CHAPTER I
Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophetflare to Judgment Day
Be gentle when the heathen pray
To Buddha at Kamakura
HE sat in defiance of municipal orders astride the gun ZamZammah on her brick platform opposite the old AjaibGher—the Wonder House as the natives call the Lahore Museum Who hold ZamZammah that firebreathing dragon hold the Punjab for the great greenbronze piece is always first of the conquerors loot
There was some justification for Kim—he had kicked Lala Dinanaths 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 mothertongue in a clipped uncertain singsong 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 halfcaste woman who looked after him she smoked opium and pretended to keep a secondhand furniture shop by the square where the cheap cabs wait told the missionaries that she was Kims mothers sister but his mother had been nursemaid in a colonels family and had married Kimball OHara a young coloursergeant4 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 OHara fell to drink and loafing up and down the line with the keeneyed threeyearold baby Societies and chaplains anxious for the child tried to catch him but OHara 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 clearancecertificate The third was Kims birthcertificate Those things he was used to say in his glorious opiumhours 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 JadooGher—the Magic House as we name the Masonic Lodge It would he said all come right some day and Kims 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 firstclass devils whose god was a Red Bull on a green field would attend to Kim if they had not forgotten OHara—poor OHara that was gangforeman on the Ferozepore line Then he would weep bitterly in the broken rush chair on the veranda So it came about after his death that the woman sewed parchment paper and birthcertificate into a leather amuletcase which she strung round Kims neck5
And some day she said confusedly remembering OHaras 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 JadooGher 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 the6 crawl up a waterpipe the sights and sounds of the womens world on the flat roofs and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark Then there were holy men ashsmeared faquirs by their brick shrines under the trees at the riverside with whom he was quite familiar—greeting them as they returned from beggingtours 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 Rams timberyard beyond the Punjab High Court where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after they have driven down the Ravee When there was business or frolic afoot Kim would use his properties returning at dawn to the veranda all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage procession or yelling at a Hindu festival Sometimes there was food in the house more often there was not and then Kim went out again to eat with his native friends
As he drummed his heels against ZamZammah he turned now and again from his kingofthecastle game with little Chota Lai and Abdullah the sweetmeatsellers 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 watercarrier sluicing water on the dry road7 from his goatskirt bag So did Jawahir Singh the Museum carpenter bent over new packingcases 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 ZamZammahs wheel
Thy father was a pastrycook Thy mother stole the ghi sang Kim All Mussalmans fell off ZamZammah long ago
Let me up shrilled little Chota Lal in his giltembroidered cap His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling but India is the only democratic land in the world
The Hindus fell off ZamZammah too The Mussalmans pushed them off Thy father was a pastrycook—
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 horseblanketing and not one fold of it could Kim refer to any known trade or profession At his belt hung a long openwork iron pencase and a wooden rosary such as holy men wear On his head was a gigantic sort of tamoshanter 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 companions8
Perhaps it is a man said Abdullah finger in mouth staring
Without doubt returned Kim but he is no man of India that I have ever seen
A priest perhaps said Chota Lal spying the rosary See He goes into the Wonder House
Nay nay said the policeman shaking his head I do not understand your talk The constable spoke Punjabi Oh Friend of all the World what does he say
Send him hither said Kim dropping from ZamZammah 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 AjaibGher the Wonder House Kim gave him no title—such as Lala or Mian He could not divine the mans 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 proudly9 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 thoult 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 beggingbowl The boys nodded All priests of their acquaintance begged
I do not wish to eat yet He turned his head like an old tortoise in the sunlight Is it true that there are many images in the Wonder House of Lahore He repeated the last words as one making sure of an address
That is true said Abdullah It is full of heathen buts Thou also art an idolater
Never mind him said Kim That is the Governments 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 butparast idolater said Abdullah the Mohammedan
Kim laughed He is new Run to your mothers laps and be safe Come10
Kim clicked round the selfregistering turnstile the old man followed and halted amazed In the entrancehall stood the larger figures of the GrecoBuddhist 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 openmouthed wonder the lama turned to this and that and finally checked in rapt attention before a large altorelief 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 oldtime Buddhas Below were lotuscovered waters with fishes and waterbirds Two butterflywinged dewas held a wreath over His head above them another pair supported an umbrella surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat
The Lord The Lord It is Sakya Muni himself the lama half sobbed and under his breath began the wonderful Buddhist invocation—
To Him the Way—the Law—Apart—
Whom Maya held beneath her heart
Anandas Lord—the Bodhisat
And He is here The Most Excellent Law is here also My pilgrimage is well begun And what work What work11
Yonder is the Sahib said Kim and dodged sideways among the cases of the arts and manufacture wing A whitebearded Englishman was looking at the lama who gravely turned and saluted him and after some fumbling drew forth a notebook 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 LungCho 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 lamas 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 sculpturelined gallery Kim laid himself down his ear against a crack in the heatsplit cedar door and following his instinct stretched out to listen and watch
Most of the talk was altogether above his head The lama haltingly at first spoke to the curator of his own lamassery the Suchzen opposite the Painted Rocks four months march away The curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed him that very place perched on its crag overlooking the gigantic valley of manyhued strata
Ay ay The lama mounted a pair of hornrimmed 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 LungCho told me but I did not believe The Lord—the Excellent One—He has honour here too And His life is known12
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 Deerpark the miracle that stunned the fireworshippers 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 almsbowl was everywhere In a few minutes the curator saw that his guest was no mere beadtelling 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 FoHian and HwenThiang and was anxious to know if there was any translation of their record He drew in his breath as he13 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 curators pencil from point to point Here was Kapilavastu here the Middle Kingdom and here Mahabodi the Mecca of Buddhism and here was Kusinagara sad place of the Holy Ones death The old man bowed his head over the sheets in silence for a while and the curator lit another pipe Kim had fallen asleep When he waked the talk still in spate was more within his comprehension
And thus it was O Fountain of Wisdom that I decided to go to the Holy Places which His foot had trod—to the Birthplace even to Kapila then to Maha Bodhi which is Buddh Gaya—to the Monastery—to the Deerpark—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 butparasti
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 another14 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 fathers 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 Lords 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 only15 that thou hast not told me Surely thou must know See I am an old man I ask with my head between thy feet O Fountain of Wisdom We know He drew the bow We know the arrow fell We know the stream gushed Where then is the River My dream told me to find it So I came I am here But where is the River
If I knew think you I would not cry it aloud
By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things the lama went on unheeding The River of the Arrow Think again Some little stream may be—dried in the heats But the Holy One would never so cheat an old man
I do not know I do not know
The lama brought his thousandwrinkled face once more a handsbreadth from the Englishmans I see thou dost not know Not being of the Law the matter is hid from thee
Ay—hidden—hidden
We are both bound thou and I my brother But I—he rose with a sweep of the soft thick drapery—I go to cut myself free Come also
I am bound said the curator But whither goest thou
First to Kashi Benares where else There I shall meet one of the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city He also is a Seeker in secret and from him haply I may learn May be he will go with me to Buddh Gaya Thence north and west to Kapilavastu and there will I seek for the River Nay I will seek everywhere as I go—for the place is not known where the arrow fell
And how wilt thou go It is a far cry to Delhi and farther to Benares16
By road and the trains From Pathankot having left the Hills I came hither in a terain 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 telegraphpole 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 oldworld 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 Masters beggingbowl 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 almsbowl 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 and17 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 lamas 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 notebook said the lama as a sign of friendship between priest and priest—and now—he fumbled at his belt detached the open ironwork pencase and laid it on the curators 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 collectors heart in the curators bosom had gone out to it from the first For no persuasion would the lama resume his gift
When I return having found the River I will bring thee a written picture of the Padma Samthora—such as I used to make on silk at the lamassery Yes—and of the Wheel of Life he chuckled for we be craftsmen together thou and I
The curator would have detained him they are few in the world who still have the secret of the conventional brushpen Buddhist pictures which are as it were half written and half drawn But the lama strode out head18 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 Kims mother had been Irish too
The old man halted by ZamZammah and looked round till his eye fell on Kim The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for a while and he felt old forlorn and very empty
Do not sit under that gun said the policeman loftily
Huh Owl was Kims retort on the lamas behalf Sit under that gun if it please thee When didst thou steal the milkwomans slippers Dunnoo
That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the moment but it silenced Dunnoo who knew that Kims clear yell could call up legions of bad bazar boys if need arose
And whom didst thou worship within said Kim affably squatting in the shade beside the lama
I worshipped none child I bowed before the Excellent Law
Kim accepted this new god without emotion He knew already a few score
And what dost thou do
I beg I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk What is the custom of charity in this town In silence as we do of Tibet or speaking aloud
Those who beg in silence starve in silence said Kim19 quoting a native proverb The lama tried to rise but sank back again sighing for his disciple dead in faraway Kulu Kim watched—head to one side considering and interested
Give me the bowl I know the people of this city—all who are charitable Give and I will bring it back filled
Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl
Rest thou I know the people
He trotted off to the open shop of a kunjri a lowcaste vegetableseller which lay opposite the belttramway line down the Motee Bazar She knew Kim of old
Oho hast thou turned yogi with thy beggingbowl 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 badtempered 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 cowbellied 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 mousecoloured Brahminee bull of the ward was shouldering his way through the manycoloured crowd a stolen plantain hanging out of his20 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 Kims hard little heel and caught him on his moist blue nose He snorted indignantly and walked away across the tram rails his hump quivering with rage
See I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over Now mother a little rice and some dried fish atop—yes and some vegetable curry
A growl came out of the back of the shop where a man lay
He drove away the bull said the woman in an undertone It is good to give to the poor She took the bowl and returned it full of hot rice
But my yogi is not a cow said Kim gravely making a hole with his fingers in the top of the mound A little curry is good and a fried cake and a morsel of conserve would please him I think
It is a hole as big as thy head said the woman fretfully But she filled it none the less with good steaming vegetable curry clapped a dried cake atop and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side and Kim looked at the load lovingly
That is good When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come to this house He is a bold beggarman
And thou laughed the woman But speak well of bulls Hast thou not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a field to help thee Now hold all straight and ask for the holy mans blessing upon me Perhaps too he knows a cure for my daughters sore eyes Ask him that also O thou Little Friend of all the World21
But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence dodging pariah dogs and hungry acquaintances
Thus do we beg who know the way of it said he proudly to the lama who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl Eat now and—I will eat with thee Ohe bhistie he called to the watercarrier sluicing the crotons by the Museum Give water here We men are thirsty
We men said the bhistie laughing Is one skinful enough for such a pair Drink then in the name of the Compassionate
He loosed a thin stream into Kims 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 beggars bowl Then the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuffgourd fingered his rosary awhile and so dropped into the easy sleep of age as the shadow of ZamZammah grew long
Kim loafed over to the nearest tobaccoseller 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 Rams timberyard
The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun with lamplighting and the return of whiterobed22 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 Isabellacoloured clothes Suddenly he bowed his head on his knees and wailed
What is this said the boy standing before him Hast thou been robbed
It is my new chela my disciple that is gone away from me and I know not where he is
And what like of man was thy disciple
It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died on account of the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there He pointed towards the Museum He came upon me to show me a road which I had lost He led me into the Wonder House and by his talk emboldened to speak to the Keeper of the Images so that I was cheered and made strong And when I was faint with hunger he begged for me as would a chela for his teacher Suddenly was he sent Suddenly has he gone away It was in my mind to have taught him the Law upon the road to Benares
Kim stood amazed at this because he had overheard the talk in the Museum and knew that the old man was speaking the truth which is a thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger
But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose By this I know that I shall find a certain River for which I seek
The River of the Arrow said Kim with a superior smile
Is this yet another Sending cried the lama To none have I spoken of my search save to the Priest of the Images Who art thou23
Thy chela said Kim simply sitting on his heels I have never seen any one 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 chancemet people at dusk is in great need of a disciple
But the River—the River of the Arrow
Oh that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman I lay against the door
The lama sighed I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted Such things fall sometimes—but I am not worthy Thou dost not then know of the River
Not I Kim laughed uneasily I go to look for—for a bull—a Red Bull on a green field who shall help me 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 fathers 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 truthtelling—may go out for the small matter of a river it seemed to me that I too must go atravelling 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 Benares24
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 tramcar 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 wellwindlasses piling grass before the shrieking wildeyed stallions cuffing the surly caravan dogs paying off cameldrivers 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—sometimes25 very rude—chalk or paint scratches told where he had gone Thus Lutuf Ullah is gone to Kurdistan Below in coarse verse O Allah who sufferest lice to live on the coat of a Kabuli why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to live so long
Kim fending the lama between excited men and excited beasts sidled along the cloisters to the far end nearest the railway station where Mahbub Ali the horsetrader lived when he came in from that mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North
Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life—especially between his tenth and his thirteenth year—and the big burly Afghan his beard dyed scarlet with lime for he was elderly and did not wish his gray hairs to show knew the boys 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 any one except Mahbub who gave him beautiful meals all hot from the cookshop at the head of the serai and once as much as eight annas in money
He is here said Kim hitting a badtempered camel on the nose Ohe Mahbub Ali He halted at a dark arch and slipped behind the bewildered lama
The horsetrader his deep embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed was lying on a pair of silk carpet saddlebags 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 chest26
Allah A lama A Red Lama It is far from Lahore to the Passes What dost thou do here
The lama held out the beggingbowl mechanically
Gods 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 Gods 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 mans 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 suspicion27
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 Alis 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 any one take him from me for look you without him I shall not find my River He wagged his head solemnly
None shall take him from thee Go sit among my Baltis said Mahbub Ali and 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 began28 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 tissuepaper wrapped in oilskin with three silver rupees—enormous29 largesse He smiled and thrust money and paper into his leather amuletcase The lama sumptuously fed by Mahbubs 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 stallions pedigree
But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali known as one of the best horsedealers 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 C251B Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story badly told but most interesting and generally—it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4—quite true It concerned all manner of outoftheway 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 redbearded 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 Mahbubs 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 of30 Peshawur and had come through without stop to Lahore where knowing his countrypeople 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 tissuepaper wrapped in oilskin—an impersonal unaddressed statement with five microscopic pinholes in one corner that most scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings the sympathetic Northern Power a Hindu banker in Peshawur a firm of gunmakers in Belgium and an important semiindependent Mohammedan ruler to the south This last was R17s 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 Orientals 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 bloodfeuds 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 subpartner 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 letterwriter who knew English composed excellent telegrams such as—Creighton Laurel Bank Umballa—Horse is31 Arabian as already advised Sorrowful delayedpedigree which am translating And later to the same address Much sorrowful delay Will forward pedigree To this subpartner at Delhi he wired Lutuf Ullah—Have wired two thousand rupees your credit Luchman Narains 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 Mahbubs 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 lowcaste boyservant might attract a moments 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 lightball 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 R17s 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 Kims32 character if Mahbub had not known that to others for his own ends or Mahbubs 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 smoothfaced 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 smoothfaced Kashmiri pundit searched him from head to foot most thoroughly
About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbubs deserted stall The horsetrader curiously enough had left his door unlocked and his men were busy celebrating their return to India with a whole sheep of Mahbubs bounty A sleek young gentleman from Delhi armed with a bunch of keys which the Flower had unshackled from the senseless ones belt went through every single box bundle mat and saddlebag in Mahbubs possession even more systematically than the Flower and the pundit were searching the owner
And I think said the Flower scornfully an hour later one rounded elbow on the snoring carcase that he is no more than a pig of an Afghan horsedealer with no thought except women and horses Moreover he may have sent it away by now—if ever there were such a thing33
Nay—in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black heart said the pundit Was there nothing
The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered I searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched his clothes This is not the man but another I leave little unseen
They did not say he was the very man said the pundit thoughtfully They said Look if he be the man since our councils are troubled
That North country is full of horsedealers as an old coat of lice There is Sikandar Khan Nur Ali Beg and Farrukh Shah—all heads of Kafilas—who deal there said the Flower
They have not yet come in said the pundit Thou must ensnare them later
Phew said the Flower with deep disgust rolling Mahbubs 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 outmanœuvred 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 colts 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 something34 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 knothole in the planking who had seen the Delhi mans 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 Mahbubs slippers or picked the seams of the saddlebags so deftly At first Kim had been minded to give the alarm—the longdrawn 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 madeup horselie 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 lightsleeping old man Come It is time—time to go to Benares
The lama rose obediently and they passed out of the serai like shadows
35
CHAPTER II
For whoso will from Pride released
Contemning neither creed nor priest
May hear the Soul of all the East
About him at Kamakura
THEY entered the fortlike railway station black in the end of night the electrics sizzling over the goods yard where they handle the heavy Northern graintraffic
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—thirdclass passengers who had taken their tickets overnight and were sleeping in the waitingrooms All hours of the twentyfour are alike to Orientals and their passenger traffic is regulated accordingly
This is where the firecarriages come One stands behind that hole—Kim pointed to the ticketoffice—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 325 a m south bound roared in36 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 terain It will come here Wait Amazed at the lamas 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 Alis money oh 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 terain 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 thirdclass 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 terain Enter This thing is the work of the Government
Beggars a plenty have I met and holy men to boot but never such a yogi nor such a disciple Beggars a plenty have I met and holy men to boot but never such a yogi nor such a disciple
37
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 welltodo 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 seest 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 moneylender his folded accountbook 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 moneylender pursing his lips38 that there is not one rule of right living which these terains 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 welllooking and above all charitable to the hungry
A beggars answer said the Sikh laughing Thou hast brought it on thyself sister Kims hands were crooked in supplication
And whither goest thou said the woman handing him the half of a cake from a greasy package
Even to Benares
Jugglers belike the young soldier suggested Have ye any tricks to pass the time Why does not that yellow man answer
Because said Kim stoutly he is holy and thinks upon matters hidden from thee
That may be well We of the Loodhiana Sikhs he rolled it out sonorously do not trouble our heads with doctrine We fight39
My sisters brothers 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 cultivators wife malignantly
Nay but all who serve the Sirkar with weapons in their hands are as it were one brotherhood There is one brotherhood of the caste but beyond that again—she looked round timidly—the bond of the Pulton—the Regiment—eh
My brother is in a Jat regiment said the cultivator Dogras be good men
Thy Sikhs at least were of that opinion said the soldier with a scowl at the placid old man in the corner Thy Sikhs thought so when our two companies came to help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the face of eight Afreedee standards on the ridge not three months gone
He told the story of a border action in which the Dogra companies of the Loodhiana Sikhs had acquitted themselves well The Amritzar girl smiled for she knew the tale was to win her approval
Alas said the cultivators 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 halfcaste40 guard came round Ticketcollecting is a slow business in the East where people secrete their tickets in all sorts of curious places Kim produced his and was told to get out
But I go to Umballa he protested I go with this holy man
Thou canst go to Jehannum for aught I care This ticket is only to Amritzar Out
Kim burst into a flood of tears protesting that the lama was his father and his mother that he was the prop of the lamas declining years and that the lama would die without his care All the carriage bade the guard be merciful—the banker was specially eloquent here—but the guard hauled Kim on to the platform The lama blinked he could not overtake the situation and Kim lifted up his voice and wept outside the carriage window
I am very poor My father is dead—my mother is dead Oh charitable ones if I am left here who shall tend that old man
What—what is this the lama repeated He must go to Benares He must come with me He is my chela If there is money to be paid—
Oh be silent whispered Kim are we Rajahs to throw away good silver when the world is so charitable
The Amritzar girl stepped out with her bundles and it was on her that Kim kept his watchful eye Ladies of that persuasion he knew were generous
A ticket—a little tikkut to Umballa—O Breaker of Hearts She laughed Hast thou no charity
Does the holy man come from the North
From far and far in the North he comes cried Kim From among the hills41
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 cultivators wife viciously
She has acquired merit returned the lama Beyond doubt it was a nun
There be ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar alone Return old man or the train may depart without thee cried the banker
Not only was it sufficient for the ticket but for a little food also said Kim leaping to his place Now eat Holy One Look Day comes
Golden rose saffron and pink the morning mists smoked away across the flat green levels All the rich Punjab lay out in the splendour of the keen sun The lama flinched a little as the telegraphposts swung by
Great is the speed of the train said the banker with a patronising grin We have gone farther since Lahore than thou couldst walk in two days at even we shall enter Umballa
And that is still far from Benares said the lama wearily mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered They all unloosed their bundles and made their morning meal Then the banker the cultivator and the soldier42 prepared their pipes and wrapped the compartment in choking acrid smoke spitting and coughing and enjoying themselves The Sikh and the cultivators wife chewed pan the lama took snuff and told his beads while Kim crosslegged 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 any one should be ignorant of Gunga
What—what is thy God said the moneylender at last43
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 longdroned texts from a Chinese book of the Buddhas life The gentle tolerant folk looked on reverently All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal dreamers babblers and visionaries as it has been from the beginning and will continue to the end
Um said the soldier of the Loodhiana Sikhs There was a Mohammedan regiment lay next to us at the Pirzai Kotal and a priest of theirs—he was as I remember a naik—when the fit was on him spake prophecies But the mad all are in Gods 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 Jullundurway said the cultivators wife looking out of window See how they have blessed the crops
To search every river in the Punjab is no small matter said her husband For me a stream that leaves good silt on my land suffices and I thank Bhumia the God of the Homestead He shrugged one knotted bronzed shoulder44
Think you our Lord came so far north said the lama turning to Kim
It may be Kim replied soothingly as he spat red panjuice on the floor
The last of the Great Ones said the Sikh with authority was Sikander Julkarn Alexander the Great He paved the streets of Jullundur and built a great tank near Umballa That pavement holds to this day and the tank is there also I never heard of thy God
Let thy hair grow long and talk Punjabi said the young soldier jestingly to Kim quoting a Northern proverb That is all that makes a Sikh But he did not say this very loud
The lama sighed and shrank into himself a dingy shapeless mass In the pauses of their talk they could hear the low droning—Om mane pudme hum Om mane pudme hum—and the thick click of the wooden rosary beads
It irks me he said at last The speed and the clatter irk me Moreover my chela I think that may be we have overpassed that River
Peace peace said Kim Was not the River near Benares We are yet far from the place
But—if our Lord came north it may be any one of these little ones that we have run across
I do not know
But thou wast sent to me—wast thou sent to me—for the merit I had acquired over yonder at Suchzen From beside the cannon didst thou come—bearing two faces—and two garbs
Peace One must not speak of these things here whispered Kim There was but one of me Think again and thou wilt remember A boy—a Hindu boy—by the great green cannon45
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 AjaibGher in Lahore to pray before the gods there Kim explained to the openly listening company And the Sahib of the Wonder House talked to him—yes this is truth—as a brother He is a Very holy man from far beyond the hills Rest thou In time we come to Umballa
But my River—the River of my healing
And then if it please thee we will go hunting for that River on foot So that we miss nothing—not even a little rivulet in a fieldside
But thou hast a Search of thine own The lama—very pleased that he remembered so well—sat bolt upright
Ay said Kim humouring him The boy was entirely happy to be out chewing pan and seeing new people in the great goodtempered 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 cultivators 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 wifes tale and a weaverbird a leaf and a thread they will weave wonderful things46 said the Sikh All holy men dream dreams and by following holy men their disciples attain that power
A Red Bull on a green field was it the lama repeated In a former life it may be thou hast acquired merit and the Bull will come to reward thee
Nay—nay—it was but a tale one told to me—for a jest belike But I will seek the Bull about Umballa and thou canst look for thy River and rest from the clatter of the train
It may be that the Bull knows—that he is sent to guide us both said the lama hopefully as a child Then to the company indicating Kim This one was sent to me but yesterday He is not I think of this world
Beggars a plenty have I met and holy men to boot but never such a yogi nor such a disciple said the woman
Her husband touched his forehead lightly with one finger and smiled But the next time the lama would eat they took care to give him their best
And at last—tired sleepy and dusty—they reached Umballa City Station
We abide here upon a lawsuit said the cultivators wife to Kim We lodge with my mans cousins 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 cousins younger brothers house with wastrels—47 the husband began as he shouldered his heavy bamboo staff
Thy cousins younger brother owes my fathers cousin something yet on his daughters marriagefeast 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 Alis Englishman and deliver himself of the white stallions 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 kos from Lahore already
Yea—and farther from my monastery Alas It is a great and terrible world
Kim stole out and away as unremarkable a figure as ever carried his own and a few score thousand other folks fate slung round his neck Mahbub Alis directions left him little doubt of the house in which his Englishman lived and a groom bringing a dogcart 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 glass48 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 beggarwise 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 rosehedge in the side of the drive
Mahbub Ali has given me this proof Kim flipped the wad of folded paper into the air and it fell on the path beside the man who put his foot on it as a gardener came round the corner When the servant passed he picked it up dropped a rupee—Kim could hear the clink—and strode into the house never turning round Swiftly Kim took up the money but for all his training he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver the least part of any game What he desired was the visible effect of action so instead of slinking away he lay close in the grass and wormed nearer to the house
He saw—Indian bungalows are open through and through—the Englishman return to a small dressingroom in a corner of the veranda that was halfoffice littered with papers and despatchboxes and sit down to study Mahbub Alis 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 womans voice You49 ought to be in the drawingroom Theyll be here in a minute
The man still read intently
Will said the voice five minutes later Hes 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 blackhaired 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 shant be more than twenty minutes said Kims 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 dressingroom together as the landau rolled away Kim saw their heads bent over Mahbub Alis message and heard the voices—one low and deferential the other sharp and decisive
It isnt a question of weeks It is a question of days—hours almost said the elder Id been expecting it for some time but this—he tapped Mahbub Alis paper—clenches it Grogans dining here tonight isnt he
Yes sir and Macklin too
Very good Ill speak to them myself That matter will be referred to the Council of course but this is a case where one is justified in assuming that we take action at once Warn the Pindi and Peshawur brigades It will disorganise all the summer reliefs but50 we cant 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 others 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 Whartons I dont think we need keep the ladies waiting any longer We can settle the rest over the cigars I thought it was coming Its 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 JangiLat Sahib the CommanderinChief51
Ho said Kim with the correct guttural note of wonder He had learned what he wanted and when the scullion turned he was gone
And all that trouble said he to himself thinking as usual in Hindustanee for a horses pedigree Mahbub Ali should have come to me to learn a little lying Every time before that I have borne a message it concerned a woman Now it is men Better The tall man said that they will loose a great army to punish some one—somewhere—the news goes to Pindi and Peshawur There are also guns Would I had crept nearer It is big news
He returned to find the cultivators cousins younger brother discussing the family lawsuit in all its bearings with the cultivator and his wife and a few friends while the lama dozed After the evening meal some one passed him a waterpipe and Kim felt very much of a man as he pulled at the smooth cocoanutshell his legs spread abroad in the moonlight his tongue clicking in remarks from time to time His hosts were most polite for the cultivators 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 priests 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 Bodhisats own lotus speaking of his life in the great hills of Suchzen before as he said I rose up to seek enlightenment52
Then it came out that in those worldly days he had been a masterhand 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 birthhour the priest asked swelling with importance
Between first and second cockcrow of the first night in May
Of what year
I do not know but upon the hour that I cried first fell the great earthquake in Srinagur which is in Kashmir This Kim had from the woman who took care of him and she again from Kimball OHara 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 Kims supernatural origin more certain Was not such an ones daughter born then—53
And her mother bore her husband four sons in four years—all likely boys cried the cultivators wife sitting outside the circle in the shadow
None reared in the knowledge said the family priest forget how the planets stood in their Houses upon that night He began to draw in the dust of the courtyard At least thou hast good claim to a half of the House of the Bull How runs thy prophecy
Upon a day said Kim delighted at the sensation he was creating I shall be made great by means of a Red Bull on a green field but first there will enter two men making all things ready
Yes thus ever at the opening of a vision A thick darkness that clears slowly anon one enters with a broom making ready the place Then begins the Sight Two men—thou sayest Ay ay The Sun leaving the House of the Bull enters that of the Twins Hence the two men of the prophecy Let us now consider Fetch me a twig little one
He knitted his brows scratched smoothed out and scratched again in the dust mysterious signs—to the wonder of all save the lama who with fine instinct forbore to interfere
At the end of half an hour he tossed the twig from him with a grunt
Hm Thus say the stars Within three days come the two men to make all things ready After them follows the Bull but the sign over against him is the sign of War and armed men
There was indeed a man of the Loodhiana Sikhs in the carriage from Lahore said the cultivators wife hopefully
Tck Armed men—many hundreds What concern54 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 dressingroom Decidedly he was a favourite of the stars
The priest brushed his foot over the rude horoscope More than this I cannot see In three days comes the Bull to thee boy
And my River my River pleaded the lama I had hoped his Bull would lead us both to the River
Alas for that wondrous River my brother the priest replied Such things are not common
Next morning though they were pressed to stay the lama insisted on departure They gave Kim a large bundle of good food and nearly three annas in copper money for the needs of the road and with many blessings watched the two go southward in the dawn
Pity it is that these and such as these could not be freed from the Wheel of Things said the lama
Nay then would only evil people be left on the earth and who would give us meat and shelter quoth Kim stepping merrily under his burden
Yonder is a small stream Let us look said the lama and he led from the white road across the fields walking into a very hornetsnest of pariah dogs
55
CHAPTER III
Yea voice of every Soul that clung
To Life that strove from rung to rung
When Devadattas rule was young
The warm wind brings Kamakura
BEHIND them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole He was a marketgardener 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 thy own tongue
The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers The land is full of beggars he began half apologetically
And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee O Mali said Kim tartly using the name that a marketgardener 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 canalcut It runs as straight56 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 fieldborders 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 hoofpitted bank
Now how wilt thou know thy River said Kim squatting in the shade of some tall sugarcane
When I find it an enlightenment will surely be given This I feel is not the place O littlest among the57 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 mans 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 cobras 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—far58 from my own place But that the relcarriage fills my head with noises of devildrums I would go in it to Benares now Yet by so going we may miss the River Let us find another river
Where the hardworked soil gives three and even four crops a year—through patches of sugarcane tobacco long white radishes and nolkol all that day they strolled on turning aside to every glimpse of water rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday the lama replying to the vollied questions with an unswerving simplicity They sought a River—a River of miraculous healing Had any one knowledge of such a stream Sometimes men laughed but more often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade a drink of milk and a meal The women were always kind and the little children as children are the world over alternately shy and venturesome Evening found them at rest under the village tree of a mudwalled mudroofed hamlet talking to the headman as the cattle came in from the grazinggrounds and the women prepared the days last meal They had passed beyond the belt of marketgardens round hungry Umballa and were among the milewide green of the staple crops
He was a whitebearded 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 suchlike city things while the men talked slowly as their cattle chew the cud59
I cannot fathom it said the headman at last to the priest How readest thou this talk The lama his tale told was silently telling his beads
He is a Seeker the priest answered The land is full of such Remember him who came only last month—the faquir with the tortoise
Ay but that man had right and reason for Krishna Himself appeared in a vision promising him Paradise without the burningpyre 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 smoothshaven priest replied Hear me He turned to the lama Three kos six miles to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta
But I would go to Benares—to Benares
And to Benares also It crosses all streams on this side of Hind Now my word to thee Holy One is rest here till tomorrow Then take the road it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant and test each stream that it overpasses for as I understand the virtue of thy River lies neither in one pool nor place but throughout its length Then if thy gods will be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom
That is well said The lama was much impressed by the plan We will begin tomorrow and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such a near road A deep singsong Chinese halfchant closed the sentence Even the priest was impressed and the headman feared an evil spell but none could look at the lamas simple eager face and doubt him long
Seest thou my chela he said diving into his snuffgourd with an important sniff It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy60
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 sharpsmelling smoke what art thou
This Holy Ones disciple said Kim
He says thou art a but a spirit
Can buts eat said Kim with a twinkle For I am hungry
It is no jest cried the lama A certain astrologer of that city whose name I have forgotten—
That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night Kim whispered to the priest
Ay Umballa was it He cast a horoscope and declared that my chela should find his desire within two days But what said he of the meaning of the stars Friend of all the World
Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village graybeards
The meaning of my Star is War he replied pompously
Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great tree Where a native would have lain down Kims 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 know61
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 graybearded 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 Kims voice shrilled across the quickgathering 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 Ones 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 bazartalk 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 me62
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 lettercarrying 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 any one may have seen The crowd were breathlessstill 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—thus63 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 dressingroom 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—Kims voice shifted to the rapt singsong of the wayside fortuneteller 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 redspotted 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 recover64
Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy he would have carried on the play but one does not know Lahore city and least of all the faquirs by the Taksali Gate for thirteen years without also knowing human nature
The priest looked at him sideways something bitterly—a dry and blighting smile
Is there no priest then in the village I thought I had seen a great one even now cried Kim
Ay—but— the woman began
But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks The shot told they were notoriously the closestfisted couple in the village It is not well to cheat the temples Give a young calf to thy own priest and unless thy gods are angry past recall she will give milk within a month
A masterbeggar art thou purred the priest approvingly Not the cunning of forty years could have done better Surely thou hast made the old man rich
A little flour a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms Kim retorted flushed with the praise but still cautious—does one grow rich on that And as thou canst see he is mad But it serves me while I learn the road at least
He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples
Is his Search then truth or a cloak to other ends It may be treasure
He is mad—many times mad There is nothing else
Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his hospitality for the night The priest recommended him to do so but insisted that the honour65 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 lamas 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 opiumsmokers 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 butparast but in other lives may be they will receive enlightenment A rupee to the temple The thing66 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 welldisposed throughout all the Hills
It is otherwise in Hind said Kim drily Their gods are manyarmed and malignant Let them alone
I would set thee on thy road for a little Friend of all the World—thou and thy yellow man The old soldier ambled up the village street all shadowy in the dawn on a gaunt scissorhocked pony Last night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my sodried 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 longlegged 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 Ones disciple said Kim as they cleared the villagegate The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them but the priests 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 Sahib67 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 fortunetellers 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 camellike 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 darkgreen mangogroves the line of the snowcapped Himalayas faint to the eastward All India was at work in the fields to the creaking of wellwheels 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 stirrupleather
It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine said the lama on the last bead of his eightyone
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 makebelieve
The sword he said fumbling it Oh that was a68 fancy of mine—an old mans 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
He sat longlegged on the little beast with the big sword at his side—hand dropped on the pommel—staring fiercely ever the flat Lands He sat longlegged on the little beast with the big sword at his side—hand dropped on the pommel—staring fiercely ever the flat Lands
69
The greater merit
Merit We did not consider it merit in those days My people my friends my brothers fell from me They said The time of the English is accomplished Let each strike out a little holding for himself But I had talked with the men of Sobraon of Chillianwallah of Moodkee and Ferozeshah I said Abide a little and the wind turns There is no blessing in this work In those days I rode seventy miles with an English memsahib and her babe on my saddlebow Wow That was a horse fit for a man I placed them in safety and back came I to my officer—the one that was not killed of our five Give me work said I for I am an outcast among my own kin and my cousins 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 sixandforty 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 KaiseriHind 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 we70 talk out the old skirmishes one dead mans 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 slackjawed downcountry 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—ressaldarmajors 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 ressaldarmajors 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 wellwatered strip but my men cheat me I do not know how to ask save at the lances 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 thing71
Yes—yes—a thousand times A straight back and a closeclinging 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 stirrupedge into the ponys lean flank
But I know a River of great healing
I have drunk Gungawater 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 wellwheels 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 lamas voice faltered—the72 periods lengthened Kim was busy watching a gray squirrel When the little scolding bunch of fur close pressed to the branch disappeared preacher and audience were fast asleep the old officers strongcut head pillowed on his arm the lamas thrown back against the tree hole 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 beads73
Oho said the old soldier Whence had 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 stumblingblocks 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 mans high shrill voice ringing across the field as wail by longdrawn 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 Delhi74 Lances of North take vengeance for Nikal Seyn He quavered it out to the end marking the trills with the flat of his sword on the ponys 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 boys 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 railcarriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds Now there are only countrycarts and such like Left and right is the rougher road for the heavy carts—grain and cotton and timber bhoosa lime and hides A man goes in safety here—for at every few kos is a policestation 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 Indias traffic for fifteen hundred miles—such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world They looked at the greenarched shadeflecked length of it the white breadth speckled with slowpacing folk and the tworoomed policestation opposite
Who bears arms against the law a constable called out laughingly as he caught sight of the soldiers sword Are not the police enough to destroy evildoers75
It was because of the police I bought it was the answer Does all go well in Hind
Ressaldar Sahib all goes well
I am like an old tortoise look you who puts his head out from the bank and draws it in again Ay this is the road of Hindustan All men come by this way
Son of a swine is the soft part of the road meant for thee to scratch thy back upon Father of all the daughters of shame and husband of ten thousand virtueless ones thy mother was devoted to a devil being led thereto by her mother thy aunts have never had a nose for seven generations Thy sister—What owls 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 whipcracking came out of a pillar of dust fifty yards away where a cart had broken down A thin high Kattiwar mare with eyes and nostrils aflame rocketed out of the jam snorting and wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of a shouting man He was tall and graybearded sitting the almost mad beast as a piece of her and scientifically lashing his victim between plunges
The old mans face lit with pride My child said he briefly and strove to rein the ponys 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 horses nose That is the way to ruin a mare
He speaks truth He speaks truth But she follows76 her man close said the old man The carter ran under the wheels of his cart and thence threatened all sorts of vengeance
They are strong men thy sons said the policeman serenely picking his teeth
The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and came on at a canter
My father He reined back ten yards and dismounted
The old man was off his pony in an instant and they embraced as do father and son in the East
77
CHAPTER IV
Good Luck she is never a lady
But the cursedest quean alive
Tricksy wincing and jady—
Kittle to lead or drive
Greet her—shes hailing a stranger
Meet her—shes 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 Ive no care for Fortune
Fortune must follow me still
The Wishing Caps
THEN lowering their voices they spoke together Kim came to rest under a tree but the lama tugged impatiently at his elbow
Let us go on The River is not here
Hai mai Have we not walked enough for a little Our River will not run away Patience and he will give us a dole
That said the old soldier suddenly is the Friend of the Stars He brought me the news yesterday Having seen the very man Himself in a vision giving orders for the war78
Hm said his son all deep in his broad chest He came by a bazarrumour 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 halfcrooked his hand at his side
The son tossed a silver coin through the sunlight grumbling something about beggars and jugglers It was a fouranna piece and would feed them well for some days The lama seeing the flash of the metal droned a blessing
Go thy way Friend of all the World piped the old soldier wheeling his scrawny mount For once in all my days I have met a true prophet—who was not in the Army79
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 sideroad It is the order of the Sirkar and the money is spent for the planting of trees and the beautification of the ways
And the bellies of the police said Kim skipping out of arms reach Consider for a while man with a mud head Think you we came from the nearest pond like the frog thy fatherinlaw 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 belaiteepani sodawater and affixing it to a bridge collected taxes for a month from those who passed saying that it was the Sirkars order Then came an Englishman and broke his head Ah brother I am a towncrow not a villagecrow
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 longdistance tramp all the world over80
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 Kims 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 longhaired strongscented 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 jogtrot 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 legirons 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 wildeyed wildhaired Sikh devotee in the bluechecked clothes of his faith with polishedsteel 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 Collegetrained princelings in topboots and whitecord breeches Kim was careful not to irritate that man for the Akalis 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 sugarcane81 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 NorthWest These merrymakers stepped slowly calling one to the other and stopping to haggle with sweetmeatsellers 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 flatfooted bigbosomed stronglimbed bluepetticoated clan of earthcarriers 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 brides litter a blur of red and tinsel staggering through the haze while the bridegrooms bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful from a passing foddercart Then Kim would join the Kentishfire of good wishes and bad jokes wishing the couple a hundred sons and no daughters as the saying is Still more82 interesting and more to be shouted over it was when a strolling juggler with some halftrained monkeys or a panting feeble bear or a woman who tied goats horns to her feet and with these danced on a slackrope set the horses to shying and the women to shrill longdrawn quavers of amazement
The lama never raised his eyes He did not note the moneylender on his gooserumped pony hastening along to collect the cruel interest or the longshouting deepvoiced 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 Gangeswater 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 manyyoked grain and cotton waggons crawling over the countryroads 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 his83 feelings and so contented himself with buying peeled sugarcane 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 restingplace 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 restingplace which marked the end of their days journey A line of stalls selling very simple food and tobacco a stack of firewood a policestation a well a horsetrough 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 graybacked Seven Sisters talking over the days 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 nightpicket84 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 woodsmoke and cattle and the good scent of wheaten cakes cooked on ashes The evening patrol hurried out of the policestation with important coughings and reiterated orders and a live charcoal ball in the cup of a wayside carters hookah glowed red while Kims eye mechanically watched the last flicker of the sun on the brass tweezers
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 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
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 luxurys sake Kim bought a handful of dungcakes 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 mens voices you heard from halted shuttered carts the high squeals and giggles of women whose faces should not be seen in public
Nowadays welleducated 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 all85 there are always the old women—more conservative than the men—who toward the end of their days go a pilgrimage They being withered and undesirable do not under certain circumstances object to unveiling After their long seclusion during which they have always been in business touch with a thousand outside interests they love the bustle and stir of the open road the gatherings at the shrines and the infinite possibilities of gossip with likeminded dowagers Very often it suits a longsuffering family that a strongtongued ironwilled 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 bullockcart Such men are staid and discreet and when a European or a highcaste 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 bullockcart with a broidered canopy of two domes like a doublehumped camel which had just been drawn into the parao Eight men made its retinue and two of the eight were armed with rusty sabres—sure signs that they followed a person of distinction for the common folk do not bear arms An increasing cackle of complaints orders and jests and what to a European would have been bad language came from behind the curtains Here was evidently a woman used to command
Kim looked over the retinue critically Half of them were thinlegged graybearded Ooryas from down86 country The other half were duffleclad felthatted 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 soninlaw 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 highspirited dame thought Kim balancing the dungcake 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 fruiteating bat cowers and returned to his rosary
Stand farther off beggar The order was shouted in broken Hindustanee by one of the hillmen
Huh It is only a pahari a hillman said Kim over his shoulder Since when have the hillasses owned all Hindustan
The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kims pedigree for three generations
Ah Kims voice was sweeter than ever as he broke the dungcake into fit pieces In my country we call that the beginning of lovetalk
A harsh thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on his mettle for a second shot87
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 tamoshanter cap into the full light of Kims newstarted 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 beggarbrat 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 is88 good—a great and a terrible world mumbled the lama drowsily
Let him sleep said Kim but look to it that we are well fed when he wakes He is a very holy man
Again one of the Ooryas said something contemptuously
He is not a faquir He is not a downcountry beggar Kim went on severely addressing the stars He is the most holy of holy men He is above all castes I am his chela
Come here said the flat thin voice behind the curtain and Kim came conscious that eyes he could not see were staring at him One skinny brown finger heavy with rings lay on the edge of the cart and the talk went this way
Who is that one
An exceedingly holy one He comes from far off He comes from Tibet
Where in Tibet
From behind the snows—from a very far place He knows the stars he makes horoscopes he reads nativities But he does not do this for money He does it for kindness and great charity I am his disciple I am called also the Friend of the Stars
Thou art no hillman
Ask him He will tell thee I was sent to him from the stars to show him an end to his pilgrimage
Humph Consider brat that I am an old woman and not altogether a fool Lamas I know and to these I give reverence but thou art no more a lawful chela than this my finger is the pole of this waggon Thou art a casteless Hindu—a bold and unblushing beggar attached belike to the Holy One for the sake of gain89
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 suchall 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 slavetraffics 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 beggars brat as the Eye of Beauty has said he wailed in extravagant terror
Eye of Beauty forsooth Who am I that thou shouldst fling beggarendearments at me And yet she laughed at the longforgotten 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 kings 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 Great90 Queen says I am but none the less is my master holy He has not yet heard the Great Queens order that—
Order I order a Holy One—a Teacher of the Law—to come and speak to a woman Never
Pity my stupidity I thought it was given as an order—
It was not It was a petition Does this make all clear
A silver coin clicked on the edge of the cart Kim took it and salaamed profoundly The old lady recognised that as the eyes and the ears of the lama he was to be propitiated
I am but the Holy Ones 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 ladys chuckle
Nay what is it he said dropping into his most caressing and confidential tone—the one he well knew that few could resist Is—is there any need of a son in thy family Speak freely for we priests— That last was a direct plagiarism from a faquir by the Taksali Gate
We priests Thou art not yet old enough to— She checked the joke with another laugh Believe me now and again we women O priest think of other matters than sons Moreover my daughter has borne her manchild
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 downcountry Brahmins are utterly useless91 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 LungCho 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 daughters 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 journeys 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 nativemade cigarette
Have I not said an hundred times that the South is a good land Here is a virtuous and highborn widow of a Hill Rajah on pilgrimage she says to Buddh Gaya She it is sends us those dishes and when thou art well rested she would speak to thee92
Is this also thy work The lama dipped deep into his snuffgourd
Who else watched over thee since our wonderful journey began Kims 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 womanborn 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 road together and it is as though it were a hundred years
Perhaps in a former life it was permitted that I should have rendered thee some service May be—he smiled—I freed thee from a trap or having caught thee on a hook in the days when I was not enlightened cast thee back into the river
May be said Kim quietly He had heard this sort of speculation again and again from the mouths of many whom the English would not consider imaginative Now as regards that woman in the bullockcart 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 unknown93 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 treetrunk is slashed with the shadow of the long sun addressed a tinsel and lacquered ruth which burned like a manycoloured jewel in the same uncertain light The patterns on the goldworked 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 halfcaught 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 dancinggirls sitar Most men had eaten and pulled deep at their gurgling grunting hookahs which in full blast sound like bullfrogs
At last the lama returned A hillman walked behind him with a wadded cottonquilt and spread it carefully by the fire
She deserves ten thousand grandchildren thought Kim None the less but for me these gifts would not have come
A virtuous woman—and a wise one The lama slackened off joint by joint like a slow camel The94 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 devilserving 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 rightminded 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 LungCho 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 city95
Ohe said Kim turning and speaking in a sharp whisper to one of the Ooryas a few yards away Where is your masters 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 shadowtops 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 diamondbright 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 whorl96 of silver the parrots shot away to some distant river in shrieking green hosts all the wellwheels within earshot went to work India was awake and Kim was in the middle of it more awake and more excited than any one chewing on a twig that he would presently use as a toothbrush for he borrowed right and lefthandedly 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 strongwilled 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 illomened mouth cried an Oorya tying up his shapeless bundles of bedding She and the parrots are alike They screech in the dawn
The leadbullocks Hai Look to the leadbullocks They were backing and wheeling as a graincarts 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 of97 Delhi going to pray for a son the man called back over his high load Room for the Queen of Delhi and her prime minister the gray monkey climbing up his own sword Another cart loaded with bark for a downcountry tannery followed close behind and its driver added a few compliments as the ruthbullocks 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 carters 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 oneeyed 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 semiroyal procession with a recognised place98 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 ladys tongue clack as steadily as a ricehusker She bade the escort tell her what was going on on the road and so soon as they were clear of the parao she flung back the curtains and peered out her veil a third across her face Her men did not eye her directly when she addressed them and thus the proprieties were more or less observed
A dark sallowish District Superintendent of Police faultlessly uniformed an Englishman trotted by on a tired horse and seeing from her retinue what manner of person she was chaffed her
O mother he cried do they do this in the zenanas Suppose an Englishman came by and saw that thou hadst no nose
What she shrilled back Thy own mother has no nose Why say so then on the open road
It was a fair counter The Englishman threw up his hand with the gesture of a man hit at swordplay 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 nutcut rogue she said All policeconstables99 are nutcuts but the policewallahs 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 landcase 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 sugarcane For an hour or more the lamas tamoshanter showed like a moon through the haze and from all he heard Kim gathered that the old woman wept One of the Ooryas half apologised for his rudeness overnight saying that he had never known his mistress of so bland a temper and he ascribed it to the presence of the strange priest Personally he believed in Brahmins though like all natives he was acutely aware of their cunning and their greed Still when Brahmins but irritated with begging demands the mother of his masters wife and when she sent them away so angry that they cursed the whole100 retinue which was the real reason of the second offside 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 Kims 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 townmouse 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 fruitvillage 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 husbands territory she roundly abused the tobacco which she was then smoking reviled all Brahmins and speculated without reserve on the coming of many grandsons
101
CHAPTER V
Here come I to my own again—
Fed forgiven and known again—
Claimed by bone of my bone again
And sib to flesh of my flesh
The fatted calf is dressed for me
But the husks have greater zest for me
I think my pigs will be best for me
So Im off to the styes afresh
The Prodigal Son
ONCE more the lazy stringtied shuffling procession got under way and she slept till they reached the next haltingstage 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 had102 found his River Insensibly too the comfort of speaking to some one in a reasonable tongue and of being properly considered and respected as her spiritual adviser by a wellborn 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 mans impatience but a great faith
Where goest thou he called after Kim
No whither—it was a small march and all this—Kim waved his hands abroad—is new to me
She is beyond question a wise and a discerning woman But it is hard to meditate when—
All women are thus Kim spoke as might have Solomon
Before the lamassery was a broad platform the lama muttered looping up the wellworn rosary of stone On that I have left the marks of my feet—pacing to and fro with these
He clicked the beads and began the Om mane pudme hum of his devotion grateful for the cool the quiet and the absence of dust
One thing after another drew Kims 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 grazingground 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 brass103
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 mangotope Two little figures halted the other two came forward uncertainly They were the advanceparty of a regiment on the march sent out as usual to mark the camp They bore fivefoot sticks with fluttering flags and called to each other as they spread over the flat earth
At last they entered the mangogrove walking heavily
Its 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 baggagewaggons 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 Remember104 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 worlds 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 snapsnapping in the evening breeze not ten feet away It was no more than an ordinary camp markingflag 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 treetrunks across the grove filling it with mealy gold light for a few minutes but to Kim it was crown of the Umballa Brahmins prophecy
Hark said the lama One beats a drum—far off
At first the sound carrying diluted through the still105 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 shrilltongued 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 routemarching with their baggage The rippling column swung into the level—carts behind it—divided left and right ran about like an anthill 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 cookingpots pans and bundles which were taken possession of by a106 crowd of native servants and behold the mangotope 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 messtent
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 chaplains mettle and to abash him Bennett had marched step by step with the men that day The black dress gold cross on the watchchain 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 campchair by the door of the messtent and slid off his boots Three or four officers gathered round him laughing and joking over his exploit
The talk of white men is wholly lacking in dignity said the lama who judged only by tone But I have considered the countenance of that priest and I think he is learned Is it likely that he will understand our talk I would talk to him of my Search
Never speak to a white man till he is fed said Kim quoting a wellknown proverb They will eat now and—and I do not think they are good to beg from Let us go back to the restingplace After we have eaten we will come again It certainly was a Red Bull—my Red Bull107
They were both noticeably absentminded when the old ladys 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 starpowdered 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 welltrained 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 messtent where close pressed behind the mango tree he waited till some chance word should give him a returnable lead
The one thing in his mind now was further information108 as to the Red Bull For aught he knew and Kims limitations were as curious and sudden as his expansions the men the nine hundred thorough devils of his fathers 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 soberfaced 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 bellyflat and wriggled towards the messtent 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 messtable—its sole ornament when they were on the line of march—stood a golden bull fashioned from oldtime loot of the Summer Palace at Pekin—a redgold 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 shoulderblade109 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 its a boy he said as he drew his prize under the light of the tentpole lantern then shaking him severely cried What were you doing Youre a thief Choor Mallum His Hindustanee was very limited and the ruffled and disgusted Kim intended to keep to the character laid down for him As he recovered his breath he was inventing a beautifully plausible tale of his relations to some messscullion and at the same time keeping a keen eye on and a little under the chaplains left armpit The chance came he ducked for the doorway but a long arm shot out and clutched at his neck snapping the amulet string and closing on the amulet
Give it me O give it me Is it lost Give me the papers
The words were in English—the tinny sawcut English of the nativebred and the chaplain jumped
A scapular said he opening his hand No some sort of heathen charm Why—why do you speak English Little boys who steal are beaten You know that
I do not—I did not steal Kim danced in agony like a terrier at a lifted stick O give it me It is my charm Do not thieve it from me110
The chaplain took no heed but going to the tent door called aloud A fattish cleanshaven man appeared
I want your advice Father Victor said Bennett I found this boy in the dark outside the messtent Ordinarily I should have chastised him and let him go because I believe him to be a thief But it seems he talks English and he attaches some sort of value to a charm round his neck I thought perhaps you might help me
Between himself and the Roman Catholic chaplain of the Irish contingent lay as Bennett believed an unbridgeable gulf but it was noticeable that whenever the Church of England dealt with a human problem she was likely to call in the Church of Rome Bennetts 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 Lets look at his charm No its 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 well look first said Father Victor leisurely rolling out poor Kimball OHaras ne varietur parchment his clearancecertificate and Kims baptismal certificate On this last OHara—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 Victor111 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 Theres 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 OHara And his son But then hes 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 Kims upper garment You see Bennett hes not very black Whats 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
Eyerishti—that was the regiment—my fathers
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—goneout112
Oh Thats 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 youve 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 fathers maunderings fitted in most miraculously Else why did the fat padre seem so impressed and why the glass of hot yellow wine from the lean one
My father he is dead in Lahore city since I was very little The woman she kept kabarrishop near where the hirecarriages 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 JadooGher—what do you call that Bennett nodded because he was in—goodstanding 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 me113
A phenomenal little liar muttered Bennett
Powers of Darkness below what a country murmured Father Victor Go on Kim
I did not thieve Besides I am just now disciple of a very holy man He is sitting outside We saw two men come with flags making the place ready That is always so in a dream or on account of a—a—prophecy So I knew it was come true I saw the Red Bull on the green field and my father he said Nine hundred pukka devils and the Colonel riding on a horse will look after you when you find the Red Bull I did not know what to do when I saw the Bull but I went away and I came again when it was dark I wanted to see the Bull again and I saw the Bull again with the—the Sahibs praying to it I think the Bull shall help me The holy man said so too He is sitting outside Will you hurt him if I call him a shout now He is very holy He can witness to all the things I say and he knows I am not a thief
Officers praying to a bull What in the world do you make of that said Bennett Disciple of a holy man Is the boy mad
Its OHaras boy sure enough OHaras boy leagued with all the Powers of Darkness Its very much what his father would have done—if he was drunk Wed 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 Kims shoulder114
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 priests 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 redgold
Bennett looked at him with the tripleringed uninterest of the creed that lumps ninetenths of the world under the title of heathen
And what was the end of the search What gift has the Red Bull brought The lama addressed himself to Kim
He says What are you going to do Bennett was staring uneasily at Father Victor and Kim for his own ends took upon himself the office of interpreter
I do not see what concern this faquir has with the boy who is probably his dupe or his confederate Bennett began We cannot allow an English boy—Assuming that he is the son of a Mason the sooner he goes to the Masonic Orphanage the better
Ah Thats 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 doesnt look like a villain115
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 camellike 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 urgent private affairs This last was a reminiscence of some talk with a Eurasian clerk in the Canal Department but it only drew a smile which nettled him And if you did know what his business was you would not be in such a beastly hurry to interfere116
What is it then said Father Victor not without feeling as he watched the lamas 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 cottonwool Kim had heard missiontalk 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 Id 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 cant go on in that old mans company It would be different Kim if you were not a soldiers 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
Im doing no such thing He must believe that the boys coming here—to his own regiment—in search of his Red Bull is in the nature of a miracle Consider the117 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 Its predestined on the face of it Yes tell him its Kismet Kismet mallum Fate Do you understand
He turned towards the lama to whom he might as well have talked of Mesopotamia
They say—the old mans eye lighted at Kims 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 trouserpocket We can investigate the details later—and I will give him a ru—
Give him time May be hes fond of the lad said Father Victor halfarresting the clergymans motion
The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hatbrim over his eyes118
What can he want now
He says—Kim put up one hand He says Be quiett He wants to speak to me by himself You see you do not know one little word of what he says and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very bad curses When he takes those beads like that you see he always wants to be quiett
The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed but there was a look in Bennetts eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed to the religious arm
A Sahib and the son of a Sahib— The lamas 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 ZamZammah the great gun—
As a boy in the dress of white men—when I first went to the Wonder House And a second time thou wast a Hindu What shall the third incarnation be He chuckled drearily Ah chela thou hast done a wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee
And mine to thee But how could I know that the Red Bull would bring me to this business
The lama covered his face afresh and nervously rattled the rosary Kim squatted beside him and laid hold upon a fold of his clothing
Now it is understood that the boy is a Sahib he went on in a muffled tone Such a Sahib as was he who kept the images in the Wonder House The lamas experience of white men was limited He seemed to be repeating a lesson So then it is not seemly that he119 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 dont Father Victor saw Kim edging towards the door and interposed a strong leg
I do not understand the customs of white men The Priest of the Images in the Wonder House in Lahore was more courteous than the thin one here This boy will be taken from me They will make a Sahib of my disciple Woe to me how shall I find my River Have they no disciples Ask
He says he is very sorry that he cannot find the River now any more He says Why have you no disciples and stop bothering him He wants to be washed of his sins
Neither Bennett nor Father Victor found any answer ready
Said Kim in English distressed for the lamas 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
Its the very best days work you ever did for yourself young man said Bennett
Good heavens I dont know how to console him said Father Victor watching the lama intently He cant take the boy away with him and yet hes a good man—Im sure hes a good man Bennett if you give him that rupee hell curse you root and branch
They listened to each others breathing—three—five full minutes Then the lama raised his head and looked forth across them into space and emptiness120
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 makebelief—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 grieve121
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 youd like to be a soldier
Gorahlog whitefolk Noah Noah 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 youre told to be said Bennett and you should be grateful that were going to help you
Kim smiled compassionately If these men lay under the delusion that he would do anything that he did not fancy so much the better
Another long silence followed Bennett fidgeted with impatience and suggested calling a sentry to evict the faquir
Do they give or sell learning among the Sahibs Ask them said the lama and Kim interpreted122
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 Kims 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 Orphanages list not that he or youud understand what that means but the best schooling a boy can get in India is of course at St Xaviers 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
Hell run slap into the sentries cried Father Victor123 jumping up as the lama stalked out but I cant 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 chaplains cot At least the lama had promised that he would stay with the Rajput woman from Kulu and the rest was of the smallest importance It pleased him that the two padres were so evidently excited They talked long in undertones Father Victor urging some scheme on Mr Bennett who seemed incredulous All this was very new and fascinating but Kim felt sleepy They called men into the tent—one of them certainly was the Colonel as his father had prophesied—and they asked him an infinity of questions chiefly about the woman who looked after him all of which Kim answered truthfully They did not seem to think the woman a good guardian
After all this was the newest of his experiences Sooner or later if he chose he could escape into great gray formless India beyond tents and padres and colonels Meantime if the Sahibs were to be impressed he would do his best to impress them He too was a white man
After much talk that he could not comprehend they handed him over to a sergeant who had strict instructions not to let him escape The regiment would go on to Umballa and Kim would be sent up partly at the expense of the Lodge and in part by subscription to a place called Sanawar
Its 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 cant quite make out124 whether hell pay for the boys education or whether he is preparing some sort of witchcraft on his own account Then to Kim Youll live to be grateful to your friend the Red Bull yet Well 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 Thats the order of the CommanderinChief whos a trifle more important than OHaras 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 wont 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
Thats explicit Dyou add prophecy to your other gifts Take him along Sergeant Take up a suit for him from the Drums an take care he doesnt slip through your fingers Who says the age of miracles is gone by I think Ill go to bed My poor minds weakening
At the far end of the camp silent as a wild animal an hour later sat Kim newly washed all over in a horrible stuff suit that rasped his arms and legs125
A most amazin young bird said the Sergeant He turns up in charge of a yellowheaded buckBrahmin priest with his fathers Lodge certificates round his neck talkin God knows what all of a red bull The buckBrahmin evaporates without explanations an the bhoy sets crosslegged on the chaplains bed prophesyin bloody war to the men at large Injias a wild land for a Godfearin man Ill just tie his leg to the tentpole in case hell go through the roof What did ye say about the war
Eight thousand men besides guns said Kim Very soon you will see
Youre a consolin little imp Lie down between the Drums an go to byebye Those two boys beside ye will watch your slumbers
126
CHAPTER VI
Now I remember comrades—
Old playmates on new seas—
Whenas we traded orpiment
Among the savages
Ten thousand leagues to southward
And thirty years removed—
They knew not noble Valdez
But me they knew and loved
Song of Diego Valdez
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 restingplace and Kim trudging beside a baggagecart 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 camelorderly handed the Colonel a letter He read it and spoke to a major Half a mile in the rear Kim heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on him through the thick dust Then some one beat him on the back crying Tell us how ye knew ye little limb of Satan Father dear see if ye can make him tell127
A pony ranged alongside and he was hauled on to the priests 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
Kims 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 anothers 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 fortyeight hours
Are there many more like you in India said Father Victor or are you by way o being a lusus naturæ
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 hes as well able to take care of himself as you No Yeve brought us luck an were goin to make a man of you Ill take ye back to your baggagecart and yell 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 woman128 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 drummerboy to empty limewashed 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 guests129 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 Fortyeight 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 faroff wing where a dozen drummerboys 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 twothirds 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 Ive got to look after you My orders are not to let you out of my sight Where are you goin
It was the drummerboy 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 capribbons
To the bazar—to get sweets—for you said Kim after thought
Well the bazars out o bounds If we go there well get a dressingdown You come back130
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 aint goin Its too ot I can watch you from ere Its no good runnin away If you did theyd spot you by your clothes Thats regimental stuff youre wearin There aint a picket in Umballa wouldnt 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 barrackservants of the lowest caste Kim hailed a sweeper who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow The low quick answer undeceived him Kim put his fettered soul into it thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best And now go to the nearest letterwriter in the bazar and tell him to come here I would write a letter
But—but what manner of white mans son art thou to need a bazar letterwriter 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 a131 white boy he stammered to the first bazar letterwriter he came across He needs thee
Will he pay said that spruce scribe gathering up his desk and pens and sealingwax 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 letterwriter 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 barrackwing
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 horsedealer in the Kashmir Serai at Lahore He is my friend132
Wonder on wonder murmured the letterwriter 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 mares 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 letterwriters 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
First I will take my pay the letterwriter said First I will take my pay the letterwriter said
133
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 Alis 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 drummerboy when Kim returned to the veranda I was watchin you
I was only talkin to him
You talk the same as a nigger dont you
Noah Noah I onlee speak a little What shall we do now
The bugles ill go for dinner in arf a minute My Gawd I wish Id gone up to the front with the regiment Its awful doin nothin but school down ere Dont you ate it
Oah yess
Id run away if I knew where to go to but as the men say in this bloomin Injia youre only a prisoner at large You cant desert without bein took back at once Im fair sick of it
You have been in Be—England
Wy 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 wasnt you
Oah yess Tell me something about England My father he came from there134
Though he would not say so Kim of course disbelieved every word the drummerboy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England It passed the heavy time till dinner—a most unappetising meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrackroom 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 paradeground 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 youve gone Not much eh It must be hard—very hard on a wild animal Listen now Ive an amazin epistle from your friend
Where is he Is he well Oah If he knows to write me letters it is all right
Youre 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 cant write English can he
Oah no Not that I know but of course he found a letterwriter who can write English verree well and so he wrote I do hope you understand
That accounts for it Dyou know anything about his money affairs Kims face showed that he did not
How can I tell
Thats what Im askin Now listen if you can make head or tail o this Well skip the first part 135 Its written from Jagadhir Road Sitting on wayside in grave meditation trusting to be favoured with your Honours applause of present step which recommend your Honour to execute for Almighty Gods sake Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts Otherwise no earthly use Faith the old mans hit the bullseye that time If your Honour condescending giving my boy best educations Xavier I suppose thats St Xavier in Partibus in terms of our conversation dated in your tent 15th instant a businesslike touch there then Almighty God blessing your Honours succeedings to third an fourth generation and—now listen—confide in your Honours humble servant for adequat remuneration per hoondie per annum three hundred rupees a year to one expensive education St Xavier Lucknow and allow small time to forward same per hoondie sent to any part of India as your Honour shall address yourself This servant of your Honour has presently no place to lay crown of his head but going to Benares by train on account of persecution of old woman talking so much and unanxious residing Saharunpore in any domestic capacity Now what in the world does that mean
She has asked him to be puro—her clergyman—at Saharunpore I think He would not do that on account of his River She did talk
Its 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 Gods sake execute this education and your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever awfully pray Written by Sobrao Satai Failed Entrance Allahabad University for Venerable Teshoo Lama the priest of Suchzen looking136 for a River address care of Tirthankers Temple Benares P M—Please note boy is apple of eye and rupees shall be sent per hoondie three hundred per annum For God Almightys sake Now is that ravin lunacy or a business proposition I ask you because Im fairly at my wits end
He says he will give me three hundred rupees a year so he will give me them
Oh thats 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 dont believe it but well 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 Yed be brought up to the Church of England Bennett arranged for that On the other hand if ye go to St Xaviers yell get a better education an—an can have the religion Dye 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 Im going to temporise If your friend sends the money from Benares—Powers of Darkness below wheres a streetbeggar to raise three hundred rupees—yell go down to Lucknow and Ill pay your fare because I cant touch the subscriptionmoney if I intend as I do to make ye a Catholic If he doesnt yell go to the Military Orphanage at the regiments expense Ill allow him three days grace though I dont believe it at all Even then if he fails in his payments later on but its 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 cant expect everything137
Oah yess said Kim vaguely
The priest leaned forward Id give a months pay to find whats 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 letterwriter 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 Kims 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 dinnertables 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 Victors voice interrupted the reverie—ye can run along and play with the other boys Theyll teach ye something—but I dont think yell 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 barracksweeper but reflected that as they all ate at one table in public this was peculiarly revolting to Kim who preferred to turn his back on the world at his meals the stroke might be dangerous Then he attempted running off to the village where the priest had tried to drug the lama—the138 village where the old soldier lived But farseeing 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 drummerboy and all he heard from his companion were the few useless words which seemed to make twothirds of the white mans abuse Kim knew and despised them all long ago The boy resented his silence and lack of interest by beating him as was only natural He did not care for any of the bazars which were in bounds He styled all natives niggers yet servants and sweepers called him abominable names to his face and misled by their deferential attitude he never understood This somewhat consoled Kim for the beatings
On the morning of the fourth day a judgment overtook that drummer They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse He returned alone weeping with news that young OHara to whom he had been doing nothing in particular had hailed a scarletbearded nigger on horseback that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a peculiarly adhesive quirt picked up young OHara and borne him off at full gallop These tidings came to Father Victor and he drew down his long upper lip He was already sufficiently startled by a letter from the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares enclosing a native bankers 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 letterwriter had translated his phrase to acquire merit139
Powers of Darkness below Father Victor fumbled with the note An now hes off with another of his peepoday friends I dont know whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or to have him lost Hes beyond my comprehension How the Divil—yes Hes the man I mean—can a streetbeggar raise money to educate white boys
Three miles off on Umballa racecourse Mahbub Ali reining a gray Cabuli stallion with Kim in front of him was saying
But Little Friend of all the World there is my honour and reputation to be considered All the officersahibs 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 sharpedged stirrup He was not the new sort of fluent horsedealer 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 one140 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 letterwriter Kim answered feeling Mahbubs palm on his heart
Hi Mahbub you old villain pull up cried a voice and an Englishman raced alongside on a little polopony Ive been chasing you half over the country That Cabuli of yours can go For sale I suppose
I have some young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the delicate and difficult pologame 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 fathers 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 fault141
Hell 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 lowcaste Hindi boy
The deuce he would The Englishman looked critically at the boy as Mahbub headed towards the barracks Kim ground his teeth Mahbub was mocking him as faithless Afghans will for he went on
They will send him to a school and put heavy boots on his feet and swaddle him in these clothes Then he will forget all he knows Now which of the barracks is thine
Kim pointed—he could not speak—to Father Victors 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 warmaking letter heard it all Kim beheld Mahbub Ali frying in flame for his treachery but for himself he saw one long gray vista of barracks schools and barracks again He gazed imploringly at the clearcut 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 mans mercy or to denounce the Afghan And Mahbub stared deliberately at the Englishman who stared as deliberately at Kim quivering and tonguetied
My horse is well trained said the dealer Others would have kicked Sahib
Ah said the Englishman at last rubbing his ponys142 damp withers with his whipbutt Who makes the boy a soldier
He says the regiment that found him and especially the padresahib of that regiment
There is the padre Kim choked as bareheaded Father Victor sailed down upon them from the veranda
Powers o Darkness below OHara How many more mixed friends do you keep in Asia he cried as Kim slid down and stood helplessly before him
Good morning Padre the Colonel said cheerily I know you by reputation well enough Meant to have come over and called before this Im Creighton
Of the Ethnological Survey said Father Victor The Colonel nodded Faith Im glad to meet ye then an I owe you some thanks for bringing back the boy
No thanks to me Padre Besides the boy wasnt going away You dont know old Mahbub Ali—the horsedealer 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 Youll be the one man that could help me in my quandaries Tell you Powers o Darkness Im bursting to tell some one who knows something o the native
A groom came round the corner Colonel Creighton raised his voice speaking in Urdu Very good Mahbub Ali but what is the use of telling me all those stories about the pony Not one pie more than three hundred and fifty rupees will I give
The Sahib is a little hot and angry after riding the horsedealer returned with the leer of a privileged jester Presently he will see my horses points more clearly143 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 Mahbubs horses Hes a regular old leech Padre Wait then if thou hast so much time to spare Mahbub Now Im at your service Padre Where is the boy Oh hes gone off to collogue with Mahbub Queer sort of boy Might I ask you to send my mare round under cover
He dropped into a chair which commanded a clear view of Kim and Mahbub Ali in conference beneath the tree The padre went indoors for cheroots
Creighton heard Kim say bitterly Trust a Brahmin before a snake and a snake before a harlot and a harlot before an Afghan Mahbub Ali
That is all one the great red beard wagged solemnly Children should not see a carpet on the loom till the pattern is made plain Believe me Friend of all the World I do thee great service They will not make a soldier of thee
You crafty old sinner thought Creighton But youre not far wrong That boy mustnt be wasted if he is as advertised
Excuse me half a minute cried the padre from within but Im gettin the documents of the case
If through me the favour of this bold and wise Colonel Sahib comes to thee and thou art raised to honour what thanks 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 bloodmoney144
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 halfSahibs I have seen it when I sell horses there So the lama also loved the Friend of all the World
Ay and he did not tell lies or return me to captivity
Small wonder the padre does not know how to unravel the thread How fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib Mahbub Ali chuckled By Allah—the keen eyes swept the veranda for an instant—thy lama has sent what to me looks like a note of hand I have had some small dealings in hoondies The Colonel Sahib is looking at it
What good is all this to me said Kim wearily Thou wilt go away and they will return me to those empty rooms where there is no good place to sleep and where the boys beat me
I do not think that Have patience child All Pathans are not faithless—except in horseflesh
Five—ten—fifteen minutes passed Father Victor talking energetically or asking questions which the Colonel answered
Now Ive told you everything that I know about the145 boy from beginnin to end and its a blessed relief to me Did ye ever hear the like
At any rate the old man has sent the money Gobind Sahais 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 wont do
Thats consolin—from the head of the Ethnological Survey Its 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 Thats an additional reason said the Colonel absently
Im glad ye see a reason in it But as I said its the mixture o things thats 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 Theyll cure all that nonsense at St Xaviers eh
Sprinkle him with holy water the Colonel laughed
On my word I fancy I ought to sometimes But Im hoping hell be brought up as a good Catholic All that troubles me is whatll happen if the old beggarman—
Lama lama my dear sir and some of them are gentlemen in their own country
The lama then fails to pay next year Hes a fine business head to plan on the spur of the moment but hes bound to die some day An takin a heathens 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 Id give a months pay to146 hear how he explained it all at the Tirthankers Temple at Benares Look here Padre I dont pretend to know much about natives but if he says hell pay hell 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 youve stolen a march on him—
Bad luck to Bennett He was sent to the front instead o me Doughty certified me medically unfit Ill 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 dont think Bennett will mind Put the blame on me I—er—strongly recommend sending the boy to St Xaviers He can go down on pass as a soldiers 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 Its perfectly easy Ive got to go down to Lucknow next week Ill look after the boy on the way—give him in charge of my servants and so on
Youre a good man
Not in the least Dont make that mistake The lama has sent us money for a definite end We cant very well return it We shall have to do as he says Well thats settled isnt it Shall we say that, Tuesday next youll hand him over to me at the night train south Thats only three days He cant do much harm in three days
Its a weight off my mind but—this thing here—he waved the note of hand—I dont know Gobind Sahai or his bank which may be a hole in a wall147
Youve never been a subaltern in debt Ill cash it if you like and send you the vouchers in proper order
But with all your own work too Its askin—
Its not the least trouble indeed You see as an ethnologist the things very interesting to me Id like to make a note of it for some Government work that Im 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 cant thank you enough
Theres one thing you can do All we Ethnological men are as jealous as jackdaws of one anothers discoveries Theyre of no interest to any one but ourselves of course but you know what bookcollectors are like Well dont say a word directly or indirectly about the Asiatic side of the boys character—his adventures and his prophecy and so on Ill worm them out of the boy later on and—you see
I do Yell make a wonderful account of it Never a word will I say to any one till I see it in print
Thank you That goes straight to an ethnologists heart Well I must be getting back to my breakfast Good heavens Old Mahbub here still He raised his voice and the horsedealer 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 polopony closely following the ball without teaching—when such a colt knows the game by divination—then I say it is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart Sahib
So do I say also Mahbub The colt will be entered for polo only These fellows think of nothing in the148 world but horses Padre Ill see you tomorrow Mahbub if youve anything likely for sale
The dealer saluted horseman fashion with a sweep of the off hand Be patient a little Friend of all the World he whispered to the agonised Kim Thy fortune is made In a little while thou goest to Nucklao and—here is something to pay the letterwriter I shall see thee again I think many times and he cantered off down the road
Listen to me said the Colonel from the veranda speaking in the vernacular In three days thou wilt go with me to Lucknow seeing and hearing new things all the while Therefore sit still for three days and do not run away Thou wilt go to school at Lucknow
Shall I meet my Holy One there Kim whimpered
At least Lucknow is nearer to Benares than Umballa It may be thou wilt go under my protection Mahbub Ali knows this and he will be angry if thou returnest to the road now Remember—much has been told to me which I do not forget
I will wait said Kim but the boys will beat me
Then the bugles blew for dinner
Pathans are not faithless—except in horseflesh Pathans are not faithless—except in horseflesh
149
CHAPTER VII
Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised
With idiot moons and stars retracting stars
Creep thou betweene—thy comings all unnoised
Heaven hath her high as earth her baser wars
Heir to these tumults this affright that fray
By Adams 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 redfaced 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 letterwriter to whom he owed a stamp
Now I pay said Kim royally and now I need another letter to be written
Mahbub Ali is in Umballa said the writer jauntily He was by virtue of his office a bureau of general misinformation
This is not to Mahbub but to a priest Take thy pen and write quickly To Teshoo Lama the holy one from Bhotiyal seeking for a River who is now in the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares Take more ink In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at Nucklao The name of the school is Xavier150 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 tennisflannels
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 cherootcase in the padres 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 guard151
Ask any one in the big bazar The Colonel walked on
He has forgotten his cherootcase 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 angryfaced Sahib who lost the cherootcase
Oh he is only Creighton Sahib—a very foolish Sahib who is a Colonel Sahib without a regiment
What is his business
God knows He is always buying horses which he cannot ride and asking riddles about the works of God—such as plants and stones and the customs of people The dealers call him the father of fools because he is so easily cheated about a horse Mahbub Ali says he is madder than all other Sahibs
Oh said Kim and departed His training had given him some small knowledge of character and he argued that fools are not given information which leads to calling out eight thousand men besides guns The CommanderinChief of all India does not talk as Kim had heard him talk to fools Nor would Mahbub Alis tone have changed as it did every time he mentioned the Colonels 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 horsedealer the Colonel evidently respected people who did not show themselves to be too clever
He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge152 of the Colonels house and when on his return to barracks he discovered that no cherootcase 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 Alis theology He betrayed no emotion when after the lecture Father Victor dragged him from shop to shop buying articles of outfit nor when envious drummerboys 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 secondclass next to Colonel Creightons first and bade him farewell with genuine feeling
Theyll make a man o you OHara at St Xaviers—a white man an I hope a good man They know all about your comin an the Colonel will see that yere not lost or mislaid anywhere on the road Ive given you a notion of religious matters—at least I hope so—and youll remember when they ask you your religion that youre a Cathlic Better say Roman Cathlic tho Im 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 downjourney in the thirdclass 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 kickball153 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 chainman If he were very good and passed the proper examinations he would be earning thirty rupees a month at seventeen years old and Colonel Creighton would see that he found a suitable employment
Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of this talk Then the Colonel seeing his mistake turned to fluent and picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented No man could be a fool who knew the language so intimately who moved so gently and silently and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs
Yes and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains and rivers—to carry these pictures in thy eye till a suitable time comes to set them upon paper Perhaps some day when thou art a chainman 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 chainman if he be seen to look like a Sahib What then
Kim thought Would it be safe to return the Colonels lead154
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 Colonels brow clouded he went on But I think I should in a few days earn the hundred rupees
By what road
Kim shook his head resolutely If I said how I would earn them another man might hear and forestall me It is no good to sell knowledge for nothing
Tell now The Colonel held up a rupee Kims 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 Xaviers There are many boys there who despise the black men
Their mothers were bazarwomen said Kim He knew well there is no hatred like that of the halfcaste for his brotherinlaw
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 twentyfour155 hours run south did the Colonel send for Kim always developing this latter text
We be all on one leadrope then said Kim at last the Colonel Mahbub Ali and I—when I become a chainman He will use me as Mahbub Ali employed me I think That is good if it allows me to return to the road again This clothing grows no easier by wear
When they came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no sign of the lama He swallowed his disappointment while the Colonel bundled him into a ticcagarri with his neat belongings and dispatched him alone to St Xaviers
I do not say farewell because we shall meet again he cried Again and many times if thou art one of good spirit But thou art not yet tried
Not when I brought thee—Kim actually dared to use the tum of equals—a white stallions pedigree that night
Much is gained by forgetting little brother said the Colonel with a look that pierced through Kims shoulderblades 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 boxseat and perfect understanding established drove for a couple of hours up and down estimating comparing and enjoying There is no city—except Bombay the156 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 Xaviers 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 drivers last insolence when his eye—it was growing dusk—caught a figure sitting by one of the white plaster gatepillars in the long sweep of wall157
Stop he cried Stay here I do not go to the school at once
But what is to pay me for this coming and recoming said the driver petulantly Is the boy mad Last time it was a dancinggirl 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 lamas level voice began Nay I had a disciple with me He that was my friend at the Temple of the Tirthankers gave me a guide for this journey I came from Benares in the train when thy letter was given me Yes I am well fed I need nothing
But why didst thou not stay with the Kulu woman O Holy One In what way didst thou get to Benares My heart has been heavy since we parted
The woman wearied me by constant flux of talk and requiring charms for children I separated myself from that company permitting her to acquire merit by gifts She is at least a woman of open hands and I made a promise to return to her house if need arose Then perceiving myself alone in this great and terrible world I bethought me of the terain to Benares where I knew one abode in the Tirthankers Temple who was a Seeker even as I
Ah Thy River said Kim I had forgotten the River
So soon my chela I have never forgotten it but when I had left thee it seemed better that I should go to the temple and take counsel for look you India is very large and it may be that wise men before us some two or three have left a record of the place of our River There is debate in the Temple of the Tirthankers on158 this matter some saying one thing and some another They are courteous folk
So be it but what dost thou do now
I acquire merit in that I help thee my chela to wisdom The priest of that body of men who serve the Red Bull wrote me that all should be as I desired for thee I sent the money to suffice for one year and then I came as thou seest me to watch for thee going up into the Gates of Learning A day and a half have I waited—not because I was led by any affection towards thee—that is not part of the Way—but as they said at the Tirthankers Temple because money having been paid for learning it was right that I should oversee the end of the matter They resolved my doubts most clearly I had a fear that perhaps I came because I wished to see thee—misguided by the red mist of affection It is not so Moreover I am troubled by a dream
But surely Holy One thou hast not forgotten the Road and all that befell on it Surely it was a little to see me that thou didst come
The horses are cold and it is past their feedingtime 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 found159 my River—by assuring myself that thy feet are set on wisdom What they will teach thee I do not know but the priest wrote me that no son of a Sahib in all India will be better taught than thou So from time to time therefore I will come again May be thou wilt be such a Sahib as he who gave me these spectacles—the lama wiped them elaborately—in the Wonder House at Lahore That is my hope for he was a Fountain of Wisdom—wiser than many abbots Again may be thou wilt forget me and our meetings
If I eat thy bread cried Kim passionately how shall I ever forget thee
No—no He put the boy aside I must go back to Benares From time to time now that I know the customs of letterwriters in this land I will send thee a letter and from time to time I will come and see thee
But whither shall I send my letters wailed Kim clutching at the robe all forgetful that he was a Sahib
To the Temple of the Tirthankers at Benares That is the place I have chosen till I find my River Do not weep for look you all Desire is illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel Go up to the Gates of Learning Let me see thee go Dost thou love me Then go or my heart cracks I will come again Surely I will come again
The lama watched the ticcagarri 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 you160 would scarcely be interested in Kims experiences as a St Xaviers 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 letterwriter He was of course indicted for smoking and for the use of abuse more fullflavoured than even St Xaviers had ever heard He learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the nativeborn who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleepingrooms where the boys thrashed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn and quietly he measured himself against his selfreliant mates
They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway Telegraph and Canal services of warrantofficers sometimes retired and sometimes acting as commandersinchief to a feudatory Rajahs 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 DSilvas Their parents could well have educated them in England but they loved the school that had served their own youth and generation followed sallowhued generation at St Xaviers Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar lost teagardens Shillongway villages where their fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan Missionstations a week from the nearest railway line seaports a thousand161 miles south facing the brazen Indian surf and cinchonaplantations 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 boys 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 chancemet Rajahs elephant in the name of St Francis Xavier when the rains once blotted out the carttrack that led to their fathers 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 headhunters were bold against lonely plantations
And every tale was told in the even passionless voice of the nativeborn mixed with quaint reflections borrowed unconsciously from native fostermothers and turns of speech that showed they had been that instant translated from the vernacular Kim watched listened and approved This was not insipid singleword talk of drummerboys 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 newfound bodily comforts as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind162 over the tasks they set him His quickness would have delighted an English master but at St Xaviers they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and surroundings as well as they know the halfcollapse that sets in at twentytwo or twentythree
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 Xaviers looks down on boys who go native altogether One must never forget that one is a Sahib and that some day when examinations are passed one will command natives Kim made a note of this for he began to understand where examinations led
Then came the holidays from August to October—the long holidays imposed by the heat and the rains Kim was informed that he would go north to some station in the hills behind Umballa where Father Victor would arrange for him
A barrackschool 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 boys holiday was his own property—of so much the talk of his companions had advised him—and a barrackschool would be torment after St Xaviers 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 yearned163 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 strongscented cardamoms for the saffrontinted rice garlic and onions and the forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars They would feed him raw beef on a platter at the barrackschool and he must smoke by stealth But again he was a Sahib and was at St Xaviers and that pig Mahbub Ali No he would not test Mahbubs 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 Creightons railwaypass lay in his hand and Kim puffed himself that he had not spent Colonel Creightons or Mahbubs money in riotous living He was still lord of two rupees seven annas His new bullocktrunk marked K OH and beddingroll lay in the empty sleepingroom Sahibs are always tied to their baggage said Kim nodding at them You will stay here He went out into the warm rain smiling sinfully and sought a certain house whose outside he had noted down some time before
Arre Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter O shame
Was I born yesterday Kim squatted native fashion on the cushions of that upper room A little 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 has164 beaten me twice because I went over their wall in these clothes Now I would go as a gardeners 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 girls time with this play and then to say Is not165 the jest enough Thou wilt go very far in this world She gave the dancinggirls salutation in mockery
All one Make haste and roughcut 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 lowcaste 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 pricklyheat get into a secondclass compartment Kim patronised a third and was the life and soul of it He explained to the company that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with fever and that he would pick up his master at Umballa As the occupants of the carriage changed he varied this tale or adorned it with all the shoots of a budding fancy the more rampant for being held off native speech so long In all India that night was no human being so joyful as Kim At Umballa he got out and headed eastward plashing over the sodden fields to the village where the old soldier lived
About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from Lucknow by wire that young OHara 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 horsedealer Men are like horses At certain times they need salt and if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from the earth He has gone back to the Road again for a while The madrissah wearied him I knew it would Another time I will take him upon the Road myself166 Do not be troubled Creighton Sahib It is as though a polopony 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 Mahbubs stallion ranged alongside the Colonel
It is as I had thought said the horsedealer 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 countrybred 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 selfpossessed boy His evasion of course was the height of insolence but it argued some resource and nerve
Mahbubs 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 beddingroll 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 read167
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 letterwriter but see how wisely the boy has devised the matter of it so that no hint is given except to those who know
Is this the Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity laughed the Colonel
See how wise is the boy He would go back to the Road again as I said Not knowing yet thy trade—
I am not quite sure of that the Colonel muttered
He turns to me to make a peace between you Is he not wise He says he will return He is but perfecting his knowledge Think Sahib He has been three months at the school And he is not mouthed to that bit For my part I rejoice the pony learns the game
Ay but another time he must not go alone
Why He went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahibs 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 accomplished168 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 Mahbubs gasp of amazement
Oho And where hast thou been
Up and down—down and up
Come under a tree out of the wet and tell
I stayed for a while with an old man near Umballa anon with a household of my acquaintance in Umballa With one of these I went as far as Delhi to the southward That is a wondrous city Then I drove a bullock for a teli an oilman coming north but I heard of a great feast forward in Puttiala and thither went I in the company of a fireworkmaker 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 fireworkmaker 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 to169 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
170
CHAPTER VIII
Something I owe to the soil that grew—
More to the life that fed—
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head
I would go without shirts or shoes
Friends tobacco or bread
Sooner than for an instant lose
Either side of my head
THEN in Gods Name take blue for red said Mahbub alluding to the Hindu colour of Kims 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 almondcurd sweetmeats balushai we call it and finechopped 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 madrissah171
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 goldenbrown 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 Alis 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 fullflavoured 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 Colonels whip from thy skin and that is no small service
True Kim puffed serenely That is all true
But it is not to be thought that this running out and in is any way good
It was my holiday Hajji I was a slave for many weeks Why should I not run away when the school was shut Look too how I living upon my friends or working for my bread as I did with the Sikh have saved the Colonel Sahib a great expense172
Mahbubs lips twitched under his wellpruned 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 mudhead Yea he told me in the terain 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 drummerboy 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 charcoalball on the weed It is a very sure tie between us Indeed thy hold is surer even than mine for who would miss a boy beaten to death or it may be thrown into a well by the roadside Many people here and in Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would on the other hand say What has come to Mahbub Ali if he were found dead among his horses Surely too the Colonel Sahib would make inquiries But again—Kims face puckered with cunning—he would not make overlong inquiry lest people should ask What has this Colonel Sahib to do with that horsedealer But I—if I lived—173
As thou wouldst surely die—
It may be but I say if I lived I and I alone would know that one had come by night as a common thief perhaps to Mahbub Alis 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 cigarcase that he had not left behind him—What is Mahbub Ali to me
Up went a gout of heavy smoke There was a long pause then Mahbub Ali spoke in admiration And with these things on thy mind dost thou lie down and rise again among all the Sahibs little sons at the madrissah and meekly take instruction from thy teachers
It is an order said Kim blandly Who am I to dispute an order
A most finished son of Eblis said Mahbub Ali But what is this tale of the thief and the search
That which I saw said Kim the night that my lama and I lay next thy place in the Kashmir Serai The door was left unlocked which I think is not thy custom Mahbub He came in as one assured that thou wouldst not soon return My eye was against a knothole 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 pedigree174 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 gardengrass to see what Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallions 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 fouranna 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 others hand
Very good I saw the JangiLat Sahib the CommanderinChief come to a big dinner I saw him in Creighton Sahibs office I saw the two read the white stallions pedigree I heard the very orders given for the opening of a great war
Hah Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire175 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 mans 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 dungcakes 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 Heavenborns 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
Mahbubs hand shot into his bosom for to call a Pathan a black man kala admi is a bloodinsult Then he remembered and laughed Speak Sahib thy black man hears
But said Kim I am not a Sahib and I say I made a fault when I cursed thee Mahbub Ali on the day at Umballa I thought I was betrayed by a Pathan I was senseless for I was but newly caught and I wished to kill that lowcaste drummerboy I say now Hajji that176 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 claywalled room where the oillamp in its niche burned heavily through the tobaccosmoke 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 boys giggle177
Do not give answers Mahbub grunted Thou art my new horseboy 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 roughridged 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 Mahbubs 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 Mahbubs animals stood among a consignment of countrybreds bought by the Bombay tramcompany The headman a brokendown consumptivelooking Mohammedan promptly challenged Kim but was pacified at sight of Mahbubs signmanual178
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 lowcaste native must raise on every occasion It died down and Kim lay out behind the little knot of Mahbubs followers almost under the wheels of a horsetruck a borrowed blanket for covering Now a bed among brickbats and ballastrefuse on a damp night between overcrowded horses and unwashen Baltis would not appeal to many white boys but Kim was utterly happy Change of scene service and surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils and thinking of the neat white cots of St Xaviers all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as the repetition of the multiplicationtable 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 Mahbubs 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 ironskinned horsetruck
He is not here then179
Where should he be but roystering in the City Who looks for a rat in a frogpond 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 bloodkin—full of boltholes and women behind whose clothes he will hide Yes Peshawur or Jehannum would suit us equally well
Then what is the plan
O fool have I not told it a hundred times Wait till he comes to lie down and then one sure shot The trucks are between us and pursuit We have but to run back over the lines and go our way They will not see whence the shot came Wait here at least till the dawn What manner of faquir art thou to shiver at a little watching
Oho thought Kim behind closeshut eyes Once again it is Mahbub Indeed a white stallions 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 me180 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
Urrurrurrurr Yalalalala Narain The churel The churel
A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in childbed She haunts lonely roads her feet are turned backwards on the ankles and she leads men to torment
Louder rose Kims 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
They are all most holy and—most greedy I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed and the child is no whit better They are all most holy and—most greedy I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed and the child is no whit better
He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert and dropped behind it his chin on a level with the copingstone Here he could command all the nighttraffic himself unseen
Two or three carts passed jingling out to the suburbs a coughing policeman and a hurrying footpassenger 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 horse181 for nightwork They pick up all the bones and nails in the city He stooped to lift its forefoot and that brought his head within a foot of Kims Down—keep down he muttered The night is full of eyes
Two men wait thy coming behind the horsetrucks They will shoot thee at thy lying down because there is a price on thy head I heard sleeping near the horses
Didst thou see them Hold still Sire of Devils This furiously to the horse
No
Was one dressed belike as a faquir
One said to the other What manner of a faquir art thou to shiver at a little watching
Good Go back to the camp and lie down I do not die tonight
Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished Kim tore back down the ditch till he reached a point opposite his second restingplace slipped across the road like a weasel and recoiled himself in the blanket
At least Mahbub knows he thought contentedly And certainly he spoke as one expecting it I do not think those two men will profit by tonights 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 Orientals 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 wellwishers182 from behind summarily slay them Here he reflected with sorrow another branch of the Government totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton might demand explanations which would be hard to supply and he knew that south the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse or so He had not been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to Umballa with the message and hoped that suspicion had been finally diverted
Then a most brilliant notion struck him
The English do eternally tell the truth he said therefore we of this country are eternally made foolish By Allah I will tell the truth to an Englishman Of what use is the Government police if a poor Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks This is as bad as Peshawur I should lay a complaint at the station Better still some young Sahib on the Railway They are zealous and if they catch thieves it is remembered to their honour
He tied up his horse outside the station and strode on to the platform
Hullo Mahbub Ali said a young Assistant District Traffic Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line—a tall towhaired 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 truckload up the line Could any one take them out without the Railways knowledge
Shouldnt think so Mahbub You can claim against us if they do
I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucks nearly all the night Faquirs do not183 steal horses so I gave them no more thought I would find Lutuf Ullah my partner
The deuce you did And you didnt bother your head about it Pon my word its just almost as well that I met you What were they like eh
They were only faquirs They will no more than take a little grain perhaps from one of the trucks There are many up the line The State will never miss the dole I came here seeking for my partner Lutuf Ullah—
Never mind your partner Where are your horsetrucks
A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps for the trains
The signalbox Yes
And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the righthand 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 goodsyard Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard
They will walk in their boots making a noise and then they will wonder why there are no faquirs They are very clever boys—Barton Sahib and Young Sahib
He waited idly for a few minutes expecting to see them hurry up the line girt for action A light engine slid through the station and he caught a glimpse of young Barton in the cab
I did that child an injustice He is not altogether a fool said Mahbub Ali To take a firecarriage for a thief is a new game184
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 mans 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 terain I was running to and fro in the dark on this side of the trucks as the terain 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 saltbag Yes—and struck them down But one man struck at a Sahib with a faquirs bucks horn Kim meant the conjoined blackbuck horns which are a faquirs 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 mans 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 terain 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 with185 the saddlebags and the cookingplatter 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 halfdozen stiff and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the rainswept dawn Kim regarded as Mahbub Alis 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 moneylender must make as if to buy That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib rolling along in a stagecarriage 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 Commissioners campingground 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 of186 offence how is the stranger to know that He is more like to search truth with a dagger
True True talk said Kim solemnly Fools speak of a cat when a woman is brought to bed for instance I have heard them
Therefore in one situate as thou art it particularly behoves thee to remember this with both kinds of faces Among Sahibs never forgetting thou art a Sahib among the folk of Hind always remembering thou art— he paused with a puzzled smile
What am I Mussalman Hindu Jain or Buddhist That is a hard nut
Thou art beyond question an unbeliever and therefore thou wilt be damned So says my Law—or I think it does But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World and I love thee So says my heart This matter of creeds is like horseflesh The wise man knows horses are good—that there is a profit to be made from all and for myself—but that I am a good Sunni and hate the men of Tirah—I could believe the same of all the Faiths Now manifestly a Kattiawar mare taken from the sands of her birthplace and removed to the west of Bengal founders—nor is even a Balkh stallion and there are no better horses than those of Balkh were they not so heavy in the shoulder of any account in the great Northern deserts beside the snowcamels 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 known187
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 stallions pickets more firmly We do not want a horsefight at every restingstage 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 heelrope than thou Mahbub nodded his head
Do not be afraid Kim spoke as though he could have evanished on the moment My lama has said that he will come to see me at the madrissah—
A beggar and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa—
Not all Kim cut in with a snort Their eyes are blued and their nails are blackened with lowcaste blood many of them Sons of metheeranees—brothersinlaw 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 sugarcane 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 danger188 to honest men Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground girt in his belt and went over to the horses
Or sell it
There was that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn What new devilry
Eight annas and I will tell said Kim grinning It touches thy peace
O Shaitan Mahbub gave the money
Rememberest thou the little business of the thieves in the dark down yonder at Umballa
Seeing they sought my life I have not altogether forgotten Why
Rememberest thou the Kashmir Serai
I will twist thy ears in a moment—Sahib
No need—Pathan Only the second faquir whom the Sahibs beat senseless was the man who came to search thy bulkhead at Lahore I saw his face as they helped him on the engine The very same man
Why didst thou not tell before
Oh he will go to jail and be safe for some years There is no need to tell more than is necessary at any one time Besides I did not then need money for sweetmeats
Allah Karim said Mahbub Ali Wilt thou some day sell my head for a few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee
Kim will remember till he dies that long lazy journey from Umballa through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by up to Simla A sudden spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse the most valuable be sure and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders Farther up the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant and being in high condition of189 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 horsecoping in his little finger nail than Sikandar Khan in all his tents must needs buy two of the worst and that meant eight hours laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco But it was all pure delight—the wandering road climbing dipping and sweeping about the growing spurs the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows the branched cacti tier upon tier on the stony hillsides the voices of a thousand waterchannels the chatter of the monkeys the solemn deodars climbing one after another with downdrooped branches the vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them the incessant twanging of the tongahorns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga swung round a curve the halts for prayers Mahbub was very religious in drywashings and bellowings when time did not press the evening conferences by the haltingplaces when camels and bullocks chewed solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the news of the Road—all these things lifted Kims heart to song within him
But when the singing and dancing is done said Mahbub Ali comes the Colonel Sahibs 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 fathers brother and he was an old man when190 Mackerson Sahibs 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 rabbitwarren that climbs up from the valley to the townhall at an angle of fortyfive A man who knows his way there can defy all the police of Indias summer capital so cunningly does veranda communicate with veranda alleyway with alleyway and bolthole with bolthole 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 oilsellers curiovendors 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 subsubagents 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 cattledealer 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 girls dye was of the best—in badly fitting shopclothes
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 hillschool
I have said that my holidays are my own I do not go to school twice over That is one part of my bond
The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of the contract Thou art to lodge in Lurgan Sahibs house till it is time to go again to Nucklao191
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 Mahbubs swordkeen 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
192
CHAPTER IX
Sdoaks was son of Yelth the wise—
Chief of the Raven clan
Itswoot the Bear had him in care
To make him a medicineman
He was quick and quicker to learn—
Bold and bolder to dare
He danced the dread KlooKwallie Dance
To tickle Itswoot the Bear
Oregon Legend
KIM flung himself wholeheartedly upon the next turn of the wheel He would be a Sahib again for a while In that idea so soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla townhall he cast about for one to impress A Hindu child some ten years old squatted under a lamppost
Where is Mr Lurgans 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 deodarcrowned Jakko shouldering the stars The houselights scattered on every level made as it were a double firmament Some were193 fixed others belonged to the rickshaws of the careless openspoken English folk going out to dinner
It is here said Kims 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 blackbearded man with a green shade over his eyes sat at a table and one by one with short white hands picked up globules of light from a tray before him threaded them on a glancing silken string and hummed to himself the while Kim was conscious that beyond the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of all the East A whiff of musk a puff of sandalwood and a breath of sickly jessamineoil 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
Seventynine eighty eightyone 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 halfminute The pupils of the eye dilated and closed to pinpricks as if at will There was a faquir by the Taksali Gate who had just this gift and made money by it especially when cursing silly women Kim stared with interest His disreputable friend could further twitch his ears almost like a goat and Kim was disappointed that this new man could not imitate him194
Do not be afraid said Mr Lurgan 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 devildance masks hanging above the fiendembroidered 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 devildance masks at the Lahore Museum—was a glimpse of the softeyed Hindu child who had left him in the doorway sitting crosslegged under the table of pearls with a little smile on his scarlet lips
I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid And I am sure that the devils 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 crawled195 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 softfleshed companion because he was weeping So Kim lifted up his voice and called aloud Lurgan Sahib O Lurgan Sahib Is it an order that thy servant does not speak to me
It is an order The voice came from behind him and he started
Very good But remember he muttered as he resought the quilt I will beat thee in the morning I do not love Hindus
That was no cheerful night the room being overfull of voices and music Kim was waked twice by some one calling his name The second time he set out in search and ended by bruising his nose against a box that certainly spoke with a human tongue but in no sort of human accent It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smaller box on the floor—so far at least as he could judge by touch And the voice very hard and whirring came out of the trumpet Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious thinking as usual in Hindi
This with a beggar from the bazar might be good but—I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib and which is twice as much more beside a student of Nucklao Yess here he turned to English a boy of St Xaviers Damn Mr Lurgans eyes—It is some sort of machinery like a sewingmachine 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 that196 it should be done How I will beat that Hindu in the morning What is this
The trumpetbox 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 sewingmachinelike 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 sewingmachines of the bazar smell He would clean that shaitan He slipped off his jacket and plunged it into the boxs mouth Something long and round bent under the pressure there was a whirr and the voice stopped—as voices must if you ram a thricedoubled coat on to the wax cylinder and into the works of an expensive phonograph Kim finished his slumbers with a serene mind
In the morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib looking down on him
Oah said Kim firmly resolved to cling to his Sahibdom There was a box in the night that gave me bad talk So I stopped it Was it your box
The man held out his hand
Shake hands OHara 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
Fullfleshed heavyhaunched bullnecked and deepvoiced Fullfleshed heavyhaunched bullnecked and deepvoiced
197
Kim looked him over out of the corners of his eyes He was a Sahib in that he wore Sahibs 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 Kims 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 chimneypots 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—ghostdaggers and prayerwheels from Tibet turquoise and raw amber necklaces green jade bangles curiously packed incensesticks in jars crusted over with raw garnets the devilmasks of overnight and a wall of peacockblue draperies gilt figures of Buddha and little portable lacquer altars Russian samovars with turquoises on the lid eggshell china sets in quaint octagonal cane boxes yellow ivory crucifixes—from Japan of all places in the world so Lurgan Sahib said198 carpets in dusty bales smelling atrociously pushed back behind torn and rotten screens of geometrical work Persian waterjugs for the hands after meals dull copper incenseburners 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 Kims glance I buy them because they are pretty and sometimes I sell—if I like the buyers 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 bluewhite 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 Kims plate anew There is no one but me can doctor a sick pearl and reblue 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 waterjug 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 Kims elbow199 full to within half of 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 Sahibs smile showed that the compliment had gone home
Throw it back
It will break
I say throw it back
Kim pitched it at random It fell short and crashed into fifty pieces while the water dripped through the rough veranda boarding
I said it would break
All one Look at it Look at the largest piece
That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve as it were a star on the floor Kim looked intently Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently on the nape of the neck stroked it twice or thrice and whispered Look It shall come to life again piece by piece First the big piece shall join itself to two others on the right and 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 vise and his blood tingled pleasantly through him There was one large piece of the jar where there had been three and above them the shadowy outline of the entire vessel He could see the veranda through it but it was thickening and darkening with each beat of his pulse Yet the jar—how slowly the thoughts came—the jar had been smashed before his eyes Another wave of prickling fire raced down his neck as Lurgan Sahib moved his hand
Look It is coming into shape said Lurgan Sahib200
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 multiplicationtable 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 shadowoutline 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 housewall below—and thrice twelve was thirtysix
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 halfminute Kim wrenched his head aside Look Dekho It is there as it was there
It is there as it was there said Lurgan watching Kim closely while the boy rubbed his neck But you are the first of a many who have ever seen it so He wiped his broad forehead
Was that more magic Kim asked suspiciously The tingle had gone from his veins he felt unusually wide awake
No that was not magic It was only to see if there was—a flaw in a jewel Sometimes very fine jewels will201 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 any one ever done that same sort of magic to you before
If it was said Kim do you think I should let it again I should run away
And now you are not afraid—eh
Not now
Lurgan Sahib looked at him more closely than ever I shall ask Mahbub Ali—not now but some day later he muttered I am pleased with you—yes and I am pleased with you—no You are the first that ever saved himself I wish I knew what it was that But you are right You should not tell that—not even to me
He turned into the dusky gloom of the shop and sat down at the table rubbing his hands softly A small husky sob came from behind a pile of carpets It was the Hindu child obediently facing towards the wall his thin shoulders worked with grief
Ah He is jealous so jealous I wonder if he will try to poison me again in my breakfast and make me cook it twice
Kubbee—kubbee nahin came the broken answer
And whether he will kill this other boy202
Kubbee—kubbee nahin never—never No
What do you think he will do He turned suddenly on Kim
Oah I do not know Let him go perhaps Why did he want to poison you
Because he is so fond of me Suppose you were fond of some one and you saw some one come and the man you were fond of was more pleased with him than he was with you what would you do
Kim thought Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the vernacular
I should not poison that man said Kim reflectively but I should beat that boy—if that boy was fond of my man But first I would ask that boy if it were true
Ah He thinks every one must be fond of me
Then I think he is a fool
Hearest thou said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking shoulders The Sahibs 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 tablecloth that day It might have made me ill child and then a stranger would have guarded the jewels Come
The child heavyeyed with much weeping crept out from behind the bale and flung himself passionately at Lurgan Sahibs feet with an extravagance of remorse that impressed even Kim
I will look into the inkpools—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—and203 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 accountbook
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 pipestem 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 head204
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 fourruttee 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 balasruby flawed of two ruttees There is a carved ivory from China representing a rat sucking an egg and there is last—ah ha—a ball of crystal as big as a bean set in a gold leaf
He clapped his hands at the close
He is thy master said Lurgan Sahib smiling
Huh He knew the names of the stones said Kim flushing Try again With common things such as he and I both know
They heaped the tray again with odds and ends gathered from the shop and even the kitchen and every time the child won till Kim marvelled
Bind my eyes—let me feel once with my fingers and even then I will leave thee openeyed 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 better205 This playing with tweezers and knives and scissors is too little
Learn first—teach later said Lurgan Sahib Is he thy master
Truly But how is it done
By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly—for it is worth doing
The Hindu boy in highest feather actually patted Kim on the back
Do not despair he said I myself will teach thee
And I will see that thou art well taught said Lurgan Sahib still speaking in the vernacular for except my boy here—it was foolish of him to buy so much white arsenic when if he had asked I could have given it—except my boy here I have not in a long time met with one better worth teaching And there are ten days more ere thou canst return to Lucknow where they teach nothing—at the long price We shall I think be friends
They were a most mad ten days but Kim enjoyed himself too much to reflect on their craziness In the morning they played the Jewel Game—sometimes with veritable stones sometimes with piles of swords and daggers sometimes with photographs of natives Through the afternoons he and the Hindu boy would mount guard in the shop sitting dumb behind a carpetbale or a screen and watching Mr Lurgans 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 independent206 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 longcoated theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics in English and Bengali to Mr Lurgans great edification He was always interested in religions At the end of the day Kim and the Hindu boy—whose name varied at Lurgans pleasure—were expected to give a detailed account of all that they had seen and heard—their view of each mans character as shown in his face talk and manner and their notions of his real errand After dinner Lurgan Sahibs fancy turned more to what might be called dressingup in which game he took a most informing interest He could paint faces to a marvel with a brushdab 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 hawks eye to detect the least flaw in the makeup and lying on a worn teakwood couch would explain by the halfhour 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 enter207 anothers soul but a demon in Kim woke up and sang with joy as he put on the changing dresses and changed speech and gesture therewith
Carried away by enthusiasm he volunteered to show Lurgan Sahib one evening how the disciples of a certain caste of faquir old Lahore acquaintances begged doles by the roadside and what sort of language he would use to an Englishman to a Punjabi farmer going to a fair and to a woman without a veil Lurgan Sahib laughed immensely and begged Kim to stay as he was immobile for half an hour—crosslegged ashsmeared and wildeyed 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 chainman Because then I shall indent for him
That is what he must learn at Lucknow
Then order him to be jolly damquick Goodnight Lurgan The Babu swung out with the gait of a bogged cow
When they were telling over the days 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 pearls208
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 redpainted veranda behind that which was the old theatre in the Lower Bazar and whispered through the shutters Hurree Chunder Mookerjee bore the bad news of last month that boy might take away a belt full of rupees
How many said Kim promptly
Five hundred—a thousand—as many as he might ask for
Good And how long might such a boy live after the news was told He smiled merrily at Lurgan Sahibs 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 Babus pay if so much is put upon his head209
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 faroff things tomorrow of some hidden mountain and the next day of some nearby 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 chainman
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 OHara 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 Kims 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 whalelike Babu who with a fringed shawl210 wrapped round his head and his fat openworkstockinged 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 jellyback as they jolted down the road and the reflection threw him into most pleasant daydreams 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 Alis sake Meantime there was the present and not at all unpleasant fact of St Xaviers 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 teaplanter at Manipur had boasted that he would go to war with a rifle against the headhunters 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 Xaviers—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 had211 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 Xaviers from Sukkur in the sands to Galle beneath the palms none was so filled with virtue as Kimball OHara jiggeting down to Umballa behind Hurree Chunder Mookerjee whose name on the books of one section of the Ethnological Survey was R17
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 Wordsworths 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 secondhand 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 examination212 in these branches—for which by the way there were no crambooks—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 measuringchains a boy would do well to know the precise length of his own footpace 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 Chunders experience had shown him nothing more valuable than a rosary of eightyone or a hundred and eight beads for it was divisible and subdivisible into many multiples and submultiples Through the volleying drifts of English Kim caught the general trend of the talk and it interested him very much Here was a new craft that a man could tuck away in his head and by the look of the large wide world unfolding itself before him it seemed that the more a man knew the better for him
I am the woman of Shamlegh I am the woman of Shamlegh
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 betelbox which is highly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago It was a cheap heartshaped brass thing with three compartments for carrying the eternal betelnut lime and panleaf but it was filled with little tabloidbottles 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 and213 they are handy to cure poor people too These are good departmental drugs—quinine and so on I give it you for souvenir Now goodbye I have urgent private business here by the roadside
He slipped out noiselessly as a cat on the Umballa road hailed a passing ekka and jingled away while Kim tonguetied twiddled the brass betelbox in his hands
The record of a boys education interests few save his parents and as you know Kim was an orphan It is written in the books of St Xavier in Partibus that a report of Kims 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 mapmaking and carried away a prize The Life of Lord Lawrence treecalf two vols nine rupees eight annas for proficiency therein and the same term played in St Xaviers eleven against the Allyghur Mohammedan College his age being fourteen years and ten months He was also revaccinated 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 musterroll record that he was punished several times for conversing with improper persons and it seems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for absenting himself for a day in the company of a street beggar That was when he got over the gate and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down the banks of the Goomtee to accompany him on the Road next holidays—for one month—for214 a little week and the lama set his face as a flint against it averring that the time had not yet come Kims 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 years batch of those who entered for the subordinate Survey of India but against it stand the words removed on appointment
Several times in those three years cast up at the Temple of the Tirthankers in Benares the lama a little thinner and a shade yellower if that were possible but gentle and untainted as ever Sometimes it was from the South that he came—from south of Tuticorin whence the wonderful fireboats go to Ceylon where are priests who know Pali sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand cottonfactory chimneys that ring Bombay and once from the North where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk a day with the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House He would stride to his cell in the cool cut marble—the priests of the temple were good to the old man—wash off the dust of travel make prayer and depart for Lucknow well accustomed now to the ways of the rail in a thirdclass carriage Returning it was noticeable as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the headpriest 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 certain215 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 whitehaired Keepers of Images possess For example here came out the snuffgourd and the kindly Jain priests made haste to be silent—
Long and long ago when Devadatta was King of Benares—let all listen to the Jataka—an elephant was captured for a time by the kings 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 brotherelephants to wrench it asunder One by one with their strong trunks they tried and failed At the last they gave it as their opinion that the ring was not to be broken by any bestial power And in a thicket newborn wet with the moisture of birth lay a dayold 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 calfs guide and defence Now the days of an elephant—let all listen to the Jataka—are thirtyfive years to his full strength and through216 thirtyfive 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 halfburied iron and turning to the elder said What is this It is even my sorrow said he who had befriended him Then that other put out his trunk and in the twinkling of an eyelash abolished the ring saying The appointed time has come So the virtuous elephant who had waited temperately and done kind acts was relieved at the appointed time by the very calf whom he had turned aside to cherish—let all listen to the Jataka—for the Elephant was Ananda and the Calf that broke the ring was none other than The Lord Himself
Then he would shake his head benignly and over the everclicking rosary point out how free that elephant calf was from the sin of pride He was as humble as a chela who seeing his master sitting in the dust outside the Gates of Learning overleapt the gates though they were locked and took his master to his heart in the presence of the proudstomached 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 sharptongued old woman in a house among the fruittrees 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 freetongued brat who had talked to her in the restingplace Once too he strayed alone217 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 ressaldars 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 Queens 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 horsedealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India in holiday time was absurd218 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
219
CHAPTER X
Your tiercels too long at hack Sire Hes no eyass
But a passagehawk that footed ere we caught him
Dangerously free o the air Faith were he mine
As mines the glove he binds to for his tirings
Id fly him with a makehawk Hes in yarak
Plumed to the very point—so manned so weathered
Give him the firmament God made him for
And what shall take the air of him
—Old Play
LURGAN SAHIB did not use as direct speech but his advice tallied with Mahbubs 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 Mahbubs camp he headed and made his change under the Pathans wary eye Could the little Survey paintbox that he used for maptinting in termtime 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 tramhorses 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 hangeron of the dealer Abdul Rahman fetched better prices than mere Cabulis220
He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when Mahbub and a few coreligionists were invited to a big Haj dinner They came back by way of Karachi by sea when Kim took his first experience of seasickness sitting on the forehatch of a coastingsteamer well persuaded he had been poisoned The Babus famous drugbox 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 officebox 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 Mahbubs 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—deducting221 ten days for private amusements—with Lurgan Sahib where he sat for the most part in front of a roaring woodfire—Jakkoroad 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 feverfits 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 examinationpaper that concerned itself solely with rods and chains and links and angles
Next holidays he was out with Mahbub and here by the way he nearly died of thirst plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikaneer where the wells are four hundred feet deep and lined throughout with camelbone It was not an amusing trip from Kims 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 horseboys and pipetenders are not expected to drag Surveychains 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 had222 been fed—and by the help of his little Survey paintbox of six colourcakes and three brushes he achieved something not remotely unlike the city of Jeysalmir Mahbub laughed a great deal and advised him to make up a written report as well and in the back of the big accountbook that lay under the flap of Mahbubs pet saddle Kim fell to work
It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or considered Write as though the JungiLat 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 Xaviers running script and the brown yellow and lakedaubed map was on hand a few years ago a careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E23s second Seistan survey but by now the pencil characters must be almost illegible Kim translated it sweating under the light of an oillamp to Mahbub the second day of their returnjourney The Pathan rose and stooped over his dappled saddlebags
I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour and so I made one ready he said smiling Were I Amir of223 Afghanistan and some day we may see him I would fill thy mouth with gold He laid the garments formally at Kims feet There was a goldembroidered Peshawur turbancap rising to a cone and a big turbancloth ending in a broad fringe of gold There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milkywhite shirt fastening to the right ample and flowing green pyjamas with twisted silk waiststring and that nothing might be lacking russialeather 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 Kims delighted breath away with a motherofpearl nickelplated selfextracting 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 Mahbubs feet to make proper acknowledgment with fluttering quickpatting 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 next224 the skin which as it were keeps it oiled Never put it elsewhere and please God thou shalt some day kill a man with it
Hai mai said Kim ruefully If a Sahib kills a man he is hung in the jail
True but one pace beyond the Border men are wiser Put it away but fill it first Of what use is a gun unfed
When I go back to the madrissah I must return it They do not allow little guns Thou wilt keep it for me
Son I am wearied of that madrissah where they take the best years of a man to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road The folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom No matter Maybe thy written report shall save thee further bondage and God He knows we need men more and more in the Game
They marched jawbound against blowing sand across the salt desert to Jodhpore where Mahbub and his handsome nephew HabibUllah did much trading and then sorrowfully in European clothes which he was fast outgrowing Kim went secondclass to St Xaviers Three weeks later Colonel Creighton pricing Tibetan ghostdaggers at Lurgans 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 horsedealer 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 Sahib225
You impenitent old heathen Creighton turned to Lurgan The black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghans 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 inkpool 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 any one 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 youre 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 camelcolts—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
E23 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 mans job said Creighton
It was a wrynecked matter of unauthorised and incendiary correspondence between a person who claimed to be the ultimate authority in all matters of the226 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 overarrogant 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 E23 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 horsedealer 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 Gods curse upon all— Mahbub checked himself He beds down at the Temple of the Tirthankers or at Buddh Gaya when he is in from the Road Then he goes to see the boy at the madrissah as we know for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice He is quite mad but a peaceful man I have met him The Babu also has had dealings with him We have watched him for three years Red Lamas are not so common in Hind that one loses track
Babus are very curious said Lurgan meditatively Do you know what Hurree Babu really wants He wants to be made a member of the Royal Society by taking ethnological notes I tell you I tell him about227 the lama everything that Mahbub and the boy have told me Hurree Babu goes down to Benares—at his own expense I think
I dont said Creighton briefly He had paid Hurrees 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 F R S
Hurree thinks well of the boy doesnt 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 wont 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 S228 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 silverhaired baldheaded gentlemen who know nothing of the Army move among spectroscopic experiments the lesser plants of the frozen tundras electric flightmeasuring machines and apparatus for slicing into fractional millimetres the left eye of the female mosquito By all right and reason it was the Royal Geographical that should have appealed to him but men are as chancy as children in their choice of playthings So Creighton smiled and thought the better of Hurree Babu moved by like desires
He dropped the ghostdagger and looked up at Mahbub
How soon can we get the colt from the stable said the horsedealer 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
He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled as a man who has won Salvation for himself and his beloved He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled as a man who has won Salvation for himself and his beloved
229
Its only a boy after all
Yees 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 horsedealer
Food and water allowance only Twenty rupees a month
One advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no worrying audit The service is ludicrously starved of course but the funds are administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or present itemised accounts Mahbubs eyes lighted with almost a Sikhs love of money Even Lurgans 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 E23 what E23 was out of a bewildered impertinent lying little NorthWest Province man
But the joy of these masters was pale and smoky beside the joy of Kim when St Xaviers Head called him aside with word that Colonel Creighton had sent for him
I understand OHara that he has found you a place as an assistant chainman in the Canal Department that comes of taking up mathematics It is great luck for you for you are only seventeen but of course you understand that you do not become pukka permanent till you have passed the autumn examination So you must not think you are going out into the world to enjoy yourself or that your fortune is made There is a great230 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 AngloIndian lads can of favouritism and corruption Indeed young Cazalet whose father was a pensioner at Chunar hinted very broadly that Colonel Creightons 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 Mahbubs 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 Principals hair with horror
Said Kim to Mahbub in Lucknow railway station that evening above the luggagescales—I feared lest at the last the roof would fall upon me and cheat me Is it indeed all finished O my father
Mahbub snapped his fingers to show the utterness of that end and his eyes blazed like red coals
Then where is the pistol that I may wear it
Softly A halfyear to run without heelropes 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 Sahibs231
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 Huneefas house
On the way thither Mahbub gave him much the same sort of advice as his mother gave to Lemuel and curiously enough Mahbub was exact to point out how Huneefa and her likes destroyed kings
And I remember he quoted maliciously one who said Trust a snake before a harlot and a harlot before a Pathan Mahbub Ali Now excepting as to Pathans of whom I am one all that is true Most true is it in the Great Game for it is by means of woman that all plans come to ruin and we lie out in dawning with our throats cut So it happened to such a one—he gave the reddest particulars
Then why— Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an upper chamber in the ward that is behind Azim Ullahs tobaccoshop 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 halfsmoked 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 arm232 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 doorcurtain
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 paintbox and the newfilled medicinebox 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 fairskin Strip to the waist now and look how thou art whitened Huneefa felt her way233 back from an inner room It is no matter she cannot see He took a pewter bowl from her ringed hand
The dyestuff showed blue and gummy Kim experimented on the back of his wrist with a dab of cotton wool but Huneefa heard him
No no she cried the thing is not done thus but with the proper ceremonies The colouring is the least part I give thee the full protection of the Road
Jadoo magic said Kim with a half start He did not like the white sightless eyes Mahbubs 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 clishclash of her jewellery for many minutes A match lit up the darkness he caught the wellknown 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 Mahbubs 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 Protection234
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 Huneefas face turned to the northward worked horribly and it was as though voices from the ceiling answered her
Hurree Babu returned to his notebook balanced on the windowsill but his hand shook Huneefa in some sort of drugged ecstasy wrenched herself to and fro as she sat crosslegged by Kims still head and called upon devil after devil in the ancient order of the ritual binding them to avoid the boys every action
With Him are the keys of the Secret Things None knoweth them beside Himself He knoweth that which is in the dry land and in the sea Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses
I—I apprehend it is not at all malignant in its operation said the Babu watching the throatmuscles 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 Eblis235 are far otherwise and whether they be jumalee wellaffected or jullalee terrible they love not Kafirs
Then you think I had better go said Hurree Babu half rising They are of course dematerialised phenomena Spencer says—
Huneefas 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 nonexistent said Hurree Babu talking English to reassure himself It is an awful thing still to dread the magic that you contemptuously investigate—to collect folklore 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 freethinker but when one can get blindsides of a woman a stallion or a devil why go round to invite a kick Set him upon the way Babu and see that old Red Hat does not lead him beyond our reach I must get back to my horses
All raight said Hurree Babu He is at present a curious spectacle
About third cockcrow Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of years Huneefa in her corner snored heavily but Mahbub was gone
I hope you were not frightened said an oily voice at236 his elbow I superintended entire operation which was most interesting from ethnological point of view It was highclass dawut
Huh said Kim recognising Hurree Babu who smiled ingratiatingly
And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present costume I am not in the habit offeecially of carrying such gauds to subordinates but—he giggled—your case is noted as exceptional on the books I hope Mr Lurgan will note my action
Kim yawned and stretched himself It was good to turn and twist within loose clothes once again
What is this He looked curiously at the heavy dufflestuff 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 gentlemans precise religion but rather subvariant of same I have contributed rejected notes to Asiatic Quarterly Review on these subjects Now it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of religiosity He is not a dam particular
Do you know him
Hurree Babu held up his hand to show he was engaged in the prescribed rites that accompany toothcleaning and such things among decently bred Bengalis Then he recited in English an AryaSomaj 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 religious237 points and devilworship He is pure agnostic—same as me
Huneefa stirred in her sleep and Hurree Babu jumped nervously to the copper incenseburner all black and discoloured in morninglight rubbed a finger in the accumulated lampblack and drew it diagonally across his face
Who has died in thy house asked Kim in the vernacular
None But she may have the Evil Eye—that sorceress the Babu replied
What dost thou do now then
I will set thee on thy way to Benares if thou goest thither and tell thee what must be known by Us
I go At what hour runs the terain He rose to his feet looked round the desolate chamber and at the yellowwax 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 Mahbubs desire In English He is highly obsolete I think to indulge in such supersteetion Why it is all ventriloquy Bellyspeak—eh
Kim snapped his fingers mechanically to avert whatever evil—Mahbub he knew meditated none—might have crept in through Huneefas ministrations and Hurree giggled once more But as he crossed the room he was careful not to step in Huneefas blotched squat shadow on the boards Witches—when their time is on them—can lay hold of the heels of a mans soul if he does that
Now you must well listen said the Babu when they were in the fresh air Part of these ceremonies which238 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 hawadilli a heartlifter 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 Huneefas lookout 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 damtight place I am a fearful man—most fearful—but I tell you I have been in damtight 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 shouldercloth 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 supposed239 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 jollywellcutyourthroat they may give you just a chance for life That is useful anyhow And moreover these foolish natives—if they are not too excited—they always stop to think before they kill a man who says he belongs to any specific organisation You see You say then when you are in tight place I am Son of the Charm and you get—perhaps—ah—your second wind That is only in extreme instances or to open negotiations with a stranger Can you quite see Verree good But suppose now I or 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 testsentence
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 thoseall things And so it is with any other man of us We talk sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about240 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 halfyear of leave is to make you deEnglishised you see The lama he expects you because I have demioffeecially informed him you have passed all your examinations and will soon obtain Government appointment Oh ho You are on actingallowance you see so if you are called upon to help Sons of the Charm mind you jolly well try Now I shall say goodbye my dear fellow and I hope you—ah—will come out topside 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 nickelplated revolver he could feel in the bosom of his sadcoloured robe the amulet was on his neck begginggourd rosary and ghostdagger Mr Lurgan had forgotten nothing were all to hand with medicine paintbox and compass and in a worn old pursebelt embroidered with porcupine quillpatterns lay a months pay Kings could be no richer He bought sweetmeats in a leafcup from a Hindu trader and ate them with glad rapture till a policeman ordered him off the steps
241
CHAPTER XI
Give the man who is not made
To his trade
Swords to fling and catch again
Coins to ring and snatch again
Men to harm and cure again
Snakes to charm and lure again—
Hell 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
Chanceflung fruit or borrowed staff
Serve his need and shore his power
Bind the spell or loose the laugh
But a man who etc Op 15
FOLLOWED a sudden natural reaction
Now am I alone—all alone he thought In all India is no one so alone as I If I die 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 themselves242 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 waitingroom rapt from all other thoughts hands folded in lap and pupils contracted to pinpoints In a minute—in another half second—he felt he would arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle but here as always happens his mind dropped away from those heights with the rush of a wounded bird and passing his hand before his eyes he shook his head
A longhaired 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 KashiBenares
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 lamas pet words Though—he forgot his Northern dress for the moment—though Allah alone knoweth what I seek
The old fellow slipped the bairagis crutch under his243 armpit and sat down on a patch of ruddy leopards 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 masters magical gifts
Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city though it was pleasant to find how his cloth was respected At least onethird of the population prays eternally to some group or other of the many million deities and so revere every sort of holy man Kim was guided to the Temple of the Tirthankers about a mile outside the city near Sarnath by a chancemet Punjabi farmer—a Kamboh from Jullundurway 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 changed244 his name when the fever came We put him into girls 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 downcountry Gods are strangers
The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked at Kim through heavy eyelids
And was it all worthless Kim asked with easy interest
All worthless—all worthless said the child lips cracking with fever
The Gods have given him a good mind at least said the father proudly To think he should have listened so cleverly Yonder is thy temple Now I am a poor man—many priests have dealt with me—but my son is my son and if a gift to thy master can cure him—I am at my very wits end
Kim considered for a while tingling with pride Three years ago he would have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way without a thought but now the very respect the Jat paid him proved that he was a man Moreover he had tasted fever once or twice already and knew enough to recognise starvation when he saw it
Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke so that the child is cured
Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple A whiteclad 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 him245
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 waistbelt and drew out a small silver coin
What is now The lamas eyes turned to Kim It was noticeable he spoke far clearer Urdu than long ago under ZamZammah but the father would allow no private talk
It is no more than a fever said Kim The child is not well fed
He sickens at everything and his mother is not here
If it be permitted I may cure Holy One
What Have they made thee a healer Wait here said the lama and he sat down by the Jat upon the lowest step of the temple while Kim looking out of the corner of his eyes slowly opened the little betelbox He had dreamed dreams at school of returning to the246 lama as a Sahib—of chaffing the old man before he revealed himself—boys dreams all There was more drama in this abstracted browpuckered search through the tabloidbottles with a pause here and there for thought and a muttered invocation between whiles Quinine he had in tablets and dark brown meatlozenges—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 Kings 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 own247 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 clubwielders 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 Xaviers forgetting his white blood forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped Mohammedan fashion to touch his masters 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 ZamZammah
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 by248 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 chaplains 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 teadrinkings 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 it249 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 terain 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 crosslegged attitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation a black teakwood table not twenty inches high set with copper teacups was before him In one corner stood a tiny altar also of heavily carved teak bearing a coppergilt image of the seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp an incenseholder and a pair of copper flowerpots
The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by giving me these a year since he said following Kims eye When one is far from ones own land such things carry remembrance and we must reverence the Lord for that He showed the Way See he pointed to a curiouslybuilt mound of coloured rice crowned with a fantastic metal ornament When I250 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 prides sake but because thou must learn The Sahibs have not all this worlds wisdom
He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellowChinese paper the brushes and slab of India ink In cleanest severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes whose centre is the conjoined Hog Snake and Dove Ignorance Anger and Lust and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells and all the chances of human life Men say that the Bodhisat Himself first drew it with grains of rice upon dust to teach His disciples the cause of things Many ages have crystallised it into a most wonderful convention crowded with hundreds of little figures whose every line carries a meaning Few can translate the pictureparable 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 marvels251
I have written it for many years said the lama Time was when I could write it all between one lamplighting and the next I will teach thee the art—after due preparation and I will show thee the meaning of the Wheel
We take the Road then
The Road and our Search I was but waiting for thee It was made plain to me in a hundred dreams—notably one that came upon the night of the day that the Gates of Learning first shut—that without thee I should never find my River Again and again as thou knowest I put this from me fearing an illusion Therefore I would not take thee with me that day at Lucknow when we ate the cakes I would not take thee till the time was ripe and auspicious From the Hills to the Sea from the Sea to the Hills have I gone but it was vain Then I remembered the Jataka
He told Kim the story of the elephant with the legiron as he had told it so often to the Jain priests
Further testimony is not needed he ended serenely Thou wast sent for an aid That aid removed my Search came to naught Therefore we will go out again together and our Search is sure
Whither go we
What matters Friend of all the World The Search I say is sure If need be the River will break from the ground before us I acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning and gave thee the jewel that is Wisdom Thou didst return I saw even now a follower of Sakyamuni the Physician whose altars are many in Bhotiyal It is sufficient We are together and all things are as they were—Friend of all the World—Friend of the Stars—my chela252
Then they talked of matters secular but it was noticeable that the lama never demanded any details of life at St Xaviers 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 ghostdagger and rosary The clamour of Benares oldest of all earths cities awake before the Gods day and night beat round the walls as the seas roar round a breakwater Now and again a Jain priest crossed the court with some small offering to the images and swept the path about him lest by chance he should take the life of a living thing A lamp twinkled and there followed the sound of a prayer Kim watched the stars as they rose one after another in the still sticky dark till he fell asleep at the foot of the altar That night he dreamed in Hindustanee with never an English word
Holy One there is the child to whom we gave the medicine he said about three oclock 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 oxcart in the way253 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 Europeans lust for fleshmeat which is not accessible in a Jain temple Yet instead of going out at once with the beggingbowl 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 childs face and it smiled sleepily at Kim A little knot of Jain priests silent but allobservant 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 background254 upon his hosts of three years Was there ever such a chela He follows our Lord the Healer
Now the Jains officially recognise all the Gods of the Hindu creed as well as the Lingam and the Snake They wear the Brahminical thread they adhere to every claim of Hindu castelaw 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 headpriest—as freethinking 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 sadcoloured 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 the255 young saint of a stainedglass 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 faraway Tibet a silverfaced 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 betelbox a fine new iron pencase a foodbag 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 Xaviers
But it is my own fault he concluded With Mahbub I ate Mahbubs bread or Lurgan Sahibs At St Xaviers 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 templegates closed We grow stiff I think
The weight of a sixfoot 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 bluerobed and smiling hove in sight a basket in one hand and the child on the other
Fall to Holy Ones he cried from fifty yards They were by the shoal under the first bridgespan out of sight of hungry priests Rice and good curry cakes256 all warm and well scented with hing asafœtida 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 fivefoot malebamboo ringed with bands of polished iron—and flourished it in the air The Jats are called quarrelsome but that is not true Except when we are crossed we are like our own buffaloes
So be it said Kim A good stick is a good reason
The lama gazed placidly upstream where in long smudged perspective the ceaseless columns of smoke go up from the burningghats by the river Now and again despite all municipal regulations the fragment of a halfburned body bobbed by on the full current
But for thee said the Kamboh to Kim drawing his 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 shavedhead vows257 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 Jullundurdoab 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 fruittrees 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 terain One does not own to the possession of money in India
Then in the name of the Gods let us take the firecarriage My son is best in his mothers arms The Government has brought on us many taxes but it gives us one good thing—the terain that joins friends and unites the anxious A wonderful matter is the terain
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 lamas walk and work in life and received some curious answers Kim was content to be where he was to look out upon the flat NorthWestern landscape and to talk to the changing258 mob of fellowpassengers Even today tickets and ticketclipping 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 ticketcollectors Kim assisted at two or three with grave advice meant to darken council and to show off his wisdom before the lama and the admiring Kamboh But at Somna Road the Fates sent him a matter to think upon There tumbled into the compartment as the train was moving off a mean lean little person—a Mahratta so far as Kim could judge by the cock of the tight turban His face was cut his muslin uppergarment was badly torn and one leg was bandaged He told them that a countrycart 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 gravelrash 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 keeperup of the heart Now amulets are common enough but they are not generally strung on squareplaited 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 Mahrattas face changed altogether at the sight and he disposed the amulet fairly on his breast259
Yes he went on to the Kamboh I was in haste and the cart driven by a bastard bound its wheel in a watercut and besides the harm done to me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean I was not a Son of the Charm a lucky man that day
That was a great loss said Kamboh withdrawing interest His experience of Benares had made him suspicious
Who cooked it said Kim
A woman The Mahratta raised his eyes
But all women can cook tarkeean said the Kamboh It is a good curry as I know
Oh yes it is a good curry said the Mahratta
And cheap said Kim But what about caste
Oh there is no caste where men go to—look for tarkeean the Mahratta replied in the prescribed cadence Of whose service art thou
Of the service of this Holy One Kim pointed to the happy drowsy lama who woke with a jerk at the wellloved 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 chancemet260 wastrels My ears are not long I am not a woman wishing to overhear secrets The Jat slid himself heavily into a far corner
Art thou anything of a healer I am ten leagues deep in calamity cried the Mahratta picking up the cue
The man is cut and bruised all over I go about to cure him Kim retorted None interfered between thy babe and me
I am rebuked said the Kamboh meekly I am thy debtor for the life of my son Thou art a miracleworker—I know it
Show me the cuts Kim bent over the Mahrattas 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 E23s 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 Queens Stone at Chitor in the place known to us all261
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 Queens law and east again lie Jeypur and Gwalior Neither love spies and there is no justice I was hunted like a wet jackal but I broke through at Bandakui where I heard there was a charge against me of murder in the city I had left—of the murder of a boy They have both the corpse and the witnesses waiting
But cannot the Government protect
We of the Game are beyond protection If we die we die Our names are blotted from the book That is all At Bandakui where lives one of us I thought to slip the scent by changing my face and so made me a Mahratta Then I came to Agra and would have turned back to Chitor to recover the letter So sure I was I had slipped them Therefore I did not send a tar telegram to 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 recognised me as his agent for cotton May he burn in Hell for it
And wast thou
O fool I was the man they sought for the matter of the letter I ran into the Fleshers Ward and came out by the House of the Jew who feared a riot and pushed me forth I came afoot to Somna Road—I had only money for my tikkut to Delhi—and there while I lay in a ditch with a fever one sprang out of the bushes and262 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 terain 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 doctorfashion at the mans 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 miracleworker 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 teacher263
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 fingertip of bitterness on the childs 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 mans 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 pipebowl 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—grayish roughground native flour—twists of downcountry tobacco tawdry pipestems and a packet of currystuff 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 Lurgans he spoke no more than the truth There is a great evil in this mans fortune as shown by the stars which—which troubles him Shall I take it away264
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 Kambohs flour with the mingled charcoal and tobacco ash in the redearth bowl of the pipe E23 without a word slipped off his turban and shook down his long black hair
That is my food—priest the Jat growled
A buffalo in the temple Hast thou dared to look even thus far said Kim I must do mysteries before fools but have a care for thy eyes Is there a film before them already I save the babe and for return thou—oh shameless The man flinched at the direct gaze for Kim was wholly in earnest Shall I curse thee or shall I— He picked up the outer cloth of the bundle and threw it over the bowed head Dare so much as to think a wish to see and—and—even I cannot save thee Sit Be dumb
I am blind—dumb Forbear to curse Co—come child we will play a game of hiding Do not for my sake look from under the cloth
I see hope said E23 What is thy scheme
This comes next said Kim plucking the thin bodyshirt E23 hesitated with all a NorthWest mans dislike of baring his body
What is caste to a cut throat said Kim rending it to the waist We must make thee a yellow Saddhu all over Strip—strip swiftly and shake thy hair over thy eyes while I scatter the ash Now a castemark on thy forehead He drew from his bosom the little Survey paintbox and a cake of crimson lake265
Art thou only a beginner said E23 labouring literally for the dear life as he slid out of his bodywrappings and stood clear in the loincloth while Kim splashed in a noble castemark on the ashsmeared 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 tightrolled turbancloth and with swiftest hands rolled it over and under about his loins into the intricate devices of a Saddhus 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 Jats 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 Saddhus tongs What of the old clothes
Kim rolled them small and stuffed them into the slack folds of his tunic With a yellowochre paint cake he smeared the legs and breast great streaks against the background of flour ash and turmeric
The blood on them is enough to hang thee brother
May be but no need to throw them out of the window It is finished His voice thrilled with a boys pure delight in the Game Turn and look O Jat
The Gods protect us said the hooded Kamboh emerging like a buffalo from the reeds But—whither went the Mahratta What hast thou done
Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib and E23266 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 ashsmeared ochrebarred dustyhaired Saddhu his swollen eyes—opium takes quick effect on an empty stomach—luminous with insolence and bestial lust his legs crossed under him Kims brown rosary round his neck and a scant yard of worn flowered chintz on his shoulders The child buried his face in his amazed fathers 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 kitchenmidden 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 chickenman said Kim and even the abashed Jat laughed I have done a healing on this poor trader He must forsake his gains and his accountbooks and sit by the wayside three nights to overcome the malignity of his enemies The Stars are against him
The fewer moneylenders 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 burningghat not two days ago There267 remains one thing more I did this charm in thy presence because need was great I changed his shape and his soul None the less if by any chance O man from Jullundur thou rememberest what thou hast seen either among the elders sitting under the village tree or in thy own house or in company of thy priest when he blesses thy cattle a murrain will come among the buffaloes and a fire in thy thatch and rats in the cornbin and the curse of our Gods upon thy fields that they may be barren before thy feet and after thy ploughshare This was part of an old curse picked up from a faquir by the Taksali Gate in the days of Kims 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 Kims 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 mans 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 pupil268 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 lamplighting time
269
CHAPTER XII
Who hath desired the Sea—the sight of saltwater unbounded
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber windhounded
The sleekbarrelled swell before storm—gray foamless enormous and growing
Stark calm on the lap of the Line—or the crazyeyed 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 Hillmen desire their Hills
I HAVE found my heart again said E23 under cover of the platforms 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 yellowtrousered 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 lawyers tout
See the young Sahib reading from a paper My270 description is in his hand said E23 They go carriage by carriage like fisherfolk 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 firetongs which are the Saddhus 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 holybolies 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 taroffice 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 Englishmans arms and was badworded in clumsy Urdu
Tummut You drunk You mustnt bang about as though Delhi station belonged to you my friend
E23 not moving a muscle of his countenance answered271 with a stream of the filthiest abuse at which Kim naturally rejoiced It reminded him of the drummerboys and the barracksweepers at Umballa in the terrible time of his first schooling
My good fool the Englishman drawled Nicklejao Go back to your carriage
Step by step withdrawing deferentially and dropping his voice the yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage cursing the D S P to remotest posterity by—here Kim almost jumped—by the curse of the Queens Stone by the writing under the Queens Stone and by an assortment of Gods with wholly new names
I dont know what youre saying—the Englishman flushed angrily—but its 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 Saddhus 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 cadgeful of yelling hawks272 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 cameldrivers 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 telegraphoffice
Return or they take thy place Have no fear for the work brother—or my life Thou hast given me breathingspace 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 Mahratta273 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 Kambohs child
The lama snuffed blandly
Ah chela see how thou art overtaken Thou didst cure the Kambohs 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 Kims vanity and for the lamas peace of mind when we think that there was then being handed in at Simla a codewire reporting the arrival of E23 at Delhi and more important the whereabouts of a letter he had been commissioned to—abstract Incidentally an overzealous policeman had arrested on charge of murder done in a far southern State a horribly indignant Ajmir cottonbroker who274 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 faraway Roum—where it disturbed a pious man at prayers
The lama made his in ample form near the dewy bougainvilleatrellis 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 terain—though a wonderful thing—has turned my bones to water We will use clean air henceforward
Let us go to the Kulu womans house said Kim and stepped forth cheerily under the bundles Early morning Saharunporeway is clean and well scented He thought of the other mornings at St Xaviers and it topped his already thriceheaped contentment
Where is this new haste born from Wise men do not run about like chickens in the sun We have come hundreds upon hundreds of kos already and till now I have scarcely been alone with thee an instant How canst thou receive instruction all jostled of crowds How can I whelmed by a flux of talk meditate upon the Way
Her tongue grows no shorter with the years then The disciple smiled
Nor her desire for charms I remember once when I spoke of the Wheel of Life—the lama fumbled in his275 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 afteroccasion—softly softly Now we will wander loosefoot waiting upon the Chain of Things The Search is sure
So they travelled very easily across and among the broad bloomful fruitgardens—by way of Aminabad Sahaigunge Akrola of the Ford and little Phulesa—the line of the Sewaliks always to the north and behind them again the snows After long sweet sleep under the dry stars came the lordly leisurely passage through a waking village—beggingbowl held forth in silence but eyes roving in defiance of the Law from skys edge to skys edge Then would Kim return softfooted 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 midday 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 demiGods—horsemen fighting among the hills Here were the276 agonies done upon the beasts souls ascending or descending the ladder and therefore not to be interfered with Here were the Hells hot and cold and the abodes of tormented ghosts Let the chela study the troubles that come from overeating—bloated stomach and burning bowels Obediently then with bowed head and brown finger alert to follow the pointer did the chela study but when they came to the Human World busy and profitless that is just above the Hells his mind was distracted for by the roadside trundled the very Wheel itself eating drinking trading marrying and quarrelling—all warmly alive Often the lama made the living pictures the matter of his text bidding Kim—too ready—note how the flesh takes a thousand thousand shapes desirable or detestable as men reckon but in truth of no account either way and how the stupid spirit bondslave to the Hog the Dove and the Serpent—lusting after betelnut 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 Kims 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 hand277
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 terain but my spirit sits above my bones waiting The Search is sure
I am answered Is it permitted to ask a question
The lama inclined his stately head
I ate thy bread for three years—as thou knowest Holy One whence came—
There is much wealth as men count it in Bhotiyal the lama returned with composure In my own place I have the illusion of honour I ask for that I need I am not concerned with the account That is for my monastery Ai The black high seats in the monastery and the novices all in order
And he told stories tracing with a finger in the dust of the immense and sumptuous ritual of avalancheguarded cathedrals of processions and devildances 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 adored278
Each long perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him off from his race and his mothertongue He slipped back to thinking and dreaming in the vernacular and mechanically followed the lamas ceremonial observances at eating drinking and the like The old mans 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 grasstangled 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 overeating 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 cropland bearing a basket of fruits with a box of Cabul grapes and gilt oranges a whitewhiskered servitor—a lean dry Oorya—begging them to bring the279 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 cows manger telling stories to a village smiths 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 soninlaw who was under the thumb of his womenfolk and bought peace by borrowing of the moneylender 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 beggarbrat of the parao she shrilled I have not forgotten thee Wash ye and eat The father of my daughters 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 smokescented evening copperdun 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 received280 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 polissahib—called the Maharanee whose face he—
Chitt That was on the pilgrimage When we travel—thou knowest the proverb
Called the Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of Delights
To remember that It was true So he did That was in the time of the bloom of my beauty She chuckled like a contented parrot above the sugar lump Now tell me of thy goings and comings—as much as may be without shame How many maids and whose wives hang upon thy eyelashes Ye hail from Benares I would have gone there again this year but my daughter—we have only two sons Phaii Such is the effect of these low plains Now in Kulu men are elephants But I would ask thy Holy One—stand aside rogue—a charm against most lamentable windy colics that in mangotime overtake my daughters eldest Two years back he gave me a powerful spell
Oh Holy One said Kim bubbling with mirth at the lamas rueful face
It is true I gave her one against wind
Teeth—teeth—teeth snapped the old woman
Cure them when they are sick Kim quoted relishingly but by no means work charms Remember what befell the Mahratta
That was two Rains ago she wearied me with her continual importunity The lama groaned as the Unjust Judge had groaned before him Thus it comes—take note my chela—that even those who would281 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 boys mother knew nothing and the father—in the nights of the cold weather it was—Pray to the Gods said he forsooth and turning over snored
I gave her the charm What is an old man to do
To abstain from action is well—except when we acquire merit
Ah chela if thou desertest me I am all alone
He found his milkteeth 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 wellremembered snap of the jewelled forefinger—over the stables which has picked up the very tone of the familypriest Maybe I forget honour to my guests but if ye had seen him double his fists into his belly which was like a halfgrown gourd and cry Here is the pain ye would forgive I am half minded to take the hakims medicine He sells it cheap and certainly it makes him fat as Shivs own bull He does not deny remedies but I doubted for the child because of the inauspicious colour of the bottles
The lama under cover of the monologue had faded out into the darkness towards the room prepared
Thou hast angered him belike said Kim
Not he He is wearied and I forgot being a grandmother None but a grandmother should ever oversee a child Mothers are only fit for bearing Tomorrow when he sees how my daughters son is grown he will282 write the charm Then too he can judge of the new hakims 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 weakbacked 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 cattlepound as it were for all charlatans and—priests Let the boy stop eating mangoes but who can argue with a grandmother He raised his voice respectfully Sahiba the hakim sleeps after his meat He is in the quarters behind the dovecot
Kim bristled like an expectant terrier To outface and downtalk a Calcuttataught Bengali a voluble Dacca drugvendor 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 Xaviers 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 dovecot283
Yes said Kim with measured scorn Their stockintrade is a little coloured water and a very great shamelessness Their prey are brokendown 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 grocers shop Kim retorted
Battle was fairly joined now and they heard the old lady stiffen to attention
The priests 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 strongbacked breed piped the voice inside the palanquin
I have too our drugs which loosen humours of the head in hot and angry men Sina well compounded when the moon stands in the proper House yellow earths I have—arplan from China that makes a man to renew his youth and astonish his household saffron from Kashmir and the best salep of Cabul Many people have died before—284
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 neighbours 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 childs 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 the285 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 halfway 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 hangerson 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 companymanners 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 Shaitans colics are cured perhaps we poor people may be suffered to—
The mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in jail for breaking the moneylenders 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 words286 with his lips How do you do Mr OHara I am jolly glad to see you again
Kims hand clenched about the pipestem Anywhere on the open road perhaps he would not have been astonished but here in this quiet backwater of life he was not prepared for Hurree Babu It annoyed him too that he had been hoodwinked
Ah ha I told you at Lucknow—resurgam—I shall rise again and you shall not know me How much did you bet—eh
He chewed leisurely upon a few cardamom seeds but he breathed uneasily
But why come here Babuji
Ah Thatt is the question as Shakespeare hath said I come to congratulate you on your extraordinary effeecient performance at Delhi Oah I tell you we are all proud of you It was verree neat and handy Our mutual friend he is old friend of mine He has been in some damtight 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 fellowworkers 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 audacity287
The Colonel Sahib the boy from St Xaviers 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 Saddhudisguise suits him to the ground Well there I hear what you have done so well so quickly upon the instantaneous spur of the moment I tell our mutual friend you take the bally bun by Jove It was splendid I come to tell you so
Umm
The frogs were busy in the ditches and the moon slid to her setting Some happy servant had gone out to commune with the night and to beat upon a drum Kims 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 drugbox and I am very good doctor really I go to Akrola by the Ford and hear all about you and I talk here and talk there All the common people know what you do I know when the hospitable old lady sent the dooli They have great recollections of the old lamas 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 OHara 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 Sahib288
My dear Mister OHara—
And I hope to play the Great Game
You are subordinate to me departmentally at present
Then why talk like an ape up in a tree Men do not come after one from Simla and change their dress for the sake of a few sweet words I am not a child Talk Hindi and let us get to the yolk of the egg Thou art here—speaking not one word of truth in ten Why art thou here Give a straight answer
That is so verree disconcerting of the European Mister OHara You should know a heap better at your time of life
But I want to know said Kim laughing If it is the Game I may help How can I do anything if you bukh babble all round the shop
Hurree Babu reached for the pipe and sucked it till it guggled again
Now I will speak vernacular You sit tight Mister OHara It concerns the pedigree of a white stallion
Still That was finished long ago
When every one is dead the Great Game is finished Not before Listen to me till the end There were Five Kings who prepared a sudden war three years ago when thou wast given the stallions 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 and289 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 OHara Offeecially I am debarred from criticising any action of superior Now I go on—This pleased the Government anxious to avoid expense and a bond was made for so many rupees a month that Hilas and Bunar should guard the Passes as soon as the States 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 roadmaking 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 paychest My native sepoyguard 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 jest290 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 snowmelting—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—Hillpeople 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 demioffeecial 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 tommyrott
Kim smoked slowly revolving the business so far as he understood it in his quick mind291
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 OHara I am unfortunately Asiatic which is serious detriment in some respects And allso I am Bengali—a fearful man
God made the Hare and the Bengali What shame said Kim quoting the proverb
It was process of Evolution I think from Primal Necessity but the fact remains in all its cui bono I am oh awfully fearful—I remember once they wanted to cut off my head on the road to Lhassa No I have292 never reached to Lhassa I sat down and cried Mister OHara anticipating Chinese tortures I do not suppose these two gentlemen will torture me but I like to provide for possible contingency with European assistance in emergency He coughed and spat out his cardamoms It is purely unoffeecial indent to which you can say No Babu If you have no pressing engagement with your old man—perhaps you might divert him perhaps I can seduce his fancies—I should like you to keep in Departmental touch with me till I find those sporting coves I have great opeenion of you since I met my friend at Delhi And also I will embody your name in my offeecial report when matter is finally adjudicated It will be a great feather in your cap That is why I come really
Humph The end of the tale I think is true but what of the forepart
About the Five Kings Oah there is ever so much truth in it A lots more than you would suppose said Hurree earnestly You come—eh I go from here straight into the Doon It is verree verdant and painted meads I shall go to Mussoorie—to good old Mussoorie Pahar as the gentlemen and ladies say Then by Rampur into Chini That is the only way they can come I do not like waiting in the cold but we must wait for them I want to walk with them to Simla You see one Russian is a Frenchman and I know my French pretty well I have friends in Chandernagore
He would certainly rejoice to see the Hills again said Kim meditatively All his speech these ten days past has been of little else If we go together—
Oah We can be quite strangers on the road if your lama prefers I shall just be four or five miles ahead293 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 sleepingplace But Kim slept little and his thoughts ran in Hindustanee
Well is the Game called great I was four days a scullion at Quetta waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole And that was part of the Great Game From the South—God knows how far—came up the Mahratta playing the Great Game in fear of his life Now I shall go far and far into the North playing the Great Game Truly it runs like a shuttle throughout all Hind And my share and my joy—he smiled to the darkness—I owe to the lama here Also to Mahbub Ali—also to Creighton Sahib but chiefly to the Holy One He is right—a great and a wonderful world—and I am Kim—Kim—Kim—alone—one person—in the middle of it all But I will see these strangers with their levels and chains
What was the upshot of last nights babble said the lama after his orisons
There came a strolling seller of drugs—a hangeron of the Sahibas 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 pencase294
In the Plains said Kim are always too many people In the Hills as I understand there are fewer
Oh the Hills and the snow upon the Hills The lama tore off a tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet But what dost thou know of the Hills
They are very close Kim thrust open the door and looked at the long peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in morninggold 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 midday heat be avoided by walking among the lower hills at least Is the charm made Holy One
I have written the names of seven silly devils—not one of whom is worth a grain of dust in the eye Thus do foolish women drag us from the Way
Hurree Babu come out from behind the dovecot washing his teeth with ostentatious ritual Fullfleshed heavyhaunched bullnecked and deepvoiced 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 greenmango colics in the young The lamas knowledge of medicine was of course sympathetic only He believed that the dung of a black horse mixed with sulphur and carried in a snakeskin 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 him295 a courteous physician Hurree Babu replied that he was no more than an inexpert dabbler in the mysteries but at least—he thanked the Gods therefor—he knew when he sat in the presence of a master He himself had been taught by the Sahibs who do not consider expense in the lordly halls of Calcutta but as he was ever first to acknowledge there lay a wisdom behind earthly wisdom—the high and lonely lore of meditation Kim looked on with envy The Hurree Babu of his knowledge—oily effusive and nervous—was gone gone too was the brazen drugvendor of overnight There remained—polished polite attentive—a sober learned son of experience and adversity gathering wisdom from the lamas 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 rackrenting funeral ceremonies her soninlaw this by allusion easy to be followed the care of the young and the ages 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 bodycuring put forward by Hurree Babu
At noon the Babu strapped up his brassbound drugbox took his patentleather 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 parts296
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 Kuluroad 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 welllooking 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 whitebearded 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 cookingpots 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 the297 ricebag 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 womans 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 snowwater 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 wast298 talking to the Sahiba—of a certain dizziness that lays hold upon the back of my neck in the night and he said it rose from excessive heat—to be cured by cool air Upon consideration I marvelled that I had not thought of such a simple remedy
Didst thou tell him of thy Search said Kim a little jealously He preferred to sway the lama by his own speech—not through the wiles of Hurree Babu
Assuredly I told him of my dream and of the manner by which I had acquired merit by causing thee to be taught wisdom
Thou didst not say I was a Sahib
What need I have told thee many times we be but two souls seeking escape He said—and he is just herein—that the River of Healing will break forth even as I dreamed—at my feet if need be Having found the Way seest thou that shall free me from the Wheel need I trouble to find a way about the mere fields of earth—which are illusion That were senseless I have my dreams night upon night repeated I have the Jataka and I have thee Friend of all the World It was written in thy horoscope that a Red Bull on a green field—I have not forgotten—should bring thee to honour Who but I saw that prophecy accomplished Indeed I was the instrument Thou shalt find me my River being in return the instrument The Search is sure
He set his ivoryyellow face serene and untroubled towards the beckoning Hills his shadow shouldering far before him in the dust
299
CHAPTER XIII
Who hath desired the Sea—the immense and contemptuous surges
The shudder the stumble the swerve ere the starstabbing bowsprit emerges—
The orderly clouds of the Trades and the ridged roaring sapphire thereunder—
Unheralded clifflurking flaws and the headsails lowvolleying thunder
His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same in each wonder—
His Sea that his being fulfils
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise Hillmen desire their Hills
WHO goes to the Hills goes to his mother
They had crossed the Sewaliks and the halftropical Doon left Mussoorie behind them and headed north along the narrow hillroads Day after day they struck deeper into the huddled mountains and day after day Kim watched the lama return to a mans strength Among the terraces of the Doon he had leaned on the boys shoulder ready to profit by wayside halts Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew himself together as an old hunter faces a wellremembered bank and where he should have sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about him drew a deep doublelungful300 of the diamond air and walked as only a hillman can Kim plainsbred and plainsfed sweated and panted astonished This is my country said the lama Beside Suchzen this is flatter than a ricefield and with steady driving strokes from the loins he strode upwards But it was on the steep downhill marches three thousand feet in three hours that he went utterly away from Kim whose back ached with holding back and whose big toe was nigh cut off by his grass sandalstring Through the speckled shadow of the great deodarforests 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 hillmans 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 windyred above stark blue as Kedarnath and Badrinath—kings of that wilderness—took the first sunlight All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun and at evening put on their jewels again At first they breathed temperately upon the travellers winds good to meet when one crawled over some gigantic hogback but in a few days at a height of nine or ten thousand feet those breezes bit and Kim kindly allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by giving him a rough blanketcoat The lama was mildly surprised that any one should object to the301 knifeedged breezes which had cut the years off his shoulders
These are but the lower hills chela There is no cold till we come to the true Hills
Air and water are good and the people are devout enough but the food is very bad Kim growled and we walk as though we were mad—or English It freezes at night too
A little maybe but only enough to make old bones rejoice in the sun We must not always delight in the soft beds and rich food
We might at the least keep to the road
Kim had all a plainsmans affection for the welltrodden 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 gravelstrewn slopes As he explained to his limping disciple a man bred among mountains can prophesy the course of a mountainroad and though lowlying clouds might be a hindrance to a shortcutting stranger they made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man Thus after long hours of what would be reckoned very fair mountaineering in civilised countries they would pant over a saddleback sidle past a few landslips and drop through forest at an angle of fortyfive on to the road again Along their track lay the villages of the hillfolk—mud and earth huts the timbers now and then rudely carved with an axe—clinging like swallows nests against the steeps huddled on tiny flats halfway down a threethousandfoot 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 snow302 And the people—the sallow greasy duffleclad people with short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux—would flock out and adore The Plains—kindly and gentle—had treated the lama as a holy man among holy men But the Hills worshipped him as one in the confidence of all the devils Theirs was an almost obliterated Buddhism overlaid with a natureworship fantastic as their own landscapes elaborate as the terracing of their tiny fields but they recognised the big hat the clicking rosary and the rare Chinese texts for great authority and they respected the man under the hat
We saw thee come down over the black Breasts of Eua said a Betah who gave them cheese sour milk and stonehard 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 days march—such joy as a boy of St Xaviers who had won the quartermile on the flat might take in the praises of his friends The hills sweated the ghi and sugar suet off his bones the dry air taken sobbingly at the head of cruel passes firmed and built out his upper ribs and tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf and thigh
They meditated often on the Wheel of Life—the more so since as the lama said they were freed from its visible temptations Except the gray eagle and an occasional farseen bear grubbing and rooting on the hillside the vision of a furious painted leopard met at dawn in a still valley devouring a goat and now and again a303 brightcoloured 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 threshingfloors 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 eye across the deep blue gulfs between range and range And there were talks apart in the dark woods when the doctor would seek herbs and Kim as budding physician must accompany him
You see Mister OHara I do not know what the deuceanall I shall do when I find our sporting friends but if you will kindly keep within sight of my umbrella which is fine fixed point for cadastral survey I feel much better
Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks This is not my country hakim Easier I think to find one louse in a bearskin304
Oah thatt is my strong points There is no hurry for Hurree They were at Leh not so long ago They said they had come down from the Kara Korum with their heads and horns and all I am onlee afraid they will have sent back all their letters and compromising things from Leh into Russian territoree Of course they will walk away as far to the East as possible—just to show that they were never among the Western States You do not know the Hills He scratched with a twig on the earth Look They should have come in by Srinagar or Abbottabad Thatt is their short road—down the river by Bunji and Astor But they have made mischief in the West So—he drew a furrow from left to right—they march and they march away East to Leh ah it is cold there and down the Indus to 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 windblown 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 snowbred shaghaired305 sort that come into the Kashmir Serai They dipped across beds of light snow and snowpowdered 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 snowspeckled 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 tenthousandfoot hummock could see that a shoulderknot or horn of the two great lords had—ever so slightly—changed outline
At last they entered a world within a world—a valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse from off the knees of the mountains Here one days march carried them no farther it seemed than a dreamers 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 cloudshadows after rain This is no place for men
Long and long ago said the lama as to himself it was asked of the Lord whether the world were everlasting To this the Excellent One returned no answer When I was in Ceylon a wise Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is written in Pali Certainly since we know the way to Freedom the question were unprofitable but—look and know illusion chela These306 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 snowline 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 worlds 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 wulliewa got up to dance Below them as they stood the forest slid away in a sheet of bluegreen for mile upon mile below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of terraced fields and steep grazinggrounds 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 cowtrack and byroad far from the main route along which Hurree Babu that fearful man had bucketed three days before through a storm to which nine Englishmen out of ten would have given full right of way Hurree was no gameshot—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 threshingfloor of Ziglaur twenty miles away as the eagle flies and forty by road—that is307 to say two small dots which one day were just below the snowline and the next had moved downward perhaps six inches on the hillside Once cleaned out and set to the work his fat bare legs could cover a surprising amount of ground and this was the reason why while Kim and the lama lay in a leaky hut at Ziglaur till the storm should be overpassed an oily wet but always smiling Bengali talking the best of English with the vilest of phrases was ingratiating himself with two sodden and rather rheumatic foreigners He had arrived revolving many wild schemes on the heels of a thunderstorm which had split a pine over against their camp and so convinced a dozen or two forcibly impressed baggagecoolies the day was inauspicious for farther travel that with one accord they had thrown down their loads and jibbed They were subjects of a HillRajah 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 patentleather 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 visibly308 French the other Russian but they spoke English not much inferior to the Babus 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 motheaten They bore a general letter of introduction the Babu salaamed to it orientally to all Government officials No they had not met any other shootingparties 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 Hurrees heart bled at the waste the eleven coolies and the three hangerson reappeared At least the Babu would be a witness to oppression
My royal master he will be much annoyed but these people are onlee common people and grossly ignorant If your honours will kindly overlook unfortunate affair I shall be much pleased In a little while rain will stop and we can then proceed You have been shooting eh That is fine performance
He skipped nimbly from one kilta to the next making pretence to adjust each conical basket The Englishman is not as a rule familiar with the Asiatic but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly Babu who had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin top On the other hand he would not press drink upon a Babu were he never so friendly nor would he invite him to meat The strangers did all these things and asked many questions—about women mostly—to which Hurree returned gay and unstudied answers They gave him a glass of whitish fluid like to gin and then309 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 mans education and neglected to supply him with a white mans 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 lovesongs of Lower Bengal and collapsed upon a wet treetrunk Never was so unfortunate a product of English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon aliens
They are all just of that pattern said one sportsman to the other in French When we get into India proper thou wilt see I should like to visit his Rajah One might speak the good word there It is possible that he has heard of us and wishes to signify his goodwill
We have not time We must get into Simla as soon as may be his companion replied For my own part I wish our reports had been sent back from Hilas or even Leh
The English post is better and safer Remember we are given all facilities—and name of God—they give them to us too Is it unbelievable stupidity
It is pride—pride that deserves and will receive punishment
Yes To fight a fellowContinental 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 openmouthed on the sodden moss if I cannot understand their French They talk so particularly fast It310 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—roughclad 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 Bengalis advice But the Bengali appearing from somewhere had given them money and would make shift with their dialect Used to comprehensive illtreatment from their own colour they suspected a trap somewhere and stood by to run if occasion offered
Then through the newwashed air steaming with delicious earthsmells 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 an311 agreeable guide ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal masters domain He peopled the hills with anything they had a mind to slay—thar ibex or markhor and bear by Elishas allowance He discoursed of botany and ethnology with unimpeachable inaccuracy and his store of local legends—he had been a trusted agent of the State for fifteen years remember—was inexhaustible
Decidedly this fellow is an original said the taller of the two foreigners He is like the nightmare of a Viennese courier
He represents in petto India in transition—the monstrous hybridism of East and West the Russian replied It is we who can deal with Orientals
He has lost his own country and has not acquired any other But he has a most complete hatred of his conquerors Listen He confides to me last night etc
Under the striped umbrella Hurree Babu was straining ear and brain to follow the quickpoured French and keeping both eyes on a kilta full of maps and documents—an extra large one with a double red oilskin cover He did not wish to steal anything He only desired to know what to steal and incidentally how to get away when he had stolen it He thanked all the Gods of Hindustan and Herbert Spencer that there remained some valuables to steal
On the second day the road rose steeply to a grass spur above the forest and it was here about sunset that they came across an aged lama—but they called him a bonze—sitting crosslegged 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 been312 sighted half a march away and Kim had suggested a halt till it came up to them
Ha said Hurree Babu resourceful as PussinBoots 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 handworked
The two men stood bareheaded in the wash of the afternoon sunlight low across the goldcoloured 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 Wheel313 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 lamas 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 fullthroated 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 unEnglish leggings and curious girtin belts that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book at St Xaviers 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 Babus imagining The coolies earthcoloured and mute crouched reverently some twenty or thirty yards away and the Babu the slack of his thin gear snapping like a markingflag 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 Kings letter that either Hilas or Bunar has written They guard it most carefully They have sent nothing back from Hilas or Leh That is sure314
Who is with them
Only the beggarcoolies 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 Alis hands than a Bengalis 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 quickfading light
That is enough the man said at last brusquely I cannot understand him but I want that picture He is a better artist than I Ask him if he will sell it
He says No sar the Babu replied The lama of course would no more have parted with his chart to a casual wayfarer than an archbishop would pawn the holy vessels of a cathedral All Tibet is full of cheap reproductions of the Wheel but the lama was an artist as well as a wealthy abbot in his own place
Perhaps in three days or four or ten if I perceive that the Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding I may myself draw him another But this was used for the initiation of a novice Tell him so hakim
He wishes it now—for money
The lama shook his head slowly and began to fold up the Wheel The Russian on his side saw no more than an unclean old man haggling over a dirty piece of paper He drew out a handful of rupees and snatched halfjestingly at the chart which tore in the lamas grip A315 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 priests weapon and the Babu danced in agony
Now you see—you see why I wanted witnesses They are highly unscrupulous people Oh Sar Sar You must not hit holy man
Chela He has defiled the Written Word
It was too late Before Kim could ward him off the Russian struck the old man full on the face Next instant he was rolling over and over down hill with Kim at his throat The blow had waked every unknown Irish devil in the boys blood and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest The lama dropped to his knees halfstunned the coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run across the level They had seen sacrilege unspeakable and it behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance The Frenchman ran towards the lama fumbling at his revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion A shower of cutting stones—hillmen are very straight shots—drove him away and a coolie from Aochung snatched the lama into the stampede All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountaindarkness
They have taken the baggage and all the guns yelled the Frenchman firing blindly into the twilight
All right Sar All right Dont 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 foes head against a boulder316
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 Kings letter Go The other man comes
Kim tore up hill A revolverbullet rang on a rock by his side and he cowered partridgewise
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 damtight place but I think it is selfdefence He felt in his bosom for Mahbubs gift and uncertainly—save for a few practice shots in the Bikaner desert he had never used the little gun—pulled trigger
What did I say Sar The Babu seemed to be in tears Come down here and assist to resuscitate We are all up a tree I tell you
The shots ceased There was a sound of stumbling feet and Kim hurried upward through the gloom swearing like a cat—or a countrybred
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 ShamleghundertheSnow
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 too317
The little firclump filled with clamouring coolies—panicstricken and in their terror capable of anything The man from Aochung clicked the breechbolt of his gun impatiently and made as to go down hill
Wait a little Holy One they cannot go far wait till I return
It is this person who has suffered wrong said the lama his hand over his brow
For that very reason was the reply
If this person overlooks it your hands are clean Moreover ye acquire merit by obedience
Wait and we will all go to Shamlegh together the man insisted
For a moment for just so long as it needs to stuff a cartridge into a breechloader the lama hesitated Then he rose to his feet and laid a finger on the mans shoulder
Hast thou heard I say there shall be no killing—I who was Abbot of Suchzen Is it any lust of thine to be reborn 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 Aochung fell to his knees for the voice boomed like a Tibetan devilgong
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 priestbeaters 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 Kims shoulder
I have come near to great evil chela he whispered318 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 overdriven heart bump and check
Have they hurt him to the death said the Aochung 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 mans campfittings at his service Open the kiltas The Sahibs may have a medicine
Oho Then I know it said the Aochung man with a laugh Not for five years was I Yankling Sahibs 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 lamas teeth
So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor Aha I have already looked into their baskets—but we will make fair division at Shamlegh Give him a little more It is good medicine Feel His heart goes better now Lay his head down and rub a little on the chest If he had waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs this would never have come But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us here Then it would not be wrong to shoot them with their own guns heh
One is paid I think already said Kim between his teeth I kicked him in the groin as we went down hill Would I had killed him319
It is well to be brave when one does not live in Rampur said one whose hut lay within a few miles of the Rajahs 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 merryminded 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 Aochung 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 ShamleghundertheSnow
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 Sahibs shikarri and I am Yankling Sahibs 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 One320
They sat down a little apart from the lama and after listening awhile passed round a waterpipe whose receiver was an old Day and Martin blackingbottle The glow of the red charcoal as it went from hand to hand lit up the narrow blinking eyes the high Chinese cheekbones and the bullthroats 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 snowwaters round them diminished one by one as the nightfrost choked and clogged the runnels
How he stood up against us said a Spiti man admiring I remember an old ibex out Ladakhway that Dupont Sahib missed on a shouldershot seven seasons back standing up just like him Dupont Sahib was a good shikarri
Not as good as Yankling Sahib The Aochung man took a pull at the whiskybottle 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 muskpods are worth six rupees apiece now and thy women can have the canvas of the tents and some of the cookinggear 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 baggage321
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 Aochung 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 priestbeaters They frightened us We fled Who knows where we dropped the baggage Do ye think Yankling Sahib will permit downcountry 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 adroitly322 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 downcountry cook and a bearer and—and all manner of wellpaid highhanded 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 hillfolk
The old man still sleeps Hst We will ask his chela The Aochung 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 Hurrees last words As a player of the Great Game he was disposed just then to reverence the Babu It is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful things not to be handled by fools
I said it I said it cried the bearer of that burden Thinkest thou it will betray us
Not if it be given to me I will draw out its magic Otherwise it will do great harm
A priest always takes his share Whisky was demoralising the Aochung man323
It is no matter to me Kim answered with the craft of his mothercountry 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 rearranged 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 Hurrees or contrivance of Kims but simply beautifully and inevitably as the capture of Mahbubs faquirfriends 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 pineforest two halffrozen 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 a324 plan of action He explained that they were very lucky to be alive that their coolies if not then stalking them had passed beyond recall that the Rajah his master was ninety miles away and so far from lending them money and a retinue for the Simla journey would surely cast them into prison if he heard that they had hit a priest He enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they bade him change the subject Their one hope said he was unostentatious flight from village to village till they reached civilisation and for the hundredth time dissolved in tears he demanded of the high stars why the Sahibs had beaten holy man
Ten steps would have taken Hurree into the creaking gloom utterly beyond their reach—to the shelter and food of the nearest village where glibtongued doctors were scarce But he preferred to endure cold bellypinch bad words and occasional blows in the company of his honoured employers Crouched against a treetrunk 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 Kims victim
Perhaps the holy man will be merciful in lovingkindness 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 you325 no consideration for our loss The baggage The baggage He could hear the speaker literally dancing on the grass Everything we bore Everything we have secured Our gains Eight months work Do you know what that means Decidedly it is we who can deal with Orientals Oh you have done well
They fell to it in several tongues and Hurree smiled Kim was with the kiltas and in the kiltas lay eight months of good diplomacy There was no means of communicating with the boy but he could be trusted For the rest he could so stagemanage the journey through the hills that Hilas Bunar and four hundred miles of hillroads should tell the tale for a generation Men who cannot control their own coolies are little respected in the Hills and the hillman has a very keen sense of humour
If I had done it myself thought Hurree it would not have been better and by Jove now I think of it of course I arranged it myself How quick I have been Just when I ran down hill I thought it Thee outrage was accidental but onlee me could have worked it—ah—for all it was dam well worth Consider the moral effect upon these ignorant peoples No treaties—no papers—no written documents at all—and me to interpret for them How I shall laugh with the Colonel I wish I had their papers also but you cannot occupy two places in space simultaneously Thatt is axiomatic
326
CHAPTER XIV
My brother kneels so saith Kabir
To stone and brass in heathenwise
But in my brothers voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies
His God is as his Fates assign—
His prayer is all the worlds—and mine
Kabir
AT moonrise the cautious coolies got under way The lama refreshed by his sleep and the spirit needed no more than Kims shoulder to bear him along—a silent swiftstriding man They held the shalesprinkled 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 pastureground ran up fanshaped 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 hillfashion 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 fashion327
We will send food said the Aochung man and the redtopped 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 whiskybottle
No need to listen for the fall This is the worlds end he said and swung off The lama looked forth a hand on either sill with eyes that shone like yellow opals From the enormous pit before him white peaks lifted themselves yearning to the moonlight The rest was as the darkness of interstellar space
These he said slowly are indeed my Hills Thus should a man abide perched above the world separated from delights considering vast matters
Yes if he has a chela to prepare tea for him and to fold a blanket for his head and to chase out calving cows
A smoky lamp burned in a niche but the full moonlight beat it down and by the mixed light stooping above the foodbag and cups Kim moved like a tall ghost
Ai But now I have let the blood cool my head still beats and drums and there is a cord round the back of my neck
No wonder It was a strong blow May he who dealt it—
But for my own passions there would have been no evil
What evil Thou hast saved the Sahibs from death they deserved a hundred times
The lesson is not well learnt chela The lama came328 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 blocktea ceremonially taking the hot cup from Kims 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 moments 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 tender329 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 Aochung 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 kitchenmidden took the dunnage
When Kim after a night of bad dreams stole forth to brush his teeth in the morning chill a faircoloured woman with turquoisestudded 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
But afterwards—we may talk
Kim tilted the kilta on the floor—a cascade of Surveyinstruments 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 Sahibs point of view
The books I do not want Besides they are logarithms—Survey330 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 ferrilbacked books with five worn pocketbooks he put aside
The letters and the murasla I must carry inside my coat and under my belt and the handwritten books I must put into the foodbag 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 roundshouldered bank of mist as yet untouched by the morning sun A thousand feet below that was an hundredyearold pineforest He could see the green tops looking like a bed of moss when a windeddy thinned the cloud
No I dont think any one will go after you
The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped The theodolite hit a jutting cliffledge and exploded like a shell the books inkstand paintboxes compasses and rulers showed for a few seconds like a swarm of bees331 Then they vanished and though Kim hanging half out of window strained his young ears never a sound came up from the gulf
Five hundred—a thousand rupees could not buy them he thought sorrowfully It was verree wasteful but I have all their other stuff—everything they did—I hope Now how the deuce am I to tell Hurree Babu and whatt the deuce am I to do And my old man is sick I must tie up the letters in oilcloth That is something to do first—else they will get all sweated And I am all alone He bound them into a neat packet swedging down the stiff sticky oilcloth at the corners for his roving life had made him as methodical as an old hunter in matters of the road Then with double care he packed away the books at the bottom of the foodbag
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 pattertalk 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 tongues332
Is that all thy trouble The plan rose fully formed in Kims 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 notebook 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 ShamleghundertheSnow 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 sheeppasture floated a shrill kitelike 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 wood333 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 halfshells
Well thought of He slipped the piece of paper between them quickly Hast thou a little wax to close them on this letter
The woman sighed aloud and Kim relented
There is no payment till service has been rendered Carry this to the Babu and say it was sent by the Son of the Charm
Ai Truly Truly By a magician—who is like a Sahib
Nay Son of the Charm and ask if there be any answer
But if he offer a rudeness I—I am afraid
Kim laughed He is I have no doubt very tired and very hungry The Hills make cold bedfellows Hai my—it was on the tip of his tongue to say Mother but he turned it to Sister—thou art a wise and witty woman By this time all the villages know what has befallen the Sahibs—eh
True News was at Ziglaur by midnight and by 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 aftercomplaints Be swift I must tend my master when he wakes
So be it After service—thou hast said—comes334 the reward I am the Woman of Shamlegh and I hold from the Rajah I am no common bearer of babes Shamlegh is thine hoof and horn and hide milk and butter Take or leave
She turned resolutely uphill her silver necklaces clicking on her broad breast to meet the morning sun fifteen hundred feet above them This time Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin edges of the packets
How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford and there was the scullions 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 beggingbowl which might do for downcountry but in the manner of a prince Shamleghs summer population is only three families—four women and eight or nine men They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks from ammoniated quinine to white vodka for they had taken their full share in the overnight loot The neat Continental tents had been cut up and shared long ago and there were patent aluminum saucepans abroad
But they considered the lamas presence a perfect safeguard against all consequences and impenitently brought Kim of their best—even to a drink of chang—the barleybeer that comes from Ladakhway 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 solely335 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 treetops seen against lightning They told him of their little diseases and more important the diseases of their tiny surefooted cattle of trips as far as Kotgarh where the strange missionaries live and beyond even to marvellous Simla where the streets are paved with silver and any one look you can get service with the Sahibs who ride about in twowheeled 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 days dark march Behind the village Shamlegh hill itself cut off all view to southward It was like sitting in a swallows nest under the eaves of the roof of the world
From time to time the lama stretched out his hand and with a little lowvoiced prompting would point out the road to Spiti and north across the Parungla
Beyond where the hills lie thickest lies Dechen he meant Hanle the great Monastery sTagstanraschen built it and of him there runs this tale Whereupon he told it a fantastic piled narrative of bewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh agasping Turning west a little he speered for the green hills of Kulu and sought Kailung under the glaciers For336 thither came I in the old old days From Leh I came over the Baralachi
Yes yes we know it said the farfaring 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 saltlake ageold timber and fruitful watershot 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 Kims 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 hakim337
I feared that thou hadst been bruised and—and I knew he was wise Kim took the waxed walnutshell 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 Chwan among the poplars he pointed Bhotanwards where they keep the Sacred Horse
Quiet be quiet said Shamlegh all arow He speaks of Jamlinninkor 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 and338 ate the bread of Guru Chwan 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 idolaters 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 grassroots 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 mans sorrow and Mahbub Alis phrase slipped out unawares
In the dawn he went on more gravely ready rosary clicking between the slow sentences came enlightenment It is here I am an old man hillbred hillfed never to sit down among my Hills Three years I travelled through Hind but—can earth be stronger than Mother Earth My stupid body yearned to the Hills and the snow of the Hills from339 below there I said and it is true my Search is sure So at the Kulu womans house I turned hillward overpersuaded 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 hakims for the mere strength of my legs Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full Just is the Wheel All Hind for three years did me all honour From the Fountain of Wisdom in the Wonder House to—he smiled—a little child playing by a big gun—the world prepared my road And why
Because we loved thee It is only the fever of the blow I myself am still sick and shaken
No It was because I was upon the Way—tuned as are sinen cymbals to the purpose of the Law I departed from that ordinance The tune was broken followed the punishment In my own Hills on the edge of my own country in the very place of my evil desire comes the buffet—here He touched his brow As a novice is beaten when he misplaces the cups so am I beaten who was Abbot of Suchzen No word look you but a blow chela
But the Sahibs did not know thee Holy One340
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
If we had never met that thricecursed 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 here341
Shall we at least wait for the hakim
I know how long I live in this body What can a hakim do
But thou art all sick and shaken Thou canst not walk
How can I be sick if I see Freedom He rose unsteadily to his feet
Then I must get food from the village Oh the weary Road Kim felt that he too needed rest
That is lawful Let us eat and go The Arrow fell in Plains but I yielded to Desire Make ready chela
Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise 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 nearby village after The Sahibs will be given food as they need it—nor will the people ask money The plunder is already distributed That 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 planned342 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 beggingbowl
—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 tigerhearted one who smote the Sahib Let him dream a little longer Stay
Hillwoman said Kim with austerity that could not harden the outlines of his young oval face these matters are too high for thee
The Gods be good to us Since when have men and women been other than men and women
A priest is a priest He says he will go upon this hour I am his chela and I go with him We need food for the Road He is an honoured guest in all the villages but—he broke into a pure boyish grin—the food here is good Give me some
What if I do not give it thee I am the woman of this village
Then I curse thee—a little—not greatly but enough to remember He could not help smiling
Thou hast cursed me already by the downdropped 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 cowdung343 and grass at Shamlegh but still a woman of substance
I think nothing said Kim but that I am grieved to go for I am very tired and that we need food Here is the bag
The woman snatched it angrily I was foolish said she Who is thy woman in the Plains Fair or black I was fair once Laughest thou Once long ago if thou canst believe a Sahib looked on me with favour Once long ago I wore European clothes at the Missionhouse yonder She pointed towards Kotgarh Once long ago I was Kerlistian and spoke English—as the Sahibs speak it Yes My Sahib said he would return and wed me—yes wed me He went away—I had nursed him when he was sick—but he never returned Then I saw that the Gods of the Kerlistians lied and I went back to my own people I have never set eyes on a Sahib since Do not laugh at me The fit is past little priestling Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put me in mind of my Sahib though thou art only a wandering mendicant to whom I give a dole Curse me Thou canst neither curse nor bless She set her hands on her hips and laughed bitterly Thy Gods are lies thy works are lies thy words are lies There are no Gods under all the heavens I know it But for a while I thought it was my Sahib come back and he was my God Yes once I made music on a pianno in the Missionhouse 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 doorpost344
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 lamas collapse and foreseeing the weight of the bag fairly lost his temper
What is it to thee woman of illomen where he goes
Nothing—but something to thee priest with a Sahibs face Wilt thou carry him on thy shoulders
I go to the Plains None must hinder my return I have wrestled with my soul till I am strengthless The stupid body is spent and we are far from the Plains
Behold she said simply and drew aside to let Kim see his own utter helplessness Curse me May be it will give him strength Make a charm Call on thy great God Thou art a priest She turned away
The lama had squatted limply still holding by the doorpost One cannot strike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in a night Weakness bowed him to the earth but his eyes that hung on Kim were alive and imploring
It is all well said Kim It is the thin air that weakens thee In a little while we go It is the mountainsickness 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 cowpen 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 need345
But we will not go Simlaway 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 rearpole 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 foodbag 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 kings bed—a place of honour and ease And we owe it to—
A woman of illomen 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 cashbox 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 foulfaced 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 do346
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 wideopen eyes and a face of panic
Next time Kim went on you must not be so sure of your heatthen priests Now I say goodbye He held out his hand Englishfashion She took it mechanically Goodbye my dear
Goodbye and—and—she was remembering her English words one by one—you will come back again Goodbye and—thee God bless you
Half an hour later as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path that leads southeasterly from Shamlegh Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut door waving a white rag
She has acquired merit beyond all others said the lama For to set a man upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had herself found it
Umm said Kim thoughtfully considering the past It may be that I have acquired merit also At least she did not treat me like a child He hitched the front of his robe where lay the slab of documents and maps restowed the precious foodbag at the lamas feet laid his hand on the litter edge and buckled down to the slow pace of the grunting husbands
These also acquire merit said the lama after three miles
More than that they shall be paid in silver quoth Kim The Woman of Shamlegh had given it to him and it was only fair he argued that her men should earn it back again
347
CHAPTER XV
Id not give room for an Emperor—
Id hold my road for a King
To the Triple Crown Id not bow down—
But this is a different thing
Ill not fight with the Powers of Air—
Sentries pass him through
Drawbridge let fall—Hes 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 merryminded man spyglassing wrathfully across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker—a man from Aochung But that renegade with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges is elsewhere shooting muskdeer for the market and Yankling Sahib will learn next season how very ill he has been
Up the valleys of Bushahr—the farbeholding eagles of the Himalayas swerve at his new blueandwhite gored umbrella—hurries a Bengali once fat and welllooking now lean and weatherworn He has received the thanks of two foreigners of distinction piloted not unskillfully 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 the348 telegraphstation and European colony of Kotgarh It was not his fault but that of the Gods of whom he discoursed so engagingly that he led them into the borders of Nahan where the Rajah of that state mistook them for deserting British soldiery Hurree Babu explained the greatness and glory in their own country of his companions till the drowsy kinglet smiled He explained it to every one who asked—many times—aloud—variously He begged food arranged accommodation proved a skilful leech for an injury of the groin—such a blow as one may receive rolling down a rockcovered hillside in the dark—and in all things indispensable The reason of his friendliness did him credit With millions of fellowserfs he had learned to look upon Russia as the great deliverer from the North He was a fearful man He had been afraid that he could not save his illustrious employers from the anger of an excited peasantry He himself would just as lief hit a holy man as not but He was deeply grateful and sincerely rejoiced that he had done his little possible towards bringing their venture to—barring the lost baggage—a successful issue He had forgotten the blows denied that any blows had been dealt that unseemly first night under the pines He asked neither pension nor retaining fee but if they deemed him worthy would they write him a testimonial It might be useful to him later if others their friends came over the Passes He begged them to remember him in their future greatnesses for he opined subtly that he even he Mohendro Lal Dutt M A of Calcutta had done the state some service
They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy helpfulness and unerring skill as a guide He put it in349 his waistbelt 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 dawncloud on Jakko
Behold him too fine drawn to sweat too pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brassbound 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 turquoisestudded headgear points southeasterly 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 drugvendor of two months ago give him shelter against evil spirits of the wood He dreams of Bengali Gods University textbooks of education and the Royal Society London England Next dawn the bobbing blueandwhite 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 onethird Sahibs prices Twelve miles a day has the dooli travelled as the greasy rubbed poleends show and by roads that few Sahibs use Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snowdust350 filled every fold of the impassive lamas 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 hardheld between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati swinging and creaking to the steady jogtrot 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 middays in the dun gloom of kindly oakforests passed from village to village in dawnchill when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men or by torchlight when the least fearful think of ghosts—the dooli has reached her last stage The little hillfolk sweat in the modified heat of the lower Sewaliks and gather round the priests for their blessing and their wage
Ye have acquired merit says the lama Merit greater than your knowing And ye will return to the Hills he sighs
Surely The high hills as soon as may be The bearer rubs his shoulder drinks water spits it out again and readjusts his grass sandal Kim—his face is drawn and tired—pays very small silver from his belt heaves out the foodbag 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 mans 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 clumps351
The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas Not with you O blessed among all hills fell the Arrow of Our Lord And never shall I breathe your air again
But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air says Kim for to his wearied soul appeal the wellcropped kindly plains Here or hereabouts fell the Arrow yes We will go very softly perhaps a kos a day for the Search is sure But the bag weighs heavy
Ay our Search is sure I have come out of great temptation
It was never more than a couple of miles a day now and Kims shoulders bore all the weight of it—the burden of an old man the burden of the heavy foodbag 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 lamas meditation held the weary head on his lap through the noonday heats fanning away the flies till his wrist ached begged again in the evenings and rubbed the lamas 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 together352 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 kos Threequarters of a mile and it was a weary march
Half a kos Ha I went ten thousand thousand in the spirit How we are all lapped and swathed and swaddled in these senseless things He looked at his thin blueveined 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 foodbag If some one duly authorised would only take delivery of them the Great Game might play itself for aught he then cared He was tired and hot in his head and a cough that came from the stomach worried him
No he said almost sternly I am not a dog or a snake to bite when I have learned to love
Thou art too tender for me
Not that either I have moved in one matter without consulting thee I have sent a message to the Kulu woman by that woman who gave us the goats milk this morn saying that thou wast a little feeble and would need a litter I beat myself in my mind that I did not353 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 lamas feet
What a todo is here said the old man gently Thou hast never stepped a hairs 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 earthborn—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 needs354
And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave texts on that littleunderstood beast our Body who being but a delusion insists on posing as the Soul to the darkening of the Way and the immense multiplication of unnecessary devils
Hai hai Let us talk of the woman from Kulu Think you she will ask another charm for her grandsons When I was a young man a very long time ago I was plagued with these vapours—and some others—and I went to an abbot—a very holy man and a seeker after truth though then I knew it not Sit up and listen child of my soul My tale was told Said he to me Chela know this There are many lies in the world and not a few liars but there are no liars like our bodies except it be the sensations of our bodies Considering this I was comforted and of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea in his presence Suffer me now to drink tea for I am thirsty
With a laugh above his tears Kim kissed the lamas feet and went about teamaking
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 lamas eyes twinkled We must change that
So when with scufflings and scrapings and a hot air of importance paddled up nothing less than the Sahibas 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 womans advice to an old man I told thee—I told thee Holy355 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 overweary 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 soninlaw was returned so she did not need to go on inspection round the farm—she won to the meat of the matter explained lowvoicedly 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 burningghats clutch at the hands of those coming up from the River of Life with full waterjars—yes brimming waterjars 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—356
He that had the bellypain
To think the Holy One remembers that I must tell his mother It is most singular honour He that had the bellypain—straightway the Holy One remembered She will be proud
My chela is to me as a son to the unenlightened
Say grandson rather Mothers have not the wisdom of our years If a child cries they say the heavens are falling Now a grandmother is far enough separated from the pain of bearing and the pleasure of giving the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness pure or the wind And since thou speakest once again of wind when last the Holy One was here maybe I offended in pressing for charms
Sister said the lama using that form of address a Buddhist monk may sometimes employ towards a nun if charms comfort thee—
They are better than ten thousand doctors
I say if they comfort thee I who was Abbot of Suchzen will make as many as thou mayest desire I have never seen thy face—
That even the monkeys who steal our loquats count for a gain Hee hee
But as he who sleeps there said he nodded at the shut door of the guestchamber 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 Ones 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 him357 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 cookhouse to get his masters food he found strong coercion about him and a veiled old figure at the door flanked by the grizzled manservant who told him precisely the very things that he was on no account to do
Thou must have Thou shalt have nothing What A locked box in which to keep holy books Oh that is another matter Heavens forbid I should come between a priest and his prayers It shall be brought and thou shalt keep the key
They pushed the coffer under his cot and Kim shut away Mahbubs 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 stillroom—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 the358 like fetched a wide compass by those parts Best of all when the body was cleared she cut out from the mass of poor relations that crowded the back of the buildings—household dogs we name them—a cousins 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 earthcurrents which thrill the clay of our bodies might help and not hinder took him to pieces all one long afternoon—bone by bone muscle by muscle ligament by ligament and lastly nerve by nerve Kneaded to irresponsible pulp half hypnotised by the perpetual flick and readjustment of the uneasy chudders that veiled their eyes Kim slid ten thousand miles into slumber—thirtysix 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 slowthinking gardener nigh as old as she sweated for it she took spices and milk and onion with little fish from the brooks—anon limes for sherbets fat quails of the pit then chickenlivers 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 patronesss charity—he is getting a bloom on the skin of a newcurried horse Our work is like polishing jewels to be thrown to a dancegirl—eh359
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 dengueaches 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 Id sell my jewels and buy it To refuse good food that I cooked myself—and go roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly—and to tumble into a brook at the end of it—call you that holiness Then when he has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety he tells me that he has acquired merit Oh how like are all men No that was not it—he tells me that he is freed from all sin I could have told him that before he wetted himself all over He is well now—this happened a week ago—but burn me such holiness A babe of three would do better Do not fret thyself for the Holy One He keeps both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks
I do not remember to have seen him I remember that the days and nights passed like bars of white and black opening and shutting I was not sick I was only tired
A lethargy that comes by right some few score years later But it is all done now
Maharanee Kim began but led by the look in her eye changed it to the title of plain love—Mother I owe360 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 ladys 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 easyflung blessing No matter I need no blessings but—but— She stamped her foot at the poor relation Take up the trays to the house What is the good of stale food in the room oh woman of illomen
I ha—have borne a son in my time too but he died whimpered the bowed sisterfigure 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 illomen cried the old lady penitently We that go down to the chattris the big umbrellas above the burningghats where the priests take their last dues clutch hard at the bearers of the chattis waterjars—young folk full of the pride of life she meant but the pun is clumsy When one cannot dance in the festival one must een look out of the window and grandmothering takes all a womans time Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire for my daughters eldest by reason—is it—that he is361 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 bloodbrothers together up Kuluway 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 cookhouse door and stays himself with scraps He will keep We shall never get rid of him
Send him here mother—the twinkle returned to Kims eye for a flash—and I will try
Ill 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 Ill hale him here with horseropes and—and give him a castedinner 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 cookhouse and almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu robed as to the shoulders like a Roman emperor jowled like362 Titus bareheaded with new patentleather shoes in highest condition of fat exuding joy and salutations
By Jove Mister OHara but I am jolly glad to see you I will kindly shut the door It is a pity you are sick Are you very sick
The papers—the papers from the kilta The maps and the murasla He held out the key impatiently for the present need on his soul was to get rid of the loot
You are quite right That is correct departmental view to take You have got everything
All that was handwritten in the kilta I took The rest I threw down the hill He could hear the keys grate in the lock the sticky pull of the slowrending oilcloth and a quick shuffling of papers He had been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that they lay below him through the sick idle days—a burden incommunicable For that reason the blood tingled through his body when Hurree skipping elephantinely shook hands again
This is fine This is finest Mister OHara You have—ha ha—swiped the whole bag of tricks—locks stocks and barrels They told me it was eight months work gone up the spouts By Jove how they beat me Look here is the letter from Hilas He intoned a line or two of Court Persian which is the language of authorised and unauthorised diplomacy Mister Rajah Sahib has just about put his foot in the holes He will have to explain offeecially how the deuceanall he is writing loveletters 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 and363 Bunar and nominate new heirs to the throne Treason most base but you do not understand Eh
Are they in thy hands said Kim It was all he cared for
Just you jolly well bet yourself they are He stowed the entire trove about his body as only Orientals can They are going up to the office too The old lady thinks I am permanent fixture here but I shall go away with these straight off—immediately Mr Lurgan will be proud man You are offeecially subordinate to me but I shall embody your name in my verbal report It is a pity we are not allowed written reports We Bengalis excel in thee exact science He tossed back the key and showed the box empty
Good That is good I was very tired My Holy One was sick too And did he fall into—
Oah yess I am his good friend I tell you He was behaving very strange when I came down after you and I thought perhaps he might have the papers I followed him on his meditations and to discuss ethnological points also You see I am verree small person here nowadays in comparison with all his charms By Jove OHara 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 Babu364 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 Lurgans 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 hillpeople believe all Russians are all beggars By Jove they had not one damthing that I did not get them And I told the common people—oah such tales and anecdotes I will tell you at old Lurgans 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 vicinity 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 deuceanall the papers were and if so how many So when I had come down here I slipped in private wire to Mahbub—he365 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 any one steals the papers I should like some good strong brave men to rob them back again You see they are vitally important and Mahbub Ali he did not know where you were
Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahibas 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 Kims 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 damtight 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 foreigners366
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 goodbye Mister OHara I can catch 425 p m to Umballa if I am quick It will be good times when we all tell thee tale up at Mister Lurgans I shall report you offeecially better Goodbye 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 bootheels—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 pistolshots—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 pipestems 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 lamas weaknesses and now that the stimulus of talk was removed his own selfpity 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 tumbled367 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 halfhour All that while he felt though he could not put it into words that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings—a cogwheel unconnected with any machinery just like the idle cogwheel of a cheap Beheea sugarcrusher 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 bullockcart on a little knoll half a mile away with a young banian tree behind—a368 lookout as it were above some newploughed levels and his eyelids bathed in soft air grew heavy as he neared it The ground was good clean dust—no new herbage that living is halfway to death already but the hopeful dust that holds the seed of all life He felt it between his toes patted it with his palms and joint by joint sighing luxuriously laid him down full length along in the shadow of the woodenpinned 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 manyrooted 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 fools trick to play in open country muttered the horsedealer He could be shot a hundred times—but this is not the Border
And said the lama repeating a manytimestold 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 Hats charm for making him overly truthful He has certainly been well nursed369
The Sahiba is a heart of gold said the lama earnestly She looks upon him as her son
Hmph Half Hind seems thatway 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 newlydyed beard
I was meditating upon other matters that tide It was the hakim from Dacca broke my meditations
Otherwise—this was in Pashtu for decencys sake—thou wouldst have ended thy meditations upon the sultry side of Hell—being an unbeliever and an idolater for all thy childs 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 cousins wife that I am a sufi a freethinker for here I sit said Mahbub to himself drinking in blasphemy unthinkable I remember the tale On that then he goes to Jannatu lAdn the Gardens of370 Eden But how Wilt thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful river from which the Babu dragged thee
I was dragged from no river said the lama simply Thou hast forgotten what befell I found it by knowledge
Oh aye True stammered Mahbub divided between high indignation and enormous mirth I had forgotten the exact run of what happened Thou didst find it knowingly
And to say that I would take life is—not a sin but a madness simple My chela aided me to the River It is his right to be cleansed from sin—with me
Ay he needs cleansing But afterwards old man—afterwards
What matter under all the heavens He is sure of Nibban—enlightened—as I am
Well said I had a fear he might mount Mohammeds 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 horseseller 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 lame371 horses and three strongbacked men—thanks to that chicken of a Babu—to break a sick boy by force out of an old trots house It seems that I stand by while a young Sahib is hoisted into Allah knows what of an idolaters heaven by means of old Red Hat And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game myself But the madman is fond of the boy and I must be very reasonably mad too
What is the prayer said the lama as the rough Pashtu rumbled into the red beard
No matter at all but now I understand that the boy sure of Paradise can yet enter Government service my mind is easier I must get to my horses It grows dark Do not wake him I have no wish to hear him call thee master
But he is my disciple What else
He has told me Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose laughing I am not altogether of thy faith Red Hat—if so small a matter concern thee
It is nothing said the lama
I thought not Therefore it will not move thee sinless newwashed 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 horsecoper 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 insolence372 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 openminded to commit a dacoity a houserobbery 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 the373 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 monkeys 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 crosslegged figure outlined jetblack against the lemoncoloured drift of light So does the stone Bodhisat sit who looks down upon the patent selfregistering turnstiles of the Lahore Museum
The lama held his peace Except for the click of the rosary and a faint clopclop of Mahbubs 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 robeedge obediently374
Hear me I bring news The Search is finished Comes now the Reward Thus When we were among the Hills I lived on thy strength till the young branch bowed and nigh broke When we came out of the Hills I was troubled for thee and for other matters which I held in my heart The boat of my soul lacked direction I could not see into the Cause of Things So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman altogether I took no food I drank no water Still I saw not the Way They pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door So I removed myself to a hollow under a tree I took no food I took no water I sat in meditation two days and two nights abstracting my mind inbreathing and outbreathing in the required manner Upon the second night—so great was my reward—the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went free This I have never before attained though I have stood on the threshold of it Consider for it is a marvel
A marvel indeed Two days and two nights without food Where was the Sahiba said Kim under his breath
Yea my Soul went free and wheeling like an eagle saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul As a drop draws to water so my soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things At that point exalted in contemplation I saw all Hind from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills and my own Painted Rocks at Suchzen I saw every camp and village to the least where we have ever rested I saw them at one time and in one place for they were within the Soul By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things By this I knew that375 I was free I saw thee lying in thy cot and I saw thee falling down hill under the idolater—at one time in one place in my Soul which as I say had touched the Great Soul Also I saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside shouting in its ear Then my Soul was all alone and I saw nothing for I was all things having reached the Great Soul And I meditated a thousand thousand years passionless well aware of the Causes of all Things Then a voice cried What shall come to the boy if thou art dead and I was shaken back and forth in myself with pity for thee and I said I will return to my chela lest he miss the Way Upon this my Soul which is the soul of Teshoo Lama withdrew itself from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings and agonies not to be told As the egg from the fish as the fish from the water as the water from the cloud as the cloud from the thick air so put forth so leaped out so drew away so fumed up the soul of Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul Then a voice cried The River Take heed to the River and I looked down upon all the world which was as I had seen it before—one in time one in place—and I saw plainly the River of the Arrow at my feet At that hour my Soul was hampered by some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed and it lay upon my arms and coiled round my waist but I put it aside and I cast forth as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the River I pushed aside world upon world for thy sake I saw the River below me—the River of the Arrow—and descending the waters of it closed over me and behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama but free from sin and the hakim from Dacca bore up my head in the waters of the376 River It is here It is behind the mangotope here—even here
Allah Karim Oh well that the Babu was by Wast thou very wet
Why should I regard I remember the hakim was concerned for the body of Teshoo Lama He haled it out of the holy water in his hands and there came afterwards thy horseseller from the North with a cot and men and they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahibas 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