
E.23, taking up the work, duly reported.
These facts,
and a few others not to be published, made both
Mahbub and Creighton shake their heads.
'Let him go
out with his Red Lama,' said the horse-dealer with
visible effort. 'He is fond of the old man. He can
learn his paces by the rosary at least.'
'I have had
some dealings with the old man—by letter,' said
Colonel Creighton, smiling to himself. 'Whither goes
he?'
'Up and down
the land, as he has these three years. He seeks a
River of Healing. God's curse upon all—' Mahbub
checked himself. 'He beds down at the Temple of the
Tirthankars or at Buddh Gaya when he is in from the
Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the madrissah,
as we know for the boy was punished for it twice or
thrice. He is quite mad, but a peaceful man. I have
met him. The Babu also has had dealings with him. We
have watched him for three years. Red Lamas are not
so common in Hind that one loses track.'
'Babus are
very curious,' said Lurgan meditatively. 'Do you
know what Hurree Babu really wants? He wants to be
made a member of the Royal Society by taking
ethnological notes. I tell you, I tell him about the
lama everything which Mahbub and the boy have told
me. Hurree Babu goes down to Benares—at his own
expense, I think.'
'I don't,'
said Creighton briefly. He had paid Hurree's
travelling expenses, out of a most lively curiosity
to learn what the lama might be.
'And he
applies to the lama for information on lamaism, and
devil-dances, and spells and charms, several times
in these few years. Holy Virgin! I could have told
him all that yeears ago. I think Hurree Babu is
getting too old for the Road. He likes better to
collect manners and customs information. Yes, he
wants to be an FRS.
'Hurree
thinks well of the boy, doesn't he?'
'Oh, very
indeed—we have had some pleasant evenings at my
little place—but I think it would be waste to throw
him away with Hurree on the Ethnological side.'
'Not for a
first experience. How does that strike you, Mahbub?
Let the boy run with the lama for six months. After
that we can see. He will get experience.'
'He has it
already, Sahib—as a fish controls the water he swims
in. But for every reason it will be well to loose
him from the school.'
'Very good,
then,' said Creighton, half to himself. 'He can go
with the lama, and if Hurree Babu cares to keep an
eye on them so much the better. He won't lead the
boy into any danger as Mahbub would. Curious—his
wish to be an F R S. Very human, too. He is best on
the Ethnological side—Hurree.'
No money and
no preferment would have drawn Creighton from his
work on the Indian Survey, but deep in his heart
also lay the ambition to write 'F R S' after his
name. Honours of a sort he knew could be obtained by
ingenuity and the help of friends, but, to the best
of his belief, nothing save work—papers representing
a life of it—took a man into the Society which he
had bombarded for years with monographs on strange
Asiatic cults and unknown customs. Nine men out of
ten would flee from a Royal Society soiree in
extremity of boredom; but Creighton was the tenth,
and at times his soul yearned for the crowded rooms
in easy London where silver-haired, bald-headed
gentlemen who know nothing of the Army move among
spectroscopic experiments, the lesser plants of the
frozen tundras, electric flight-measuring machines,
and apparatus for slicing into fractional
millimetres the left eye of the female mosquito. By
all right and reason, it was the Royal Geographical
that should have appealed to him, but men are as
chancy as children in their choice of playthings. So
Creighton smiled, and thought the better of Hurree
Babu, moved by like desire.
He dropped
the ghost-dagger and looked up at Mahbub.
'How soon
can we get the colt from the stable?' said the
horse-dealer, reading his eyes.
'Hmm! If I
withdraw him by order now—what will he do, think
you? I have never before assisted at the teaching of
such an one.'
'He will
come to me,' said Mahbub promptly. 'Lurgan Sahib and
I will prepare him for the Road.'
'So be it,
then. For six months he shall run at his choice. But
who will be his sponsor?'
Lurgan
slightly inclined his head. 'He will not tell
anything, if that is what you are afraid of, Colonel
Creighton.'
'It's only a
boy, after all.'
'Ye-es; but
first, he has nothing to tell; and secondly, he
knows what would happen. Also, he is very fond of
Mahbub, and of me a little.'
'Will he
draw pay?' demanded the practical horse-dealer.
'Food and
water allowance only. Twenty rupees a month.'
One
advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no
worrying audit. That Service is ludicrously starved,
of course, but the funds are administered by a few
men who do not call for vouchers or present itemized
accounts. Mahbub's eyes lighted with almost a Sikh's
love of money. Even Lurgan's impassive face changed.
He considered the years to come when Kim would have
been entered and made to the Great Game that never
ceases day and night, throughout India. He foresaw
honour and credit in the mouths of a chosen few,
coming to him from his pupil. Lurgan Sahib had made
E.23 what E.23 was, out of a bewildered,
impertinent, lying, little North-West Province man.
But the joy
of these masters was pale and smoky beside the joy
of Kim when St Xavier's Head called him aside, with
word that Colonel Creighton had sent for him.
'I
understand, O'Hara, that he has found you a place as
an assistant chain-man in the Canal Department: that
comes of taking up mathematics. It is great luck for
you, for you are only sixteen; but of course you
understand that you do not become pukka [permanent]
till you have passed the autumn examination. So you
must not think you are going out into the world to
enjoy yourself, or that your fortune is made. There
is a great deal of hard work before you. Only, if
you succeed in becoming pukka, you can rise, you
know, to four hundred and fifty a month.' Whereat
the Principal gave him much good advice as to his
conduct, and his manners, and his morals; and
others, his elders, who had not been wafted into
billets, talked as only Anglo-Indian lads can, of
favouritism and corruption. Indeed, young Cazalet,
whose father was a pensioner at Chunar, hinted very
broadly that Colonel Creighton's interest in Kim was
directly paternal; and Kim, instead of retaliating,
did not even use language. He was thinking of the
immense fun to come, of Mahbub's letter of the day
before, all neatly written in English, making
appointment for that afternoon in a house the very
name of which would have crisped the Principal's
hair with horror...
Said Kim to
Mahbub in Lucknow railway station that evening,
above the luggage-scales: 'I feared lest at the
last, the roof would fall upon me and cheat me. It
is indeed all finished, O my father?'
Mahbub
snapped his fingers to show the utterness of that
end, and his eyes blazed like red coals.
'Then where
is the pistol that I may wear it?'
'Softly! A
half-year, to run without heel-ropes. I begged that
much from Colonel Creighton Sahib. At twenty rupees
a month. Old Red Hat knows that thou art coming.'
'I will pay
thee dustoorie [commission] on my pay for three
months,' said Kim gravely. 'Yea, two rupees a month.
But first we must get rid of these.' He plucked his
thin linen trousers and dragged at his collar. 'I
have brought with me all that I need on the Road. My
trunk has gone up to Lurgan Sahib's.'
'Who sends
his salaams to thee—Sahib.'
'Lurgan
Sahib is a very clever man. But what dost thou do?'
'I go North
again, upon the Great Game. What else? Is thy mind
still set on following old Red Hat?'
'Do not
forget he made me that I am—though he did not know
it. Year by year, he sent the money that taught me.'
'I would
have done as much—had it struck my thick head,'
Mahbub growled. 'Come away. The lamps are lit now,
and none will mark thee in the bazar. We go to
Huneefa's house.'
On the way
thither, Mahbub gave him much the same sort of
advice as his mother gave to Lemuel, and curiously
enough, Mahbub was exact to point out how Huneefa
and her likes destroyed kings.
'And I
remember,' he quoted maliciously, 'one who said,
"Trust a snake before an harlot, and an harlot
before a Pathan, Mahbub Ali." Now, excepting as to
Pathans, of whom I am one, all that is true. Most
true is it in the Great Game, for it is by means of
women that all plans come to ruin and we lie out in
the dawning with our throats cut. So it happened to
such a one.' He gave the reddest particulars.
'Then why—?'
Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to
the warm darkness of an upper chamber, in the ward
that is behind Azim Ullah's tobacco-shop. Those who
know it call it The Birdcage—it is so full of
whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings.
The room,
with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs,
smelt abominably of stale tobacco. In one corner lay
a huge and shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes,
and decked, brow, nose, ear, neck, wrist, arm,
waist, and ankle with heavy native jewellery. When
she turned it was like the clashing of copper pots.
A lean cat in the balcony outside the window mewed
hungrily. Kim checked, bewildered, at the
door-curtain.
'Is that the
new stuff, Mahbub?' said Huneefa lazily, scarce
troubling to remove the mouthpiece from her lips. 'O
Buktanoos!'—like most of her kind, she swore by the
Djinns—'O Buktanoos! He is very good to look upon.'
'That is
part of the selling of the horse,' Mahbub explained
to Kim, who laughed.
'I have
heard that talk since my Sixth Day,' he replied,
squatting by the light. 'Whither does it lead?'
'To
protection. Tonight we change thy colour. This
sleeping under roofs has blanched thee like an
almond. But Huneefa has the secret of a colour that
catches. No painting of a day or two. Also, we
fortify thee against the chances of the Road. That
is my gift to thee, my son. Take out all metals on
thee and lay them here. Make ready, Huneefa.'
Kim dragged
forth his compass, Survey paint-box, and the
new-filled medicine-box. They had all accompanied
his travels, and boylike he valued them immensely.
The woman
rose slowly and moved with her hands a little spread
before her. Then Kim saw that she was blind. 'No,
no,' she muttered, 'the Pathan speaks truth—my
colour does not go in a week or a month, and those
whom I protect are under strong guard.'
'When one is
far off and alone, it would not be well to grow
blotched and leprous of a sudden,' said Mahbub.
'When thou wast with me I could oversee the matter.
Besides, a Pathan is a fair-skin. Strip to the waist
now and look how thou art whitened.' Huneefa felt
her way back from an inner room. 'It is no matter,
she cannot see.' He took a pewter bowl from her
ringed hand.
The
dye-stuff showed blue and gummy. Kim experimented on
the back of his wrist, with a dab of cotton-wool;
but Huneefa heard him.
'No, no,'
she cried, 'the thing is not done thus, but with the
proper ceremonies. The colouring is the least part.
I give thee the full protection of the Road.'
'Tadoo?
[magic],'said Kim, with a half start. He did not
like the white, sightless eyes. Mahbub's hand on his
neck bowed him to the floor, nose within an inch of
the boards.
'Be still.
No harm comes to thee, my son. I am thy sacrifice!'
He could not
see what the woman was about, but heard the
dish-clash of her jewellery for many minutes. A
match lit up the darkness; he caught the well-known
purr and fizzle of grains of incense. Then the room
filled with smoke—heavy aromatic, and stupefying.
Through growing drowse he heard the names of
devils—of Zulbazan, Son of Eblis, who lives in
bazars and paraos, making all the sudden lewd
wickedness of wayside halts; of Dulhan, invisible
about mosques, the dweller among the slippers of the
faithful, who hinders folk from their prayers; and
Musboot, Lord of lies and panic. Huneefa, now
whispering in his ear, now talking as from an
immense distance, touched him with horrible soft
fingers, but Mahbub's grip never shifted from his
neck till, relaxing with a sigh, the boy lost his
senses.
'Allah! How
he fought! We should never have done it but for the
drugs. That was his white blood, I take it,' said
Mahbub testily. 'Go on with the dawut [invocation].
Give him full Protection.'
'O Hearer!
Thou that hearest with ears, be present. Listen, O
Hearer!' Huneefa moaned, her dead eyes turned to the
west. The dark room filled with moanings and
snortings.
From the
outer balcony, a ponderous figure raised a round
bullet head and coughed nervously.
'Do not
interrupt this ventriloquial necromanciss, my
friend,' it said in English. 'I opine that it is
very disturbing to you, but no enlightened observer
is jolly-well upset.'
'..........I
will lay a plot for their ruin! O Prophet, bear with
the unbelievers. Let them alone awhile!' Huneefa's
face, turned to the northward, worked horribly, and
it was as though voices from the ceiling answered
her.
Hurree Babu
returned to his note-book, balanced on the
window-sill, but his hand shook. Huneefa, in some
sort of drugged ecstasy, wrenched herself to and fro
as she sat cross-legged by Kim's still head, and
called upon devil after devil, in the ancient order
of the ritual, binding them to avoid the boy's every
action.
'With Him
are the keys of the Secret Things! None knoweth them
besides Himself He knoweth that which is in the dry
land and in the sea!' Again broke out the unearthly
whistling responses.
'I—I
apprehend it is not at all malignant in its
operation?' said the Babu, watching the
throat-muscles quiver and jerk as Huneefa spoke with
tongues. 'It—it is not likely that she has killed
the boy? If so, I decline to be witness at the trial
.....What was the last hypothetical devil
mentioned?'
'Babuji,'
said Mahbub in the vernacular. 'I have no regard for
the devils of Hind, but the Sons of Eblis are far
otherwise, and whether they be jumalee
[well-affected] or jullalee [terrible] they love not
Kafirs.'
'Then you
think I had better go?' said Hurree Babu, half
rising. 'They are, of course, dematerialized
phenomena. Spencer says.'
Huneefa's
crisis passed, as these things must, in a paroxysm
of howling, with a touch of froth at the lips. She
lay spent and motionless beside Kim, and the crazy
voices ceased.
'Wah! That
work is done. May the boy be better for it; and
Huneefa is surely a mistress of dawut. Help haul her
aside, Babu. Do not be afraid.'
'How am I to
fear the absolutely non-existent?' said Hurree Babu,
talking English to reassure himself. It is an awful
thing still to dread the magic that you
contemptuously investigate—to collect folk-lore for
the Royal Society with a lively belief in all Powers
of Darkness.
Mahbub
chuckled. He had been out with Hurree on the Road
ere now. 'Let us finish the colouring,' said he.
'The boy is well protected if—if the Lords of the
Air have ears to hear. I am a Sufi [free-thinker],
but when one can get blind-sides of a woman, a
stallion, or a devil, why go round to invite a kick?
Set him upon the way, Babu, and see that old Red Hat
does not lead him beyond our reach. I must get back
to my horses.'
'All
raight,' said Hurree Babu. 'He is at present curious
spectacle.'
About third
cockcrow, Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of
years. Huneefa, in her corner, snored heavily, but
Mahbub was gone.
'I hope you
were not frightened,' said an oily voice at his
elbow. 'I superintended entire operation, which was
most interesting from ethnological point of view. It
was high-class dawut.'
'Huh!' said
Kim, recognizing Hurree Babu, who smiled
ingratiatingly.
'And also I
had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present
costume. I am not in the habit offeecially of
carrying such gauds to subordinates, but'—he
giggled—'your case is noted as exceptional on the
books. I hope Mr Lurgan will note my action.'
Kim yawned
and stretched himself. It was good to turn and twist
within loose clothes once again.
'What is
this?' He looked curiously at the heavy duffle-stuff
loaded with the scents of the far North.
'Oho! That
is inconspicuous dress of chela attached to service
of lamaistic lama. Complete in every particular,'
said Hurree Babu, rolling into the balcony to clean
his teeth at a goglet. 'I am of opeenion it is not
your old gentleman's precise releegion, but rather
sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected
notes To Whom It May Concern: Asiatic Quarterly
Review on these subjects. Now it is curious that the
old gentleman himself is totally devoid of
releegiosity. He is not a dam' particular.'
'Do you know
him?'
Hurree Babu
held up his hand to show he was engaged in the
prescribed rites that accompany tooth-cleaning and
such things among decently bred Bengalis. Then he
recited in English an Arya-Somaj prayer of a
theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with pan
and betel.
'Oah yes. I
have met him several times at Benares, and also at
Buddh Gaya, to interrogate him on releegious points
and devil-worship. He is pure agnostic—same as me.'
Huneefa
stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu jumped
nervously to the copper incense-burner, all black
and discoloured in morning-light, rubbed a finger in
the accumulated lamp-black, and drew it diagonally
across his face.
'Who has
died in thy house?' asked Kim in the vernacular.
'None. But
she may have the Evil Eye—that sorceress,' the Babu
replied.
'What dost
thou do now, then?'
'I will set
thee on thy way to Benares, if thou goest thither,
and tell thee what must be known by Us.'
'I go. At
what hour runs the te-rain?' He rose to his feet,
looked round the desolate chamber and at the
yellow-wax face of Huneefa as the low sun stole
across the floor. 'Is there money to be paid that
witch?'
'No. She has
charmed thee against all devils and all dangers in
the name of her devils. It was Mahbub's desire.' In
English: 'He is highly obsolete, I think, to indulge
in such supersteetion. Why, it is all ventriloquy.
Belly-speak—eh?'
Kim snapped
his fingers mechanically to avert whatever
evil—Mahbub, he knew, meditated none—might have
crept in through Huneefa's ministrations; and Hurree
giggled once more. But as he crossed the room he was
careful not to step in Huneefa's blotched, squat
shadow on the boards. Witches—when their time is on
them—can lay hold of the heels of a man's soul if he
does that.
'Now you
must well listen,' said the Babu when they were in
the fresh air. 'Part of these ceremonies which we
witnessed they include supply of effeecient amulet
to those of our Department. If you feel in your neck
you will find one small silver amulet, verree cheap.
That is ours. Do you understand?'
'Oah yes,
hawa-dilli [a heart-lifter],' said Kim, feeling at
his neck.
'Huneefa she
makes them for two rupees twelve annas with—oh, all
sorts of exorcisms. They are quite common, except
they are partially black enamel, and there is a
paper inside each one full of names of local saints
and such things. Thatt is Huneefa's look-out, you
see? Huneefa makes them onlee for us, but in case
she does not, when we get them we put in, before
issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr Lurgan he
gives them. There is no other source of supply; but
it was me invented all this. It is strictly
unoffeecial of course, but convenient for
subordinates. Colonel Creighton he does not know. He
is European. The turquoise is wrapped in the paper
... Yes, that is road to railway station ... Now
suppose you go with the lama, or with me, I hope,
some day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a
dam'-tight place. I am a fearful man—most
fearful—but I tell you I have been in dam'-tight
places more than hairs on my head. You say: "I am
Son of the Charm." Verree good.'
'I do not
understand quite. We must not be heard talking
English here.'
'That is all
raight. I am only Babu showing off my English to
you. All we Babus talk English to show off;' said
Hurree, flinging his shoulder-cloth jauntily. 'As I
was about to say, "Son of the Charm" means that you
may be member of the Sat Bhai—the Seven Brothers,
which is Hindi and Tantric. It is popularly supposed
to be extinct Society, but I have written notes to
show it is still extant. You see, it is all my
invention. Verree good. Sat Bhai has many members,
and perhaps before they jolly-well-cut-your-throat
they may give you just a chance of life. That is
useful, anyhow. And moreover, these foolish
natives—if they are not too excited—they always stop
to think before they kill a man who says he belongs
to any speecific organization. You see? You say then
when you are in tight place, "I am Son of the
Charm", and you get—perhaps—ah—your second wind.
That is only in extreme instances, or to open
negotiations with a stranger. Can you quite see?
Verree good. But suppose now, I, or any one of the
Department, come to you dressed quite different. You
would not know me at all unless I choose, I bet you.
Some day I will prove it. I come as Ladakhi
trader—oh, anything—and I say to you: "You want to
buy precious stones?" You say: "Do I look like a man
who buys precious stones?" Then I say: "Even verree
poor man can buy a turquoise or tarkeean."'
'That is
kichree—vegetable curry,' said Kim.
'Of course
it is. You say: "Let me see the tarkeean." Then I
say: "It was cooked by a woman, and perhaps it is
bad for your caste." Then you say: "There is no
caste when men go to—look for tarkeean." You stop a
little between those words, "to—look". That is thee
whole secret. The little stop before the words.'
Kim repeated
the test-sentence.
'That is all
right. Then I will show you my turquoise if there is
time, and then you know who I am, and then we
exchange views and documents and those-all things.
And so it is with any other man of us. We talk
sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about
tarkeean, but always with that little stop in the
words. It is verree easy. First, "Son of the Charm",
if you are in a tight place. Perhaps that may help
you—perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the
tarkeean, if you want to transact offeecial business
with a strange man. Of course, at present, you have
no offeecial business. You are—ah ha!—supernumerary
on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were
Asiatic of birth you might be employed right off;
but this half-year of leave is to make you de-Englishized,
you see? The lama he expects you, because I have
demi-offeecially informed him you have passed all
your examinations, and will soon obtain Government
appointment. Oh ho! You are on acting-allowance, you
see: so if you are called upon to help Sons of the
Charm mind you jolly-well try. Now I shall say
good-bye, my dear fellow, and I hope you—ah—will
come out top-side all raight.'
Hurree Babu
stepped back a pace or two into the crowd at the
entrance of Lucknow station and—was gone. Kim drew a
deep breath and hugged himself all over. The
nickel-plated revolver he could feel in the bosom of
his sad-coloured robe, the amulet was on his neck;
begging-gourd, rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr Lurgan
had forgotten nothing) were all to hand, with
medicine, paint-box, and compass, and in a worn old
purse-belt embroidered with porcupine-quill patterns
lay a month's pay. Kings could be no richer. He
bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a Hindu trader,
and ate them with glad rapture till a policeman
ordered him off the steps.

Chapter 11
Give the
man who is not made
To his trade
Swords to fling and catch again,
Coins to ring and snatch again,
Men to harm and cure again,
Snakes to charm and lure again—
He'll be hurt by his own blade,
By his serpents disobeyed,
By his clumsiness bewrayed,'
By the people mocked to scorn—
So 'tis not with juggler born!
Pinch of dust or withered flower,
Chance-flung fruit or borrowed staff,
Serve his need and shore his power,
Bind the spell, or loose the laugh!
But a man who, etc.
The Juggler's Song, op. 15
Followed a sudden natural
reaction.
'Now am I
alone—all alone,' he thought. 'In all India is no
one so alone as I! If I die today, who shall bring
the news—and to whom? If I live and God is good,
there will be a price upon my head, for I am a Son
of the Charm—I, Kim.'
A very few
white people, but many Asiatics, can throw
themselves into a mazement as it were by repeating
their own names over and over again to themselves,
letting the mind go free upon speculation as to what
is called personal identity. When one grows older,
the power, usually, departs, but while it lasts it
may descend upon a man at any moment.
'Who is
Kim—Kim—Kim?'
He squatted
in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from
all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils
contracted to pin-points. In a minute—in another
half-second—he felt he would arrive at the solution
of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always
happens, his mind dropped away from those heights
with a rush of a wounded bird, and passing his hand
before his eyes, he shook his head.
A
long-haired Hindu bairagi [holy man], who had just
bought a ticket, halted before him at that moment
and stared intently.
'I also have
lost it,' he said sadly. 'It is one of the Gates to
the Way, but for me it has been shut many years.'
'What is the
talk?' said Kim, abashed.
'Thou wast
wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing
thy soul might be. The seizure came of a sudden. I
know. Who should know but I? Whither goest thou?'
'Toward
Kashi [Benares].'
'There are
no Gods there. I have proved them. I go to Prayag
[Allahabad] for the fifth time—seeking the Road to
Enlightenment. Of what faith art thou?'
'I too am a
Seeker,' said Kim, using one of the lama's pet
words. 'Though'—he forgot his Northern dress for the
moment—'though Allah alone knoweth what I seek.'
The old
fellow slipped the bairagi's crutch under his armpit
and sat down on a patch of ruddy leopard's skin as
Kim rose at the call for the Benares train.
'Go in hope,
little brother,' he said. 'It is a long road to the
feet of the One; but thither do we all travel.'
Kim did not
feel so lonely after this, and ere he had sat out
twenty miles in the crowded compartment, was
cheering his neighbours with a string of most
wonderful yarns about his own and his master's
magical gifts.
Benares
struck him as a peculiarly filthy city, though it
was pleasant to find how his cloth was respected. At
least one-third of the population prays eternally to
some group or other of the many million deities, and
so reveres every sort of holy man. Kim was guided to
the Temple of the Tirthankars, about a mile outside
the city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met Punjabi
farmer—a Kamboh from Jullundur-way who had appealed
in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his
small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort.
'Thou art
from the North?' he asked, shouldering through the
press of the narrow, stinking streets much like his
own pet bull at home.
'Ay, I know
the Punjab. My mother was a pahareen, but my father
came from Amritzar—by Jandiala,' said Kim, oiling
his ready tongue for the needs of the Road.
'Jandiala—Jullundur? Oho! Then we be neighbours in
some sort, as it were.' He nodded tenderly to the
wailing child in his arms. 'Whom dost thou serve?'
'A most holy
man at the Temple of the Tirthankers.'
'They are
all most holy and—most greedy,' said the Jat with
bitterness. 'I have walked the pillars and trodden
the temples till my feet are flayed, and the child
is no whit better. And the mother being sick too ...
Hush, then, little one ... We changed his name when
the fever came. We put him into girl's clothes.
There was nothing we did not do, except—I said to
his mother when she bundled me off to Benares—she
should have come with me—I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan
would serve us best. We know His generosity, but
these down-country Gods are strangers.'
The child
turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and
looked at Kim through heavy eyelids.
'And was it
all worthless?' Kim asked, with easy interest.
'All
worthless—all worthless,' said the child, lips
cracking with fever.
'The Gods
have given him a good mind, at least' said the
father proudly. 'To think he should have listened so
cleverly. Yonder is thy Temple. Now I am a poor
man—many priests have dealt with me—but my son is my
son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him—I am
at my very wits' end.'
Kim
considered for a while, tingling with pride. Three
years ago he would have made prompt profit on the
situation and gone his way without a thought; but
now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved that
he was a man. Moreover, he had tasted fever once or
twice already, and knew enough to recognize
starvation when he saw it.
'Call him
forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke, so
that the child is cured.'
Kim halted
at the carved outer door of the temple. A white-clad
Oswal banker from Ajmir, his sins of usury new wiped
out, asked him what he did.
'I am chela
to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from Bhotiyal—within
there. He bade me come. I wait. Tell him.'
'Do not
forget the child,' cried the importunate Jat over
his shoulder, and then bellowed in Punjabi; 'O Holy
One—O disciple of the Holy One—O Gods above all the
Worlds—behold affliction sitting at the gate!' That
cry is so common in Benares that the passers never
turned their heads.
The Oswal,
at peace with mankind, carried the message into the
darkness behind him, and the easy, uncounted Eastern
minutes slid by; for the lama was asleep in his
cell, and no priest would wake him. When the click
of his rosary again broke the hush of the inner
court where the calm images of the Arhats stand, a
novice whispered, 'Thy chela is here,' and the old
man strode forth, forgetting the end of that prayer.
Hardly had
the tall figure shown in the doorway than the Jat
ran before him, and, lifting up the child, cried:
'Look upon this, Holy One; and if the Gods will, he
lives—he lives!'
He fumbled
in his waist-belt and drew out a small silver coin.
'What is
now?' The lama's eyes turned to Kim. It was
noticeable he spoke far clearer Urdu than long ago,
under ZamZammah; but father would allow no private
talk.
'It is no
more than a fever,' said Kim. 'The child is not well
fed.'
'He sickens
at everything, and his mother is not here.'
'If it be
permitted, I may cure, Holy One.'
'What! Have
they made thee a healer? Wait here,' said the lama,
and he sat down by the Jat upon the lowest step of
the temple, while Kim, looking out of the corner of
his eyes, slowly opened the little betel-box. He had
dreamed dreams at school of returning to the lama as
a Sahib—of chaffing the old man before he revealed
himself—boy's dreams all. There was more drama in
this abstracted, brow-puckered search through the
tabloid-bottles, with a pause here and there for
thought and a muttered invocation between whiles.
Quinine he had in tablets, and dark brown
meat-lozenges—beef most probably, but that was not
his business. The little thing would not eat, but it
sucked at a lozenge greedily, and said it liked the
salt taste.
'Take then
these six.' Kim handed them to the man. 'Praise the
Gods, and boil three in milk; other three in water.
After he has drunk the milk give him this' (it was
the half of a quinine pill), 'and wrap him warm.
Give him the water of the other three, and the other
half of this white pill when he wakes. Meantime,
here is another brown medicine that he may suck at
on the way home.'
'Gods, what
wisdom!' said the Kamboh, snatching.
It was as
much as Kim could remember of his own treatment in a
bout of autumn malaria—if you except the patter that
he added to impress the lama.
'Now go!
Come again in the morning.'
'But the
price—the price,' said the Jat, and threw back his
sturdy shoulders. 'My son is my son. Now that he
will be whole again, how shall I go back to his
mother and say I took help by the wayside and did
not even give a bowl of curds in return?'
'They are
alike, these Jats,' said Kim softly. 'The Jat stood
on his dunghill and the King's elephants went by. "O
driver," said he, "what will you sell those little
donkeys for?"'
The Jat
burst into a roar of laughter, stifled with
apologies to the lama. 'It is the saying of my own
country the very talk of it. So are we Jats all. I
will come tomorrow with the child; and the blessing
of the Gods of the Homesteads—who are good little
Gods—be on you both ... Now, son, we grow strong
again. Do not spit it out, little Princeling! King
of my Heart, do not spit it out, and we shall be
strong men, wrestlers and club-wielders, by
morning.'
He moved
away, crooning and mumbling. The lama turned to Kim,
and all the loving old soul of him looked out
through his narrow eyes.
'To heal the
sick is to acquire merit; but first one gets
knowledge. That was wisely done, O Friend of all the
World.'
'I was made
wise by thee, Holy One,' said Kim, forgetting the
little play just ended; forgetting St Xavier's;
forgetting his white blood; forgetting even the
Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan-fashion, to
touch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain
temple. 'My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy
bread three years. My time is finished. I am loosed
from the schools. I come to thee.'
'Herein is
my reward. Enter! Enter! And is all well?' They
passed to the inner court, where the afternoon sun
sloped golden across. 'Stand that I may see. So!' He
peered critically. 'It is no longer a child, but a
man, ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician. I
did well—I did well when I gave thee up to the armed
men on that black night. Dost thou remember our
first day under Zam-Zammah?'
'Ay,' said
Kim. 'Dost thou remember when I leapt off the
carriage the first day I went to—'
'The Gates
of Learning? Truly. And the day that we ate the
cakes together at the back of the river by Nucklao.
Aha! Many times hast thou begged for me, but that
day I begged for thee.'
'Good
reason,' quoth Kim. 'I was then a scholar in the
Gates of Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not
forget, Holy One,' he went on playfully. 'I am still
a Sahib—by thy favour.'
'True. And a
Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, chela.'
'How is that
known to thee?'
The lama
smiled. 'First by means of letters from the kindly
priest whom we met in the camp of armed men; but he
is now gone to his own country, and I sent the money
to his brother.' Colonel Creighton, who had
succeeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor went
to England with the Mavericks, was hardly the
Chaplain's brother. 'But I do not well understand
Sahibs' letters. They must be interpreted to me. I
chose a surer way. Many times when I returned from
my Search to this Temple, which has always been a
nest to me, there came one seeking Enlightenment—a
man from Leh—that had been, he said, a Hindu, but
wearied of all those Gods.' The lama pointed to the
Arhats.
'A fat man?'
said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.
'Very fat;
but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly
given up to useless things—such as devils and charms
and the form and fashion of our tea-drinkings in the
monasteries, and by what road we initiated the
novices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a
friend of thine, chela. He told me that thou wast on
the road to much honour as a scribe. And I see thou
art a physician.'
'Yes, that
am I—a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set
aside when I come as thy disciple. I have
accomplished the years appointed for a Sahib.'
'As it were
a novice?' said the lama, nodding his head. 'Art
thou freed from the schools? I would not have thee
unripe.'
'I am all
free. In due time I take service under the
Government as a scribe—'
'Not as a
warrior. That is well.'
'But first I
come to wander with thee. Therefore I am here. Who
begs for thee, these days?' he went on quickly. The
ice was thin.
'Very often
I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom
here, except when I come to look again at my
disciple. From one end to another of Hind have I
travelled afoot and in the te-rain. A great and a
wonderful land! But here, when I put in, is as
though I were in my own Bhotiyal.'
He looked
round the little clean cell complacently. A low
cushion gave him a seat, on which he had disposed
himself in the cross-legged attitude of the Bodhisat
emerging from meditation; a black teak-wood table,
not twenty inches high, set with copper tea-cups,
was before him. In one corner stood a tiny altar,
also of heavily carved teak, bearing a copper-gilt
image of the seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp, an
incense-holder, and a pair of copper flower-pots.
'The Keeper
of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by
giving me these a year since,' he said, following
Kim's eye. 'When one is far from one's own land such
things carry remembrance; and we must reverence the
Lord for that He showed the Way. See!' He pointed to
a curiously-built mound of coloured rice crowned
with a fantastic metal ornament. 'When I was Abbot
in my own place—before I came to better knowledge I
made that offering daily. It is the Sacrifice of the
Universe to the Lord. Thus do we of Bhotiyal offer
all the world daily to the Excellent Law. And I do
it even now, though I know that the Excellent One is
beyond all pinchings and pattings.' He snuffed from
his gourd.
'It is well
done, Holy One,' Kim murmured, sinking at ease on
the cushions, very happy and rather tired.
'And also,'
the old man chuckled, 'I write pictures of the Wheel
of Life. Three days to a picture. I was busied on
it—or it may be I shut my eyes a little—when they
brought word of thee. It is good to have thee here:
I will show thee my art—not for pride's sake, but
because thou must learn. The Sahibs have not all
this world's wisdom.'
He drew from
under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow
Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of Indian ink.
In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the
Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the
conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger,
and Lust), and whose compartments are all the
Heavens and Hells, and all the chances of human
life. Men say that the Bodhisat Himself first drew
it with grains of rice upon dust, to teach His
disciples the cause of things. Many ages have
crystallized it into a most wonderful convention
crowded with hundreds of little figures whose every
line carries a meaning. Few can translate the
picture-parable; there are not twenty in all the
world who can draw it surely without a copy: of
those who can both draw and expound are but three.
'I have a
little learned to draw,' said Kim. 'But this is a
marvel beyond marvels.'
'I have
written it for many years,' said the lama. 'Time was
when I could write it all between one lamp-lighting
and the next. I will teach thee the art—after due
preparation; and I will show thee the meaning of the
Wheel.'
'We take the
Road, then?'
'The Road
and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was
made plain to me in a hundred dreams—notably one
that came upon the night of the day that the Gates
of Learning first shut that without thee I should
never find my River. Again and again, as thou
knowest, I put this from me, fearing an illusion.
Therefore I would not take thee with me that day at
Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take
thee till the time was ripe and auspicious. From the
Hills to the Sea, from the Sea to the Hills have I
gone, but it was vain. Then I remembered the
Tataka.'
He told Kim
the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he
had told it so often to the Jam priests.
'Further
testimony is not needed,' he ended serenely. 'Thou
wast sent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search
came to naught. Therefore we will go out again
together, and our Search sure.'
'Whither go
we?'
'What
matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say,
is sure. If need be, the River will break from the
ground before us. I acquired merit when I sent thee
to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewel
that is Wisdom. Thou didst return, I saw even now, a
follower of Sakyamuni, the Physician, whose altars
are many in Bhotiyal. It is sufficient. We are
together, and all things are as they were—Friend of
all the World—Friend of the Stars—my chela!'
Then they
talked of matters secular; but it was noticeable
that the lama never demanded any details of life at
St Xavier's, nor showed the faintest curiosity as to
the manners and customs of Sahibs. His mind moved
all in the past, and he revived every step of their
wonderful first journey together, rubbing his hands
and chuckling, till it pleased him to curl himself
up into the sudden sleep of old age.
Kim watched
the last dusty sunshine fade out of the court, and
played with his ghost-dagger and rosary. The clamour
of Benares, oldest of all earth's cities awake
before the Gods, day and night, beat round the walls
as the sea's roar round a breakwater. Now and again,
a Jain priest crossed the court, with some small
offering to the images, and swept the path about him
lest by chance he should take the life of a living
thing. A lamp twinkled, and there followed the sound
of a prayer. Kim watched the stars as they rose one
after another in the still, sticky dark, till he
fell asleep at the foot of the altar. That night he
dreamed in Hindustani, with never an English word...
'Holy One,
there is the child to whom we gave the medicine,' he
said, about three o'clock in the morning, when the
lama, also waking from dreams, would have fared
forth on pilgrimage. 'The Jat will be here at the
light.'
'I am well
answered. In my haste I would have done a wrong.' He
sat down on the cushions and returned to his rosary.
'Surely old folk are as children,' he said
pathetically. 'They desire a matter—behold, it must
be done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times
when I was upon the Road I have been ready to stamp
with my feet at the hindrance of an ox-cart in the
way, or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I
was a man—a long time ago. None the less it is
wrongful—'
'But thou
art indeed old, Holy One.'
'The thing
was done. A Cause was put out into the world, and,
old or young, sick or sound, knowing or unknowing,
who can rein in the effect of that Cause? Does the
Wheel hang still if a child spin it—or a drunkard?
Chela, this is a great and a terrible world.'
'I think it
good,' Kim yawned. 'What is there to eat? I have not
eaten since yesterday even.'
'I had
forgotten thy need. Yonder is good Bhotiyal tea and
cold rice.'
'We cannot
walk far on such stuff.' Kim felt all the European's
lust for flesh-meat, which is not accessible in a
Jain temple. Yet, instead of going out at once with
the begging-bowl, he stayed his stomach on slabs of
cold rice till the full dawn. It brought the farmer,
voluble, stuttering with gratitude.
'In the
night the fever broke and the sweat came,' he cried.
'Feel here—his skin is fresh and new! He esteemed
the salt lozenges, and took milk with greed.' He
drew the cloth from the child's face, and it smiled
sleepily at Kim. A little knot of Jain priests,
silent but all-observant, gathered by the temple
door. They knew, and Kim knew that they knew, how
the old lama had met his disciple. Being courteous
folk, they had not obtruded themselves overnight by
presence, word, or gesture. Wherefore Kim repaid
them as the sun rose.
'Thank the
Gods of the Jains, brother,' he said, not knowing
how those Gods were named. 'The fever is indeed
broken.'
'Look! See!'
The lama beamed in the background upon his hosts of
three years. 'Was there ever such a chela? He
follows our Lord the Healer.'
Now the
Jains officially recognize all the Gods of the Hindu
creed, as well as the Lingam and the Snake. They
wear the Brahminical thread; they adhere to every
claim of Hindu caste-law. But, because they knew and
loved the lama, because he was an old man, because
he sought the Way, because he was their guest, and
because he collogued long of nights with the
head-priest—as free-thinking a metaphysician as ever
split one hair into seventy—they murmured assent.
'Remember,'—Kim bent over the child—. 'this trouble
may come again.'
'Not if thou
hast the proper spell,' said the father.
'But in a
little while we go away.'
'True,' said
the lama to all the Jains. 'We go now together upon
the Search whereof I have often spoken. I waited
till my chela was ripe. Behold him! We go North.
Never again shall I look upon this place of my rest,
O people of good will.'
'But I am
not a beggar.' The cultivator rose to his feet,
clutching the child.
'Be still.
Do not trouble the Holy One,' a priest cried.
'Go,' Kim
whispered. 'Meet us again under the big railway
bridge, and for the sake of all the Gods of our
Punjab, bring food—curry, pulse, cakes fried in fat,
and sweetmeats. Specially sweetmeats. Be swift!'
The pallor
of hunger suited Kim very well as he stood, tall and
slim, in his sand-coloured, sweeping robes, one hand
on his rosary and the other in the attitude of
benediction, faithfully copied from the lama. An
English observer might have said that he looked
rather like the young saint of a stained-glass
window, whereas he was but a growing lad faint with
emptiness.
Long and
formal were the farewells, thrice ended and thrice
renewed. The Seeker—he who had invited the lama to
that haven from far-away Tibet, a silver-faced,
hairless ascetic—took no part in it, but meditated,
as always, alone among the images. The others were
very human; pressing small comforts upon the old
man—a betel-box, a fine new iron pencase, a
food-bag, and such-like—warning him against the
dangers of the world without, and prophesying a
happy end to the Search. Meantime Kim, lonelier than
ever, squatted on the steps, and swore to himself in
the language of St Xavier's.
'But it is
my own fault,' he concluded. 'With Mahbub, I ate
Mahbub's bread, or Lurgan Sahib's. At St Xavier's,
three meals a day. Here I must jolly-well look out
for myself. Besides, I am not in good training. How
I could eat a plate of beef now! ... Is it finished,
Holy One?'
The lama,
both hands raised, intoned a final blessing in
ornate Chinese. 'I must lean on thy shoulder,' said
he, as the temple gates closed. 'We grow stiff, I
think.'
The weight
of a six-foot man is not light to steady through
miles of crowded streets, and Kim, loaded down with
bundles and packages for the way, was glad to reach
the shadow of the railway bridge.
'Here we
eat,' he said resolutely, as the Kamboh, blue-robed
and smiling, hove in sight, a basket in one hand and
the child in the other.
'Fall to,
Holy Ones!' he cried from fifty yards. (They were by
the shoal under the first bridge-span, out of sight
of hungry priests.) 'Rice and good curry, cakes all
warm and well scented with hing [asafoetida], curds
and sugar. King of my fields,'—this to the small
son—'let us show these holy men that we Jats of
Jullundur can pay a service ... I had heard the
Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked,
but truly'—he looked away politely over the broad
river—'where there is no eye there is no caste.'
'And we,'
said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leafplatter
for the lama, 'are beyond all castes.'
They gorged
themselves on the good food in silence. Nor till he
had licked the last of the sticky sweetstuff from
his little finger did Kim note that the Kamboh too
was girt for travel.
'If our
roads lie together,' he said roughly, 'I go with
thee. One does not often find a worker of miracles,
and the child is still weak. But I am not altogether
a reed.' He picked up his lathi—a five-foot
male-bamboo ringed with bands of polished iron—and
flourished it in the air. 'The Jats are called
quarrel-some, but that is not true. Except when we
are crossed, we are like our own buffaloes.'
'So be it,'
said Kim. 'A good stick is a good reason.'
The lama
gazed placidly up-stream, where in long, smudged
perspective the ceaseless columns of smoke go up
from the burning-ghats by the river. Now and again,
despite all municipal regulations, the fragment of a
half-burned body bobbed by on the full current.
'But for
thee,' said the Kamboh to Kim, drawing the child
into his hairy breast, 'I might today have gone
thither—with this one. The priests tell us that
Benares is holy—which none doubt—and desirable to
die in. But I do not know their Gods, and they ask
for money; and when one has done one worship a
shaved-head vows it is of none effect except one do
another. Wash here! Wash there! Pour, drink, lave,
and scatter flowers—but always pay the priests. No,
the Punjab for me, and the soil of the
Jullundur-doab for the best soil in it.'
'I have said
many times—in the Temple, I think—that if need be,
the River will open at our feet. We will therefore
go North,' said the lama, rising. 'I remember a
pleasant place, set about with fruit-trees, where
one can walk in meditation—and the air is cooler
there. It comes from the Hills and the snow of the
Hills.'
'What is the
name?' said Kim.
'How should
I know? Didst thou not—no, that was after the Army
rose out of the earth and took thee away. I abode
there in meditation in a room against the
dovecot—except when she talked eternally.'
'Oho! the
woman from Kulu. That is by Saharunpore.' Kim
laughed.
'How does
the spirit move thy master? Does he go afoot, for
the sake of past sins?' the Jat demanded cautiously.
'It is a far cry to Delhi.'
'No,' said
Kim. 'I will beg a tikkut for the te-rain.' One does
not own to the possession of money in India.
'Then, in
the name of the Gods, let us take the fire-carriage.
My son is best in his mother's arms. The Government
has brought on us many taxes, but it gives us one
good thing—the te-rain that joins friends and unites
the anxious. A wonderful matter is the te-rain.'
They all
piled into it a couple of hours later, and slept
through the heat of the day. The Kamboh plied Kim
with ten thousand questions as to the lama's walk
and work in life, and received some curious answers.
Kim was content to be where he was, to look out upon
the flat North-Western landscape, and to talk to the
changing mob of fellow-passengers. Even today,
tickets and ticket-clipping are dark oppression to
Indian rustics. They do not understand why, when
they have paid for a magic piece of paper, strangers
should punch great pieces out of the charm. So, long
and furious are the debates between travellers and
Eurasian ticket-collectors. Kim assisted at two or
three with grave advice, meant to darken counsel and
to show off his wisdom before the lama and the
admiring Kamboh. But at Somna Road the Fates sent
him a matter to think upon. There tumbled into the
compartment, as the train was moving off, a mean,
lean little person—a Mahratta, so far as Kim could
judge by the cock of the tight turban. His face was
cut, his muslin upper-garment was badly torn, and
one leg was bandaged. He told them that a
country-cart had upset and nearly slain him: he was
going to Delhi, where his son lived. Kim watched him
closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolled over
and over on the earth, there should have been signs
of gravel-rash on the skin. But all his injuries
seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from a cart could
not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As,
with shaking fingers, he knotted up the torn cloth
about his neck he laid bare an amulet of the kind
called a keeper-up of the heart. Now, amulets are
common enough, but they are not generally strung on
square-plaited copper wire, and still fewer amulets
bear black enamel on silver. There were none except
the Kamboh and the lama in the compartment, which,
luckily, was of an old type with solid ends. Kim
made as to scratch in his bosom, and thereby lifted
his own amulet. The Mahratta's face changed
altogether at the sight, and he disposed the amulet
fairly on his breast.
'Yes,' he
went on to the Kamboh, 'I was in haste, and the
cart, driven by a bastard, bound its wheel in a
water-cut, and besides the harm done to me there was
lost a full dish of tarkeean. I was not a Son of the
Charm [a lucky man] that day.'
'That was a
great loss,' said the Kamboh, withdrawing interest.
His experience of Benares had made him suspicious.
'Who cooked
it?' said Kim.
'A woman.'
The Mahratta raised his eyes.
'But all
women can cook tarkeean,' said the Kamboh. 'It is a
good curry, as I know.'
'Oh yes, it
is a good curry,' said the Mahratta.
'And cheap,'
said Kim. 'But what about caste?'
'Oh, there
is no caste where men go to—look for tarkeean,' the
Mahratta replied, in the prescribed cadence. 'Of
whose service art thou?'
'Of the
service of this Holy One.' Kim pointed to the happy,
drowsy lama, who woke with a jerk at the well-loved
word.
'Ah, he was
sent from Heaven to aid me. He is called the Friend
of all the World. He is also called the Friend of
the Stars. He walks as a physician—his time being
ripe. Great is his wisdom.'
'And a Son
of the Charm,' said Kim under his breath, as the
Kamboh made haste to prepare a pipe lest the
Mahratta should beg.
'And who is
that?' the Mahratta asked, glancing sideways
nervously.
'One whose
child I—we have cured, who lies under great debt to
us. Sit by the window, man from Jullundur. Here is a
sick one.'
'Humph! I
have no desire to mix with chance-met wastrels. My
ears are not long. I am not a woman wishing to
overhear secrets.' The Jat slid himself heavily into
a far corner.
'Art thou
anything of a healer? I am ten leagues deep in
calamity,' cried the Mahratta, picking up the cue.
'This man is
cut and bruised all over. I go about to cure him,'
Kim retorted. 'None interfered between thy babe and
me.'
'I am
rebuked,' said the Kamboh meekly. 'I am thy debtor
for the life of my son. Thou art a miracle-worker—I
know it.'
'Show me the
cuts.' Kim bent over the Mahratta's neck, his heart
nearly choking him; for this was the Great Game with
a vengeance. 'Now, tell thy tale swiftly, brother,
while I say a charm.'
'I come from
the South, where my work lay. One of us they slew by
the roadside. Hast thou heard?' Kim shook his head.
He, of course, knew nothing of E's predecessor,
slain down South in the habit of an Arab trader.
'Having found a certain letter which I was sent to
seek, I came away. I escaped from the city and ran
to Mhow. So sure was I that none knew, I did not
change my face. At Mhow a woman brought charge
against me of theft of jewellery in that city which
I had left. Then I saw the cry was out against me. I
ran from Mhow by night, bribing the police, who had
been bribed to hand me over without question to my
enemies in the South. Then I lay in old Chitor city
a week, a penitent in a temple, but I could not get
rid of the letter which was my charge. I buried it
under the Queen's Stone, at Chitor, in the place
known to us all.'
Kim did not
know, but not for worlds would he have broken the
thread.
'At Chitor,
look you, I was all in Kings' country; for Kotah to
the east is beyond the Queen's law, and east again
lie Jaipur and Gwalior. Neither love spies, and
there is no justice. I was hunted like a wet jackal;
but I broke through at Bandakui, where I heard there
was a charge against me of murder in the city I had
left—of the murder of a boy. They have both the
corpse and the witnesses waiting.'
'But cannot
the Government protect?'
'We of the
Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our
names are blotted from the book. That is all. At
Bandakui, where lives one of Us, I thought to slip
the scent by changing my face, and so made me a
Mahratta. Then I came to Agra, and would have turned
back to Chitor to recover the letter. So sure I was
I had slipped them. Therefore I did not send a tar
[telegram] to any one saying where the letter lay. I
wished the credit of it all.'
Kim nodded.
He understood that feeling well.
'But at
Agra, walking in the streets, a man cried a debt
against me, and approaching with many witnesses,
would hale me to the courts then and there. Oh, they
are clever in the South! He recognized me as his
agent for cotton. May he burn in Hell for it!'
'And wast
thou?'
'O fool! I
was the man they sought for the matter of the
letter! I ran into the Fleshers' Ward and came out
by the House of the Jew, who feared a riot and
pushed me forth. I came afoot to Somna Road—I had
only money for my tikkut to Delhi—and there, while I
lay in a ditch with a fever, one sprang out of the
bushes and beat me and cut me and searched me from
head to foot. Within earshot of the terain it was!'
'Why did he
not slay thee out of hand?'
'They are
not so foolish. If I am taken in Delhi at the
instance of lawyers, upon a proven charge of murder,
my body is handed over to the State that desires it.
I go back guarded, and then—I die slowly for an
example to the rest of Us. The South is not my
country. I run in circles—like a goat with one eye.
I have not eaten for two days. I am marked'—he
touched the filthy bandage on his leg—'so that they
will know me at Delhi.'
'Thou art
safe in the te-rain, at least.'
'Live a year
at the Great Game and tell me that again! The wires
will be out against me at Delhi, describing every
tear and rag upon me. Twenty—a hundred, if need
be—will have seen me slay that boy. And thou art
useless!'
Kim knew
enough of native methods of attack not to doubt that
the case would be deadly complete—even to the
corpse. The Mahratta twitched his fingers with pain
from time to time. The Kamboh in his corner glared
sullenly; the lama was busy over his beads; and Kim,
fumbling doctor-fashion at the man's neck, thought
out his plan between invocations.
'Hast thou a
charm to change my shape? Else I am dead. Five—ten
minutes alone, if I had not been so pressed, and I
might—'
'Is he cured
yet, miracle-worker?' said the Kamboh jealously.
'Thou hast chanted long enough.'
'Nay. There
is no cure for his hurts, as I see, except he sit
for three days in the habit of a bairagi.' This is a
common penance, often imposed on a fat trader by his
spiritual teacher.
'One priest
always goes about to make another priest,' was the
retort. Like most grossly superstitious folk, the
Kamboh could not keep his tongue from deriding his
Church.
'Will thy
son be a priest, then? It is time he took more of my
quinine.'
'We Jats are
all buffaloes,' said the Kamboh, softening anew.
Kim rubbed a
finger-tip of bitterness on the child's trusting
little lips. 'I have asked for nothing,' he said
sternly to the father, 'except food. Dost thou
grudge me that? I go to heal another man. Have I thy
leave—Prince?'
Up flew the
man's huge paws in supplication. 'Nay—nay. Do not
mock me thus.'
'It pleases
me to cure this sick one. Thou shalt acquire merit
by aiding. What colour ash is there in thy
pipe-bowl? White. That is auspicious. Was there raw
turmeric among thy foodstuffs?'
'I—I—'
'Open thy
bundle!'
It was the
usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth,
quack medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of
atta—greyish, rough-ground native flour—twists of
down-country tobacco, tawdry pipe-stems, and a
packet of curry-stuff, all wrapped in a quilt. Kim
turned it over with the air of a wise warlock,
muttering a Mohammedan invocation.
'This is
wisdom I learned from the Sahibs,' he whispered to
the lama; and here, when one thinks of his training
at Lurgan's, he spoke no more than the truth. 'There
is a great evil in this man's fortune, as shown by
the Stars, which—which troubles him. Shall I take it
away?'
'Friend of
the Stars, thou hast done well in all things. Let it
be at thy pleasure. Is it another healing?'
'Quick! Be
quick!' gasped the Mahratta. 'The train may stop.'
'A healing
against the shadow of death,' said Kim, mixing the
Kamboh's flour with the mingled charcoal and tobacco
ash in the red-earth bowl of the pipe. E, without a
word, slipped off his turban and shook down his long
black hair.
'That is my food—priest,'
the jat growled.
'A buffalo
in the temple! Hast thou dared to look even thus
far?' said Kim. 'I must do mysteries before fools;
but have a care for thine eyes. Is there a film
before them already? I save the babe, and for return
thou—oh, shameless!' The man flinched at the direct
gaze, for Kim was wholly in earnest.
'Shall I
curse thee, or shall I—' He picked up the outer
cloth of the bundle and threw it over the bowed
head. 'Dare so much as to think a wish to see,
and—and—even I cannot save thee. Sit! Be dumb!'
'I am
blind—dumb. Forbear to curse! Co—come, child; we
will play a game of hiding. Do not, for my sake,
look from under the cloth.'
'I see
hope,' said E23. 'What is thy scheme?'
'This comes
next,' said Kim, plucking the thin body-shirt. E23
hesitated, with all a North-West man's dislike of
baring his body.
'What is
caste to a cut throat?' said Kim, rending it to the
waist. 'We must make thee a yellow Saddhu all over.
Strip—strip swiftly, and shake thy hair over thine
eyes while I scatter the ash. Now, a caste-mark on
thy forehead.' He drew from his bosom the little
Survey paint-box and a cake of crimson lake.
'Art thou
only a beginner?' said E23, labouring literally for
the dear life, as he slid out of his body-wrappings
and stood clear in the loin-cloth while Kim splashed
in a noble caste-mark on the ash-smeared brow.
'But two
days entered to the Game, brother,' Kim replied.
'Smear more ash on the bosom.'
'Hast thou
met—a physician of sick pearls?' He switched out his
long, tight-rolled turban-cloth and, with swiftest
hands, rolled it over and under about his loins into
the intricate devices of a Saddhu's cincture.
'Hah! Dost
thou know his touch, then? He was my teacher for a
while. We must bar thy legs. Ash cures wounds. Smear
it again.'
'I was his
pride once, but thou art almost better. The Gods are
kind to us! Give me that.'
It was a tin
box of opium pills among the rubbish of the Jat's
bundle. E23 gulped down a half handful. 'They are
good against hunger, fear, and chill. And they make
the eyes red too,' he explained. 'Now I shall have
heart to play the Game. We lack only a Saddhu's
tongs. What of the old clothes?'
Kim rolled
them small, and stuffed them into the slack folds of
his tunic. With a yellow-ochre paint cake he smeared
the legs and the breast, great streaks against the
background of flour, ash, and turmeric.
'The blood
on them is enough to hang thee, brother.'
'Maybe; but
no need to throw them out of the window ... It is
finished.' His voice thrilled with a boy's pure
delight in the Game. 'Turn and look, O Jat!'
'The Gods
protect us,' said the hooded Kamboh, emerging like a
buffalo from the reeds. 'But—whither went the
Mahratta? What hast thou done?'
Kim had been
trained by Lurgan Sahib; E23, by virtue of his
business, was no bad actor. In place of the
tremulous, shrinking trader there lolled against the
corner an all but naked, ash-smeared, ochre-barred,
dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes—opium takes
quick effect on an empty stomach—luminous with
insolence and bestial lust, his legs crossed under
him, Kim's brown rosary round his neck, and a scant
yard of worn, flowered chintz on his shoulders. The
child buried his face in his amazed father's arms.
'Look up,
Princeling! We travel with warlocks, but they will
not hurt thee. Oh, do not cry ... What is the sense
of curing a child one day and killing him with
fright the next?'
'The child
will be fortunate all his life. He has seen a great
healing. When I was a child I made clay men and
horses.'
'I have made
them too. Sir Banas, he comes in the night and makes
them all alive at the back of our kitchen-midden,'
piped the child.
'And so thou
art not frightened at anything. Eh, Prince?'
'I was
frightened because my father was frightened. I felt
his arms shake.'
'Oh,
chicken-man!' said Kim, and even the abashed Jat
laughed. 'I have done a healing on this poor trader.
He must forsake his gains and his account-books, and
sit by the wayside three nights to overcome the
malignity of his enemies. The Stars are against
him.'
'The fewer
money-lenders the better, say I; but, Saddhu or no
Saddhu, he should pay for my stuff on his
shoulders.'
'So? But
that is thy child on thy shoulder—given over to the
burning-ghat not two days ago. There remains one
thing more. I did this charm in thy presence because
need was great. I changed his shape and his soul.
None the less, if, by any chance, O man from
Jullundur, thou rememberest what thou hast seen,
either among the elders sitting under the village
tree, or in thine own house, or in company of thy
priest when he blesses thy cattle, a murrain will
come among the buffaloes, and a fire in thy thatch,
and rats in the corn-bins, and the curse of our Gods
upon thy fields that they may be barren before thy
feet and after thy ploughshare.' This was part of an
old curse picked up from a fakir by the Taksali Gate
in the days of Kim's innocence. It lost nothing by
repetition.
'Cease, Holy
One! In mercy, cease!' cried the Jat. 'Do not curse
the household. I saw nothing! I heard nothing! I am
thy cow!' and he made to grab at Kim's bare foot
beating rhythmically on the carriage floor. 'But
since thou hast been permitted to aid me in the
matter of a pinch of flour and a little opium and
such trifles as I have honoured by using in my art,
so will the Gods return a blessing,' and he gave it
at length, to the man's immense relief. It was one
that he had learned from Lurgan Sahib.
The lama
stared through his spectacles as he had not stared
at the business of disguisement. 'Friend of the
Stars,' he said at last, 'thou hast acquired great
wisdom. Beware that it do not give birth to pride.
No man having the Law before his eyes speaks hastily
of any matter which he has seen or encountered.'
'No—no—no,
indeed,' cried the farmer, fearful lest the master
should be minded to improve on the pupil. E23, with
relaxed mouth, gave himself up to the opium that is
meat, tobacco, and medicine to the spent Asiatic.
So, in a
silence of awe and great miscomprehension, they slid
into Delhi about lamp-lighting time.
Chapter 12
Who hath
desired the Sea—the sight of salt-water unbounded?
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of
the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm—grey,
foamless, enormous, and growing?
Stark calm on the lap of the Line—or the crazy-eyed
hurricane blowing?
His Sea in no showing the same—his Sea and the same
'neath all showing—
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hill-men
desire their Hills!
The Sea and the Hills.
'I have found my heart
again,' said E23, under cover of the platform's
tumult. 'Hunger and fear make men dazed, or I might
have thought of this escape before. I was right.
They come to hunt for me. Thou hast saved my head.'
A group of
yellow-trousered Punjab policemen, headed by a hot
and perspiring young Englishman, parted the crowd
about the carriages. Behind them, inconspicuous as a
cat, ambled a small fat person who looked like a
lawyer's tout.
'See the
young Sahib reading from a paper. My description is
in his hand,' said E23. 'Thev go carriage by
carriage, like fisher-folk netting a pool.'
When the
procession reached their compartment, E23 was
counting his beads with a steady jerk of the wrist;
while Kim jeered at him for being so drugged as to
have lost the ringed fire-tongs which are the
Saddhu's distinguishing mark. The lama, deep in
meditation, stared straight before him; and the
farmer, glancing furtively, gathered up his
belongings.
'Nothing
here but a parcel of holy-bolies,' said the
Englishman aloud, and passed on amid a ripple of
uneasiness; for native police mean extortion to the
native all India over.
'The trouble
now,' whispered E23, 'lies in sending a wire as to
the place where I hid that letter I was sent to
find. I cannot go to the tar-office in this guise.'
'Is it not
enough I have saved thy neck?'
'Not if the
work be left unfinished. Did never the healer of
sick pearls tell thee so? Comes another Sahib! Ah!'
This was a
tallish, sallowish District Superintendent of
Police—belt, helmet, polished spurs and
all—strutting and twirling his dark moustache.
'What fools
are these Police Sahibs!' said Kim genially.
E23 glanced
up under his eyelids. 'It is well said,' he muttered
in a changed voice. 'I go to drink water. Keep my
place.'
He blundered
out almost into the Englishman's arms, and was
bad-worded in clumsy Urdu.
'Tum mut?
You drunk? You mustn't bang about as though Delhi
station belonged to you, my friend.'
E23, not
moving a muscle of his countenance, answered with a
stream of the filthiest abuse, at which Kim
naturally rejoiced. It reminded him of the
drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa in
the terrible time of his first schooling.
'My good
fool,' the Englishman drawled. 'Nickle-jao! Go back
to your carriage.'
Step by
step, withdrawing deferentially and dropping his
voice, the yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage,
cursing the D.S.P. to remotest posterity, by—here
Kim almost jumped—by the curse of the Queen's Stone,
by the writing under the Queen's Stone, and by an
assortment of Gods with wholly, new names.
'I don't
know what you're saying,'—the Englishman flushed
angrily—'but it's some piece of blasted
impertinence. Come out of that!'
E23,
affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced his
ticket, which the Englishman wrenched angrily from
his hand.
'Oh, zoolum!
What oppression!' growled the Jat from his corner.
'All for the sake of a jest too.' He had been
grinning at the freedom of the Saddhu's tongue. 'Thy
charms do not work well today, Holy One!'
The Saddhu
followed the policeman, fawning and supplicating.
The ruck of passengers, busy, with their babies and
their bundles, had not noticed the affair. Kim
slipped out behind him; for it flashed through his
head that he had heard this angry, stupid Sahib
discoursing loud personalities to an old lady near
Umballa three years ago.
'It is
well', the Saddhu whispered, jammed in the calling,
shouting, bewildered press—a Persian greyhound
between his feet and a cageful of yelling hawks
under charge of a Rajput falconer in the small of
his back. 'He has gone now to send word of the
letter which I hid. They told me he was in Peshawur.
I might have known that he is like the
crocodile—always at the other ford. He has saved me
from present calamity, but I owe my life to thee.'
'Is he also
one of Us?' Kim ducked under a Mewar camel-driver's
greasy armpit and cannoned off a covey of jabbering
Sikh matrons.
'Not less
than the greatest. We are both fortunate! I will
make report to him of what thou hast done. I am safe
under his protection.'
He bored
through the edge of the crowd besieging the
carriages, and squatted by the bench near the
telegraph-office.
'Return, or
they take thy place! Have no fear for the work,
brother—or my life. Thou hast given me
breathing-space, and Strickland Sahib has pulled me
to land. We may work together at the Game yet.
Farewell!'
Kim hurried
to his carriage: elated, bewildered, but a little
nettled in that he had no key to the secrets about
him.
'I am only a
beginner at the Game, that is sure. I could not have
leaped into safety as did the Saddhu. He knew it was
darkest under the lamp. I could not have thought to
tell news under pretence of cursing ... and how
clever was the Sahib! No matter, I saved the life of
one ... Where is the Kamboh gone, Holy One?' he
whispered, as he took his seat in the now crowded
compartment.
'A fear
gripped him,' the lama replied, with a touch of
tender malice. 'He saw thee change the Mahratta to a
Saddhu in the twinkling of an eye, as a protection
against evil. That shook him. Then he saw the Saddhu
fall sheer into the hands of the polis—all the
effect of thy art. Then he gathered up his son and
fled; for he said that thou didst change a quiet
trader into an impudent bandier of words with the
Sahibs, and he feared a like fate. Where is the
Saddhu?'
'With the
polis,' said Kim ... 'Yet I saved the Kamboh's
child.'
The lama
snuffed blandly.
'Ah, chela,
see how thou art overtaken! Thou didst cure the
Kamboh's child solely to acquire merit. But thou
didst put a spell on the Mahratta with prideful
workings—I watched thee—and with sidelong glances to
bewilder an old old man and a foolish farmer: whence
calamity and suspicion.'
Kim
controlled himself with an effort beyond his years.
Not more than any other youngster did he like to eat
dirt or to be misjudged, but he saw himself in a
cleft stick. The train rolled out of Delhi into the
night.
'It is
true,' he murmured. 'Where I have offended thee I
have done wrong.'
'It is more,
chela. Thou hast loosed an Act upon the world, and
as a stone thrown into a pool so spread the
consequences thou canst not tell how far.'
This
ignorance was well both for Kim's vanity and for the
lama's peace of mind, when we think that there was
then being handed in at Simla a code-wire reporting
the arrival of E23 at Delhi, and, more important,
the whereabouts of a letter he had been commissioned
to—abstract. Incidentally, an over-zealous policeman
had arrested, on charge of murder done in a far
southern State, a horribly indignant Ajmir
cotton-broker, who was explaining himself to a Mr
Strickland on Delhi platform, while E23 was paddling
through byways into the locked heart of Delhi city.
In two hours several telegrams had reached the angry
minister of a southern State reporting that all
trace of a somewhat bruised Mahratta had been lost;
and by the time the leisurely train halted at
Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim had
helped to heave was lapping against the steps of a
mosque in far-away Roum—where it disturbed a pious
man at prayers.
The lama
made his in ample form near the dewy
bougainvillea-trellis near the platform, cheered by
the clear sunshine and the presence of his disciple.
'We will put these things behind us,' he said,
indicating the brazen engine and the gleaming track.
'The jolting of the te-rain—though a wonderful
thing—has turned my bones to water. We will use
clean air henceforward.'
'Let us go
to the Kulu woman's house' said Kim, and stepped
forth cheerily under the bundles. Early morning
Saharunpore-way is clean and well scented. He
thought of the other mornings at St Xavier's, and it
topped his already thrice-heaped contentment.
'Where is
this new haste born from? Wise men do not run about
like chickens in the sun. We have come hundreds upon
hundreds of koss already, and, till now, I have
scarcely been alone with thee an instant. How canst
thou receive instruction all jostled of crowds? How
can I, whelmed by a flux of talk, meditate upon the
Way?'
'Her tongue
grows no shorter with the years, then?' the disciple
smiled.
'Nor her
desire for charms. I remember once when I spoke of
the Wheel of Life'—the lama fumbled in his bosom for
his latest copy—'she was only curious about the
devils that besiege children. She shall acquire
merit by entertaining us—in a little while—at an
after-occasion—softly, softly. Now we will wander
loose-foot, waiting upon the Chain of Things. The
Search is sure.'
So they
travelled very easily across and among the broad
bloomful fruit-gardens—by way of Aminabad,
Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and little
Phulesa—the line of the Siwaliks always to the
north, and behind them again the snows. After long,
sweet sleep under the dry stars came the lordly,
leisurely passage through a waking
village—begging-bowl held forth in silence, but eyes
roving in defiance of the Law from sky's edge to
sky's edge. Then would Kim return soft-footed
through the soft dust to his master under the shadow
of a mango-tree or the thinner shade of a white Doon
siris, to eat and drink at ease. At mid-day, after
talk and a little wayfaring, they slept; meeting the
world refreshed when the air was cooler. Night found
them adventuring into new territory—some chosen
village spied three hours before across the fat
land, and much discussed upon the road.
There they
told their tale—a new one each evening so far as Kim
was concerned—and there were they made welcome,
either by priest or headman, after the custom of the
kindly East.
When the
shadows shortened and the lama leaned more heavily
upon Kim, there was always the Wheel of Life to draw
forth, to hold flat under wiped stones, and with a
long straw to expound cycle by cycle. Here sat the
Gods on high—and they were dreams of dreams. Here
was our Heaven and the world of the
demi-Gods—horsemen fighting among the hills. Here
were the agonies done upon the beasts, souls
ascending or descending the ladder and therefore not
to be interfered with. Here were the Hells, hot and
cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts. Let the
chela study the troubles that come from
over-eating—bloated stomach and burning bowels.
Obediently, then, with bowed head and brown finger
alert to follow the pointer, did the chela study;
but when they came to the Human World, busy and
profitless, that is just above the Hells, his mind
was distracted; for by the roadside trundled the
very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading,
marrying, and quarrelling—all warmly alive. Often
the lama made the living pictures the matter of his
text, bidding Kim—too ready—note how the flesh takes
a thousand shapes, desirable or detestable as men
reckon, but in truth of no account either way; and
how the stupid spirit, bond-slave to the Hog, the
Dove, and the Serpent—lusting after betel-nut, a new
yoke of oxen, women, or the favour of kings—is bound
to follow the body through all the Heavens and all
the Hells, and strictly round again. Sometimes a
woman or a poor man, watching the ritual—it was
nothing less—when the great yellow chart was
unfolded, would throw a few flowers or a handful of
cowries upon its edge. It sufficed these humble ones
that they had met a Holy One who might be moved to
remember them in his prayers.
'Cure them
if they are sick,' said the lama, when Kim's
sporting instincts woke. 'Cure them if they have
fever, but by no means work charms. Remember what
befell the Mahratta.'
'Then all
Doing is evil?' Kim replied, lying out under a big
tree at the fork of the Doon road, watching the
little ants run over his hand.
'To abstain
from action is well—except to acquire merit.'
'At the
Gates of Learning we were taught that to abstain
from action was unbefitting a Sahib. And I am a
Sahib.'
'Friend of
all the World,'—the lama looked directly at Kim—'I
am an old man—pleased with shows as are children. To
those who follow the Way there is neither black nor
white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. We be all souls seeking
escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among
Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed
from all illusion—at my side. Hai! My bones ache for
that River, as they ached in the te-rain; but my
spirit sits above my bones, waiting. The Search is
sure!'
'I am
answered. Is it permitted to ask a question?'
The lama
inclined his stately head.
'I ate thy
bread for three years—as thou knowest. Holy One,
whence came—?'
'There is
much wealth, as men count it, in Bhotiyal,' the lama
returned with composure. 'In my own place I have the
illusion of honour. I ask for that I need. I am not
concerned with the account. That is for my
monastery. Ai! The black high seats in the
monastery, and novices all in order!'
And he told
stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the
immense and sumptuous ritual of avalanche-guarded
cathedrals; of processions and devil-dances; of the
changing of monks and nuns into swine; of holy
cities fifteen thousand feet in the air; of intrigue
between monastery and monastery; of voices among the
hills, and of that mysterious mirage that dances on
dry snow. He spoke even of Lhassa and of the Dalai
Lama, whom he had seen and adored.
Each long,
perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him
off from his race and his mother-tongue. He slipped
back to thinking and dreaming in the vernacular, and
mechanically followed the lama's ceremonial
observances at eating, drinking, and the like. The
old man's mind turned more and more to his monastery
as his eyes turned to the steadfast snows. His River
troubled him nothing. Now and again, indeed, he
would gaze long and long at a tuft or a twig,
expecting, he said, the earth to cleave and deliver
its blessing; but he was content to be with his
disciple, at ease in the temperate wind that comes
down from the Doon. This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh
Gaya, nor Bombay, nor some grass-tangled ruins that
he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago. He
spoke of those places as a scholar removed from
vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old
man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge with
brilliant insight. Bit by bit, disconnectedly, each
tale called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of
all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who
had loved him without reason, now loved him for
fifty good reasons. So they enjoyed themselves in
high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule demands, from
evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not
lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their
stomachs told them the time, and the people brought
them their food, as the saying is. They were lords
of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of
the Ford, and little Phulesa, where Kim gave the
soulless woman a blessing.
But news
travels fast in India, and too soon shuffled across
the crop-land, bearing a basket of fruits with a box
of Kabul grapes and gilt oranges, a white-whiskered
servitor—a lean, dry Oorya—begging them to bring the
honour of their presence to his mistress, distressed
in her mind that the lama had neglected her so long.
'Now do I
remember'—the lama spoke as though it were a wholly
new proposition. 'She is virtuous, but an inordinate
talker.'
Kim was
sitting on the edge of a cow's manger, telling
stories to a village smith's children.
'She will
only ask for another son for her daughter. I have
not forgotten her,' he said. 'Let her acquire merit.
Send word that we will come.'
They covered
eleven miles through the fields in two days, and
were overwhelmed with attentions at the end; for the
old lady held a fine tradition of hospitality, to
which she forced her son-in-law, who was under the
thumb of his women-folk and bought peace by
borrowing of the money-lender. Age had not weakened
her tongue or her memory, and from a discreetly
barred upper window, in the hearing of not less than
a dozen servants, she paid Kim compliments that
would have flung European audiences into unclean
dismay.
'But thou
art still the shameless beggar-brat of the parao,'
she shrilled. 'I have not forgotten thee. Wash ye
and eat. The father of my daughter's son is gone
away awhile. So we poor women are dumb and useless.'
For proof,
she harangued the entire household unsparingly till
food and drink were brought; and in the evening—the
smoke-scented evening, copper-dun and turquoise
across the fields—it pleased her to order her
palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by
smoky torchlight; and there, behind not too closely
drawn curtains, she gossiped.
'Had the
Holy One come alone, I should have received him
otherwise; but with this rogue, who can be too
careful?'
'Maharanee,'
said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, 'is
it my fault that none other than a Sahib—a
polis-Sahib—called the Maharanee whose face he—'
'Chutt! That was on the pilgrimage. When we
travel—thou knowest the proverb.'
'Called the
Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of
Delights?'
'To remember
that! It was true. So he did. That was in the time
of the bloom of my beauty.' She chuckled like a
contented parrot above the sugar lump. 'Now tell me
of thy goings and comings—as much as may be without
shame. How many maids, and whose wives, hang upon
thine eyelashes? Ye hail from Benares? I would have
gone there again this year, but my daughter—we have
only two sons. Phaii! Such is the effect of these
low plains. Now in Kulu men are elephants. But I
would ask thy Holy One—stand aside, rogue—a charm
against most lamentable windy colics that in
mango-time overtake my daughter's eldest. Two years
back he gave me a powerful spell.'
'Oh, Holy
One!' said Kim, bubbling with mirth at the lama's
rueful face.
'It is true.
I gave her one against wind.'
'Teeth—teeth—teeth,' snapped the old woman.
"'Cure them
if they are sick,"' Kim quoted relishingly, "'but by
no means work charms. Remember what befell the
Mahratta."'
'That was
two Rains ago; she wearied me with her continual
importunity.' The lama groaned as the Unjust Judge
had groaned before him. 'Thus it comes—take note, my
chela—that even those who would follow the Way are
thrust aside by idle women. Three days through, when
the child was sick, she talked to me.'
'Arre! and
to whom else should I talk? The boy's mother knew
nothing, and the father—in the nights of the cold
weather it was—"Pray to the Gods," said he,
forsooth, and turning over, snored!'
'I gave her
the charm. What is an old man to do?'
"'To abstain
from action is well—except to acquire merit."'
'Ah chela,
if thou desertest me, I am all alone.'
'He found
his milk-teeth easily at any rate,' said the old
lady. 'But all priests are alike.'
Kim coughed
severely. Being young, he did not approve of her
flippancy. 'To importune the wise out of season is
to invite calamity.'
'There is a
talking mynah'—the thrust came back with the
well-remembered snap of the jewelled
fore-finger—'over the stables which has picked up
the very tone of the family priest. Maybe I forget
honour to my guests, but if ye had seen him double
his fists into his belly, which was like a
half-grown gourd, and cry: "Here is the pain!" ye
would forgive. I am half minded to take the hakim's
medicine. He sells it cheap, and certainly it makes
him fat as Shiv's own bull. He does not deny
remedies, but I doubted for the child because of the
in-auspicious colour of the bottles.'
The lama,
under cover of the monologue, had faded out into the
darkness towards the room prepared.
'Thou hast
angered him, belike,' said Kim.
'Not he. He
is wearied, and I forgot, being a grandmother. (None
but a grandmother should ever oversee a child.
Mothers are only fit for bearing.) Tomorrow, when he
sees how my daughter's son is grown, he will write
the charm. Then, too, he can judge of the new
hakim's drugs.'
'Who is the
hakim, Maharanee?'
'A wanderer,
as thou art, but a most sober Bengali from Dacca—a
master of medicine. He relieved me of an oppression
after meat by means of a small pill that wrought
like a devil unchained. He travels about now,
vending preparations of great value. He has even
papers, printed in Angrezi, telling what things he
has done for weak-backed men and slack women. He has
been here four days; but hearing ye were coming
(hakims and priests are snake and tiger the world
over) he has, as I take it, gone to cover.'
While she
drew breath after this volley, the ancient servant,
sitting unrebuked on the edge of the torchlight,
muttered: 'This house is a cattle-pound, as it were,
for all charlatans and—priests. Let the boy stop
eating mangoes ... but who can argue with a
grandmother?' He raised his voice respectfully:
'Sahiba, the hakim sleeps after his meat. He is in
the quarters behind the dovecote.'
Kim bristled
like an expectant terrier. To outface and down-talk
a Calcutta-taught Bengali, a voluble Dacca
drug-vendor, would be a good game. It was not seemly
that the lama, and incidentally himself, should be
thrown aside for such an one. He knew those curious
bastard English advertisements at the backs of
native newspapers. St Xavier's boys sometimes
brought them in by stealth to snigger over among
their mates; for the language of the grateful
patient recounting his symptoms is most simple and
revealing. The Oorya, not unanxious to play off one
parasite against the other, slunk away towards the
dovecote.
'Yes,' said
Kim, with measured scorn. 'Their stock-in-trade is a
little coloured water and a very great
shamelessness. Their prey are broken-down kings and
overfed Bengalis. Their profit is in children—who
are not born.' The old lady chuckled. 'Do not be
envious. Charms are better, eh? I never gainsaid it.
See that thy Holy One writes me a good amulet by the
morning.'
'None but
the ignorant deny'—a thick, heavy voice boomed
through the darkness, as a figure came to rest
squatting—'None but the ignorant deny the value of
charms. None but the ignorant deny the value of
medicines.'
'A rat found
a piece of turmeric. Said he: "I will open a
grocer's shop,"' Kim retorted.
Battle was
fairly joined now, and they heard the old lady
stiffen to attention.
'The
priest's son knows the names of his nurse and three
Gods. Says he: "Hear me, or I will curse you by the
three million Great Ones."' Decidedly this invisible
had an arrow or two in his quiver. He went on: 'I am
but a teacher of the alphabet. I have learned all
the wisdom of the Sahibs.'
'The Sahibs
never grow old. They dance and they play like
children when they are grandfathers. A strong-backed
breed,' piped the voice inside the palanquin.
'I have,
too, our drugs which loosen humours of the head in
hot and angry men. Sina well compounded when the
moon stands in the proper House; yellow earths I
have—arplan from China that makes a man renew his
youth and astonish his household; saffron from
Kashmir, and the best salep of Kabul. Many people
have died before—'
'That I
surely believe,' said Kim.
'They knew
the value of my drugs. I do not give my sick the
mere ink in which a charm is written, but hot and
rending drugs which descend and wrestle with the
evil.'
'Very
mightily they do so,' sighed the old lady.
The voice
launched into an immense tale of misfortune and
bankruptcy, studded with plentiful petitions to the
Government. 'But for my fate, which overrules all, I
had been now in Government employ. I bear a degree
from the great school at Calcutta—whither, maybe,
the son of this House shall go.'
'He shall
indeed. If our neighbour's brat can in a few years
be made an F A' (First Arts—she used the English
word, of which she had heard so often), 'how much
more shall children clever as some that I know bear
away prizes at rich Calcutta.'
'Never,'
said the voice, 'have I seen such a child! Born in
an auspicious hour, and—but for that colic which,
alas! turning into black cholers, may carry him off
like a pigeon—destined to many years, he is
enviable.'
'Hai mai!'
said the old lady. 'To praise children is
inauspicious, or I could listen to this talk. But
the back of the house is unguarded, and even in this
soft air men think themselves to be men, and women
we know ... The child's father is away too, and I
must be chowkedar [watchman] in my old age. Up! Up!
Take up the palanquin. Let the hakim and the young
priest settle between them whether charms or
medicine most avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch
tobacco for the guests, and—round the homestead go
I!'
The
palanquin reeled off, followed by straggling torches
and a horde of dogs. Twenty villages knew the
Sahiba—her failings, her tongue, and her large
charity. Twenty villages cheated her after
immemorial custom, but no man would have stolen or
robbed within her jurisdiction for any gift under
heaven. None the less, she made great parade of her
formal inspections, the riot of which could be heard
half-way to Mussoorie.
Kim relaxed,
as one augur must when he meets another. The hakim,
still squatting, slid over his hookah with a
friendly foot, and Kim pulled at the good weed. The
hangers-on expected grave professional debate, and
perhaps a little free doctoring.
'To discuss
medicine before the ignorant is of one piece with
teaching the peacock to sing,' said the hakim.
'True
courtesy,' Kim echoed, 'is very often inattention.'
These, be it
understood, were company-manners, designed to
impress.
'Hi! I have
an ulcer on my leg,' cried a scullion. 'Look at it!'
'Get hence!
Remove!' said the hakim. 'Is it the habit of the
place to pester honoured guests? Ye crowd in like
buffaloes.'
'If the
Sahiba knew—' Kim began.
'Ai! Ai!
Come away. They are meat for our mistress. When her
young Shaitan's colics are cured perhaps we poor
people may be suffered to—'
'The
mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in jail for
breaking the money-lender's head. Who speaks against
her?' The old servitor curled his white moustaches
savagely in the young moonlight. 'I am responsible
for the honour of this house. Go!' and he drove the
underlings before him.
Said the
hakim, hardly more than shaping the words with his
lips: 'How do you do, Mister O'Hara? I am jolly glad
to see you again.'
Kim's hand
clenched about the pipe-stem. Anywhere on the open
road, perhaps, he would not have been astonished;
but here, in this quiet backwater of life, he was
not prepared for Hurree Babu. It annoyed him, too,
that he had been hoodwinked.
'Ah ha! I
told you at Lucknow—resurgam—I shall rise again and
you shall not know me. How much did you bet—eh?'
He chewed
leisurely upon a few cardamom seeds, but he breathed
uneasily.
'But why
come here, Babuji?'
'Ah! Thatt
is the question, as Shakespeare hath it. I come to
congratulate you on your extraordinary effeecient
performance at Delhi. Oah! I tell you we are all
proud of you. It was verree neat and handy. Our
mutual friend, he is old friend of mine. He has been
in some dam'-tight places. Now he will be in some
more. He told me; I tell Mr Lurgan; and he is
pleased you graduate so nicely. All the Department
is pleased.'
For the
first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the clean
pride (it can be a deadly pitfall, none the less) of
Departmental praise—ensnaring praise from an equal
of work appreciated by fellow-workers. Earth has
nothing on the same plane to compare with it. But,
cried the Oriental in him, Babus do not travel far
to retail compliments.
'Tell thy
tale, Babu,' he said authoritatively.
'Oah, it is
nothing. Onlee I was at Simla when the wire came in
about what our mutual friend said he had hidden, and
old Creighton—' He looked to see how Kim would take
this piece of audacity.
'The Colonel
Sahib,' the boy from St Xavier's corrected. 'Of
course. He found me at a loose string, and I had to
go down to Chitor to find that beastly letter. I do
not like the South—too much railway travel; but I
drew good travelling allowance. Ha! Ha! I meet our
mutual at Delhi on the way back. He lies quiett just
now, and says Saddhu-disguise suits him to the
ground. Well, there I hear what you have done so
well, so quickly, upon the instantaneous spur of the
moment. I tell our mutual you take the bally bun, by
Jove! It was splendid. I come to tell you so.'
'Umm!'
The frogs
were busy in the ditches, and the moon slid to her
setting. Some happy servant had gone out to commune
with the night and to beat upon a drum. Kim's next
sentence was in the vernacular.
'How didst
thou follow us?'
'Oah. Thatt
was nothing. I know from our mutual friend you go to
Saharunpore. So I come on. Red Lamas are not
inconspicuous persons. I buy myself my drug-box, and
I am very good doctor really. I go to Akrola of the
Ford, and hear all about you, and I talk here and
talk there. All the common people know what you do.
I knew when the hospitable old lady sent the dooli.
They have great recollections of the old lama's
visits here. I know old ladies cannot keep their
hands from medicines. So I am a doctor, and—you hear
my talk? I think it is verree good. My word, Mister
O'Hara, they know about you and the lama for fifty
miles—the common people. So I come. Do you mind?'
'Babuji,'
said Kim, looking up at the broad, grinning face, 'I
am a Sahib.'
'My dear
Mister O'Hara—'
'And I hope
to play the Great Game.'
'You are
subordinate to me departmentally at present.'
'Then why
talk like an ape in a tree? Men do not come after
one from Simla and change their dress, for the sake
of a few sweet words. I am not a child. Talk Hindi
and let us get to the yolk of the egg. Thou art
here—speaking not one word of truth in ten. Why art
thou here? Give a straight answer.'
'That is so
verree disconcerting of the Europeans, Mister
O'Hara. You should know a heap better at your time
of life.'
'But I want
to know,' said Kim, laughing. 'If it is the Game, I
may help. How can I do anything if you bukh [babble]
all round the shop?'
Hurree Babu
reached for the pipe, and sucked it till it gurgled
again.
'Now I will
speak vernacular. You sit tight, Mister O'Hara ...
It concerns the pedigree of a white stallion.'
'Still? That
was finished long ago.'
'When
everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not
before. Listen to me till the end. There were Five
Kings who prepared a sudden war three years ago,
when thou wast given the stallion's pedigree by
Mahbub Ali. Upon them, because of that news, and ere
they were ready, fell our Army.'
'Ay—eight
thousand men with guns. I remember that night.'
'But the war
was not pushed. That is the Government custom. The
troops were recalled because the Government believed
the Five Kings were cowed; and it is not cheap to
feed men among the high Passes. Hilas and
Bunar—Rajahs with guns—undertook for a price to
guard the Passes against all coming from the North.
They protested both fear and friendship.' He broke
off with a giggle into English: 'Of course, I tell
you this unoffeecially to elucidate political
situation, Mister O'Hara. Offeecially, I am debarred
from criticizing any action of superiors. Now I go
on.—This pleased the Government, anxious to avoid
expense, and a bond was made for so many rupees a
month that Hilas and Bunar should guard the Passes
as soon as the State's troops were withdrawn. At
that time—it was after we two met—I, who had been
selling tea in Leh, became a clerk of accounts in
the Army. When the troops were withdrawn, I was left
behind to pay the coolies who made new roads in the
Hills. This road-making was part of the bond between
Bunar, Hilas, and the Government.'
'So? And
then?'
'I tell you,
it was jolly-beastly cold up there too, after
summer,' said Hurree Babu confidentially. 'I was
afraid these Bunar men would cut my throat every
night for thee pay-chest. My native sepoy-guard,
they laughed at me! By Jove! I was such a fearful
man. Nevar mind thatt. I go on colloquially ... I
send word many times that these two Kings were sold
to the North; and Mahbub Ali, who was yet farther
North, amply confirmed it. Nothing was done. Only my
feet were frozen, and a toe dropped off. I sent word
that the roads for which I was paying money to the
diggers were being made for the feet of strangers
and enemies.'
'For?'
'For the
Russians. The thing was an open jest among the
coolies. Then I was called down to tell what I knew
by speech of tongue. Mahbub came South too. See the
end! Over the Passes this year after
snow-melting'—he shivered afresh—'come two strangers
under cover of shooting wild goats. They bear guns,
but they bear also chains and levels and compasses.'
'Oho! The
thing gets clearer.'
'They are
well received by Hilas and Bunar. They make great
promises; they speak as the mouthpiece of a Kaisar
with gifts. Up the valleys, down the valleys go
they, saying, "Here is a place to build a
breastwork; here can ye pitch a fort. Here can ye
hold the road against an army"—the very roads for
which I paid out the rupees monthly. The Government
knows, but does nothing. The three other Kings, who
were not paid for guarding the Passes, tell them by
runner of the bad faith of Bunar and Hilas. When all
the evil is done, look you—when these two strangers
with the levels and the compasses make the Five
Kings to believe that a great army will sweep the
Passes tomorrow or the next day—Hill-people are all
fools—comes the order to me, Hurree Babu, "Go North
and see what those strangers do." I say to Creighton
Sahib, "This is not a lawsuit, that we go about to
collect evidence."' Hurree returned to his English
with a jerk: "'By Jove," I said, "why the dooce do
you not issue demi-offeecial orders to some brave
man to poison them, for an example? It is, if you
permit the observation, most reprehensible laxity on
your part." And Colonel Creighton, he laughed at me!
It is all your beastly English pride. You think no
one dare conspire! That is all tommy-rott.'
Kim smoked
slowly, revolving the business, so far as he
understood it, in his quick mind.
'Then thou
goest forth to follow the strangers?'
'No. To meet
them. They are coming in to Simla to send down their
horns and heads to be dressed at Calcutta. They are
exclusively sporting gentlemen, and they are allowed
special faceelities by the Government. Of course, we
always do that. It is our British pride.'
'Then what
is to fear from them?'
'By Jove,
they are not black people. I can do all sorts of
things with black people, of course. They are
Russians, and highly unscrupulous people. I—I do not
want to consort with them without a witness.'
'Will they
kill thee?'
'Oah, thatt
is nothing. I am good enough Herbert Spencerian, I
trust, to meet little thing like death, which is all
in my fate, you know. But—but they may beat me.'
'Why?'
Hurree Babu
snapped his fingers with irritation. 'Of course I
shall affeeliate myself to their camp in
supernumerary capacity as perhaps interpreter, or
person mentally impotent and hungree, or some such
thing. And then I must pick up what I can, I
suppose. That is as easy for me as playing Mister
Doctor to the old lady. Onlee—onlee—you see, Mister
O'Hara, I am unfortunately Asiatic, which is serious
detriment in some respects. And all-so I am
Bengali—a fearful man.'
'God made
the Hare and the Bengali. What shame?' said Kim,
quoting the proverb.
'It was
process of Evolution, I think, from Primal
Necessity, but the fact remains in all the cui bono.
I am, oh, awfully fearful!—I remember once they
wanted to cut off my head on the road to Lhassa.
(No, I have never reached to Lhassa.) I sat down and
cried, Mister O'Hara, anticipating Chinese tortures.
I do not suppose these two gentlemen will torture
me, but I like to provide for possible contingency
with European assistance in emergency.' He coughed
and spat out the cardamoms. 'It is purely
unoffeecial indent, to which you can say "No, Babu".
If you have no pressing engagement with your old
man—perhaps you might divert him; perhaps I can
seduce his fancies—I should like you to keep in
Departmental touch with me till I find those
sporting coves. I have great opeenion of you since I
met my friend at Delhi. And also I will embody your
name in my offeecial report when matter is finally
adjudicated. It will be a great feather in your cap.
That is why I come really.'
'Humph! The
end of the tale, I think, is true; but what of the
fore-part?'
'About the
Five Kings? Oah! there is ever so much truth in it.
A lots more than you would suppose,' said Hurree
earnestly. 'You come—eh? I go from here straight
into the Doon. It is verree verdant and painted
meads. I shall go to Mussoorie to good old Munsoorie
Pahar, as the gentlemen and ladies say. Then by
Rampur into Chini. That is the only way they can
come. I do not like waiting in the cold, but we must
wait for them. I want to walk with them to Simla.
You see, one Russian is a Frenchman, and I know my
French pretty well. I have friends in
Chandernagore.'
'He would
certainly rejoice to see the Hills again,' said Kim
meditatively. 'All his speech these ten days past
has been of little else. If we go together—'
'Oah! We can
be quite strangers on the road, if your lama
prefers. I shall just be four or five miles ahead.
There is no hurry for Hurree—that is an Europe pun,
ha! ha!—and you come after. There is plenty of time;
they will plot and survey and map, of course. I
shall go tomorrow, and you the next day, if you
choose. Eh? You go think on it till morning. By
Jove, it is near morning now.' He yawned
ponderously, and with never a civil word lumbered
off to his sleeping-place. But Kim slept little, and
his thoughts ran in Hindustani:
'Well is the
Game called great! I was four days a scullion at
Quetta, waiting on the wife of the man whose book I
stole. And that was part of the Great Game! From the
South—God knows how far—came up the Mahratta,
playing the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I
shall go far and far into the North playing the
Great Game. Truly, it runs like a shuttle throughout
all Hind. And my share and my joy'—he smiled to the
darkness—'I owe to the lama here. Also to Mahbub
Ali—also to Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy
One. He is right—a great and a wonderful world—and I
am Kim—Kim—Kim—alone—one person—in the middle of it
all. But I will see these strangers with their
levels and chains...'
'What was
the upshot of last night's babble?' said the lama,
after his orisons.
'There came
a strolling seller of drugs—a hanger-on of the
Sahiba's. Him I abolished by arguments and prayers,
proving that our charms are worthier than his
coloured waters.'
'Alas, my
charms! Is the virtuous woman still bent upon a new
one?'
'Very
strictly.'
'Then it
must be written, or she will deafen me with her
clamour.' He fumbled at his pencase.
'In the
Plains,' said Kim, 'are always too many people. In
the Hills, as I understand, there are fewer.'
'Oh! the
Hills, and the snows upon the Hills.' The lami tore
off a tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet.
'But what dost thou know of the Hills?'
'They are
very close.' Kim thrust open the door and looked at
the long, peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in
morning-gold. 'Except in the dress of a Sahib, I
have never set foot among them.'
The lama
snuffed the wind wistfully.
'If we go
North,'—Kim put the question to the waking
sunrise—'would not much mid-day heat be avoided by
walking among the lower hills at least? ... Is the
charm made, Holy One?'
'I have
written the names of seven silly devils—not one of
whom is worth a grain of dust in the eye. Thus do
foolish women drag us from the Way!'
Hurree Babu
came out from behind the dovecote washing his teeth
with ostentatious ritual. Full-fleshed,
heavy-haunched, bull-necked, and deep-voiced, he did
not look like 'a fearful man'. Kim signed almost
imperceptibly that matters were in good train, and
when the morning toilet was over, Hurree Babu, in
flowery speech, came to do honour to the lama. They
ate, of course, apart, and afterwards the old lady,
more or less veiled behind a window, returned to the
vital business of green-mango colics in the young.
The lama's knowledge of medicine was, of course,
sympathetic only. He believed that the dung of a
black horse, mixed with sulphur, and carried in a
snake-skin, was a sound remedy for cholera; but the
symbolism interested him far more than the science.
Hurree Babu deferred to these views with enchanting
politeness, so that the lama called him a courteous
physician. Hurree Babu replied that he was no more
than an inexpert dabbler in the mysteries; but at
least—he thanked the Gods therefore—he knew when he
sat in the presence of a master. He himself had been
taught by the Sahibs, who do not consider expense,
in the lordly halls of Calcutta; but, as he was ever
first to acknowledge, there lay a wisdom behind
earthly wisdom—the high and lonely lore of
meditation. Kim looked on with envy. The Hurree Babu
of his knowledge—oily, effusive, and nervous—was
gone; gone, too, was the brazen drug-vendor of
overnight. There remained—polished, polite,
attentive—a sober, learned son of experience and
adversity, gathering wisdom from the lama's lips.
The old lady confided to Kim that these rare levels
were beyond her. She liked charms with plenty of ink
that one could wash off in water, swallow, and be
done with. Else what was the use of the Gods? She
liked men and women, and she spoke of them—of
kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth
and beauty; of the depredations of leopards and the
eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the incidence of
taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her
son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to be followed),
the care of the young, and the age's lack of
decency. And Kim, as interested in the life of this
world as she soon to leave it, squatted with his
feet under the hem of his robe, drinking all in,
while the lama demolished one after another every
theory of body-curing put forward by Hurree Babu.
At noon the
Babu strapped up his brass-bound drug-box, took his
patent-leather shoes of ceremony in one hand, a gay
blue-and-white umbrella in the other, and set off
northwards to the Doon, where, he said, he was in
demand among the lesser kings of those parts.
'We will go
in the cool of the evening, chela,' said the lama.
'That doctor, learned in physic and courtesy,
affirms that the people among these lower hills are
devout, generous, and much in need of a teacher. In
a very short time—so says the hakim—we come to cool
air and the smell of pines.'
'Ye go to
the Hills? And by Kulu road? 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 road I know. Ye will find
charity throughout—it is not denied to the
well-looking. I will give orders for provision. A
servant to set you forth upon your journey? No ...
Then I will at least cook ye good food.'
'What a
woman is the Sahiba!' said the white-bearded Oorya,
when a tumult rose by the kitchen quarters. 'She has
never forgotten a friend: she has never forgotten an
enemy in all her years. And her cookery—wah!' He
rubbed his slim stomach.
There were
cakes, there were sweetmeats, there was cold fowl
stewed to rags with rice and prunes—enough to burden
Kim like a mule.
'I am old
and useless,' she said. 'None now love me—and none
respect—but there are few to compare with me when I
call on the Gods and squat to my cooking-pots. Come
again, O people of good will. Holy One and disciple,
come again. The room is always prepared; the welcome
is always ready ... See the women do not follow thy
chela too openly. I know the women of Kulu. Take
heed, chela, lest he run away when he smells his
Hills again ... Hai! Do not tilt the rice-bag upside
down ... Bless the household, Holy One, and forgive
thy servant her stupidities.'
She wiped
her red old eyes on a corner of her veil, and
clucked throatily.
'Women
talk,' said the lama at last, 'but that is a woman's
infirmity. I gave her a charm. She is upon the Wheel
and wholly given over to the shows of this life, but
none the less, chela, she is virtuous, kindly,
hospitable—of a whole and zealous heart. Who shall
say she does not acquire merit?'
'Not I, Holy
One,' said Kim, reslinging the bountiful provision
on his shoulders. 'In my mind—behind my eyes—I have
tried to picture such an one altogether freed from
the Wheel—desiring nothing, causing nothing—a nun,
as it were.'
'And, O
imp?' The lama almost laughed aloud.
'I cannot
make the picture.'
'Nor I. But
there are many, many millions of lives before her.
She will get wisdom a little, it may be, in each
one.'
'And will
she forget how to make stews with saffron upon that
road?'
'Thy mind is
set on things unworthy. But she has skill. I am
refreshed all over. When we reach the lower hills I
shall be yet stronger. The hakim spoke truly to me
this morn when he said a breath from the snows blows
away twenty years from the life of a man. We will go
up into the Hills—the high hills—up to the sound of
snow-waters and the sound of the trees—for a little
while. The hakim said that at any time we may return
to the Plains, for we do no more than skirt the
pleasant places. The hakim is full of learning; but
he is in no way proud. I spoke to him—when thou wast
talking to the Sahiba—of a certain dizziness that
lays hold upon the back of my neck in the night, and
he said it rose from excessive heat—to be cured by
cool air. Upon consideration, I marvelled that I had
not thought of such a simple remedy.'
'Didst thou
tell him of thy Search?' said Kim, a little
jealously. He preferred to sway the lama by his own
speech—not through the wiles of Hurree Babu.
'Assuredly.
I told him of my dream, and of the manner by which I
had acquired merit by causing thee to be taught
wisdom.'
'Thou didst
not say I was a Sahib?'
'What need?
I have told thee many times we be but two souls
seeking escape. He said—and he is just herein—that
the River of Healing will break forth even as I
dreamed—at my feet, if need be. Having found the
Way, seest thou, that shall free me from the Wheel,
need I trouble to find a way about the mere fields
of earth—which are illusion? That were senseless. I
have my dreams, night upon night repeated; I have
Jataka; and I have thee, Friend of all the World. It
was written in thy horoscope that a Red Bull on a
green field—I have not forgotten—should bring thee
to honour. Who but I saw that prophecy accomplished?
Indeed, I was the instrument. Thou shalt find me my
River, being in return the instrument. The Search is
sure!'
He set his
ivory-yellow face, serene and untroubled, towards
the beckoning Hills; his shadow shouldering far
before him in the dust.

Chapter 13
Who hath
desired the Sea—the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the
star-stabbing bowsprit merges—
The orderly clouds of the Trades and the ridged
roaring sapphire thereunder—
Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails'
low-volleying thunder?
His Sea 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 hill-men
desire their hills!
The Sea and the Hills.
'Who goes to the hills goes
to his mother.'
They had
crossed the Siwaliks and the half-tropical 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
boy's shoulder, ready to profit by wayside halts.
Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew himself
together as an old hunter faces a well-remembered
bank, and where he should have sunk exhausted swung
his long draperies about him, drew a deep
double-lungful of the diamond air, and walked as
only a hillman can. Kim, plains-bred and plains-fed,
sweated and panted astonished. 'This is my country,'
said the lama. '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 thousand feet in three
hours, that he went utterly away from Kim, whose
back ached with holding back, and whose big toe was
nigh cut off by his grass sandal-string. Through the
speckled shadow of the great deodar-forests; through
oak feathered and plumed with ferns; birch, ilex,
rhododendron, and pine, out on to the bare
hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass, and back into
the woodlands' coolth again, till oak gave way to
bamboo and palm of the valley, the lama swung
untiring.
Glancing
back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him
and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they
had come, he would lay out, with a hillman's
generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the
morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted
pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out
his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the
horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above
stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath—kings of that
wilderness—took the first sunlight. All day long
they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at
evening put on their jewels again. At first they
breathed temperately upon the travellers, winds good
to meet when one crawled over some gigantic
hog's-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 hillmen to acquire merit
by giving him a rough blanket-coat. The lama was
mildly surprised that anyone should object to the
knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his
shoulders.
'These are
but the lower hills, chela. There is no cold till we
come to the true Hills.'
'Air and
water are good, and the people are devout enough,
but the food is very bad,' Kim growled; 'and we walk
as though we were mad—or English. It freezes at
night, too.'
'A little,
maybe; but only enough to make old bones rejoice in
the sun. We must not always delight in soft beds and
rich food.'
'We might at
least keep to the road.'
Kim had all
a plainsman's affection for the well-trodden track,
not six feet wide, that snaked among the mountains;
but the lama, being Tibetan, could not refrain from
short cuts over spurs and the rims of gravel-strewn
slopes. As he explained to his limping disciple, a
man bred among mountains can prophesy the course of
a mountain-road, and though low-lying clouds might
be a hindrance to a short-cutting stranger, they
made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man.
Thus, after long hours of what would be reckoned
very fair mountaineering in civilized countries,
they would pant 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 track
lay the villages of the hillfolk—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 their devils.
Theirs was an almost obliterated Buddhism, overlaid
with a nature-worship fantastic as their own
landscapes, elaborate as the terracing of their tiny
fields; but they recognized the big hat, the
clicking rosary, and the rare Chinese texts for
great authority; and they respected the man beneath
the hat.
'We saw thee
come down over the black Breasts of Eua,' said a
Betah who gave them cheese, sour milk, and
stone-hard bread one evening. 'We do not use that
often—except when calving cows stray in summer.
There is a sudden wind among those stones that casts
men down on the stillest day. But what should such
folk care for the Devil of Eua!'
Then did
Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with looking down,
footsore with cramping desperate toes into
inadequate crannies, take joy in the day's
march—such joy as a boy of St Xavier's who had won
the quarter-mile on the flat might take in the
praises of his friends. The hills sweated the ghi
and sugar suet off his bones; the dry air, taken
sobbingly at the head of cruel passes, firmed and
built out his upper ribs; and 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 grey eagle and an
occasional far-seen bear grubbing and rooting on the
hillside; a vision of a furious painted leopard met
at dawn in a still valley devouring a goat; and now
and again a bright-coloured bird, they were alone
with the winds and the grass singing under the wind.
The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the two
walked as they descended the mountains, were
unlovely and unclean, wives of many husbands, and
afflicted with goitre. The men were woodcutters when
they were not farmers—meek, and of an incredible
simplicity. But that suitable discourse might not
fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and overtaken upon
the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who paid
for his food in ointments good for goitre and
counsels that restore peace between men and women.
He seemed to know these hills as well as he knew the
hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of the land
towards Ladakh and Tibet. He said they could return
to the Plains at any moment. Meantime, for such as
loved mountains, yonder road might amuse. This was
not all revealed in a breath, but at evening
encounters on the stone threshing-floors, when,
patients disposed of, the doctor would smoke and the
lama snuff, while Kim watched the wee cows grazing
on the housetops, or threw his soul after his eyes
across the deep blue gulfs between range and range.
And there were talks apart in the dark woods, when
the doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as budding
physician, must accompany him.
'You see,
Mister O'Hara, I do not know what the deuce-an' all
I shall do when I find our sporting friends; but if
you will kindly keep within sight of my umbrella,
which is fine fixed point for cadastral survey, I
shall feel much better.'
Kim looked
out across the jungle of peaks. 'This is not my
country, hakim. Easier, I think, to find one louse
in a bear-skin.'
'Oah, thatt
is my strong points. There is no hurry for Hurree.
They were at Leh not so long ago. They said they had
come down from the Karakorum with their heads and
horns and all. I am onlee afraid they will have sent
back all their letters and compromising things from
Leh into Russian territoree. Of course they will
walk away as far to the East as possible—just to
show that they were never among the Western States.
You do not know the Hills?' He scratched with a twig
on the earth. 'Look! They should have come in by
Srinagar or Abbottabad. Thatt is their short
road—down the river by Bunji and Astor. But they
have made mischief in the West. So'—he drew a furrow
from left to right—'they march and they march away
East to Leh (ah! it is cold there), and down the
Indus to Hanle (I know that road), and then down,
you see, to Bushahr and Chini valley. That is
ascertained by process of elimination, and also by
asking questions from people that I cure so well.
Our friends have been a long time playing about and
producing impressions. So they are well known from
far off. You will see me catch them somewhere in
Chini valley. Please keep your eye on the umbrella.'
It nodded
like a wind-blown harebell down the valleys and
round the mountain sides, and in due time the lama
and Kim, who steered by compass, would overhaul it,
vending ointments and powders at eventide. 'We came
by such and such a way!' The lama would throw a
careless finger backward at the ridges, and the
umbrella would expend itself in compliments.
They crossed
a snowy pass in cold moonlight, when the lama,
mildly chaffing Kim, went through up to his knees,
like a Bactrian camel—the snow-bred, shag-haired
sort that came into the Kashmir Serai. They dipped
across beds of light snow and snow-powdered shale,
where they took refuge from a gale in a camp of
Tibetans hurrying down tiny sheep, each laden with a
bag of borax. They came out upon grassy shoulders
still snow-speckled, and through forest, to grass
anew. For all their marchings, Kedarnath and
Badrinath were not impressed; and it was only after
days of travel that Kim, uplifted upon some
insignificant ten-thousand-foot hummock, could see
that a shoulder-knot or horn of the two great lords
had—ever so slightly—changed outline.
At last they
entered a world within a world—a valley of leagues
where the high hills were fashioned of a mere rubble
and refuse from off the knees of the mountains. Here
one day's march carried them no farther, it seemed,
than a dreamer's clogged pace bears him in a
nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for
hours, and, behold, it was but an outlying boss in
an outlying buttress of the main pile! A rounded
meadow revealed itself, when they had reached it,
for a vast tableland running far into the valley.
Three days later, it was a dim fold in the earth to
southward.
'Surely the
Gods live here!' said Kim, beaten down by the
silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the
cloud-shadows after rain. 'This is no place for
men!'
'Long and
long ago,' said the lama, as to himself, 'it was
asked of the Lord whether the world were
everlasting. On this the Excellent One returned no
answer ... When I was in Ceylon, a wise Seeker
confirmed that from the gospel which is written in
Pali. Certainly, since we know the way to Freedom,
the question were unprofitable, but—look, and know
illusion, chela! These—are the true Hills! They are
like my hills by Suchzen. Never were such hills!'
Above them,
still enormously above them, earth towered away
towards the snow-line, where from east to west
across hundreds of miles, ruled as with a ruler, the
last of the bold birches stopped. Above that, in
scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to
fight their heads above the white smother. Above
these again, changeless since the world's beginning,
but changing to every mood of sun and cloud, lay out
the eternal snow. They could see blots and blurs on
its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up
to dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid
away in a sheet of blue-green for mile upon mile;
below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of
terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds. Below the
village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried and
growled there for the moment, a pitch of twelve or
fifteen hundred feet gave to the moist valley where
the streams gather that are the mothers of young
Sutluj.
As usual,
the lama had led Kim by cow-track and by-road, far
from the main route along which Hurree Babu, that
'fearful man', had bucketed three days before
through a storm to which nine Englishmen out of ten
would have given full right of way. Hurree was no
game-shot—the snick of a trigger made him change
colour—but, as he himself would have said, he was
'fairly effeecient stalker', and he had raked the
huge valley with a pair of cheap binoculars to some
purpose. Moreover, the white of worn canvas tents
against green carries far. Hurree Babu had seen all
he wanted to see when he sat on the threshing-floor
of Ziglaur, twenty miles away as the eagle flies,
and forty by road—that is to say, two small dots
which one day were just below the snow-line, and the
next had moved downward perhaps six inches on the
hillside. Once cleaned out and set to the work, his
fat bare legs could cover a surprising amount of
ground, and this was the reason why, while Kim and
the lama lay in a leaky hut at Ziglaur till the
storm should be over-past, an oily, wet, but always
smiling Bengali, talking the best of English with
the vilest of phrases, was ingratiating himself with
two sodden and rather rheumatic foreigners. He had
arrived, revolving many wild schemes, on the heels
of a thunderstorm which had split a pine over
against their camp, and so convinced a dozen or two
forcibly impressed baggage-coolies the day was
inauspicious for farther travel that with one accord
they had thrown down their loads and jibbed. They
were subjects of a Hill Rajah who farmed out their
services, as is the custom, for his private gain;
and, to add to their personal distresses, the
strange Sahibs had already threatened them with
rifles. The most of them knew rifles and Sahibs of
old: they were trackers and shikarris of the
Northern valleys, keen after bear and wild goat; but
they had never been thus treated in their lives. So
the forest took them to her bosom, and, for all
oaths and clamour, refused to restore. There was no
need to feign madness or—the Babu had thought of
another means of securing a welcome. He wrung out
his wet clothes, slipped on his patent-leather
shoes, opened the blue-and-white umbrella, and with
mincing gait and a heart beating against his tonsils
appeared as 'agent for His Royal Highness, the Rajah
of Rampur, gentlemen. What can I do for you,
please?'
The
gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly French,
the other Russian, but they spoke English not much
inferior to the Babu's. They begged his kind
offices. Their native servants had gone sick at Leh.
They had hurried on because they were anxious to
bring the spoils of the chase to Simla ere the skins
grew moth-eaten. They bore a general letter of
introduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to
all Government officials. No, they had not met any
other shooting-parties en route. They did for
themselves. They had plenty of supplies. They only
wished to push on as soon as might be. At this he
waylaid a cowering hillman among the trees, and
after three minutes' talk and a little silver (one
cannot be economical upon State service, though
Hurree's heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies
and the three hangers-on reappeared. At least the
Babu would be a witness to their oppression.
'My royal
master, he will be much annoyed, but these people
are onlee common people and grossly ignorant. If
your honours will kindly overlook unfortunate
affair, I shall be much pleased. In a little while
rain will stop and we can then proceed. You have
been shooting, eh? That is fine performance!'
He skipped
nimbly from one kilta to the next, making pretence
to adjust each conical basket. The Englishman is
not, as a rule, familiar with the Asiatic, but he
would not strike across the wrist a kindly Babu who
had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin
top. On the other hand, he would not press drink
upon a Babu were he never so friendly, nor would he
invite him to meat. The strangers did all these
things, and asked many questions—about women
mostly—to which Hurree returned gay and unstudied
answers. They gave him a glass of whitish fluid like
to gin, and then more; and in a little time his
gravity departed from him. He became thickly
treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping indecency
of a Government which had forced upon him a white
man's education and neglected to supply him with a
white man's salary. He babbled tales of oppression
and wrong till the tears ran down his cheeks for the
miseries of his land. Then he staggered off, singing
love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a wet
tree-trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product of
English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon
aliens.
'They are
all just of that pattern,' said one sportsman to the
other in French. 'When we get into India proper thou
wilt see. I should like to visit his Rajah. One
might speak the good word there. It is possible that
he has heard of us and wishes to signify his
good-will.'
'We have not
time. We must get into Simla as soon as may be,' his
companion replied. 'For my own part, I wish our
reports had been sent back from Hilas, or even Leh.'
'The English
post is better and safer. Remember we are given all
facilities—and Name of God!—they give them to us
too! Is it unbelievable stupidity?'
'It is
pride—pride that deserves and will receive
punishment.'
'Yes! To
fight a fellow-Continental in our game is something.
There is a risk attached, but these people—bah! It
is too easy.'
'Pride—all
pride, my friend.'
'Now what
the deuce is good of Chandernagore being so close to
Calcutta and all,' said Hurree, snoring open-mouthed
on the sodden moss, 'if I cannot understand their
French? They talk so particularly fast! It would
have been much better to cut their beastly throats.'
When he
presented himself again he was racked with a
headache—penitent, and volubly afraid that in his
drunkenness he might have been indiscreet. He loved
the British Government—it was the source of all
prosperity and honour, and his master at Rampur held
the very same opinion. Upon this the men began to
deride him and to quote past words, till step by
step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and leers
of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out of
his defences and forced to speak—truth. When Lurgan
was told the tale later, he mourned aloud that he
could not have been in the place of the stubborn,
inattentive coolies, who with grass mats over their
heads and the raindrops puddling in their
footprints, waited on the weather. All the Sahibs of
their acquaintance—rough-clad men joyously returning
year after year to their chosen gullies—had servants
and cooks and orderlies, very often hillmen. These
Sahibs travelled without any retinue. Therefore they
were poor Sahibs, and ignorant; for no Sahib in his
senses would follow a Bengali's advice. But the
Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had given them
money, and could make shift with their dialect. Used
to comprehensive ill-treatment from their own
colour, they suspected a trap somewhere, and stood
by to run if occasion offered.
Then through
the new-washed air, steaming with delicious
earth-smells, the Babu led the way down the
slopes—walking ahead of the coolies in pride;
walking behind the foreigners in humility. His
thoughts were many and various. The least of them
would have interested his companions beyond words.
But he was an agreeable guide, ever keen to point
out the beauties of his royal master's domain. He
peopled the hills with anything thev had a mind to
slay—thar, ibex, or markhor, and bear by Elisha's
allowance. He discoursed of botany and ethnology
with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of
local legends—he had been a trusted agent of the
State for fifteen years, remember—was inexhaustible.
'Decidedly
this fellow is an original,' said the taller of the
two foreigners. 'He is like the nightmare of a
Viennese courier.'
'He
represents in little India in transition—the
monstrous hybridism of East and West,' the Russian
replied. 'It is we who can deal with Orientals.'
'He has lost
his own country and has not acquired any other. But
he has a most complete hatred of his conquerors.
Listen. He confided to me last night,' said the
other.
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 oil-skin cover. He
did not wish to steal anything. He only desired to
know what to steal, and, incidentally, how to get
away when he had stolen it. He thanked all the Gods
of Hindustan, and Herbert Spencer, that there
remained some valuables to steal.
On the
second day the road rose steeply to a grass spur
above the forest; and it was here, about sunset,
that they came across an aged lama—but they called
him a bonze—sitting cross-legged above a mysterious
chart held down by stones, which he was explaining
to a young man, evidently a neophyte, of singular,
though unwashen, beauty. The striped umbrella had
been sighted half a march away, and Kim had
suggested a halt till it came up to them.
'Ha!' said
Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss-in-Boots. 'That is
eminent local holy man. Probably subject of my royal
master.'
'What is he
doing? It is very curious.'
'He is
expounding holy picture—all hand-worked.'
The two men
stood bareheaded in the wash of the afternoon
sunlight low across the gold-coloured grass. The
sullen coolies, glad of the check, halted and slid
down their loads.
'Look!' said
the Frenchman. 'It is like a picture for the birth
of a religion—the first teacher and the first
disciple. Is he a Buddhist?'
'Of some
debased kind,' the other answered. 'There are no
true Buddhists among the Hills. But look at the
folds of the drapery. Look at his eyes—how insolent!
Why does this make one feel that we are so young a
people?' The speaker struck passionately at a tall
weed. 'We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere!
That, do you understand, is what disquiets me.' He
scowled at the placid face, and the monumental calm
of the pose.
'Have
patience. We shall make your mark together—we and
you young people. Meantime, draw his picture.'
The Babu
advanced loftily; his back out of all keeping with
his deferential speech, or his wink towards Kim.
'Holy One,
these be Sahibs. My medicines cured one of a flux,
and I go into Simla to oversee his recovery. They
wish to see thy picture—'
'To heal the
sick is always good. This is the Wheel of Life,'
said the lama, 'the same I showed thee in the hut at
Ziglaur when the rain fell.'
'And to hear
thee expound it.'
The lama's
eyes lighted at the prospect of new listeners. 'To
expound the Most Excellent Way is good. Have they
any knowledge of Hindi, such as had the Keeper of
Images?'
'A little,
maybe.'
Hereat,
simply as a child engrossed with a new game, the
lama threw back his head and began the full-throated
invocation of the Doctor of Divinity ere he opens
the full doctrine. The strangers leaned on their
alpenstocks and listened. Kim, squatting humbly,
watched the red sunlight on their faces, and the
blend and parting of their long shadows. They wore
un-English leggings and curious girt-in belts that
reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book in St
Xavier's library "The Adventures of a Young
Naturalist in Mexico" was its name. Yes, they looked
very like the wonderful M. Sumichrast of that tale,
and very unlike the 'highly unscrupulous folk' of
Hurree Babu's imagining. The coolies, earth-coloured
and mute, crouched reverently some twenty or thirty
yards away, and the Babu, the slack of his thin gear
snapping like a marking-flag in the chill breeze,
stood by with an air of happy proprietorship.
'These are
the men,' Hurree whispered, as the ritual went on
and the two whites followed the grass-blade sweeping
from Hell to Heaven and back again. 'All their books
are in the large kilta with the reddish top—books
and reports and maps—and I have seen a King's letter
that either Hilas or Bunar has written. They guard
it most carefully. They have sent nothing back from
Hilas or Leh. That is sure.'
'Who is with
them?'
'Only the
beegar-coolies. They have no servants. They are so
close they cook their own food.'
'But what am
I to do?'
'Wait and
see. Only if any chance comes to me thou wilt know
where to seek for the papers.'
'This were
better in Mahbub Ali's hands than a Bengali's,' said
Kim scornfully.
'There are
more ways of getting to a sweetheart than butting
down a wall.'
'See here
the Hell appointed for avarice and greed. Flanked
upon the one side by Desire and on the other by
Weariness.' The lama warmed to his work, and one of
the strangers sketched him in the quick-fading
light.
'That is
enough,' the man said at last brusquely. 'I cannot
understand him, but I want that picture. He is a
better artist than I. Ask him if he will sell it.'
'He says
"No, sar,"' the Babu replied. The lama, of course,
would no more have parted with his chart to a casual
wayfarer than an archbishop would pawn the holy
vessels of his cathedral. All Tibet is full of cheap
reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama was an
artist, as well as a wealthy Abbot in his own place.
'Perhaps in
three days, or four, or ten, if I perceive that the
Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding, I may
myself draw him another. But this was used for the
initiation of a novice. Tell him so, hakim.'
'He wishes
it now—for money.'
The lama
shook his head slowly and began to fold up the
Wheel. The Russian, on his side, saw no more than an
unclean old man haggling over a dirty piece of
paper. He drew out a handful of rupees, and snatched
half-jestingly at the chart, which tore in the
lama's grip. A low murmur of horror went up from the
coolies—some of whom were Spiti men and, by their
lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult;
his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the
priest's weapon, and the Babu danced in agony.
'Now you
see—you see why I wanted witnesses. They are highly
unscrupulous people. Oh, sar! sar! You must not hit
holyman!'
'Chela! He
has defiled the Written Word!'
It was too
late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian
struck the old man full on the face. Next instant he
was rolling over and over downhill with Kim at his
throat. The blow had waked every unknown Irish devil
in the boy's blood, and the sudden fall of his enemy
did the rest. The lama dropped to his knees,
half-stunned; the coolies under their loads fled up
the hill as fast as plainsmen run aross the level.
They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved
them to get away before the Gods and devils of the
hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the
lama, fumbling at his revolver with some notion of
making him a hostage for his companion. A shower of
cutting stones—hillmen are very straight shots—drove
him away, and a coolie from Ao-chung snatched the
lama into the stampede. All came about as swiftly as
the sudden mountain-darkness.
'They have
taken the baggage and all the guns,' yelled the
Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight.
'All right,
sar! All right! Don't shoot. I go to rescue,' and
Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily
upon the delighted and astonished Kim, who was
banging his breathless foe's head against a boulder.
'Go back to
the coolies,' whispered the Babu in his ear. 'They
have the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with
the red top, but look through all. Take their
papers, and specially the murasla [King's letter].
Go! The other man comes!'
Kim tore
uphill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his
side, and he cowered partridge-wise.
'If you
shoot,' shouted Hurree, 'they will descend and
annihilate us. I have rescued the gentleman, sar.
This is particularly dangerous.'
'By Jove!'
Kim was thinking hard in English. 'This is
dam'-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.'
He felt in his bosom for Mahbub's gift, and
uncertainly—save for a few practice shots in the
Bikanir desert, he had never used the little
gun—pulled the trigger.
'What did I
say, sar!' The Babu seemed to be in tears. 'Come
down here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a
tree, I tell you.'
The shots
ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim
hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a
cat—or a country-bred.
'Did they
wound thee, chela?' called the lama above him.
'No. And
thou?' He dived into a clump of stunted firs.
'Unhurt.
Come away. We go with these folk to
Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.'
'But not
before we have done justice,' a voice cried. 'I have
got the Sahibs' guns—all four. Let us go down.'
'He struck
the Holy One—we saw it! Our cattle will be
barren—our wives will cease to bear! The snows will
slide upon us as we go home... Atop of all other
oppression too!'
The little
fir-clump filled with clamouring
coolies—panic-stricken, and in their terror capable
of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked the
breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to
go downhill.
'Wait a
little, Holy One; they cannot go far. Wait till I
return,' said he.
'It is this
person who has suffered wrong,' said the lama, his
hand over his brow.
'For that
very reason,' was the reply.
'If this
person overlooks it, your hands are clean. Moreover,
ye acquire merit by obedience.'
'Wait, and
we will all go to Shamlegh together,' the man
insisted.
For a
moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff a
cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama hesitated.
Then he rose to his feet, and laid a finger on the
man's shoulder.
'Hast thou
heard? I say there shall be no killing—I who was
Abbot of Such-zen. Is it any lust of thine to be
re-born as a rat, or a snake under the eaves—a worm
in the belly of the most mean beast? Is it thy wish
to—'
The man from
Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the voice boomed
like a Tibetan devil-gong.
'Ai! ai!'
cried the Spiti men. 'Do not curse us—do not curse
him. It was but his zeal, Holy One! ... Put down the
rifle, fool!'
'Anger on
anger! Evil on evil! There will be no killing. Let
the priest-beaters go in bondage to their own acts.
Just and sure is the Wheel, swerving not a hair!
They will be born many times—in torment.' His head
drooped, and he leaned heavily on Kim's shoulder.
'I have come
near to great evil, chela,' he whispered in that
dead hush under the pines. 'I was tempted to loose
the bullet; and truly, in Tibet there would have
been a heavy and a slow death for them ... He struck
me across the face ... upon the flesh ...' He slid
to the ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear
the over-driven heart bump and check.
'Have they
hurt him to the death?' said the Ao-chung man, while
the others stood mute.
Kim knelt
over the body in deadly fear. 'Nay,' he cried
passionately, 'this is only a weakness.' Then he
remembered that he was a white man, with a white
man's camp-fittings at his service. 'Open the
kiltas! The Sahibs may have a medicine.'
'Oho! Then I
know it,' said the Ao-chung man with a laugh. 'Not
for five years was I Yankling Sahib's shikarri
without knowing that medicine. I too have tasted it.
Behold!'
He drew from
his breast a bottle of cheap whisky—such as is sold
to explorers at Leh—and cleverly forced a little
between the lama's teeth.
'So I did
when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor.
Aha! I have already looked into their baskets—but we
will make fair division at Shamlegh. Give him a
little more. It is good medicine. Feel! His heart
goes better now. Lay his head down and rub a little
on the chest. If he had waited quietly while I
accounted for the Sahibs this would never have come.
But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us here. Then it
would not be wrong to shoot them with their own
guns, heh?'
'One is
paid, I think, already,' said Kim between his teeth.
'I kicked him in the groin as we went downhill.
Would I had killed him!'
'It is well
to be brave when one does not live in Rampur,' said
one whose hut lay within a few miles of the Rajah's
rickety palace. 'If we get a bad name among the
Sahibs, none will employ us as shikarris any more.'
'Oh, but
these are not Angrezi Sahibs—not merry-minded men
like Fostum Sahib or Yankling Sahib. They are
foreigners—they cannot speak Angrezi as do Sahibs.'
Here the
lama coughed and sat up, groping for the rosary.
'There shall
be no killing,' he murmured. 'Just is the Wheel!
Evil on evil—'
'Nay, Holy
One. We are all here.' The Ao-chung man timidly
patted his feet. 'Except by thy order, no one shall
be slain. Rest awhile. We will make a little camp
here, and later, as the moon rises, we go to
Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.'
'After a
blow,' said a Spiti man sententiously, 'it is best
to sleep.'
'There is,
as it were, a dizziness at the back of my neck, and
a pinching in it. Let me lay my head on thy lap,
chela. I am an old man, but not free from passion
... We must think of the Cause of Things.'
'Give him a
blanket. We dare not light a fire lest the Sahibs
see.'
'Better get
away to Shamlegh. None will follow us to Shamlegh.'
This was the
nervous Rampur man.
'I have been
Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am Yankling Sahib's
shikarri. I should have been with Yankling Sahib now
but for this cursed beegar [the corvee]. Let two men
watch below with the guns lest the Sahibs do more
foolishness. I shall not leave this Holy One.'
They sat
down a little apart from the lama, and, after
listening awhile, passed round a water-pipe whose
receiver was an old Day and Martin blacking-bottle.
The glow of the red charcoal as it went from hand to
hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the high
Chinese cheek-bones, and the bull-throats that
melted away into the dark duffle folds round the
shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some magic
mine—gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while they
talked, the voices of the snow-waters round them
diminished one by one as the night-frost choked and
clogged the runnels.
'How he
stood up against us!' said a Spiti man admiring. 'I
remember an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont
Sahib missed on a shoulder-shot, seven seasons back,
standing up just like him. Dupont Sahib was a good
shikarri.'
'Not as good
as Yankling Sahib.' The Ao-chung man took a pull at
the whisky-bottle and passed it over. 'Now hear
me—unless any other man thinks he knows more.'
The
challenge was not taken up.
'We go to
Shamlegh when the moon rises. There we will fairly
divide the baggage between us. I am content with
this new little rifle and all its cartridges.'
'Are the
bears only bad on thy holding? said a mate, sucking
at the pipe.
'No; but
musk-pods are worth six rupees apiece now, and thy
women can have the canvas of the tents and some of
the cooking-gear. We will do all that at Shamlegh
before dawn. Then we all go our ways, remembering
that we have never seen or taken service with these
Sahibs, who may, indeed, say that we have stolen
their baggage.'
'That is
well for thee, but what will our Rajah say?'
'Who is to
tell him? Those Sahibs, who cannot speak our talk,
or the Babu, who for his own ends gave us money?
Will he lead an army against us? What evidence will
remain? That we do not need we shall throw on
Shamlegh-midden, where no man has yet set foot.'
'Who is at
Shamlegh this summer?' The place was only a grazing
centre of three or four huts.'
'The Woman
of Shamlegh. She has no love for Sahibs, as we know.
The others can be pleased with little presents; and
here is enough for us all.' He patted the fat sides
of the nearest basket.
'But—but—'
'I have said
they are not true Sahibs. All their skins and heads
were bought in the bazar at Leh. I know the marks. I
showed them to ye last march.'
'True. They
were all bought skins and heads. Some had even the
moth in them.'
That was a
shrewd argument, and the Ao-chung man knew his
fellows.
'If the
worst comes to the worst, I shall tell Yankling
Sahib, who is a man of a merry mind, and he will
laugh. We are not doing any wrong to any Sahibs whom
we know. They are priest-beaters. They frightened
us. We fled! Who knows where we dropped the baggage?
Do ye think Yankling Sahib will permit down-country
police to wander all over the hills, disturbing his
game? It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and
farther from Shamlegh to Shamlegh-midden.'
'So be it,
but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red
top that the Sahibs pack themselves every morning.'
'Thus it is
proved,' said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they
are Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum
Sahib, or Yankling Sahib, or even the little Peel
Sahib that sits up of nights to shoot serow—I say,
who, ever heard of these Sahibs coming into the
hills without a down-country cook, and a bearer,
and—and all manner of well-paid, high-handed and
oppressive folk in their tail? How can they make
trouble? What of the kilta?'
'Nothing,
but that it is full of the Written Word—books and
papers in which they wrote, and strange instruments,
as of worship.'
'Shamlegh-midden will take them all.'
'True! But
how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods thereby! I do not
like to handle the Written Word in that fashion. And
their brass idols are beyond my comprehension. It is
no plunder for simple hill-folk.'
'The old man
still sleeps. Hst! We will ask his chela.' The
Ao-chung man refreshed himself, and swelled with
pride of leadership.
'We have
here,' he whispered, 'a kilta whose nature we do not
know.'
'But I do,'
said Kim cautiously. The lama drew breath in
natural, easy sleep, and Kim had been thinking of
Hurree's last words. As a player of the Great Game,
he was disposed just then to reverence the Babu. 'It
is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful
things, not to be handled by fools.'
'I said it;
I said it,' cried the bearer of that burden.
'Thinkest thou it will betray us?'
'Not if it
be given to me. I can draw out its magic. Otherwise
it will do great harm.'
'A priest
always takes his share.' Whisky was demoralizing the
Ao-chung man.
'It is no
matter to me.' Kim answered, with the craft of his
mother-country. 'Share it among you, and see what
comes!'
'Not I. I
was only jesting. Give the order. There is more than
enough for us all. We go our way from Shamlegh in
the dawn.'
They
arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans
for another hour, while Kim shivered with cold and
pride. The humour of the situation tickled the Irish
and the Oriental in his soul. Here were the
emissaries of the dread Power of the North, very
possibly as great in their own land as Mahbub or
Colonel Creighton, suddenly smitten helpless. One of
them, he privately knew, would be lame for a time.
They had made promises to Kings. Tonight they lay
out somewhere below him, chartless, foodless,
tentless, gunless—except for Hurree Babu, guideless.
And this collapse of their Great Game (Kim wondered
to whom they would report it), this panicky bolt
into the night, had come about through no craft of
Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but simply,
beautifully, and inevitably as the capture of
Mahbub's fakir-friends by the zealous young
policeman at Umballa.
'They are
there—with nothing; and, by Jove, it is cold! I am
here with all their things. Oh, they will be angry!
I am sorry for Hurree Babu.'
Kim might
have saved his pity, for though at that moment the
Bengali suffered acutely in the flesh, his soul was
puffed and lofty. A mile down the hill, on the edge
of the pine-forest, two half-frozen men—one
powerfully sick at intervals—were varying mutual
recriminations with the most poignant abuse of the
Babu, who seemed distraught with terror. They
demanded a plan of action. He explained that they
were very lucky to be alive; that their coolies, if
not then stalking them, had passed beyond recall;
that the Rajah, his master, was ninety miles away,
and, so far from lending them money and a retinue
for the Simla journey, would surely cast them into
prison if he heard that they had hit a priest. He
enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they
bade him change the subject. Their one hope, said
he, was unostentatious flight from village to
village till they reached civilization; and, for the
hundredth time dissolved in tears, he demanded of
the high stars why the Sahibs 'had beaten holy man'.
Ten steps
would have taken Hurree into the creaking gloom
utterly beyond their reach—to the shelter and food
of the nearest village, where glib-tongued doctors
were scarce. But he preferred to endure cold,
belly-pinch, bad words, and occasional blows in the
company of his honoured employers. Crouched against
a tree-trunk, he sniffed dolefully.
'And have
you thought,' said the uninjured man hotly, 'what
sort of spectacle we shall present wandering through
these hills among these aborigines?'
Hurree Babu
had thought of little else for some hours, but the
remark was not to his address.
'We cannot
wander! I can hardly walk,' groaned Kim's victim.
'Perhaps the
holy man will be merciful in loving-kindness, sar,
otherwise—'
'I promise
myself a peculiar pleasure in emptying my revolver
into that young bonze when next we meet,' was the
unchristian answer.
'Revolvers!
Vengeance! Bonzes!' Hurree crouched lower. The war
was breaking out afresh. 'Have you no consideration
for our loss? The baggage! The baggage!' He could
hear the speaker literally dancing on the grass.
'Everything we bore! Everything we have secured! Our
gains! Eight months' work! Do you know what that
means? "Decidedly it is we who can deal with
Orientals!" Oh, you have done well.'
They fell to
it in several tongues, and Hurree smiled. Kim was
with the kiltas, and in the kiltas lay eight months
of good diplomacy. There was no means of
communicating with the boy, but he could be trusted.
For the rest, Hurree could so stage-manage the
journey through the hills that Hilas, Bunar, and
four hundred miles of hill-roads should tell the
tale for a generation. Men who cannot control their
own coolies are little respected in the Hills, and
the hillman has a very keen sense of humour.
'If I had
done it myself,' thought Hurree, 'it would not have
been better; and, by Jove, now I think of it, of
course I arranged it myself. How quick I have been!
Just when I ran downhill I thought it! Thee outrage
was accidental, but onlee me could have worked
it—ah—for all it was dam'-well worth. Consider the
moral effect upon these ignorant peoples! No
treaties—no papers—no written documents at all—and
me to interpret for them. How I shall laugh with the
Colonel! I wish I had their papers also: but you
cannot occupy two places in space simultaneously.
Thatt is axiomatic.'
Chapter 14
My brother
kneels (so saith Kabir)
To stone and brass in heathen wise,
But in my brother's voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies.
His God is as his Fates assign—
His prayer is all the world's—and mine.
The Prayer.
At moonrise the cautious
coolies got under way. The lama, refreshed by his
sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim's
shoulder to bear him along—a silent, swift-striding
man. They held the shale-sprinkled grass for an
hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal cliff,
and climbed into a new country entirely blocked off
from all sight of Chini valley. A huge
pasture-ground ran up fan-shaped to the living snow.
At its base was perhaps half an acre of flat land,
on which stood a few soil and timber huts. Behind
them—for, hill-fashion, they were perched on the
edge of all things—the ground fell sheer two
thousand feet to Shamlegh-midden, where never yet
man has set foot.
The men made
no motion to divide the plunder till they had seen
the lama bedded down in the best room of the place,
with Kim shampooing his feet, Mohammedan-fashion.
'We will
send food,' said the Ao-chung man, 'and the
red-topped kilta. By dawn there will be none to give
evidence, one way or the other. If anything is not
needed in the kilta—see here!'
He pointed
through the window—opening into space that was
filled with moonlight reflected from the snow—and
threw out an empty whisky-bottle.
'No need to
listen for the fall. This is the world's end,' he
said, and went out. The lama looked forth, a hand on
either sill, with eyes that shone like yellow opals.
From the enormous pit before him white peaks lifted
themselves yearning to the moonlight. The rest was
as the darkness of interstellar space.
'These,' he
said slowly, 'are indeed my Hills. Thus should a man
abide, perched above the world, separated from
delights, considering vast matters.'
'Yes; if he
has a chela to prepare tea for him, and to fold a
blanket for his head, and to chase out calving
cows.'
A smoky lamp
burned in a niche, but the full moonlight beat it
down; and by the mixed light, stooping above the
food-bag and cups, Kim moved like a tall ghost.
'Ai! But now
I have let the blood cool, my head still beats and
drums, and there is a cord round the back of my
neck.'
'No wonder.
It was a strong blow. May he who dealt it—'
'But for my
own passions there would have been no evil.'
'What evil?
Thou hast saved the Sahibs from the death they
deserved a hundred times.'
'The lesson
is not well learnt, chela.' The lama came to rest on
a folded blanket, as Kim went forward with his
evening routine. 'The blow was but a shadow upon a
shadow. Evil in itself—my legs weary apace these
latter days!—it met evil in me: anger, rage, and a
lust to return evil. These wrought in my blood, woke
tumult in my stomach, and dazzled my ears.' Here he
drank scalding black-tea ceremonially, taking the
hot cup from Kim's hand. 'Had I been passionless,
the evil blow would have done only bodily evil—a
scar, or a bruise—which is illusion. But my mind was
not abstracted, for rushed in straightway a lust to
let the Spiti men kill. In fighting that lust, my
soul was torn and wrenched beyond a thousand blows.
Not till I had repeated the Blessings' (he meant the
Buddhist Beatitudes) 'did I achieve calm. But the
evil planted in me by that moment's carelessness
works out to its end. Just is the Wheel, swerving
not a hair! Learn the lesson, chela.'
'It is too
high for me,' Kim muttered. 'I am still all shaken.
I am glad I hurt the man.'
'I felt
that, sleeping upon thy knees, in the wood below. It
disquieted me in my dreams—the evil in thy soul
working through to mine. Yet on the other hand'—he
loosed his rosary—'I have acquired merit by saving
two lives—the lives of those that wronged me. Now I
must see into the Cause of Things. The boat of my
soul staggers.'
'Sleep, and
be strong. That is wisest.'
'I meditate.
There is a need greater than thou knowest.'
Till the
dawn, hour after hour, as the moonlight paled on the
high peaks, and that which had been belted blackness
on the sides of the far hills showed as tender green
forest, the lama stared fixedly at the wall. From
time to time he groaned. Outside the barred door,
where discomfited kine came to ask for their old
stable, Shamlegh and the coolies gave itself up to
plunder and riotous living. The Ao-chung man was
their leader, and once they had opened the Sahibs'
tinned foods and found that they were very good they
dared not turn back. Shamlegh kitchen-midden took
the dunnage.
When Kim,
after a night of bad dreams, stole forth to brush
his teeth in the morning chill, a fair-coloured
woman with turquoise-studded headgear drew him
aside.
'The others
have gone. They left thee this kilta as the promise
was. I do not love Sahibs, but thou wilt make us a
charm in return for it. We do not wish little
Shamlegh to get a bad name on account of
the—accident. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.' She
looked him over with bold, bright eyes, unlike the
usual furtive glance of hillwomen.
'Assuredly.
But it must be done in secret.'
She raised
the heavy kilta like a toy and slung it into her own
hut.
'Out and bar
the door! Let none come near till it is finished,'
said Kim.
'But
afterwards—we may talk?'
Kim tilted
the kilta on the floor—a cascade of
Survey-instruments, books, diaries, letters, maps,
and queerly scented native correspondence. At the
very bottom was an embroidered bag covering a
sealed, gilded, and illuminated document such as one
King sends to another. Kim caught his breath with
delight, and reviewed the situation from a Sahib's
point of view.
'The books I
do not want. Besides, they are logarithms—Survey, I
suppose.' He laid them aside. 'The letters I do not
understand, but Colonel Creighton will. They must
all be kept. The maps—they draw better maps than
me—of course. All the native letters—oho!—and
particularly the murasla.' He sniffed the
embroidered bag. 'That must be from Hilas or Bunar,
and Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove! It is a fine
haul. I wish Hurree could know ... The rest must go
out of the window.' He fingered a superb prismatic
compass and the shiny top of a theodolite. But after
all, a Sahib cannot very well steal, and the things
might be inconvenient evidence later. He sorted out
every scrap of manuscript, every map, and the native
letters. They made one softish slab. The three
locked ferril-backed books, with five worn
pocket-books, he put aside.
'The letters
and the murasla I must carry inside my coat and
under my belt, and the hand-written books I must put
into the food-bag. It will be very heavy. No. I do
not think there is anything more. If there is, the
coolies have thrown it down the khud, so thatt is
all right. Now you go too.' He repacked the kilta
with all he meant to lose, and hove it up on to the
windowsill. A thousand feet below lay a long, lazy,
round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by
the morning sun. A thousand feet below that was a
hundred-year-old pine-forest. He could see the green
tops looking like a bed of moss when a wind-eddy
thinned the cloud.
'No! I don't
think any one will go after you!'
The wheeling
basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The
theodolite hit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded
like a shell; the books, inkstands, paint-boxes,
compasses, and rulers showed for a few seconds like
a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though
Kim, hanging half out of the window, strained his
young ears, never a sound came up from the gulf.
'Five
hundred—a thousand rupees could not buy them,' he
thought sorrowfully. 'It was verree wasteful, but I
have all their other stuff—everything they did—I
hope. Now how the deuce am I to tell Hurree Babu,
and whatt the deuce am I to do? And my old man is
sick. I must tie up the letters in oilskin. 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 oilskin at
the comers, for his roving life had made him as
methodical as an old hunter in matters of the road.
Then with double care he packed away the books at
the bottom of the food-bag.
The woman
rapped at the door.
'But thou
hast made no charm,' she said, looking about.
'There is no
need.' Kim had completely overlooked the necessity
for a little patter-talk. The woman laughed at his
confusion irreverently.
'None—for
thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the mere winking of
an eye. But think of us poor people when thou art
gone. They were all too drunk last night to hear a
woman. Thou art not drunk?'
'I am a
priest.' Kim had recovered himself, and, the woman
being aught but unlovely, thought best to stand on
his office.
'I warned
them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make an
inquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also
the Babu with them. Clerks have long tongues.'
'Is that all
thy trouble?' The plan rose fully formed in Kim's
mind, and he smiled ravishingly.
'Not all,'
quoth the woman, putting out a hard brown hand all
covered with turquoises set in silver.
'I can
finish that in a breath,' he went on quickly. 'The
Babu is the very hakim (thou hast heard of him?) who
was wandering among the hills by Ziglaur. I know
him.'
'He will
tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs cannot
distinguish one hillman from another, but Babus have
eyes for men—and women.'
'Carry a
word to him from me.'
'There is
nothing I would not do for thee.'
He accepted
the compliment calmly, as men must in lands where
women make the love, tore a leaf from a note-book,
and with a patent indelible pencil wrote in gross
Shikast—the script that bad little boys use when
they write dirt on walls: 'I have everything that
they have written: their pictures of the country,
and many letters. Especially the murasla. Tell me
what to do. I am at Shamlegh-under-the-Snow. The old
man is sick.'
'Take this
to him. It will altogether shut his mouth. He cannot
have gone far.'
'Indeed no.
They are still in the forest across the spur. Our
children went to watch them when the light came, and
have cried the news as they moved.'
Kim looked
his astonishment; but from the edge of the
sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A
child tending cattle had picked it up from a brother
or sister on the far side of the slope that
commanded Chini valley.
'My husbands
are also out there gathering wood.' She drew a
handful of walnuts from her bosom, split one neatly,
and began to eat. Kim affected blank ignorance.
'Dost thou
not know the meaning of the walnut—priest?' she said
coyly, and handed him the half-shells.
'Well
thought of.' He slipped the piece of paper between
them quickly. 'Hast thou a little wax to close them
on this letter?'
The woman
sighed aloud, and Kim relented.
'There is no
payment till service has been rendered. Carry this
to the Babu, and say it was sent by the Son of the
Charm.'
'Ai! Truly!
Truly! By a magician—who is like a Sahib.'
'Nay, a Son
of the Charm: and ask if there be any answer.'
'But if he
offer a rudeness? I—I am afraid.'
Kim laughed.
'He is, I have no doubt, very tired and very hungry.
The Hills make cold bedfellows. Hai, my'—it was on
the tip of his tongue to say Mother, but he turned
it to Sister—'thou art a wise and witty woman. By
this time all the villages know what has befallen
the Sahibs—eh?'
'True. News
was at Ziglaur by midnight, and by tomorrow should
be at Kotgarh. The villages are both afraid and
angry.'
'No need.
Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs and pass them
on, in peace. We must get them quietly away from our
valleys. To steal is one thing—to kill another. The
Babu will understand, and there will be no
after-complaints. Be swift. I must tend my master
when he wakes.'
'So be it.
After service—thou hast said?—comes the reward. I am
the Woman of Shamlegh, and I hold from the Rajah. I
am no common bearer of babes. Shamlegh is thine:
hoof and horn and hide, milk and butter. Take or
leave.'
She turned
resolutely uphill, her silver necklaces clicking on
her broad breast, to meet the morning sun fifteen
hundred feet above them. This time Kim thought in
the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin edges of
the packets.
'How can a
man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is
so—always pestered by women? There was that girl at
Akrola of the Ford; and there was the scullion's
wife behind the dovecot—not counting the others—and
now comes this one! When I was a child it was well
enough, but now I am a man and they will not regard
me as a man. Walnuts, indeed! Ho! ho! It is almonds
in the Plains!'
He went out
to levy on the village—not with a begging-bowl,
which might do for down-country, but in the manner
of a prince. Shamlegh's summer population is only
three families—four women and eight or nine men.
They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks,
from ammoniated quinine to white vodka, for they had
taken their full share in the overnight loot. The
neat Continental tents had been cut up and shared
long ago, and there were patent aluminium saucepans
abroad.
But they
considered the lama's presence a perfect safeguard
against all consequences, and impenitently brought
Kim of their best—even to a drink of chang—the
barley-beer that comes from Ladakh-way. Then they
thawed out in the sun, and sat with their legs
hanging over infinite abysses, chattering, laughing,
and smoking. They judged India and its Government
solely from their experience of wandering Sahibs who
had employed them or their friends as shikarris. Kim
heard tales of shots missed upon ibex, serow, or
markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in their
graves—every detail lighted from behind like twigs
on tree-tops seen against lightning. They told him
of their little diseases, and, more important, the
diseases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle; of trips
as far as Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries
live, and beyond even to marvellous Simla, where the
streets are paved with silver, and anyone, look you,
can get service with the Sahibs, who ride about in
two-wheeled carts and spend money with a spade.
Presently, grave and aloof, walking very heavily,
the lama joined himself to the chatter under the
eaves, and they gave him great room. The thin air
refreshed him, and he sat on the edge of precipices
with the best of them, and, when talk languished,
flung pebbles into the void. Thirty miles away, as
the eagle flies, lay the next range, seamed and
channelled and pitted with little patches of
brush—forests, each a day's dark march. Behind the
village, Shamlegh hill itself cut off all view to
southward. It was like sitting in a swallow's nest
under the eaves of the roof of the world.
From time to
time the lama stretched out his hand, and with a
little low-voiced prompting would point out the road
to Spiti and north across the Parungla.
'Beyond,
where the hills lie thickest, lies De-ch'en' (he
meant Han-le'), 'the great Monastery.
s'Tag-stan-ras-ch'en built it, and of him there runs
this tale.' Whereupon he told it: a fantastic piled
narrative of bewitchment and miracles that set
Shamlegh a-gasping. Turning west a little, he
steered for the green hills of Kulu, and sought
Kailung under the glaciers. 'For thither came I in
the old, old days. From Leh I came, over the
Baralachi.'
'Yes, yes;
we know it,' said the far-faring people of Shamlegh.
'And I slept
two nights with the priests of Kailung. These are
the Hills of my delight! Shadows blessed above all
other shadows! There my eyes opened on this world;
there my eyes were opened to this world; there I
found Enlightenment; and there I girt my loins for
my Search. Out of the Hills I came—the high Hills
and the strong winds. Oh, just is the Wheel!' He
blessed them in detail—the great glaciers, the naked
rocks, the piled moraines and tumbled shale; dry
upland, hidden salt-lake, age-old timber and
fruitful water-shot valley one after the other, as a
dying man blesses his folk; and Kim marvelled at his
passion.
'Yes—yes.
There is no place like our Hills,' said the people
of Shamlegh. And they fell to wondering how a man
could live in the hot terrible Plains where the
cattle run as big as elephants, unfit to plough on a
hillside; where village touches village, they had
heard, for a hundred miles; where folk went about
stealing in gangs, and what the robbers spared the
Police carried utterly away.
So the still
forenoon wore through, and at the end of it Kim's
messenger dropped from the steep pasture as
unbreathed as when she had set out.
'I sent a
word to the hakim,' Kim explained, while she made
reverence.
'He joined
himself to the idolaters? Nay, I remember he did a
healing upon one of them. He has acquired merit,
though the healed employed his strength for evil.
Just is the Wheel! What of the hakim?'
'I feared
that thou hadst been bruised and—and I knew he was
wise.' Kim took the waxed walnut-shell and read in
English on the back of his note: Your favour
received. Cannot get away from present company at
present, but shall take them into Simla. After
which, hope to rejoin you. Inexpedient to follow
angry gentlemen. Return by same road you came, and
will overtake. Highly gratified about correspondence
due to my forethought. 'He says, Holy One, that he
will escape from the idolaters, and will return to
us. Shall we wait awhile at Shamlegh, then?'
The lama
looked long and lovingly upon the hills and shook
his head.
'That may
not be, chela. From my bones outward I do desire it,
but it is forbidden. I have seen the Cause of
Things.'
'Why? When
the Hills give thee back thy strength day by day?
Remember we were weak and fainting down below there
in the Doon.'
'I became
strong to do evil and to forget. A brawler and a
swashbuckler upon the hillsides was I.' Kim bit back
a smile. 'Just and perfect is the Wheel, swerving
not a hair. When I was a man—a long time ago—I did
pilgrimage to Guru Ch'wan among the poplars' (he
pointed Bhotanwards), 'where they keep the Sacred
Horse.'
'Quiet, be
quiet!' said Shamlegh, all arow. 'He speaks of
Jam-lin-nin-k'or, the Horse That Can Go Round The
World In a Day.'
'I speak to
my chela only,' said the lama, in gentle reproof,
and they scattered like frost on south eaves of a
morning. 'I did not seek truth in those days, but
the talk of doctrine. All illusion! I drank the beer
and ate the bread of Guru Ch'wan. Next day one said:
"We go out to fight Sangor Gutok down the valley to
discover" (mark again how Lust is tied to Anger!)
"which Abbot shall bear rule in the valley and take
the profit of the prayers they print at Sangor
Gutok." I went, and we fought a day.'
'But how,
Holy One?'
'With our
long pencases as I could have shown ... I say, we
fought under the poplars, both Abbots and all the
monks, and one laid open my forehead to the bone.
See!' He tilted back his cap and showed a puckered
silvery scar. 'Just and perfect is the Wheel!
Yesterday the scar itched, and after fifty years I
recalled how it was dealt and the face of him who
dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion. Followed
that which thou didst see—strife and stupidity. Just
is the Wheel! The idolater's blow fell upon the
scar. Then I was shaken in my soul: my soul was
darkened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the
waters of illusion. Not till I came to Shamlegh
could I meditate upon the Cause of Things, or trace
the running grass-roots of Evil. I strove all the
long night.'
'But, Holy
One, thou art innocent of all evil. May I be thy
sacrifice!'
Kim was
genuinely distressed at the old man's sorrow, and
Mahbub Ali's phrase slipped out unawares.
'In the
dawn,' the lama went on more gravely, ready rosary
clicking between the slow sentences, 'came
enlightenment. It is here ... I am an old man ...
hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my
Hills. Three years I travelled through Hind, but—can
earth be stronger than Mother Earth? My stupid body
yearned to the Hills and the snows of the Hills,
from below there. I said, and it is true, my Search
is sure. So, at the Kulu woman's house I turned
hillward, over-persuaded by myself. There is no
blame to the hakim. He—following Desire—foretold
that the Hills would make me strong. They
strengthened me to do evil, to forget my Search. I
delighted in life and the lust of life. I desired
strong slopes to climb. I cast about to find them. I
measured the strength of my body, which is evil,
against the high Hills, I made a mock of thee when
thy breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested when
thou wouldst not face the snow of the pass.'
'But what
harm? I was afraid. It was just. I am not a hillman;
and I loved thee for thy new strength.'
'More than
once I remember'—he rested his cheek dolefully on
his hand—'I sought thy praise and the hakim's for
the mere strength of my legs. Thus evil followed
evil till the cup was full. Just is the Wheel! All
Hind for three years did me all honour. From the
Fountain of Wisdom in the Wonder House to'—he
smiled—'a little child playing by a big gun—the
world prepared my road. And why?'
'Because we
loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I
myself am still sick and shaken.'
'No! It was
because I was upon the Way—tuned as are si-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 Such-zen. No word, look
you, but a blow, chela.'
'But the
Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?'
'We were
well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and
Lust upon the road, and they begat Anger. The blow
was a sign to me, who am no better than a strayed
yak, that my place is not here. Who can read the
Cause of an act is halfway 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."'
'Would we
had never met that cursed Russian!'
'Our Lord
Himself cannot make the Wheel swing backward. And
for my merit that I had acquired I gain yet another
sign.' He put his hand in his bosom, and drew forth
the Wheel of Life. 'Look! I considered this after I
had meditated. There remains untorn by the idolater
no more than the breadth of my fingernail.'
'I see.'
'So much,
then, is the span of my life in this body. I have
served the Wheel all my days. Now the Wheel serves
me. But for the merit I have acquired in guiding
thee upon the Way, there would have been added to me
yet another life ere I had found my River. Is it
plain, chela?'
Kim stared
at the brutally disfigured chart. From left to right
diagonally the rent ran—from the Eleventh House
where Desire gives birth to the Child (as it is
drawn by Tibetans)—across the human and animal
worlds, to the Fifth House—the empty House of the
Senses. The logic was unanswerable.
'Before our
Lord won Enlightenment'—the lama folded all away
with reverence—'He was tempted. I too have been
tempted, but it is finished. The Arrow fell in the
Plains—not in the Hills. Therefore, what make we
here?'
'Shall we at
least wait for the hakim?'
'I know how
long I shall live in this body. What can a hakim
do?'
'But thou
art all sick and shaken. Thou canst not walk.'
'How can I
be sick if I see Freedom?' He rose unsteadily to his
feet.
'Then I must
get food from the village. Oh, the weary Road!' Kim
felt that he too needed rest.
'That is
lawful. Let us eat and go. The Arrow fell in the
Plains ... but I yielded to Desire. Make ready,
chela.'
Kim turned
to the woman with the turquoise headgear who had
been idly pitching pebbles over the cliff. She
smiled very kindly.
'I found him
like a strayed buffalo in a cornfield—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 lying
speeches to the Sahibs. Why does he not leave them?'
'Out of the
greatness of his heart.'
'Was never a
Bengali yet had one bigger than a dried walnut. But
it is no matter ... Now as to walnuts. After service
comes reward. I have said the village is thine.'
'It is my
loss,' Kim began. 'Even now I had planned desirable
things in my heart which'—there is no need to go
through the compliments proper to these occasions.
He sighed deeply ... 'But my master, led by a
vision—'
'Huh! What
can old eyes see except a full begging-bowl?'
'—turns from
this village to the Plains again.'
'Bid him
stay.'
Kim shook
his head. 'I know my Holy One, and his rage if he be
crossed,' he replied impressively. 'His curses shake
the Hills.'
'Pity they
did not save him from a broken head! I heard that
thou wast the tiger-hearted one who smote the Sahib.
Let him dream a little longer. Stay!'
'Hillwoman,'
said Kim, with austerity that could not harden the
outlines of his young oval face, 'these matters are
too high for thee.'
'The Gods be
good to us! Since when have men and women been other
than men and women?'
'A priest is
a priest. He says he will go upon this hour. I am
his chela, and I go with him. We need food for the
Road. He is an honoured guest in all the villages,
but'—he broke into a pure 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 weary; and that we need food. Here is
the bag.'
The woman
snatched it angrily. 'I was foolish,' said she. 'Who
is thy woman in the Plains? Fair or black? I was
fair once. Laughest thou? Once, long ago, if thou
canst believe, a Sahib looked on me with favour.
Once, long ago, I wore European clothes at the
Mission-house yonder.' She pointed towards Kotgarh.
'Once, long ago. I was Ker-lis-ti-an and spoke
English—as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib said
he would return and wed me—yes, wed me. He went
away—I had nursed him when he was sick—but he never
returned. Then I saw that the Gods of the
Kerlistians lied, and I went back to my own people
... I have never set eyes on a Sahib since. (Do not
laugh at me. The fit is past, little priestling.)
Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put
me in mind of my Sahib, though thou art only a
wandering mendicant to whom I give a dole. Curse me?
Thou canst neither curse nor bless!' She set her
hands on her hips and laughed bitterly. 'Thy Gods
are lies; thy works are lies; thy words are lies.
There are no Gods under all the Heavens. I know it
... But for awhile I thought it was my Sahib come
back, and he was my God. Yes, once I made music on a
pianno in the Mission-house at Kotgarh. Now I give
alms to priests who are heatthen.' She wound up with
the English word, and tied the mouth of the brimming
bag.
'I wait for
thee, chela,' said the lama, leaning against the
door-post.
The woman
swept the tall figure with her eyes. 'He walk! He
cannot cover half a mile. Whither would old bones
go?'
At this Kim,
already perplexed by the lama's collapse and
foreseeing the weight of the bag, fairly lost his
temper.
'What is it
to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he goes?'
'Nothing—but
something to thee, priest with a Sahib's face. Wilt
thou carry him on thy shoulders?'
'I go to the
Plains. None must hinder my return. I have wrestled
with my soul till I am strengthless. The stupid body
is spent, and we are far from the Plains.'
'Behold!'
she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his
own utter helplessness. 'Curse me. 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 the 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
returned, more erect than ever.
'Thy Gods
useless, heh? Try mine. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.'
She hailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen
her two husbands and three others with a dooli, the
rude native litter of the Hills, that they use for
carrying the sick and for visits of state. 'These
cattle'—she did not condescend to look at them—'are
thine for so long as thou shalt need.'
'But we will
not go Simla-way. We will not go near the Sahibs,'
cried the first husband.
'They will
not run away as the others did, nor will they steal
baggage. Two I know for weaklings. Stand to the
rear-pole, Sonoo and Taree.' They obeyed swiftly.
'Lower now, and lift in that holy man. I will see to
the village and your virtuous wives till ye return.'
'When will
that be?'
'Ask the
priests. Do not pester me. Lay the food-bag at the
foot, it balances better so.'
'Oh, Holy
One, thy Hills are kinder than our Plains!' cried
Kim, relieved, as the lama tottered to the litter.
'It is a very king's bed—a place of honour and ease.
And we owe it to—'
'A woman of
ill-omen. I need thy blessings as much as I do thy
curses. It is my order and none of thine. Lift and
away! Here! Hast thou money for the road?'
She beckoned
Kim to her hut, and stooped above a battered English
cash-box under her cot.
'I do not
need anything,' said Kim, angered where he should
have been grateful. 'I am already rudely loaded with
favours.'
She looked
up with a curious smile and laid a hand on his
shoulder. 'At least, thank me. I am foul-faced and a
hillwoman, but, as thy talk goes, I have acquired
merit. Shall I show thee how the Sahibs render
thanks?' and her hard eyes softened.
'I am but a
wandering priest,' said Kim, his eyes lighting in
answer. 'Thou needest neither my blessings nor my
curses.'
'Nay. But
for one little moment—thou canst overtake the dooli
in ten strides—if thou wast a Sahib, shall I show
thee what thou wouldst do?'
'How if I
guess, though?' said Kim, and putting his arm round
her waist, he kissed her on the cheek, adding in
English: 'Thank you verree much, my dear.'
Kissing is
practically unknown among Asiatics, which may have
been the reason that she leaned back with wide-open
eyes and a face of panic.
'Next time,'
Kim went on, 'you must not be so sure of your
heatthen priests. Now I say good-bye.' He held out
his hand English-fashion. She took it mechanically.
'Good-bye, my dear.'
'Good-bye,
and—and'—she was remembering her English words one
by one—'you will come back again? Good-bye, and—thee
God bless you.'
Half an hour
later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill
path that leads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim
saw a tiny figure at the hut door waving a white
rag.
'She has
acquired merit beyond all others,' said the lama.
'For to set a man upon the way to Freedom is half as
great as though she had herself found it.'
'Umm,' said
Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. 'It may be
that I have acquired merit also ... At least she did
not treat me like a child.' He hitched the front of
his robe, where lay the slab of documents and maps,
re-stowed the precious food-bag at the lama's feet,
laid his hand on the litter's 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.

Chapter 15
I'd not
give room for an Emperor—
I'd hold my road for a King.
To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down—
But this is a different thing!
I'll not fight with the Powers of Air—
Sentry, pass him through!
Drawbridge let fall—He's the Lord of us all—
The Dreamer whose dream came true!
The Siege of the Fairies.
Two hundred miles north of
Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh, lies Yankling
Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathfully
across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker—a
man from Ao-chung. But that renegade, with a new
Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges, is
elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market, and
Yankling Sahib will learn next season how very ill
he has been.
Up the
valleys of Bushahr—the far-beholding eagles of the
Himalayas swerve at his new blue-and-white gored
umbrella—hurries a Bengali, once fat and
well-looking, now lean and weather-worn. He has
received the thanks of two foreigners of
distinction, piloted not unskilfully to Mashobra
tunnel, which leads to the great and gay capital of
India. It was not his fault that, blanketed by wet
mists, he conveyed them past the telegraph-station
and European colony of Kotgarh. It was not his
fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he discoursed
so engagingly, that he led them into the borders of
Nahan, where the Rahah of that State mistook them
for deserting British soldiery. Hurree Babu
explained the greatness and glory, in their own
country, of his companions, till the drowsy kinglet
smiled. He explained it to everyone who asked—many
times—aloud—variously. He begged food, arranged
accommodation, proved a skilful leech for an injury
of the groin—such a blow as one may receive rolling
down a rock-covered hillside in the dark—and in all
things indispensable. The reason of his friendliness
did him credit. With millions of fellow-serfs, he
had learned to look upon Russia as the great
deliverer from the North. He was a fearful man. He
had been afraid that he could not save his
illustrious employers from the anger of an excited
peasantry. He himself would just as lief hit a holy
man as not, but ... He was deeply grateful and
sincerely rejoiced that he had done his 'little
possible' towards bringing their venture to—barring
the lost baggage—a successful issue, he had
forgotten the blows; denied that any blows had been
dealt that unseemly first night under the pines. He
asked neither pension nor retaining fee, but, if
they deemed him worthy, would they write him a
testimonial? It might be useful to him later, if
others, their friends, came over the Passes. He
begged them to remember him in their future
greatnesses, for he 'opined subtly' that he, even
he, Mohendro Lal Dutt, MA of Calcutta, had 'done the
State some service'.
They gave
him a certificate praising his courtesy,
helpfulness, and unerring skill as a guide. He put
it in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion; they
had endured so many dangers together. He led them at
high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance
Bank of Simla, where they wished to establish their
identity. Thence he vanished like a dawn-cloud on
Jakko.
Behold him,
too fine-drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the
drugs in his little brass-bound box, ascending
Shamlegh slope, a just man made perfect. Watch him,
all Babudom laid aside, smoking at noon on a cot,
while a woman with turquoise-studded headgear points
south-easterly across the bare grass. Litters, she
says, do not travel as fast as single men, but his
birds should now be in the Plains. The holy man
would not stay though Lispeth pressed him. The Babu
groans heavily, girds up his huge loins, and is off
again. He does not care to travel after dusk; but
his days' marches—there is none to enter them in a
book—would astonish folk who mock at his race.
Kindly villagers, remembering the Dacca drug-vendor
of two months ago, give him shelter against evil
spirits of the wood. He dreams of Bengali Gods,
University text-books of education, and the Royal
Society, London, England. Next dawn the bobbing
blue-and-white umbrella goes forward.
On the edge
of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind them and the
Plains spread out in golden dust before, rests a
worn litter in which—all the Hills know it—lies a
sick lama who seeks a River for his healing.
Villages have almost come to blows over the honour
of bearing it, for not only has the lama given them
blessings, but his disciple good money—full
one-third Sahibs' prices. Twelve miles a day has the
dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends
show, and by roads that few Sahibs use. Over the
Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust
filled every fold of the impassive lama's drapery;
between the black horns of Raieng where they heard
the whistle of the wild goats through the clouds;
pitching and strained on the shale below; hard-held
between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded
the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati;
swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the
descent into the Valley of the Waters; pressed along
the steamy levels of that locked valley; up, up and
out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath;
set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly
oak-forests; passed from village to village in
dawn-chill, when even devotees may be forgiven for
swearing at impatient holy men; or by torchlight,
when the least fearful think of ghosts—the dooli has
reached her last stage. The little hill-folk sweat
in the modified heat of the lower Siwaliks, and
gather round the priests for their blessing and
their wage.
'Ye have
acquired merit,' says the lama. 'Merit greater than
your knowing. And ye will return to the Hills,' he
sighs.
'Surely. The
high Hills as soon as may be.' The bearer rubs his
shoulder, drinks water, spits it out again, and
readjusts his grass sandal. Kim—his face is drawn
and tired—pays very small silver from his belt,
heaves out the food-bag, crams an oilskin
packet—they are holy writings—into his bosom, and
helps the lama to his feet. The peace has come again
into the old man's eyes, and he does not look for
the hills to fall down and crush him as he did that
terrible night when they were delayed by the flooded
river.
The men pick
up the dooli and swing out of sight between the
scrub clumps.
The lama
raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas.
'Not with you, O blessed among all hills, fell the
Arrow of Our Lord! And never shall I breathe your
airs again!'
'But thou
art ten times the stronger man in this good air,'
says Kim, for to his wearied soul appeal the
well-cropped, kindly Plains. 'Here, or hereabouts,
fell the Arrow, yes. We will go very softly,
perhaps, a 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 heavy food-bag with the
locked books, the load of the writings on his heart,
and the details of the daily routine. He begged in
the dawn, set blankets for the lama's meditation,
held the weary head on his lap through the noonday
heats, fanning away the flies till his wrists ached,
begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the lama's
feet, who rewarded him with promise of
Freedom—today, tomorrow, or, at furthest, the next
day.
'Never was
such a chela. I doubt at times whether Ananda more
faithfully nursed Our Lord. And thou art a Sahib?
When I was a man—a long time ago—I forgot that. Now
I look upon thee often, and every time I remember
that thou art a Sahib. It is strange.'
'Thou hast
said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me
with this talk, Holy One? Let me rub the other foot.
It vexes me. I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela, and
my head is heavy on my shoulders.'
'Patience a
little! We reach Freedom together. Then thou and I,
upon the far bank of the River, will look back upon
our lives as in the Hills we saw our days' marches
laid out behind us. Perhaps I was once a Sahib.'
'Was never a
Sahib like thee, I swear it.'
'I am
certain the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House
was in past life a very wise Abbot. But even his
spectacles do not make my eyes see. There fall
shadows when I would look steadily. No matter—we
know the tricks of the poor stupid carcass—shadow
changing to another shadow. I am bound by the
illusion of Time and Space. How far came we today 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 someone duly authorized would only take delivery
of them the Great Game might play itself for aught
he then cared. He was tired and hot in his head, and
a cough that came from the stomach worried him.
'No.' he
said almost sternly. 'I am not a dog or a snake to
bite when I have learned to love.'
'Thou art
too tender towards me.'
'Not that
either. I have moved in one matter without
consulting thee. I have sent a message to the Kulu
woman by that woman who gave us the goat's milk this
morn, saying that thou wast a little feeble and
wouldst need a litter. I beat myself in my mind that
I did not do it when we entered the Doon. We stay in
this place till the litter returns.'
'I am
content. She is a woman with a heart of gold, as
thou sayest, but a talker—something of a talker.'
'She will
not weary thee. I have looked to that also. Holy
One, my heart is very heavy for my many
carelessnesses towards thee.' An hysterical catch
rose in his throat. 'I have walked thee too far: I
have not picked good food always for thee; I have
not considered the heat; I have talked to people on
the road and left thee alone ... I have—I have ...
Hai mai! But I love thee ... and it is all too late
... I was a child ... Oh, why was I not a man? ...'
Overborne by strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond
his years, Kim broke down and sobbed at the lama's
feet.
'What a
to-do is here!' said the old man gently. 'Thou hast
never stepped a hair's breadth from the Way of
Obedience. Neglect me? Child, I have lived on thy
strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new
wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh down, I have stolen
strength from thee. Therefore, not through any sin
of thine, art thou weakened. It is the Body—the
silly, stupid Body—that speaks now. Not the assured
Soul. Be comforted! Know at least the devils that
thou fightest. They are earth-born—children of
illusion. We will go to the woman from Kulu. She
shall acquire merit in housing us, and specially in
tending me. Thou shalt run free till strength
returns. I had forgotten the stupid Body. If there
be any blame, I bear it. But we are too close to the
Gates of Deliverance to weigh blame. I could praise
thee, but what need? In a little—in a very little—we
shall sit beyond all needs.'
And so he
petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave
texts on that little-understood beast, our Body,
who, being but a delusion, insists on posing as the
Soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the immense
multiplication of unnecessary devils.
'Hai! hai!
Let us talk of the woman from Kulu. Think you she
will ask another charm for her grandsons? When I was
a young man, a very long time ago, I was plagued
with these vapours—and some others—and I went to an
Abbot—a very holy man and a seeker after truth,
though then I knew it not. Sit up and listen, child
of my soul! My tale was told. Said he to me, "Chela,
know this. There are many lies in the world, and not
a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies,
except it be the sensations of our bodies."
Considering this I was comforted, and of his great
favour he suffered me to drink tea In his presence.
Suffer me now to drink tea, for I am thirsty.'
With a laugh
across his tears, Kim kissed the lama's feet, and
set about the tea-making.
'Thou
leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on
thee for some other things. Dost know it?'
'I have
guessed maybe,' and the lama's eyes twinkled. 'We
must change that.'
So, when
with scufflings and scrapings and a hot air of
importance, paddled up nothing less than the
Sahiba's pet palanquin sent twenty miles, with that
same grizzled old Oorya servant in charge, and when
they reached the disorderly order of the long white
rambling house behind Saharunpore, the lama took his
own measures.
Said the
Sahiba cheerily from an upper window, after
compliments: 'What is the good of an old woman's
advice to an old man? I told thee—I told thee, Holy
One, to keep an eye upon the chela. How didst thou
do it? Never answer me! I know. He has been running
among the women. Look at his eyes—hollow and
sunk—and the Betraying Line from the nose down! He
has been sifted out! Fie! Fie! And a priest, too!'
Kim looked
up, over-weary to smile, shaking his head in denial.
'Do not
jest,' said the lama. 'That time is done. We are
here upon great matters. A sickness of soul took me
in the Hills, and him a sickness of the body. Since
then I have lived upon his strength—eating him.'
'Children
together—young and old,' she sniffed, but forbore to
make any new jokes. 'May this present hospitality
restore ye! Hold awhile and I will come to gossip of
the high good Hills.'
At evening
time—her son-in-law was returned, so she did not
need to go on inspection round the farm—she won to
the meat of the matter, explained low-voicedly by
the lama. The two old heads nodded wisely together.
Kim had reeled to a room with a cot in it, and was
dozing soddenly. The lama had forbidden him to set
blankets or get food.
'I know—I
know. Who but I?' she cackled. 'We who go down to
the burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those
coming up from the River of Life with full
water-jars—yes, brimming water-jars. I did the boy
wrong. He lent thee his strength? It is true that
the old eat the young daily. Stands now we must
restore him.'
'Thou hast
many times acquired merit—'
'My merit.
What is it? Old bag of bones making curries for men
who do not ask "Who cooked this?" Now if it were
stored up for my grandson—'
'He that had
the belly-pain?'
'To think
the Holy One remembers that! I must tell his mother.
It is most singular honour! "He that had the
belly-pain"—straightway the Holy One remembered. She
will be proud.'
'My chela is
to me as is a son to the unenlightened.'
'Say
grandson, rather. Mothers have not the wisdom of our
years. If a child cries they say the heavens are
falling. Now a grandmother is far enough separated
from the pain of bearing and the pleasure of giving
the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness
pure or the wind. And since thou speakest once again
of wind, when last the Holy One was here, maybe I
offended in pressing for charms.'
'Sister,'
said the lama, using that form of address a Buddhist
monk may sometimes employ towards a nun, 'if charms
comfort thee—'
'They are
better than ten thousand doctors.'
'I say, if
they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of 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 again.
Hee! hee!'
'But as he
who sleeps there said,'—he nodded at the shut door
of the guest-chamber across the forecourt—'thou hast
a heart of gold... And he is in the spirit my very
"grandson" to me.'
'Good! I am
the Holy One's cow.' This was pure Hinduism, but the
lama never heeded. 'I am old. I have borne sons in
the body. Oh, once I could please men! Now I can
cure them.' He heard her armlets tinkle as though
she bared arms for action. 'I will take over the boy
and dose him, and stuff him, and make him all whole.
Hai! hai! We old people know something yet.'
Wherefore
when Kim, aching in every bone, opened his eyes, and
would go to the cook-house to get his master's food,
he found strong coercion about him, and a veiled old
figure at the door, flanked by the grizzled
manservant, who told him very precisely the things
that he was on no account to do.
'Thou must
have? Thou shalt have nothing. What? A locked box in
which to keep holy books? Oh, that is another
matter. Heavens forbid I should come between a
priest and his prayers! It shall be brought, and
thou shalt keep the key.'
They pushed
the coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's
pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the
locked books and diaries, with a groan of relief.
For some absurd reason their weight on his shoulders
was nothing to their weight on his poor mind. His
neck ached under it of nights.
'Thine is a
sickness uncommon in youth these days: since young
folk have given up tending their betters. The remedy
is sleep, and certain drugs,' said the Sahiba; and
he was glad to give himself up to the blankness that
half menaced and half soothed him.
She brewed
drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the
still-room—drenches that smelt pestilently and
tasted worse. She stood over Kim till they went
down, and inquired exhaustively after they had come
up. She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and
enforced it by means of an armed man. It is true he
was seventy odd, that his scabbarded sword ceased at
the hilt; but he represented the authority of the
Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants,
calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a wide
compass by those parts. Best of all, when the body
was cleared, she cut out from the mass of poor
relations that crowded the back of the
buildings—house-hold dogs, we name them—a cousin's
widow, skilled in what Europeans, who know nothing
about it, call massage. And the two of them, laying
him east and west, that the mysterious
earth-currents which thrill the clay of our bodies
might help and not hinder, took him to pieces all
one long afternoon—bone by bone, muscle by muscle,
ligament by ligament, and lastly, nerve by nerve.
Kneaded to irresponsible pulp, half hypnotized by
the perpetual flick and readjustment of the uneasy
chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim slid ten
thousand miles into slumber—thirty-six hours of
it—sleep that soaked like rain after drought.
Then she fed
him, and the house spun to her clamour. She caused
fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the
sober, slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she,
sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and
onion, with little fish from the brooks—anon limes
for sherbets, fat quails from the pits, then
chicken-livers upon a skewer, with sliced ginger
between.
'I have seen
something of this world,' she said over the crowded
trays, 'and there are but two sorts of women in
it—those who take the strength out of a man and
those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now
I am this. Nay—do not play the priestling with me.
Mine was but a jest. If it does not hold good now,
it will when thou takest the road again.
Cousin,'—this to the poor relation, never wearied of
extolling her patroness's charity—'he is getting a
bloom on the skin of a new-curried horse. Our work
is like polishing jewels to be thrown to a
dance-girl—eh?'
Kim sat up
and smiled. The terrible weakness had dropped from
him like an old shoe. His tongue itched for free
speech again, and but a week back the lightest word
clogged it like ashes. The pain in his neck (he must
have caught it from the lama) had gone with the
heavy dengue-aches and the evil taste in the mouth.
The two old women, a little, but not much, more
careful about their veils now, clucked as merrily as
the hens that had entered pecking through the open
door.
'Where is my
Holy One?' he demanded.
'Hear him!
Thy Holy One is well,' she snapped viciously.
'Though that is none of his merit. Knew I a charm to
make him wise, I'd sell my jewels and buy it. To
refuse good food that I cooked myself—and go roving
into the fields for two nights on an empty belly—and
to tumble into a brook at the end of it—call you
that holiness? Then, when he has nearly broken what
thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he tells me
that he has acquired merit. Oh, how like are all
men! No, that was not it—he tells me that he is
freed from all sin. I could have told him that
before he wetted himself all over. He is well
now—this happened a week ago—but burn me such
holiness! A babe of three would do better. Do not
fret thyself for the Holy One. He keeps both eyes on
thee when he is not wading our brooks.'
'I do not
remember to have seen him. I remember that the days
and nights passed like bars of white and black,
opening and shutting. I was not sick: I was but
tired.'
'A lethargy
that comes by right some few score years later. But
it is done now.'
'Maharanee,'
Kim began, but led by the look in her eye, changed
it to the title of plain love—'Mother, I owe my life
to thee. How shall I make thanks? Ten thousand
blessings upon thy house and—'
'The house
be unblessed!' (It is impossible to give exactly the
old lady's word.) 'Thank the Gods as a priest if
thou wilt, but thank me, if thou carest, as a son.
Heavens above! Have I shifted thee and lifted thee
and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts
flung at my head? Somewhere a mother must have borne
thee to break her heart. What used thou to her—son?'
'I had no
mother, my mother,' said Kim. 'She died, they tell
me, when I was young.'
'Hai mai!
Then none can say I have robbed her of any right
if—when thou takest the road again and this house is
but one of a thousand used for shelter and
forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing. No matter.
I need no blessings, but—but—' She stamped her foot
at the poor relation. 'Take up the trays to the
house. What is the good of stale food in the room, O
woman of ill-omen?'
'I ha—have
borne a son in my time too, but he died,' whimpered
the bowed sister-figure behind the chudder. 'Thou
knowest he died! I only waited for the order to take
away the tray.'
'It is I
that am the woman of ill-omen,' cried the old lady
penitently. 'We that go down to the chattris [the
big umbrellas above the burning-ghats where the
priests take their last dues] clutch hard at the
bearers of the chattis [water-jars—young folk full
of the pride of life, she meant; but the pun is
clumsy]. When one cannot dance in the festival one
must e'en look out of the window, and grandmothering
takes all a woman's time. Thy master gives me all
the charms I now desire for my daughter's eldest, by
reason—is it?—that he is wholly free from sin. The
hakim is brought very low these days. He goes about
poisoning my servants for lack of their betters.'
'What hakim,
mother?'
'That very
Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in
three pieces. He cast up like a strayed camel a week
ago, vowing that he and thou had been blood-brothers
together up Kulu-way, and feigning great anxiety for
thy health. He was very thin and hungry, so I gave
orders to have him stuffed too—him and his anxiety!'
'I would see
him if he is here.'
'He eats
five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to
save himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of
anxiety for thy health that he sticks to the
cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He
will keep. We shall never get rid of him.'
'Send him
here, mother'—the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for
a flash—'and I will try.'
'I'll send
him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least
he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of the
brook; thus, as the Holy One did not say, acquiring
merit.'
'He is a
very wise hakim. Send him, mother.'
'Priest
praising priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of
thine (ye squabbled at your last meeting) I'll hale
him here with horse-ropes and—and give him a
caste-dinner afterwards, my son ... Get up and see
the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy
devils ... my son! my son!'
She trotted
forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and
almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to
the shoulders like a Roman emperor, jowled like
Titus, bare-headed, with new patent-leather shoes,
in highest condition of fat, exuding joy and
salutations.
'By Jove,
Mister O'Hara, but I are jolly-glad to see you. I
will kindly shut the door. It is a pity you are
sick. Are you very sick?'
'The
papers—the papers from the kilta. The maps and the
murasla!' He held out the key impatiently; for the
present need on his soul was to get rid of the loot.
'You are
quite right. That is correct Departmental view to
take. You have got everything?'
'All 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-rending
oilskin, and a quick shuffling of papers. He had
been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that
they lay below him through the sick idle days—a
burden incommunicable. For that reason the blood
tingled through his body, when Hurree, skipping
elephantinely, shook hands again.
'This is
fine! This is finest! Mister O'Hara! you have—ha!
ha! swiped the whole bag of tricks—locks, stocks,
and barrels. They told me it was eight months' work
gone up the spouts! By Jove, how they beat me! ...
Look, here is the letter from Hilas!' He intoned a
line or two of Court Persian, which is the language
of authorized and unauthorized diplomacy. 'Mister
Rajah Sahib has just about put his foot in the
holes. He will have to explain offeecially how the
deuce-an'-all he is writing love-letters to the
Czar. And they are very clever maps ... and there is
three or four Prime Ministers of these parts
implicated by the correspondence. By Gad, sar! The
British Government will change the succession in
Hilas and Bunar, and nominate new heirs to the
throne. "Trea-son most base" ... but you do not
understand? Eh?'
'Are they in
thy hands?' said Kim. It was all he cared for.
'Just you
jolly-well bet yourself they are.' He stowed the
entire trove about his body, as only Orientals can.
'They are going up to the office, too. The old lady
thinks I am permanent fixture here, but I shall go
away with these straight off—immediately. Mr Lurgan
will be proud man. You are offeecially subordinate
to me, but I shall embody your name in my verbal
report. It is a pity we are not allowed written
reports. We Bengalis excel in thee exact science.'
He tossed back the key and showed the box empty.
'Good. That
is good. I was very tired. My Holy One was sick,
too. And did he fall into—'
'Oah yess. I
am his good friend, I tell you. He was behaving very
strange when I came down after you, and I thought
perhaps he might have the papers. I followed him on
his meditations, and to discuss ethnological points
also. You see, I am verree small person here
nowadays, in comparison with all his charms. By
Jove, O'Hara, do you know, he is afflicted with
infirmity of fits. Yess, I tell you. Cataleptic,
too, if not also epileptic. I found him in such a
state under a tree in articulo mortem, and he jumped
up and walked into a brook and he was nearly drowned
but for me. I pulled him out.'
'Because I
was not there!' said Kim. 'He might have died.'
'Yes, he
might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he
has undergone transfiguration.' The Babu tapped his
forehead knowingly. 'I took notes of his statements
for Royal Society—in posse. You must make haste and
be quite well and come back to Simla, and I will
tell you all my tale at Lurgan's. It was splendid.
The bottoms of their trousers were quite torn, and
old Nahan Rajah, he thought they were European
soldiers deserting.'
'Oh, the
Russians? How long were they with thee?'
'One was a
Frenchman. Oh, days and days and days! Now all the
hill-people believe all Russians are all beggars. By
Jove! they had not one dam'-thing that I did not get
them. And I told the common people—oah, such tales
and anecdotes!—I will tell you at old Lurgan's when
you come up. We will have—ah—a night out! It is
feather in both our caps! Yess, and they gave me a
certificate. That is creaming joke. You should have
seen them at the Alliance Bank identifying
themselves! And thank Almighty God you got their
papers so well! You do not laugh verree much, but
you shall laugh when you are well. Now I will go
straight to the railway and get out. You shall have
all sorts of credits for your game. When do you come
along? We are very proud of you though you gave us
great frights. And especially Mahbub.'
'Ay, Mahbub.
And where is he?'
'Selling
horses in this vi-cinity, of course.'
'Here! Why?
Speak slowly. There is a thickness in my head
still.'
The Babu
looked shyly down his nose. 'Well, you see, I am
fearful man, and I do not like responsibility. You
were sick, you see, and I did not know where
deuce-an'-all the papers were, and if so, how many.
So when I had come down here I slipped in private
wire to Mahbub—he was at Meerut for races—and I tell
him how case stands. He comes up with his men and he
consorts with the lama, and then he calls me a fool,
and is very rude—'
'But
wherefore—wherefore?'
'That is
what I ask. I only suggest that if anyone steals the
papers I should like some good strong, brave men to
rob them back again. You see, they are vitally
important, and Mahbub Ali he did not know where you
were.'
'Mahbub Ali
to rob the Sahiba's house? Thou art mad, Babu,' said
Kim with indignation.
'I wanted
the papers. Suppose she had stole them? It was only
practical suggestion, I think. You are not pleased,
eh?'
A native
proverb—unquotable—showed the blackness of Kim's
disapproval.
'Well,'—Hurree
shrugged his shoulders—'there is no accounting for
thee taste. Mahbub was angry too. He has sold horses
all about here, and he says old lady is pukka
[thorough] old lady and would not condescend to such
ungentlemanly things. I do not care. I have got the
papers, and I was very glad of moral support from
Mahbub. I tell you, I am fearful man, but, somehow
or other, the more fearful I am the more dam'-tight
places I get into. So I was glad you came with me to
Chini, and I am glad Mahbub was close by. The old
lady she is sometimes very rude to me and my
beautiful pills.'
'Allah be
merciful!' said Kim on his elbow, rejoicing. 'What a
beast of wonder is a Babu! And that man walked
alone—if he did walk—with robbed and angry
foreigners!'
'Oah, thatt
was nothing, after they had done beating me; but if
I lost the papers it was pretty-jolly serious.
Mahbub he nearly beat me too, and he went and
consorted with the lama no end. I shall stick to
ethnological investigations henceforwards. Now
good-bye, Mister O'Hara. I can catch 4.25 p.m. to
Umballa if I am quick. It will be good times when we
all tell thee tale up at Mr Lurgan's. I shall report
you offeecially better. Good-bye, my dear fallow,
and when next you are under thee emotions please do
not use the Mohammedan terms with the Tibetan
dress.'
He shook
hands twice—a Babu to his boot-heels—and opened the
door. With the fall of the sunlight upon his still
triumphant face he returned to the humble Dacca
quack.
'He robbed
them,' thought Kim, forgetting his own share in the
game. 'He tricked them. He lied to them like a
Bengali. They give him a chit [a testimonial]. He
makes them a mock at the risk of his life—I never
would have gone down to them after the
pistol-shots—and then he says he is a fearful man
... And he is a fearful man. I must get into the
world again.'
At first his
legs bent like bad pipe-stems, and the flood and
rush of the sunlit air dazzled him. He squatted by
the white wall, the mind rummaging among the
incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's
weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was
removed, his own self-pity, of which, like the sick,
he had great store. The unnerved brain edged away
from all the outside, as a raw horse, once rowelled,
sidles from the spur. It was enough, amply enough,
that the spoil of the kilta was away—off his
hands—out of his possession. He tried to think of
the lama—to wonder why he had tumbled into a
brook—but the bigness of the world, seen between the
forecourt gates, swept linked thought aside. Then he
looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with the
thatched huts hidden among crops—looked with strange
eyes unable to take up the size and proportion and
use of things—stared for a still half-hour. All that
while he felt, though he could not put it into
words, that his soul was out of gear with its
surroundings—a cog-wheel unconnected with any
machinery, just like the idle cog-wheel of a cheap
Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner. The
breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at
him, the noises of the populated house
behind—squabbles, orders, and reproofs—hit on dead
ears.
'I am Kim. I
am Kim. And what is Kim?' His soul repeated it again
and again.
He did not
want to cry—had never felt less like crying in his
life—but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled
down his nose, and with an almost audible click he
felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the
world without. Things that rode meaningless on the
eyeball an instant before slid into proper
proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon,
houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields
to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to.
They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the
feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay,
neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog
with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate.
Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this
move: 'Let him go. I have done my share. Mother
Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back
from meditation, tell him.'
There stood
an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile
away, with a young banyan tree behind—a look-out, as
it were, above some new-ploughed levels; and his
eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew heavy as he neared
it. The ground was good clean dust—no new herbage
that, living, is half-way to death already, but the
hopeful dust that holds the seeds of all life. He
felt it between his toes, patted it with his palms,
and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him
down full length along in the shadow of the
wooden-pinned cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful
as the Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore
the poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off
from her good currents. His head lay powerless upon
her breast, and his opened hands surrendered to her
strength. The many-rooted tree above him, and even
the dead manhandled wood beside, knew what he
sought, as he himself did not know. Hour upon hour
he lay deeper than sleep.
Towards
evening, when the dust of returning kine made all
the horizons smoke, came the lama and Mahbub Ali,
both afoot, walking cautiously, for the house had
told them where he had gone.
'Allah! What
a fool's trick to play in open country!' muttered
the horse-dealer. 'He could be shot a hundred
times—but this is not the Border.'
'And,' said
the lama, repeating a many-times-told tale, 'never
was such a chela. Temperate, kindly, wise, of
ungrudging disposition, a merry heart upon the road,
never forgetting, learned, truthful, courteous.
Great is his reward!'
'I know the
boy—as I have said.'
'And he was
all those things?'
'Some of
them—but I have not yet found a Red Hat's charm for
making him overly truthful. He has certainly been
well nursed.'
'The Sahiba
is a heart of gold,' said the lama earnestly. 'She
looks upon him as her son.'
'Hmph! Half
Hind seems that way disposed. I only wished to see
that the boy had come to no harm and was a free
agent. As thou knowest, he and I were old friends in
the first days of your pilgrimage together.'
'That is a
bond between us.' The lama sat down. 'We are at the
end of the pilgrimage.'
'No thanks
to thee thine was not cut off for good and all a
week back. I heard what the Sahiba said to thee when
we bore thee up on the cot.' Mahbub laughed, and
tugged his newly dyed beard.
'I was
meditating upon other matters that tide. It was the
hakim from Dacca broke my meditations.'
'Otherwise'—this was in Pushtu for decency's
sake—'thou wouldst have ended thy meditations upon
the sultry side of Hell—being an unbeliever and an
idolater for all thy child's simplicity. But now,
Red Hat, what is to be done?'
'This very
night,'—the words came slowly, vibrating with
triumph—'this very night he will be as free as I am
from all taint of sin—assured as I am, when he quits
this body, of Freedom from the Wheel of Things. I
have a sign'—he laid his hand above the torn chart
in his bosom—'that my time is short; but I shall
have safeguarded him throughout the years. Remember,
I have reached Knowledge, as I told thee only three
nights back.'
'It must be
true, as the Tirah priest said when I stole his
cousin's wife, that I am a Sufi [a free-thinker];
for here I sit,' said Mahbub to himself, 'drinking
in blasphemy unthinkable ... I remember the tale. On
that, then, he goes to Fannatu l'Adn [the Gardens of
Eden]. But how? Wilt thou slay him or drown him in
that wonderful river from which the Babu dragged
thee?'
'I was
dragged from no river,' said the lama simply. 'Thou
hast forgotten what befell. I found it by
Knowledge.'
'Oh, ay.
True,' stammered Mahbub, divided between high
indignation and enormous mirth. 'I had forgotten the
exact run of what happened. Thou didst find it
knowingly.'
'And to say
that I would take life is—not a sin, but a madness
simple. My chela aided me to the River. It is his
right to be cleansed from sin—with me.'
'Ay, he
needs cleansing. But afterwards, old
man—afterwards?'
'What matter
under all the Heavens? He is sure of
Nibban—enlightened—as I am.'
'Well said.
I had a fear he might mount Mohammed's Horse and fly
away.'
'Nay—he must
go forth as a teacher.'
'Aha! Now I
see! That is the right gait for the colt. Certainly
he must go forth as a teacher. He is somewhat
urgently needed as a scribe by the State, for
instance.'
'To that end
he was prepared. I acquired merit in that I gave
alms for his sake. A good deed does not die. He
aided me in my Search. I aided him in his. Just is
the Wheel, O horse-seller from the North. Let him be
a teacher; let him be a scribe—what matter? He will
have attained Freedom at the end. The rest is
illusion.'
'What
matter? When I must have him with me beyond Balkh in
six months! I come up with ten lame horses and three
strong-backed men—thanks to that chicken of a
Babu—to break a sick boy by force out of an old
trot's house. It seems that I stand by while a young
Sahib is hoisted into Allah knows what of an
idolater's Heaven by means of old Red Hat. And I am
reckoned something of a player of the Game myself!
But the madman is fond of the boy; and I must be
very reasonably mad too.'
'What is the
prayer?' said the lama, as the rough Pushtu rumbled
into the red beard.
'No matter
at all; but now I understand that the boy, sure of
Paradise, can yet enter Government service, my mind
is easier. I must get to my horses. It grows dark.
Do not wake him. I have no wish to hear him call
thee master.'
'But he is
my disciple. What else?'
'He has told
me.' Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose
laughing. 'I am not altogether of thy faith, Red
Hat—if so small a matter concern thee.'
'It is
nothing,' said the lama.
'I thought
not. Therefore it will not move thee, sinless,
new-washed and three parts drowned to boot, when I
call thee a good man—a very good man. We have talked
together some four or five evenings now, and for all
I am a horse-coper I can still, as the saying is,
see holiness beyond the legs of a horse. Yea, can
see, too, how our Friend of all the World put his
hand in thine at the first. Use him well, and suffer
him to return to the world as a teacher, when thou
hast—bathed his legs, if that be the proper medicine
for the colt.'
'Why not
follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy?'
Mahbub
stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the
demand, which across the Border he would have paid
with more than a blow. Then the humour of it touched
his worldly soul.
'Softly—softly—one foot at a time, as the lame
gelding went over the Umballa jumps. I may come to
Paradise later—I have workings that way—great
motions—and I owe them to thy simplicity. Thou hast
never lied?'
'What need?'
'O Allah,
hear him! "What need" in this Thy world! Nor ever
harmed a man?'
'Once—with a
pencase—before I was wise.'
'So? I think
the better of thee. Thy teachings are good. Thou
hast turned one man that I know from the path of
strife.' He laughed immensely. 'He came here
open-minded to commit a dacoity [a house-robbery
with violence]. Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry
off what he desired.'
'A great
foolishness!'
'Oh! black
shame too. So he thought after he had seen thee—and
a few others, male and female. So he abandoned it;
and now he goes to beat a big fat Babu man.'
'I do not
understand.'
'Allah
forbid it! Some men are strong in knowledge, Red
Hat. Thy strength is stronger still. Keep it—I think
thou wilt. If the boy be not a good servant, pull
his ears off.'
With a hitch
of his broad Bokhariot belt the Pathan swaggered off
into the gloaming, and the lama came down from his
clouds so far as to look at the broad back.
'That person
lacks courtesy, and is deceived by the shadow of
appearances. But he spoke well of my chela, who now
enters upon his reward. Let me make the prayer! ...
Wake, O fortunate above all born of women. Wake! It
is found!'
Kim came up
from those deep wells, and the lama attended his
yawning pleasure; duly snapping fingers to head off
evil spirits.
'I have
slept a hundred years. Where—? Holy One, hast thou
been here long? I went out to look for thee, but'—he
laughed drowsily—'I slept by the way. I am all well
now. Hast thou eaten? Let us go to the house. It is
many days since I tended thee. And the Sahiba fed
thee well? Who shampooed thy legs? What of the
weaknesses—the belly and the neck, and the beating
in the ears?'
'Gone—all
gone. Dost thou not know?'
'I know
nothing, but that I have not seen thee in a monkey's
age. Know what?'
'Strange the
knowledge did not reach out to thee, when all my
thoughts were theeward.'
'I cannot
see the face, but the voice is like a gong. Has the
Sahiba made a young man of thee by her cookery?'
He peered at
the cross-legged figure, outlined jet-black against
the lemon-coloured drift of light. So does the stone
Bodhisat sit who looks down upon the patent
self-registering turnstiles of the Lahore Museum.
The lama
held his peace. Except for the click of the rosary
and a faint clop-clop of Mahbub's retreating feet,
the soft, smoky silence of evening in India wrapped
them close.
'Hear me! I
bring news.'
'But let
us—'
Out shot the
long yellow hand compelling silence. Kim tucked his
feet under his robe-edge obediently.
'Hear me! I
bring news! The Search is finished. Comes now the
Reward... Thus. When we were among the Hills, I
lived on thy strength till the young branch bowed
and nigh broke. When we came out of the Hills, I was
troubled for thee and for other matters which I held
in my heart. The boat of my soul lacked direction; I
could not see into the Cause of Things. So I gave
thee over to the virtuous woman altogether. I took
no food. I drank no water. Still I saw not the Way.
They pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door.
So I removed myself to a hollow under a tree. I took
no food. I took no water. I sat in meditation two
days and two nights, abstracting my mind;
inbreathing and outbreathing in the required manner
... Upon the second night—so great was my reward—the
wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went
free. This I have never before attained, though I
have stood on the threshold of it. Consider, for it
is a marvel!'
'A marvel
indeed. Two days and two nights without food! Where
was the Sahiba?' said Kim under his breath.
'Yea, my
Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw
indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other
soul. As a drop draws to water, so my Soul drew near
to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At
that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all
Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, and my
own Painted Rocks at Such-zen; I saw every camp and
village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I
saw them at one time and in one place; for they were
within the Soul. By this I knew the Soul had passed
beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things.
By this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying in
thy cot, and I saw thee falling downhill under the
idolater—at one time, in one place, in my Soul,
which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I
saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and
the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside, shouting in its
ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I saw nothing,
for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul.
And I meditated a thousand thousand years,
passionless, well aware of the Causes of all Things.
Then a voice cried: "What shall come to the boy if
thou art dead?" and I was shaken back and forth in
myself with pity for thee; and I said: "I will
return to my chela, lest he miss the Way." Upon this
my Soul, which is the Soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew
itself from the Great Soul with strivings and
yearnings and retchings and agonies not to be told.
As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the
water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud
from the thick air, so put forth, so leaped out, so
drew away, so fumed up the Soul of Teshoo Lama from
the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: "The River! Take
heed to the River!" and I looked down upon all the
world, which was as I had seen it before—one in
time, one in place—and I saw plainly the River of
the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was
hampered by some evil or other whereof I was not
wholly cleansed, and it lay upon my arms and coiled
round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth
as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the
River. I pushed aside world upon world for thy sake.
I saw the River below me—the River of the Arrow—and,
descending, the waters of it closed over me; and
behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but
free from sin, and the hakim from Decca bore up my
head in the waters of the River. It is here! It is
behind the mango-tope here—even here!'
'Allah
kerim! Oh, well that the Babu was by! Wast thou very
wet?'
'Why should
I regard? I remember the hakim was concerned for the
body of Teshoo Lama. He haled it out of the holy
water in his hands, and there came afterwards thy
horse-seller from the North with a cot and men, and
they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the
Sahiba's house.'
'What said
the Sahiba?'
'I was
meditating in that body, and did not hear. So thus
the Search is ended. For the merit that I have
acquired, the River of the Arrow is here. It broke
forth at our feet, as I have said. I have found it.
Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from
the Threshold of Freedom to free thee from all
sin—as I am free, and sinless! Just is the Wheel!
Certain is our deliverance! Come!'
He crossed
his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who
has won salvation for himself and his beloved.