Kim

THE SERVICE EDITION

OF

THE WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING

THE SERVICE EDITION

OF

THE WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING

KIM

VOL. II

KIM

BY

RUDYARD KIPLING

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1915

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER IX
/a

S'doaks was son of Yelth the wise —

Chief of the Raven clan.
Itswoot the Bear had him in care

To make him a medicine^man.

He was quick and quicker to learn —

Bold and bolder to dare :
He danced the dread Kloo^Kwallie Dance

To tickle Itswoot the Bear I

Oregon Legend.

KIM flung himself whole-heartedly upon the
next turn of the wheel. He would be a
Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so
soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla
town-hall, he cast about for one to impress. A
Hindu child, some ten years old, squatted under a
lamp-post.

1 Where is Mr. Lurgan's house ?' demanded
Kim.

* I do not understand English/ was the answer,
and Kim shifted his speech accordingly.
K. Vol. II IE B

KIM

4 1 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 deodarxcrowned
Jakko, shouldering the stars* The house-lights,
scattered on every level, made, as it were, a double
firmament. Some were fixed, others belonged to
the rickshaws of careless, open ' spoken English
folk, going out to dinner.

'It is here/ said Kim's guide, and halted in a
veranda flush with the main road. No door
stayed them, but a curtain of beaded reeds that
split up the lamplight beyond.

'He is come/ said the boy, in a voice little
louder than a sigh, and vanished. Kim felt sure
that the boy had been posted to guide him from
the first, but putting a bold face on it, parted the
curtain. A black ' bearded man, with a green
shade over his eyes, sat at a table, and, one by
one, with short, white hands, picked up globules
of light from a tray before him, threaded them on
a glancing silken string, and hummed to himself
the while. Kim was conscious that beyond the
circle of light the room was full of things that
smelt like all the temples of all the East. A whiff
of musk, a puff of sandal'wood, and a breath of
sickly jessaminexoil caught his opened nostrils.

'I am here/ said Kim at last, speaking in the

KIM

vernacular: the smells made him forget that he
was to be a Sahib,

* Seventy * nine, eighty, eighty ' one/ the man
counted to himself, stringing pearl after pearl so
quickly that Kim could scarcely follow his fingers,
He slid off the green shade and looked fixedly
at Kim for a full half^minute. The pupils of the
eye dilated and closed to 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 him,

' Do not be afraid/ said Mr, Lurgan suddenly.

' Why should I fear?'

4 Thou wilt sleep here to-night, and stay with me
till it is time to go again to Nucklao, It is an order/

'It is an order/ Kim repeated, 'But where
shall I sleep?'

' Here, in this room/ Lurgan Sahib waved his
hand towards the darkness behind him,

* So be it/ said Kim composedly, 4 Now ? '
He nodded and held the lamp above his head,

As the light swept them, there leaped out from the
walls a collection of Tibetan devil^dance masks,
hanging above the fiend^embroidered draperies of
those ghastly functions — horned masks, scowling

3

KIM

masks, and masks of idiotic terror. In a corner,
a Japanese warrior, mailed and plumed, menaced
him with a halberd, and a score of lances and
hhandas and kuttars gave back the unsteady gleam,
But what interested Kim more than all these
things — he had seen devil x dance masks at the
Lahore Museum — was a glimpse of the soft-eyed
Hindu child who had left him in the doorway,
sitting cross-legged under the table of pearls with
a little smile on his scarlet lips.

4 1 think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me
afraid* And I am sure that the devil's brat below
the table wishes to see me afraid. This place/ he
said aloud, 'is like a Wonder House. Where is
my bed ? '

Lurgan Sahib pointed to a native quilt in a
corner by the loathsome masks, picked up the
lamp, and left the room black.

4 Was that Lurgan Sahib?' Kim asked as he
cuddled down. No answer. He could hear the
Hindu boy breathing, however, and, guided by
the sound, crawled across the floor, and cuffed
into the darkness, crying: 'Give answer, devil!
Is this the way to lie to a Sahib ? '

From the darkness he fancied he could hear the

echo of a chuckle. It could not be his soft-fleshed

companion, because he was weeping. So Kim

lifted up his voice and called aloud: 'Lurgan

4

KIM

Sahib ! O Lurgan Sahib ! Is it an order that thy
servant does not speak to me ? '

'It is an order/ The voice came from behind
him and he started*

'Very good. But remember/ he muttered, as
he resought the quilt, 'I will beat thee in the
morning* I do not love Hindus,'

That was no cheerful night; the room being
overfull of voices and music, Kim was waked
twice by some one calling his name. The second
time he set out in search, and ended by bruising
his nose against a box that certainly spoke with a
human tongue, but in no sort of human accent.
It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined
by wires to a smaller box on the floor — so far. at
least, as he could judge by touch. And the voice,
very hard and whirring, came out of the trumpet.
Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, thinking,
as usual, in Hindi.

'This with a beggar from the bazar might be
good but — I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib
and, which is twice as much more beside, a student
of Nucklao. Yess' (here he turned to English), 'a
boy of St. Xavier's. Damn Mr. Lurgan's eyes !
— It is some sort of machinery like a sewing *
machine. Oh, it is a great cheek of him — we are
not frightened that way at Lucknow — No!'
Then in Hindi: 'But what does he gain?

5

KIM

is only a trader — I am in his shop. But Creighton
Sahib is a Colonel — and I think Creighton Sahib
gave orders that it should be done. How I will
beat that Hindu in the morning ! What is this ? '

The trumpet'box was pouring out a string of
the most elaborate abuse that even Kim had ever
heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for a
moment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When
the vile thing drew breath, Kim was reassured by
the soft, sewingxmachine^like whirr,

* Chup I ' (be still) he cried, and again he heard
a chuckle that decided him, 4 Chup — or I break
your head/

The box took no heed, Kim wrenched at the
tin trumpet and something lifted with a click.
He had evidently raised a lid. If there were a
devil inside, now was its time for — he sniffed—
thus did the sewing-machines of the bazar smell,
He would clean that shaitan. He slipped off his
jacket, and plunged it into the box's mouth.
Something long and round bent under the pressure,
there was a whirr and the voice stopped — as voices
must if you ram a thrice-doubled coat on to the
wax cylinder and into the works of an expensive
phonograph. Kim finished his slumbers with a
serene mind.

In the morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib
looking down on him.

6

KIM

'Oah!' said Kim, firmly resolved to cling to
his Sahib-dom. ' There was a box in the night
that gave me bad talk. So I stopped it* Was it
your box ? '

The man held out his hand,

4 Shake hands, O'Hara/ he said. 4 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 some*
times/

Kim looked him over out of the corners of his
eyes* He was a Sahib in that he wore Sahib's
clothes ; the accent of his Urdu, the intonation of
his English, showed that he was anything but a
Sahib. He seemed to understand what moved in
Kim's mind ere the boy opened his mouth, and he
took no pains to explain himself as did Father
Victor or the Lucknow masters. Sweetest of all
—he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiatic side.

4 1 am sorry you cannot beat my boy this
morning. He says he will kill you with a knife
or poison. He is jealous, so I have put him in
the corner and I shall not speak to him to-day*
He has just tried to kill me. You must help me
with the breakfast. He is almost too jealous to
trust, just now/

Now a genuine imported Sahib from England

7

KIM

would have made a great to do over this tale*
Lurgan Sahib stated it as simply as Mahbub AH
was used to record his little affairs in the North,

The back veranda of the shop was built out
over the sheer hillside, and they looked down into
their neighbours' chimney-pots, as is the custom
of Simla. But even more than the purely Persian
meal cooked by Lurgan Sahib with his own hands,
the shop fascinated Kim. The Lahore Museum
was larger, but here were more wonders — ghost*
daggers and prayer-wheels from Tibet; turquoise
and raw amber necklaces ; green jade bangles ;
curiously packed incense-sticks in jars crusted over
with raw garnets; the devil-masks of overnight
and a wall full of peacock -blue draperies; gilt
figures of Buddha, and little portable lacquer
altars; Russian samovars with turquoises on the
lid; egg-shell china sets in quaint octagonal cane
boxes ; yellow ivory crucifixes — from Japan of all
places in the world, so Lurgan Sahib said ; carpets
in dusty bales, smelling atrociously, pushed back
behind torn and rotten screens of geometrical
work; Persian water -jugs for the hands after
meals ; dull copper incense-burners neither Chinese
nor Persian, with friezes of fantastic devils running
round them; tarnished silver belts that knotted
like raw hide; hair-pins of jade, ivory, and
plasma ; arms of all sorts and kinds, and a thousand

8

KIM

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,

4 Those things are nothing/ said his host,
following Kim's glance, 'I buy them because
they are pretty, and sometimes I sell — if I like
the buyer's look. My work is on the table — some
of it/

It blazed in the morning light — all red and
blue and green flashes, picked out with the vicious
blue ' white spurt of a diamond here and there*
Kim opened his eyes,

'Oh, they are quite well, those stones* It will
not hurt them to take the sun. Besides, they are
cheap. But with sick stones it is very different/
He piled Kim's plate anew. 4 There is no one but
me can doctor a sick pearl and re^blue turquoises.
I grant you opals — any fool can cure an opal — but
for a sick pearl there is only me. Suppose I were
to die! Then there would be no one. , * * Oh
no I You cannot do anything with jewels. It will
be quite enough if you understand a little about the
Turquoise — some day/

He moved to the end of the veranda to refill
the heavy, porous clay water*jug from the filter.

4 Do you want drink ? '

Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet off*

9

KIM

laid one hand on the jar. Next instant, it stood at
Kim's elbow, full to within half an inch of the
brim — the white cloth only showing, by a small
wrinkle, where it had slid into place,

'Wan!' said Kim in most utter amazement.
'That is magic/ Lurgan Sahib's smile showed
that the compliment had gone home,

4 Throw it back/

4 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.

4 1 said it would break/

'All one. Look at it. Look at the largest
piece/

That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve, as
it were a star on the floor. Kim looked intently;
Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently on the nape of
his neck, stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered :
4 Look ! It shall come to life again, piece by piece.
First the big piece shall join itself to two others on
the right and the left — on the right and the left.
Look!'

To save his life, Kim could not have turned his
head. The light touch held him as in a vice, and
his blood tingled pleasantly through him. There
was one large piece of the jar where there had been

10

KIM

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.

4 Look ! It is coming into shape/ said Lurgan
Sahib,

So far Kim had been thinking in Hindi, but a
tremor came on him, and with an effort like that
of a swimmer before sharks, who hurls himself half
out of the water, his mind leaped up from a dark'
ness that was swallowing it and took refuge in—
the multiplication-table in English !

4 Look I It is coming into shape/ whispered
Lurgan Sahib.

The jar had been smashed — yess, smashed— not
the native word, he would not think of that — but
smashed — into fifty pieces, and twice three was six,
and thrice three was nine, and four times three was
twelve. He clung desperately to the repetition.
The shadow-outline of the jar cleared like a mist
after rubbing eyes. There were the broken shards ;
there was the spilt water drying in the sun, and
through the cracks of the veranda showed, all
ribbed, the white house-wall below — and thrice
twelve was thirty-six !

11

KIM

4 Look ! Is it coming into shape ? f asked
Lurgan Sahib.

'But it is smashed — smashed/ he gasped —
Lurgan Sahib had been muttering softly for the
last half^minute. Kim wrenched his head aside.
4 Look I Dekko 1 It is there as it was there/

4 It is there as it was there/ said Lurgan, watch*
ing Kim closely while the boy rubbed his neck.
4 But you are the first of a many who have ever
seen it so/ He wiped his broad forehead.

4 Was that more magic ? ' Kim asked suspiciously.
The tingle had gone from his veins; he felt un*
usually wide awake.

'No, that was not magic. It was only to see
if there was — a flaw in a jewel. Sometimes very
fine jewels will fly all to pieces if a man holds
them in his hand, and knows the proper way.
That is why one must be careful before one
sets them. Tell me, did you see the shape of
the pot ? '

'For a little time. It began to grow like a
flower from the ground/

'And then what did you do? I mean, how
did you think ? '

' Oah I 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 ? '

12

KIM

4 If it was/ said Kim, 4 do you think I should
let it again ? I should run away/

4 And now you are not afraid — eh ? '

'Not now/

Lurgan Sahib looked at him more closely than
ever. M shall ask Mahbub Ali — not now, but
some day later/ he muttered* 4 1 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.

4 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/

4 Kubbee — hubbee nakinj came the broken
answer.

4 And whether he will kill this other boy ? '

4 Kubbee — hubbee nahin* (never— never. No!)

* What do you think he will do ? ' He turned
suddenly on Kim*

4 Oah ! I do not know. Let him go* perhaps,.
Why did he want to poison you ? '

13

KIM

4 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 re-
flectively, '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/

4 Then I think he is a fool/

'Hearest thou?' said Lurgan Sahib to the
shaking shoulders. 4 The Sahib's son thinks thou
art a little fool. Come out, and next time thy
heart is troubled, do not try white arsenic quite so
openly. Surely the Devil Dasim was lord of our
table-cloth that day ! It might have made me ill,
child, and then a stranger would have guarded the
jewels. Come ! '

The child, heavy - eyed with much weeping,
crept out from behind the bale and flung himself
passionately at Lurgan Sahib's feet, with an exx
travagance of remorse that impressed even Kim.

* I will look into the ink-pools — I will faithfully
guard the jewels ! Oh, my father and my mother,

14

KIM

send him away ! ' He indicated Kim with a back*
ward jerk of his bare heel,

4 Not yet — not yet. In a little while he will go
away again. But now he is at school — at a new
madrissah — and thou shalt be his teacher. Play the
Play of the Jewels against him. I will keep tally/

The child dried his tears at once, and dashed to
the back of the shop, whence he returned with a
copper tray.

'Give me!' he said to Lurgan Sahib. 'Let
them come from thy hand, for he may say that I
knew them before/

'Gently — gently/ the man replied, and from a
drawer under the table dealt a half handful of
clattering trifles into the tray.

' Now/ said the child, waving an old news*
paper. 'Look on them as long as thou wilt,
stranger. Count and, if need be, handle. One look
is enough for me! He turned his back proudly.

' But what is the game ? '

4 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. / will write mine/

'OahF 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

15

KIM

the winking jewels and scribbled in a native
account'book.

4 There are under that paper five blue stones-
one big, one smaller, and three small/ said Kim,
all in haste. 4 There are four green stones, and
one with a hole in it ; there is one yellow stone
that I can see through, and one like a pipe-stem.
There are two red stones, and — and — I made the
count fifteen, but two I have forgotten. No!
Give me time. One was of ivory, little and
brownish ; and — and — give me time . . /

'One — two' — Lurgan Sahib counted him out
up to ten. Kim shook his head.

'Hear my count T the child burst in, trilling
with laughter. ' First, are two flawed sapphires —
one of two ruttees and one of four as I should
judge. The four^ruttee sapphire is chipped at the
edge. There is one Turkestan turquoise, plain
with black veins, and there are two inscribed-
one with a Name of God in gilt, and the other
being cracked across, for it came out of an old ring,
I cannot read. We have now all five blue stones.
Four flawed emeralds there are, but one is drilled
in two places, and one is a little carven—

4 Their weights ? ' said Lurgan Sahib impas*
sively.

4 Three — five — five — and four ruttees as I judge
it. There is one piece of old greenish pipe amber,

16

KIM

and a cut topaz from Europe* There is one
ruby of Burma, of two ruttees, without a flaw, and
there is a balas^ruby, flawed, of two ruttees.
There is a carved ivory from China representing
a rat sucking an egg ; and there is last — ah ha ! —
a ball of crystal as big as a bean set in a gold leaf/

He clapped his hands at the close*

4 He is thy master/ said Lurgan Sahib, smiling.

'Huh! He knew the names of the stones/
said Kim, flushing. 4 Try again ! With common
things such as he and I both know/

They heaped the tray again with odds and
ends gathered from the shop, and even the
kitchen, and every time the child won, till Kim
marvelled.

'Bind my eyes — let me feel once with my
fingers, and even then I will leave thee open-eyed
behind/ he challenged.

Kim stamped with vexation when the lad made
his boast good.

'If it were men — or horses/ he said, 4l could
do better. This playing with tweezers and knives
and scissors is too little/

4 Learn first — teach later/ said Lurgan Sahib
4 Is he thy master ? '

4 Truly. But how is it done ? '

'By doing it many times over till it is done
perfectly — for it is worth doing/

K. Vol. II 17 c

KIM

The Hindu boy, in highest feather, actually
patted Kim on the back.

4 Do not despair/ he said. 4 1 myself will teach
thee/

'And I will see that thou art well taught/ said
Lurgan Sahib, still speaking in the vernacular, ' for
except my boy here — it was foolish of him to buy
so much white arsenic when, if he had asked, I
could have given it — except my boy here I have not
in a long time met with one better worth teaching.
And there are ten days more ere thou canst return
to Lucknao where they teach nothing — at the long
price. We shall, I think, be friends/

They were a most mad ten days, but Kim
enjoyed himself too much to reflect on their crazi*
ness. In the morning they played the Jewel
Game — sometimes with veritable stones, some*
times with piles of swords and daggers, some*
times with photographs of natives. Through the
afternoons he and the Hindu boy would mount
guard in the shop, sitting dumb behind a carpet*
bale or a screen and watching Mr. Lurgan's many
and very curious visitors. There were small Rajahs,
escorts coughing in the veranda, who came to buy
curiosities — such as phonographs and mechanical
toys. There were ladies in search of necklaces,
and men, it seemed to Kim — but his mind may
have been vitiated by early training — in search of

18

KIM

the ladies ; natives from independent and feudatory
courts whose ostensible business was the repair of
broken necklaces — rivers of light poured out
upon the table — but whose true end seemed to
be to raise money for angry Maharanees or young
Rajahs* There were Babus to whom Lurgan Sahib
talked with austerity and authority, but at the end
of each interview he gave them money in coined
silver and currency notes* There were occasional
gatherings of long ' coated theatrical natives who
discussed metaphysics in English and Bengali, to
Mr. Lurgan's great edification. He was always
interested in religions. At the end of the day.
Kim and the Hindu boy — whose name varied
at Lurgan's pleasure — were expected to give a
detailed account of all that they had seen and
heard — their view of each man's character, as
shown in his face. talk, and manner, and their
notions of his real errand. After dinner* Lurgan
Sahib's fancy turned more to what might be called
dressing'Up* in which game he took a most in*
forming interest. He could paint faces to a
marvel; with a brush'dab here and a line there
changing them past recognition. The shop was
full of all manner of dresses and turbans, and Kim
was apparelled variously as a young Mohanv
medan of good family* an oilman, and once
— which was a joyous evening — as the son of an

19

KIM

Oudh landholder in the fullest of full dress,
Lurgan Sahib had a hawk's eye to detect the
least flaw in the make-up ; and lying on a worn
teak-wood couch, would explain by the half -hour
together how such and such a caste talked, or
walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and,
since • ' hows ' matter little in this world, the
'why' of everything* The Hindu child played
this game clumsily. That little mind, keen as an
icicle where tally of jewels was concerned, could not
temper itself to enter another's soul ; but a demon
in Kim woke up and sang with joy as he put on
the changing dresses, and changed speech and
gesture therewith.

Carried away by enthusiasm, he volunteered to
show Lurgan Sahib one evening how the disciples
of a certain caste of faquir ', old Lahore acquaint-
ances, begged doles by the roadside ; and what sort
of language he would use to an Englishman, to a
Punjabi farmer going to a fair, and to a woman
without a veil* Lurgan Sahib laughed immensely,
and begged Kim to stay as he was, immobile for
half an hour — cross-legged, ash-smeared, and wild-
eyed, in the back room. At the end of that time
entered a hulking, obese Babu whose stockinged
leg 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.

20

KIM

4 1 think/ said the Babu heavily, lighting a
cigarette, ' I am of opeenion that it is most extra*
ordinary and effeecient performance* Except that
you had told me I should have opined that — that
— that you were pulling my legs* How soon can
he become approximately effeecient chain * man?
Because then I shall indent for him/

4 That is what he must learn at Lucknow/

4 Then order him to be jolly danvquick. Good*
night, Lurgan/ The Babu swung out with the
gait of a bogged cow*

When they were telling over the day's list of
visitors* Lurgan Sahib asked Kim who he thought
the man might be*

4 God knows ! ' said Kim cheerily. The tone
might almost have deceived Mahbub Ali, but it
failed entirely with the healer of sick pearls.

4 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.

4 1 — 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/

4 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

21

KIM

that he has no name, but only a number and a
letter — that is a custom among us/

'And is there a price upon his head too — as
upon Mah — all the others ? '

'Not yet; but if a boy rose up who is now
sitting here and went — look, the door is open ! — as
far as a certain house with a red'painted veranda,
behind that which was the old theatre in the Lower
Bazar, and whispered through the shutters : " Hur^
ree Ghunder Mookerjee bore the bad news of last
month," that boy might take away a belt full of
rupees/

4 How many ? ' said Kim promptly,

'Five hundred — a thousand — as many as he
might ask for/

' Good* And how long might such a boy live
after the news was told ? ' He smiled merrily at
Lurgan Sahib's very beard.

4 Ah 1 That is to be well thought of. Perhaps
if he were very clever, he might live out the day —
but not the night. By no means the night/

'Then what is the Babu's pay if so much is
put upon his head ? '

' Eighty — perhaps a hundred — perhaps a
hundred and fifty rupees? but the pay is the
least part of the work. From time to time, God
causes men to be born — and thou art one of them
—who have a lust to go abroad at the risk of

22

KIM

their lives and discover news — to-day it may
be of far-off things, to-morrow of some hidden
mountain, and the next day of some near-by men
who have done a foolishness against the State*
These souls are very few ; and of these few, not
more than ten are of the best. Among these ten
I count the Babu, and that is curious* How great
therefore and desirable must be a business that
brazens the heart of a Bengali ! '

'True. But the days go slowly for me* I am
yet a boy, and it is only within two months I
learned to write Angrezi. Even now I cannot
read it well. And there are yet years and years
and long years before I can be even a chain-
man/

'Have patience, Friend of all the World '-
Kim started at the title. 'Would I had a few
of the years that so irk thee. I have proved thee
in several small ways. This will not be forgotten
when I make my report to the Colonel Sahib/
Then, changing suddenly into English with a deep
laugh : —

'By Jove! O'Hara, I think there is a great
deal in you ; but you must not become proud and
you must not talk. You must go back to Lucknow
and be a good little boy and mind your book, as
the English say, and perhaps, next holidays if you
care, you can come back to me I ' Kim's face fell.

23

KIM

4 Oh, I mean if you like. I know where you want
to go/

Four days later a seat was booked for Kim and
his small trunk at the rear of a Kalka tonga* His
companion was the whale-like Babu, who* with a
fringed shawl wrapped round his head, and his
fat open x work ' stockinged left leg tucked under
him, shivered and grunted in the morning chill.

'How comes it that this man is one of ust*
thought Kim, considering the jelly-back as they
jolted down the road; and the reflection threw
him into most pleasant day-dreams. Lurgan
Sahib had given him five rupees — a splendid sum
— as well as the assurance of his protection if he
worked. Unlike Mahbub, Lurgan Sahib had
spoken most explicitly of the reward that would
follow obedience, and Kim was content. If
only, like the Babu, he could enjoy the dignity
of a letter and a number — and a price upon
his head! Some day he would be all that and
more. Some day he might be almost as great
as Mahbub AH! The housetops of his search
should be half India ; he would follow Kings and
ministers, as in the old days he had followed vakils
and lawyers' touts across Lahore city for Mahbub
Ali's sake. Meantime, there was the present, and
not at all unpleasant, fact of St. Xavier's immedi*
ately before him. There would be new boys to

24

KIM

condescend to, and there would be tales of holiday
adventures to hear. Young Martin, son of the
tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that he would
go to war, with a rifle, against the head-hunters*
That might be, but it was certain young Martin
had not been blown half across the forecourt of a
Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks ; nor
had he. * . * Kim fell to telling himself the story
of his own adventures through the last three
months. He could paralyse St. Xavier's — even
the biggest boys who shaved — with the recital,
were that permitted. But it was, of course, out
of the question. There would be a price upon
his head in good time, as Lurgan Sahib had assured
him ; and if he talked foolishly now, not only would
that price never be set, but Colonel Creighton
would cast him off — and he would be left to the
wrath of Lurgan Sahib and Mahbub AH — for the
short space of life that would remain to him.

4 So I should lose Delhi for the sake of a fish/
was his proverbial philosophy. It behoved him to
forget his holidays (there would always remain the
fun of inventing imaginary adventures) and, as
Lurgan Sahib had said, to work.

Of all the boys hurrying back to St. Xavier's,
from Sukkur in the sands to Galle beneath the
palms, none was so filled with virtue as Kimball
O'Hara, jiggetting down to Umballa behind

25

KIM

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, whose name on the
books of one section of the Ethnological Survey
was R.I 7.

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 Words*
worth's Excursion (all this was Greek to Kim).
French, too, was vital, and the best was to be picked
up in Chandernagore, a few miles from Calcutta.
Also a man might go far, as he himself had done,
by strict attention to plays called Lear and Julius
Ccesar, both much in demand by examiners*
Lear was not so full of historical allusions as
Julius Caesar \ the book cost four annas, but
could be bought second-hand in Bow Bazar for
two. Still more important than Wordsworth,
or the eminent authors, Burke and Hare, was
the art and science of mensuration. A boy
who had passed his examination in these branches
—for which, by the way, there were no cram*
books — could, by merely marching over a country
with a compass and a level and a straight eye,
carry away a picture of that country which might
be sold for large sums in coined silver. But as
it was occasionally inexpedient to carry about

26

KIM

measuring'chains, a boy would do well to know
the precise length of his own foot-pace, so that
when he was deprived of what Hurree Chunder
called 4 adventitious aids f he might still tread his
distances. To keep count of thousands of paces,
Hurree Chunder's experience had shown him
nothing more valuable than a rosary of eighty ^
one or a hundred and eight beads, for 'it was
divisible and subdivisible into many multiples and
sub^multiples/ Through the volleying drifts of
English, Kim caught the general trend of the talk,
and it interested him very much. Here was a
new craft that a man could tuck away in his head ;
and by the look of the large wide world unfolding
itself before him, it seemed that the more a man
knew the better for him.

Said the Babu when he had talked for an hour
and a half, 4 1 hope some day to enjoy your offeecial
acquaintance. Ad interim^ if I may be pardoned
that expression, I shall give you this betel 'box
which is highly valuable article and cost me two
rupees only four years ago/ It was a cheap, heart>
shaped brass thing with three compartments for
carrying the eternal betel^nut, lime and pan*ltsd ;
but it was filled with little tabloid^bottles. 4 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

27

KIM

your body. It is great nuisance to go sick in the
middle of business. I am fond of drugs myself,
and they are handy to cure poor people too. These
are good departmental drugs — quinine and so on.
I give it you for souvenir. Now good-bye. I have
urgent private business here by the roadside/

He slipped out noiselessly as a cat, on the
Umballa road, hailed a passing ekka and jingled
away, while Kim, tongue-tied, twiddled the brass
betel-box in his hands.

» » . » .

The record of a boy's education interests few
save his parents, and, as you know, Kim was an
orphan. It is written in the books of St. Xavier
in Partibus that a report of Kim's progress was
forwarded at the end of each term to Colonel
Greighton and to Father Victor, from whose hands
duly came the money for his schooling. It is
further recorded in the same books that he
showed a great aptitude for mathematical studies
as well as map-making, and carried away a prize
(The Life of Lord Lawrence, tree-calf, two vols.,
nine rupees, eight annas) for proficiency therein;
and the same term played in St. Xavier's eleven
against the Allyghur Mohammedan College, his
age being fourteen years and ten months. He was
also re- vaccinated (from which we may assume that
there had been another epidemic of small'pox at

28

KIM

Lucknow) about the same time. Pencil notes on
the edge of an old mustervroll record that he was
punished several times for 4 conversing with im^
proper persons/ and it seems that he was once
sentenced to heavy pains for ' absenting himself for
a day in the company of a street beggar/ That was
when he got over the gate and pleaded with the
lama through a whole day down the banks of the
Goomtee to accompany him on the road next
holidays — for one month — for a little week; and
the lama set his face as a flint against it, averring that
the time had not yet come, Kim's business, said
the old man as they ate cakes together, was to get
all the wisdom of the Sahibs and then he would
see. The hand of friendship must in some way
have averted the whip of calamity, for six weeks
later Kim seems to have passed an examination in
elementary surveying 'with great credit/ his age
being fifteen years and eight months* From this
date the record is silent. His name does not appear
in the year's batch of those who entered for the
subordinate Survey of India, but against it stand
the words ' removed on appointment/

Several times in those three years, cast up at
the Temple of the Tirthankers in Benares the
lama, a little thinner and a shade yellower, if
that were possible, but gentle and untainted as
ever. Sometimes it was from the South that he

29

KIM

came — from south of Tuticorin, whence the
wonderful firexboats go to Ceylon where are priests
who know Pali ; sometimes it was from the wet
green West and the thousand cotton "factory chim^
neys 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 ac'
customed now to the ways of the rail, in a third*
class carriage. Returning, it was noticeable, as his
friend the Seeker pointed out to the head^priest, that
he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River,
or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life,
but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of
a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the
temple had ever seen. Yes, he had followed the
traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all India.
(The curator has still in his possession a most
marvellous account of his wanderings and medi*
tations.) 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 ap*
pointed to bring the event to a happy issue, and

30

KIM

versed in great wisdom — such wisdom as white*
haired Keepers of Images possess. For example
(here came out the snuff'gourd, and the kindly
Jain priests made haste to be silent) : —

4 Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King
of Benares — let all listen to the Jatakal — an
elephant was captured for a time by the king's
hunters and, ere he broke free, beringed with a
grievous leg^iron. This he strove to remove with
hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying up and
down the forests, besought his brother^elephants to
wrench it asunder. One by one, with their strong
trunks, they tried and failed. At the last they gave
it as their opinion that the ring was not to be broken
by any bestial power. And in a thicket, new-born,
wet with the moisture of birth, lay a day*old calf
of the herd whose mother had died. The fettered
elephant, forgetting his own agony, said : 4t If I do
not help this suckling it will perish under our feet."
So he stood above the young thing, making his legs
buttresses against the uneasily moving herd ; and
he begged milk of a virtuous cow, and the calf
throve, and the ringed elephant was the calf's
guide and defence. Now the days of an elephant
— let all listen to the Jdtaha \ — are thirty^five years
to his full strength, and through thirty^five Rains
the ringed elephant befriended the younger, and
all the while the fetter ate into the flesh.

31

KIM

4 Then one day the young elephant saw the half -
buried iron, and turning to the elder said : " What
is this ? " 44 It is even my sorrow/' said he who
had befriended him. Then that other put out his
trunk and in the twinkling of an eye-lash abolished
the ring, saying : 44 The appointed time has come/'
So the virtuous elephant who had waited temper*
ately 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
Jdtakal—for the Elephant was Ananda, and the
Calf that broke the ring was none other than The
Lord Himself. . . /

Then he would shake his head benignly, and
over the ever-clicking rosary point out how free
that elephant calf was from the sin of pride. He
was as humble as a chela who, seeing his master
sitting in the dust outside the Gates of Learning,
overleapt the gates (though they were locked) and
took his master to his heart in the presence of the
proud-stomached city. Rich would be the reward
of such a master and such a chela when the time
came for them to seek freedom together !

So did the lama speak, coming and going across
India as softly as a bat. A sharp-tongued old
woman in a house among the fruit-trees behind
Saharunpore honoured him as the woman honoured
the prophet, but his chamber was by no means

32

KIM

upon the wall. In an apartment of the forecourt
overlooked by cooing doves he would sit, while she
laid aside her useless veil and chattered of spirits
and fiends of Kulu, of grandchildren unborn, and of
the free-tongued brat who had talked to her in the
resting-place. Once, too, he strayed alone from
the Grand Trunk Road below Umballa to the very
village whose priest had tried to drug him ; but
the kind heaven that guards lamas sent him at
twilight through the crops, absorbed and un*
suspicious, to the ressaldar's door* Here was like
to have been a grave misunderstanding, for the
old soldier asked him why the Friend of the Stars
had gone that way only six days before.

'That may not be/ said the lama. 'He has
gone back to his own people/

4 He sat in that corner telling a hundred merry
tales five nights ago/ his host insisted. 4 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/

K. Vol. II 33 D

KIM

'All one — but if it were not the boy how did
he come to speak so continually of thee ? '

4 And what said he ? ' asked the lama eagerly.

4 Sweet words — an hundred thousand — that
thou art his father and mother and such all. Pity
that he does not take the Queen's service* He is
fearless/

This news amazed the lama, who did not then
know how religiously Kim kept to the contract
made with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by
Colonel Creighton. . * .

4 There is no holding the young pony from
the game/ said the horse-dealer when the Colonel
pointed out that vagabonding over India in holiday
time was absurd. 4 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/

34

CHAPTER X

Your tiercel's too long at hack, Sire. He's no eyass
But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,
Dangerously free o' the air. Faith I were he mine
(As mine's the glove he binds to for his tirings)
I'd fly him with a make-hawk. He's in yarak
Plumed to the very point — so manned so weathered . . .
Give him the firmament God made him for,
And what shall take the air of him ? — Old Play.

E*GAN SAHIB did not use as direct speech,
but his advice tallied with Mahbub's ; and
the upshot was good for Kim, He knew
better now than to leave Lucknow city in native
garb, and if Mahbub were anywhere within reach
of a letter, it was to Mahbub's camp he headed,
and made his change under the Pathan's wary eye.
Could the little Survey paint-box that he used for
map'tinting in term*time have found a tongue to
tell of holiday doings, he might have been expelled.
Once Mahbub and he went together as far as the
beautiful city of Bombay, with three truck^loads of

35

KIM

tranvhorses, and Mahbub nearly melted when Kim
proposed a sail in a dhow across the Indian Ocean
to buy Gulf Arabs, which he understood from a
hanger-on of the dealer Abdul Rahman, fetched
better prices than mere Kabulis.

He dipped his hand into the dish with that
great trader when Mahbub and a few co-religion*
ists 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
fore'hatch of a coasting'Steamer, well persuaded
he had been poisoned* The Babu's famous drug'
box proved useless, though Kim had restocked it
at Bombay. Mahbub had business at Quetta, and
there Kim, as Mahbub admitted, earned his keep,
and perhaps a little over, by spending four curious
days as scullion in the house of a fat Commissariat
sergeant, from whose office^box, in an auspicious
moment, he removed a little vellum ledger which
he copied out — it seemed to deal entirely with
cattle and camel sales — by moonlight, lying behind
an outhouse, all through one hot night. Then he
returned the ledger to its place, and, at Mahbub's
word, left that service unpaid, rejoining him six
miles down the road, the clean copy in his bosom.

'That soldier is a small fish/ Mahbub AH
explained, 'but in time we shall catch the larger
one. He only sells oxen at two prices — one for

36

KIM

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/

4 Oho ! ' said Kim, and held his tongue. That
was in the monsoon holidays, after he had taken
the prize for mathematics. The Christmas holi'
days he spent — deducting ten days for private
amusements — with Lurgan Sahib, where he sat
for the most part in front of a roaring wood^fire —
Jakko^road was four feet deep in snow that year —
and — the small Hindu had gone away to be
married — helped Lurgan to thread pearls. He
made Kim learn whole chapters of the Koran by
heart, till he could deliver them with the very roll
and cadence of a mullah. Moreover, he told Kim
the names and properties of many native drugs,
as well as the runes proper to recite when you
administer them. And in the evenings he
wrote charms on parchment — elaborate pentagrams
crowned with the names of devils — Murra, and
Awan the Companion of Kings — all fantastically
written in the corners. More to the point, he

37

KIM

advised Kim as to the care of his own body, the
cure of fever-fits, and simple remedies of the Road.
A week before it was time to go down, Colonel
Creighton Sahib — this was unfair— sent Kim a
written examination-paper that concerned itself
solely with rods and chains and links and angles.

Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and
here, by the way, he nearly died of thirst, plodding
through the sand on a camel to the mysterious
city of Bikaneer, where the wells are four hundred
feet deep, and lined throughout with camel-bone.
It was not an amusing trip from Kim's point of
view, because — in defiance of the contract — the
Colonel ordered him to make a map of that wild,
walled city; and since Mohammedan horse-boys
and pipe-tenders are not expected to drag Survey-
chains round the capital of an independent native
state, Kim was forced to pace all his distances by
means of a bead rosary. He used the compass
for bearings as occasion served — after dark chiefly,
when the camels had been fed — and by the help of
his little Survey paint-box of six colour-cakes and
three brushes, he achieved something not remotely
unlike the city of Jeysalmir. Mahbub laughed a
great deal, and advised him to make up a written
report as well ; and in the back of the big account-
book that lay under the flap of Mahbub's pet
saddle Kim fell to work.

38

KIM

• 'It must hold everything that thou hast seen
or touched or considered* Write as though the
Jungxi-Lat Sahib himself had come by stealth with
a vast army outsetting to war/

4 How great an army ? '

'Oh, half a lakh of men/

4 Folly ! Remember how few and bad were the
wells in the sand. Not a thousand thirsty men
could come near by here/

'Then write that down — also all the old
breaches in the walls — and whence the firewood
is cut — and what is the temper and disposition of
the King. I stay here till all my horses are sold*
I will hire a room by the gateway, and thou
shalt be my accountant There is a good lock to
the door/

The report in its unmistakable St« Xavier's
running script, and the brown, yellow, and lake*
daubed map, was on hand a few years ago (a care-
less clerk filed it with the rough notes of E.23's
second Seistan survey), but by now the pencil
characters must be almost illegible. Kim trans.*
lated it, sweating under the light of an oiUamp,
to Mahbub, the second day of their returns-journey.
The Pathan rose and stooped over his dappled
saddle-bags.

4 1 knew it would be worthy a dress of honour,
and so I made one ready/ he said smiling. 4 Were

39

KIM

I Amir of Afghanistan (and some day we may
see him), I would fill thy mouth with gold/ He
laid the garments formally at Kim's feet. There
was a gold' embroidered Peshawur turban 'cap,
rising to a cone, and a big turban^cloth ending
in a broad fringe of gold. There was a Delhi
embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milky white
shirt, fastening to the right, ample and flowing;
green pyjamas with twisted silk waist^string ; and
that nothing might be lacking, russia * leather
slippers, smelling divinely, with arrogantly curled
tips.

* Upon a Wednesday, and in the morning, to
put on new clothes is auspicious/ said Mahbub
solemnly. 'But we must not forget the wicked
folk in the world. So I '

He capped all the splendour, that was taking
Kim's delighted breath away, with a mother^of^
pearl, nickeLplated, seHvextracting *450 revolver.

4 1 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

40

KIM

just beginning. Then he stooped towards Mahbub's
feet to make proper acknowledgment with flutter^
ing, quick ' patting hands; his heart too full for
words, Mahbub forestalled and embraced him,

4 My son/ said he, * what need of words between
us ? But is not the little gun a delight ? All six
cartridges come out at one twist. It is borne in
the bosom next the skin, which, as it were, keeps
it oiled. Never put it elsewhere, and please God,
thou shalt some day kill a man with it/

4Haimai!* 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 ? '

4 Son, I am wearied of that madrissah, where
they take the best years of a man to teach him
what he can only learn upon the Road, The
folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom.
No matter. Maybe thy written report shall save
thee further bondage; and God He knows we
need men more and more in the Game/

They marched, jaw Abound against blowing
sand, across the salt desert to Jodhpore, where
Mahbub and his handsome nephew Habib'Ullah

41

KIM

did much trading ; and then sorrowfully, in Euro-
pean clothes, which he was fast outgrowing, Kim
went second-class to St. Xavier's. Three weeks
later, Colonel Creighton, pricing Tibetan ghost"
daggers at Lurgan's shop, faced Mahbub AH
openly mutinous* Lurgan Sahib operated as sup*
port in reserve.

'The pony is made — finished — mouthed and
paced, Sahib I From now on, day by day, he will
lose his manners if he is kept at tricks. Drop
the rein on his back and let go/ said the horse-
dealer* 4 We need him/

4 But he is so young, Mahbub — not more than
sixteen — is he ? '

4 When I was fifteen, I had shot my man and
begot my man, Sahib/

'You impenitent old heathen/ Creighton
turned to Lurgan. The black beard nodded
assent to the wisdom of the Afghan's dyed scarlet.

4 1 should have used him long ago/ said Lurgan.
'The younger the better. That is why I always
have my really valuable jewels watched by a child.
You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every
way : he is the only boy I could not make to see
things/

'In the crystal — in the ink-pool ?' demanded
Mahbub.

'No. Under my hand, as I told you. That

42

KIM

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 you're right. But, as you
know, there is no Survey work for him at
present/

4 Let him out — let him go/ Mahbub interrupted,
4 Who expects any colt to carry heavy weight at
first? Let him run with the caravans like our
white camel'colts — for luck, I would take him
myself, but —

* There is a little business where he would be
most useful — in the South/ said Lurgan, with
peculiar suavity, dropping his heavy blued eyelids,

'E.23 has that in hand/ said Creighton
quickly, ' He must not go down there. Besides,
he knows no Turki/

4 Only tell him the shape and the smell of the
letters we want and he will bring them back/
Lurgan insisted.

4 No. That is a man's job/ said Creighton.

It was a wry-necked matter of unauthorised and
incendiary correspondence between a person who
claimed to be the ultimate authority in all matters
of the Mohammedan religion throughout the

43

KIM

world, and a younger member of a royal house
who had been brought to book for kidnapping
women within British territory. The Moslem
Archbishop had been emphatic and over^arrogant ;
the young prince was merely sulky at the curtail'
ment of his privileges, but there was no need he
should continue a correspondence which might
some day compromise him. One letter indeed
had been procured, but the finder was later found
dead by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader,
as E.23, taking up the work, duly reported.

These facts, and a few others not to be published,
made both Mahbub and Creighton shake their
heads.

'Let him go out with his Red Lama/ said the
horse-dealer with visible effort. 'He is fond of
the old man. He can learn his paces by the
rosary at least/

4 1 have had some dealings with the old man —
by letter/ said Colonel Creighton, smiling to him'
self. 'Whither goes he ?'

4 Up and down the land, as he has these three
years. He seeks a River of Healing. God's curse
upon all — r 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

44

KIM

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 medita^
tively. ' Do you know what Hurree Babu really
wants ? He wants to be made a member of the
Royal Society by taking ethnological notes. I
tell you, I tell him about the lama everything
that Mahbub and the boy have told me. Hurree
Babu goes down to Benares — at his own expense,
I think/

4 1 don't/ said Creighton briefly. He had paid
Hurree's travelling expenses, out of a most lively
curiosity to learn what the lama might be.

4 And he applies to the lama for information on
lamaism, and devil dances, and spells and charms,
several times in these few years. Holy Virgin!
I could have told him all that yee^ars ago. I
think Hurree Babu is getting too old for the Road.
He likes better to collect manners and customs
information. Yes, he wants to be an F.R.S/

4 Hurree thinks well of the boy, doesn't he ? '

4 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

45

KIM

strike you, Mahbub ? Let the boy run with the
lama for six months. After that we can see* He
will get experience/

4 He has it already, Sahib — as a fish controls
the water he swims in; but for every reason it
will be well to loose him from the school/

'Very good, then/ said Creighton, half to
himself. 'He can go with the lama, and if
Hurree Babu cares to keep an eye on them so much
the better. He won't lead the boy into any danger
as Mahbub would* Curious — his wish to be an
RR.S. Very human, too. He is best on the
Ethnological side — Hurree/

No money and no preferment would have
drawn Greighton from his work on the Indian
Survey, but deep in his heart also lay the ambition
to write * F.R.S/ after his name. Honours of a
sort he knew could be obtained by ingenuity and
the help of friends, but, to the best of his belief,
nothing save work — papers representing a life of
it — took a man into the Society which he had
bombarded for years with monographs on strange
Asiatic cults and unknown customs. Nine men
out of ten would flee from a Royal Society soire*e
in extremity of boredom ; but Creighton was the
tenth, and at times his soul yearned for the
crowded rooms in easy London where silver-haired,
bald-headed gentlemen who know nothing of the

46

KIM

Army move among spectroscopic experiments, the
lesser plants of the frozen tundras, electric flight-
measuring machines, and apparatus for slicing into
fractional millimetres the left eye of the female
mosquito. By all right and reason, it was the
Royal Geographical that should have appealed to
him, but men are as chancy as children in their
choice of playthings. So Creighton smiled, and
thought the better of Hurree Babu, moved by like
desire.

He dropped the ghost-dagger and looked up at
Mahbub.

4 How soon can we get the colt from the
stable ? ' said the horse-dealer, reading his eyes.

'Hmm. If I withdraw him by order now—
what will he do, think you ? I have never before
assisted at the teaching of such an one/

* He will come to me/ said Mahbub promptly.
4 Lurgan Sahib and I will prepare him for the Road/

4 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/

4 It's only a boy, after all/

'Ye-es; but first, he has nothing to tell; and
secondly, he knows what would happen. Also, he
is very fond of Mahbub, and of me a little/

47

KIM

'Will he draw pay?' demanded the practical
horse-dealer.

'Food and water allowance only* Twenty
rupees a month/

One advantage of the Secret Service is that it
has no worrying audit. The service is ludicrously
starved, of course, but the funds are administered
by a few men who do not call for vouchers
or present itemised accounts, Mahbub's eyes
lighted with almost a Sikh's love of money.
Even Lurgan's impassive face changed. He con*
sidered the years to come when Kim would have
been entered and made to the Great Game that
never ceases day and night, throughout India.
He foresaw honour and credit in the mouths of a
chosen few, coming to him from his pupil. Lurgan
Sahib had made E.23 what E.23 was, out of a
bewildered, impertinent, lying, little North * West
Province man,

But the joy of these masters was pale and
smoky beside the joy of Kim when St, Xavier's
Head called him aside, with word that Colonel
Creighton had sent for him,

M understand, O'Hara, that he has found you
a place as an assistant chain* man in the Canal
Department: that comes of taking up mathematics.
It is great luck for you, for you are only seven*
teen ; but of course you understand that you do

48

KIM

not become pukka (permanent) till you have passed
the autumn examination. So you must not think
you are going out into the world to enjoy yourself,
or that your fortune is made. There is a great
deal of hard work before you. Only, if you
succeed in becoming pukka, you can rise, you
know, to four hundred and fifty a month/
Whereat the Principal gave him much good advice
as to his conduct, and his manners, and his
morals ; and others, his elders, who had not been
wafted into billets, talked, as only Anglo-Indian
lads can, of favouritism and corruption. Indeed,
young Cazalet, whose father was a pensioner
at Chunar, hinted very broadly that Colonel
Creighton's interest in Kim was directly paternal ;
and Kim, instead of retaliating, did not even use
language. He was thinking of the immense fun
to come, of Mahbub's letter of the day before,
all neatly written in English, making appointment
for that afternoon in a house the very name of
which would have crisped the Principal's hair with
horror. . . .

Said Kim to Mahbub in Lucknow railway station
that evening, above the luggage-scales — 4l 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 utter-
ness of that end, and his eyes blazed like red coals.

K. Vol. II 49 E

KIM

* Then where is the pistol that I may wear it ? '

4 Softly ! A half-year, to run without heel-ropes.
I begged that much from Colonel Creighton Sahib.
At twenty rupees a month. Old Red Hat knows
that thou art coming/

* I will pay thee dustoorie (commission) on my
pay for three months/ said Kim gravely. 4 Yea,
two rupees a month. But first we must get rid
of these/ He plucked his thin linen trousers and
dragged at his collar. 'I have brought with me
all that I need on the Road. My trunk has gone
up to Lurgan Sahib's/

4 Who sends his salaams to thee — Sahib/

4 Lurgan Sahib is a very clever man. But

what dost thou do ? '

4 1 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/

4 1 would have done as much — had it struck
my thick head/ Mahbub growled. ' Come away.
The lamps are lit now, and none will mark thee
in the bazar. We go to Huneefa's house.'

On the way thither, Mahbub gave him much the
same sort of advice as his mother gave to Lemuel,
and curiously enough, Mahbub was exact to

50

KIM

point out how Huneefa and her likes destroyed
kings.

4 And I remember/ he quoted maliciously, 4 one
who said, "Trust a snake before a harlot and a
harlot before a Pathan, Mahbub AH." Now,
excepting as to Pathans, of whom I am one, all
that is true. Most true is it in the Great Game,
for it is by means of women that all plans come to
ruin and we lie out in dawning with our throats
cut* So it happened to such a one/ — he gave the
reddest particulars.

'Then why ?' Kim paused before a filthy

staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an
upper chamber, in the ward that is behind Azim
Ullah's tobacco'shop. Those who know it call it
The Birdcage — it is so full of whisperings and
whistlings and chirrupings.

The room, with its dirty cushions and half*
smoked hookahs, smelt abominably of stale tobacco.
In one corner lay a huge and shapeless woman clad
in greenish gauzes, and decked, brow, nose, ear,
neck, wrist, arm, waist, and ankle with heavy native
jewellery. When she turned it was like the clash'
ing of copper pots. A lean cat in the balcony out*
side the window mewed hungrily. Kim checked,
bewildered, at the door-curtain.

4 Is that the new stuff, Mahbub ? ' said Huneefa
lazily, scarce troubling to remove the mouthpiece

51

KIM

from her lips, 4 O Buktanoos ! ' — like most of
her kind, she swore by the Djinns — 4 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 4 Whither does
it lead ?'

'To protection. To-night we change thy
colour. This sleeping under roofs has blanched
thee like an almond. But Huneefa has the secret
of a colour that catches. No painting of a day or
two. Also, we fortify thee against the chances
of the Road. That is my gift to thee, my son.
Take out all metals on thee and lay them here.
Make ready, Huneefa/

Kim dragged forth his compass, Survey paint'
box, and the new^filled medicine^box. They had
all accompanied his travels, and boy^like he valued
them immensely.

The woman rose slowly and moved with her
hands a little spread before her. Then Kim saw
that she was blind. 4 No, no/ she muttered, 4 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/

52

KIM

said Mahbub. 4 When thou wast with me I could
oversee the matter. Besides, a Pathan is a fair"
skin. Strip to the waist now and look how thou
art whitened/ Huneefa felt her way back from
an inner room. 4 It is no matter, she cannot see/
He took a pewter bowl from her ringed hand.

The dye-stuff showed blue and gummy. Kim
experimented on the back of his wrist, with a dab
of cotton-wool ; but Huneefa heard him.

4 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/

4Jadoo?t (magic), said Kim, with a half start.
He did not like the white, sightless eyes. Mahbub's
hand on his neck bowed him to the floor, nose
within an inch of the boards.

'Be still. No harm comes to thee, my son.
I am thy sacrifice ! '

He could not see what the woman was about,
but heard the clish-clash of her jewellery for many
minutes. A match lit up the darkness ; he caught
the well-known purr and fizzle of grains of incense.
Then the room filled with smoke — heavy, aro-
matic, 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 ;

53

KIM

of Dulhan, invisible about mosques, the dweller
among the slippers of the Faithful, who hinders
folk from their prayers; and Musboot, Lord of
lies and panic* Huneefa, now whispering in his
ear, now talking as from an immense distance,
touched him with horrible soft fingers, but Mahbub's
grip never shifted from his neck till, relaxing with
a sigh, the boy lost his senses,

' Allah! How he fought! We should never
have done it but for the drugs. That was his
White blood, I take it/ said Mahbub testily. ' Go
on with the dawut (invocation). Give him full
Protection/

4O Hearer! Thou that hearest with ears, be
present. Listen, O Hearer!9 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.

4 Do not interrupt this ventriloquial necro*
manciss, my friend/ it said in English. 'I opine
that it is very disturbing to you, but no en*
lightened observer is jolly well upset/

4. . . / will lay a plot for their ruin! O
Prophet, bear with the unbelievers. Let them alone
awhile!' Huneefa's face, turned to the north*
ward, worked horribly, and it was as though voices
from the ceiling answered her.

54

KIM

Hurree Babu returned to his notebook, balanced
on the window-sill, but his hand shook* Huneefa,
in some sort of drugged ecstasy, wrenched herself
to and fro as she sat cross-legged by Kim's still
head, and called upon devil after devil, in the
ancient order of the ritual, binding them to avoid
the boy's every action,

4 With Him are the keys of the Secret Things I
None knoweth them beside Himself. He knoweth that
which is in the dry land and in the sea ! ' Again
broke out the unearthly whistling responses.

'I— I apprehend it is not at all malignant in
its operation ? ' said the Babu, watching the throat'
muscles quiver and jerk as Huneefa spoke with
tongues. 'It — it is not likely that she has killed
the boy? If so, I decline to be witness at the
trial. . . . What was the last hypothetical devil
mentioned ? '

'Babuji/ said Mahbub in the vernacular. 4I
have no regard for the devils of Hind, but the
Sons of Eblis are far otherwise, and whether they
be jumalee (well-affected) or jullalee (terrible) they
love not Kafirs/

4 Then you think I had better go ? ' said Hurree
Babu, half rising. 'They are, of course, de-
materialised phenomena. Spencer says '

Huneefa's crisis passed, as these things must, in
a paroxysm of howling, with a touch of froth at

55

KIM

the lips. She lay spent and motionless beside
Kim, and the crazy voices ceased.

'Wah! That work is done. May the boy
be better for it ; and Huneefa is surely a mistress
of dawut Help haul her aside, Babu. Do not
be afraid/

' How am I to fear the absolutely non-existent ? '
said Hurree Babu, talking English to reassure him-
self. It is an awful thing still to dread the magic
that you contemptuously investigate — to collect
folk-lore for the Royal Society with a lively belief
in all Powers of Darkness.

Mahbub chuckled. He had been out with
Hurree on the Road ere now. 'Let us finish
the colouring/ said he. 4 The boy is well protected
if — if the Lords of the Air have ears to hear. I
am a sufi (free-thinker), but when one can get
blind-sides of a woman, a stallion, or a devil, why
go round to invite a kick? Set him upon the
way, Babu, and see that old Red Hat does not
lead him beyond our reach. I must get back to
my horses/

'All raight/ said Hurree Babu. 'He is at
present a curious spectacle/

• » « * •

About third cock-crow, Kim woke after a sleep
-of thousands of years. Huneefa, in her corner,
snored heavily, but Mahbub was gone.

56

KIM

' I hope you were not frightened/ said an oily
voice at his elbow. ' I superintended entire opera-
tion, which was most interesting from ethnological
point of view. It was high-class dawutJ

4 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 sub-
ordinates, but' — he giggled — 'your case is noted
as exceptional on the books. I hope Mr. Lurgan
will note my action/

Kim yawned and stretched himself. It was good
to turn and twist within loose clothes once again.

'What is this?' He looked curiously at the
heavy duffle-stuff loaded with the scents of the far
North.

'Oho! That is inconspicuous dress of chela
attached to service of lamaistic lama. Complete
in every particular/ said Hurree Babu, rolling into
the balcony to clean his teeth at a goglet. ' I am
of opeenion it is not your old gentleman's precise
religion, but rather sub-variant of same. I have
contributed rejected notes to Asiatic Quarterly
Review on these subjects. Now it is curious that
the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of
religiosity. He is not a dam particular/

' Do you know him ? '

57

KIM

Hurrce Babu held up his hand to show he was
engaged in the prescribed rites that accompany
tooth-cleaning and such things among decently
bred Bengalis, Then he recited in English an
Arya-Somaj prayer of a theistical nature, and
stuffed his mouth with pan and betel,

'Oah yes. I have met him several times at
Benares, and also at Buddh Gaya,to interrogate him
on religious points and devil-worship. He is pure
agnostic — same as me/

Huneefa stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu
jumped nervously to the copper incense-burner, all
black and discoloured in morning-light, rubbed a
finger in the accumulated lampblack, and drew it
diagonally across his face.

'Who has died in thy house?' asked Kim in
the vernacular,

4 None. But she may have the Evil Eye — that
sorceress/ the Babu replied.

4 What dost thou do now, then ? '

4 1 will set thee on thy way to Benares, if thou
goest thither, and tell thee what must be known
by Us/

4 1 go. At what hour runs the te^rain^t He
rose to his feet, looked round the desolate chamber
and at the yellow-wax face of Huneefa as the low
sun stole across the floor* 4 Is there money to be
paid that witch ? '

58

KIM

'No. She has charmed thee against all devils
and all dangers — in the name of her devils. It
was Mahbub's desire/ In English: 'He is
highly obsolete, / think, to indulge in such superx
steetion. Why, it is all ventri/0quy. Belly^speak

Kim snapped his fingers mechanically to avert
whatever evil — Mahbub, he knew, meditated none
— might have crept in through Huneefa's ministry
tions ; and Hurree giggled once more. But as he
crossed the room he was careful not to step in
Huneefa's blotched, squat shadow on the boards.
Witches — when their time is on them — can lay
hold of the heels of a man's soul if he does that.

'Now you must well listen/ said the Babu
when they were in the fresh air. 4 Part of these
ceremonies which we witnessed they include supply
of effeecient amulet to those of our Department.
If you feel in your neck you will find one small
silver amulet, verree cheap. That is ours. Do
you understand ? f

4 Oah yes, hawa-dilli ' (a heart>lifter), said Kim,
feeling at his neck.

'Huneefa she makes them for two rupees
twelve annas with — oh, all sorts of exorcisms*
They are quite common, except they are partially
black enamel, and there is a paper inside each one
full of names of local saints and such things. Thatt

59

KIM

is Huneefa's look'Out, you see ? Huneefa makes
them onlee for us, but in case she does not, when
we get them we put in, before issue, one small
piece of turquoise. Mr. Lurgan, he gives them.
There is no other source of supply; but it was
me invented all this. It is strictly unoffeecial of
course, but convenient for subordinates. Colonel
Creighton he does not know. He is European.
The turquoise is wrapped in the paper. . . . Yes,
that is road to railway station. . . » Now suppose
you go with the lama, or with me, I hope, some
day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a
dam x tight place. I am a fearful man — most
fearful — but I tell you I have been in dan>tight
places more than hairs on my head. You say:
" I am Son of the Charm/' Verree good/

4 1 do not understand quite. We must not be
heard talking English here/

'That is all raight. I am only Babu showing
off my English to you. All we Babus talk English
to show off/ said Hurree, flinging his shoulder^
cloth jauntily. * As I was about to say, 44 Son of
the Charm " means that you may be member of
the Sat Bhai — the Seven Brothers, which is Hindi
and Tantric. It is popularly supposed to be
extinct society, but I have written notes to show
it is still extant. You see it is all my invention.
Verree good. Sat Bhai has many members, and

60

KIM

perhaps before they jolly * well - cut * your - throat
they may give you just a chance for life* That is
useful, anyhow. And moreover, these foolish
natives — if they are not too excited — they always
stop to think before they kill a man who says he
belongs to any speecific 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 any-
thing— 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" '

4 That is hichree — vegetable curry/ said Kim.

4 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/

61

KIM

Kim repeated the test-sentence*

4 That is all right Then I will show you my
turquoise if there is time, and then you know who
I am, and then we exchange views and documents
and those-all things* And so it is with any other
man of us. We talk sometimes about turquoises
and sometimes about tarheean, 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! — super-
numerary on probation. Quite unique specimen.
If you were Asiatic of birth you might be employed
right off; but this half-year of leave is to make
you de-Englishised, you see? The lama, he
expects you, because I have demi-offeecially in-
formed him you have passed all your examinations,
and will soon obtain Government appointment.
Oh ho! You are on acting-allowance you see:
so if you are called upon to help Sons of the
Charm mind you jolly well try. Now I shall say
good-bye, my dear fellow, and I hope you — ah—
will come out top-side all raight/

Hurree Babu stepped back a pace or two into
the crowd at the entrance of Lucknow station and

62

KIM

—was gone* Kim drew a deep breath and hugged
himself all over. The nickel - plated revolver he
could feel in the bosom of his sad-coloured robe,
the amulet was on his neck; begging - gourd,
rosary, and ghost -dagger (Mr. Lurgan had for-
gotten nothing) were all to hand, with medicine,
paint-box, and compass, and in a worn old purse-
belt embroidered with porcupine quill-patterns lay
a month's pay. Kings could be no richer. He
bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a Hindu
trader, and ate them with glad rapture till a police-
man ordered him off the steps.

63

CHAPTER XI

Give the man who is not made

To his trade

Swords to fling and catch again,
Coins to ring and snatch again,
Men to harm and cure again,
Snakes to charm and lure again —
He'll be hurt by his own blade,
By his serpents disobeyed,
By his clumsiness bewrayed,
By the people mocked to scorn —

So 'tis not with juggler born.
Pinch of dust or withered flower,

Chancexflung fruit or borrowed staff,
Serve his need and shore his power,

Bind the spell, or loose the laugh I

But a man who, etc., Op. 1 5.

FOLLOWED a sudden natural reaction,
4 Now am I alone — all alone/ he thought.
4 In all India is no one so alone as I ! If I
die to * day, who shall bring the news — and to
whom ? If I live and God is good, there will be

64

KIM

a price upon my head, for I am a Son of the
Charm — I, Kim/

A very few white people, but many Asiatics,
can throw themselves into a mazement as it were
by repeating their own names over and over again
to themselves, letting the mind go free upon
speculation as to what is called personal identity.
When one grows older, the power, usually, departs,
but while it lasts it may descend upon a man at
any moment.

4 Who is Kim— Kim— Kim ? '

He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting*
room, rapt from all other thoughts ; hands folded
in lap, and pupils contracted to pin-points* In a
minute — in another half second — he felt he would
arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle ;
but here, as always happens, his mind dropped away
from those heights with the rush of a wounded
bird, and passing his hand before his eves, he shook
his head,

A long-haired Hindu bairagi (holy man), who
had just bought a ticket, halted before him at that
moment and stared intently.

4 1 also have lost it/ he said sadly. 4 It is one
of the Gates to the Way, but for me it has been
shut many years/

4 What is the talk ? ' said Kim, abashed.

'Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit

K. Vol. II 65 F

KIM

what manner of thing thy soul might be. The
seizure came of a sudden, / know. Who should
know but I ? Whither goest thou ? '

4 Toward Kashi' (Benares),

4 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 ? '

4 1 too am a Seeker/ said Kim, using one of
the lama's pet words, ' Though ' — he forgot his
Northern dress for the moment — 4 though Allah
alone knoweth what I seek/

The old fellow slipped the bairagfs crutch
under his armpit and sat down on a patch of
ruddy leopard's skin as Kim rose at the call for
the Benares train,

'Go in hope, little brother/ he said. 'It is a
long road to the feet of the One ; but thither do
we all travel/

Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and ere
he had sat out twenty miles in the crowded com*
partment, was cheering his neighbours with a string
of most wonderful yarns about his own and his
master's magical gifts,

Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city,
though it was pleasant to find how his cloth was
respected. At least one -third of the population
prays eternally to some group or other of the

66

KIM

many million deities, and so revere every sort of
holy man. Kim was guided to the Temple of the
Tirthankers, about a mile outside the city, near
Sarnath, by a chance ' met Punjabi farmer — a
Kamboh from Jullundur^way who had appealed
in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his
small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort*

4 Thou art from the north ? ' he asked, shoulder^
ing through the press of the narrow, stinking streets
much like his own pet bull at home.

'Ay, 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.

4 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 Tirx
thankers/

'They are all most holy and — most greedy/
said the Jat with bitterness. ' I have walked the
pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are
flayed, and the child is no whit better. And the
mother being sick too. . . . Hush, then, little
one. . . * We changed his name when the fever
came. We put him into girl's clothes. There
was nothing we did not do, except — I said to his

67

KIM

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 gener^
osity, but these down^country Gods are strangers/

The child turned on the cushion of the huge
corded arms and looked at Kim through heavy
eyelids.

'And was it all worthless?' Kim asked, with
easy interest.

'All worthless — all worthless/ said the child,
lips cracking with fever.

'The Gods have given him a good mind, at
least/ said the father proudly. 'To think he
should have listened so cleverly. Yonder is thy
temple. Now I am a poor man, — many priests
have dealt with me, — but my son is my son, and if
a gift to thy master can cure him — I am at my
very wits' end/

Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride.
Three years ago he would have made prompt
profit on the situation and gone his way without
a thought ; but now, the very respect the Jat paid
him proved that he was a man. Moreover, he
had tasted fever once or twice already, and
knew enough to recognise starvation when he
saw it.

' Call him forth and I will give him a bond on
my best yoke, so that the child is cured/

68

KIM

Kim halted at the carved outer door of the
temple. A white -clad Oswal banker from Ajmir,
his sins of usury new wiped out, asked him what
he did.

' I am chela to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from
Bhotiyal — within there. He bade me come. I
wait. Tell him/

* Do not forget the child/ cried the importunate
Jat over his shoulder, and then bellowed in Pun-
jabi : * 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,
4 Thy chela is here/ and the old man strode forth,
forgetting the end of that prayer.

Hardly had the tall figure shown in the door*
way than the Jat ran before him, and, lifting up the
child, cried : 4 Look upon this, Holy One ; and if
the Gods will, he lives — he lives ! '

He fumbled in his waist-belt and drew out a
small silver coin.

69

KIM

4 What is now ? ' The lama's eyes turned to Kim.
It was noticeable he spoke far dearer Urdu than
long ago, under ZanvZammah; 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/

4 If it be permitted, I may cure, Holy One/

4 What ! Have they made thee a healer ? Wait
here/ said the lama, and he sat down by the Jat
upon the lowest step of the temple, while Kim,
looking out of the corner of his eyes, slowly
opened the little betel x box. He had dreamed
dreams at school of returning to the lama as a
Sahib — of chaffing the old man before he revealed
himself — boy's dreams all. There was more drama
in this abstracted, brow-puckered search through
the tabloid-bottles, with a pause here and there
for thought and a muttered invocation between
whiles. Quinine he had in tablets, and dark
brown meat-lozenges — beef most probably, but
that was not his business. The little thing would
not eat, but it sucked at a lozenge greedily, and said
it liked the salt taste.

4 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

70

KIM

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.

4 Now go ! Come again in the morning/

'But the price — the price/ said the Jat, and
threw back his sturdy shoulders. * My son is my
son. Now that he will be whole again, how shall
I go back to his mother and say I took help by
the wayside and did not even give a bowl of curds
in return ? '

'They are alike, these Jats/ said Kim softly.
'The Jat stood on his dunghill and the King's
elephants went by. " O driver/' said he, " what
will you sell those little donkeys for ? "

The Jat burst into a roar of laughter, stifled
with apologies to the lama. ' It is the saying of
my own country — the very talk of it. So are we
Jats all. I will come to-morrow with the child;
and the blessing of the Gods of the Homesteads—

71

KIM

who are good little Gods— be on you both. . . .
Now, son, we grow strong again.. Do not spit it
out, little Princeling ! King of my Heart, do not
spit it out, and we shall be strong men, wrestlers
and club'wielders, by morning/

He moved away, crooning and mumbling*
The lama turned to Kim, and all the loving
old soul of him looked out through his narrow
eyes.

'To heal the sick is to acquire merit; but first
one gets knowledge. That was wisely done, O
Friend of all the World/

4 1 was made wise by thee, Holy One/ said Kim,
forgetting the little play just ended; forgetting
St. Xavier's; forgetting his white blood; for*
getting even the Great Game as he stooped,
Mohammedan fashion, to touch his master's feet
in the dust of the Jain temple. 4 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/

4 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 1 gave thee up to the armed men on
72

KIM

that black night. Dost thou remember our first
day under Zam-Zammah ? '

4 Ay/ said Kim. 'Dost thou remember when
I leapt off the carriage the first day I went to —

'The Gates of Learning? Truly. And the
day that we ate the cakes together at the back of
the river by Nucklao. Aha! Many times hast
thou begged for me, but that day I begged for
thee/

'Good reason/ quoth Kim. 'I was then a
scholar in the Gates of Learning, and attired as a
Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One/ he went on
playfully, 4 1 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 ? f

The lama smiled. 'First by means of letters
from the kindly priest whom we met in the camp
of armed men; but he is now gone to his own
country, and I sent the money to his brother/
Colonel Creighton, who had succeeded to the
trusteeship when Father Victor went to England
with the Mavericks, was hardly the chaplain's
brother. 'But I do not well understand Sahibs'
letters. They must be interpreted to me. I chose
a surer way. Many times when I returned from
my Search to this temple, which has always been a
nest to me, there came one seeking Enlightenment

73

KIM

— a man from Leh — that had been, he said, a
Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods/ The lama
pointed to the Arhats.

4 A fat man ? ' said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.

4 Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind
was wholly given up to useless things — such as
devils and charms and the form and fashion of our
tea'drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road
we initiated the novices* A man abounding in
questions ; but he was a friend of thine, chela. He
told me that thou wast on the road to much
honour as a scribe. And I see thou art a
physician/

4 Yes, that am I — a scribe, when I am a Sahib,
but it is set aside when I come as thy disciple. I
have accomplished the years appointed for a Sahib/

4 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 '

4 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.

4 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

74

KIM

of Hind have I travelled afoot and in the

A great and a wonderful land I But here, when I

put in, is as though I were in my own Bhotiyal/

He looked round the little clean cell com-
placently. A low cushion gave him a seat, on
which he had disposed himself in the cross-legged
attitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation ;
a black teak-wood table, not twenty inches high,
set with copper tea -cups, was before him* In
one corner stood a tiny altar, also of heavily
carved teak, bearing a copper-gilt image of the
seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp, an incense-
holder, and a pair of copper flower-pots.

'The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder
House acquired merit by giving me these a year
since/ he said, following Kim's eye. 4 When one
is far from one's own land such things carry
remembrance; and we must reverence the Lord
for that He showed the Way. See ! ' he pointed
to a curiously-built mound of coloured rice crowned
with a fantastic metal ornament. 'When I was
abbot in my own place — before I came to better
knowledge — I made that offering daily. It is the
Sacrifice of the Universe to the Lord. Thus do
we of Bhotiyal offer all the world daily to the
Excellent Law. And I do it even now, though I
know that the Excellent One is beyond all pinch-
ings and pattings/ He snuffed from his gourd.

75

KIM

'It is well done, Holy One/ Kim murmured,
sinking at ease on the cushions, very happy and
rather tired*

'And also/ the old man chuckled, 'I write
pictures of the Wheel of Life* Three days to a
picture. I was busied on it — or it may be I shut
my eyes a little — when they brought word of thee.
It is good to have thee here: I will show thee
my art — not for pride's sake, but because thou
must learn. The Sahibs have not all this world's
wisdom/

He drew from under the table a sheet of
strangely scented yellow Chinese paper, the brushes,
and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest out*
line 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 wonder*
ful convention crowded with hundreds of little
figures whose every line carries a meaning. Few
can translate the picture * parable ; there are not
twenty in all the world who can draw it surely
without a copy : of those who can both draw and
expound are but three.

76

KIM

'I have a little learned to draw/ said Kim*
4 But this is a marvel beyond marvels/

4 1 have written it for many years/ said the
lama. 'Time was when I could write it all
between one lamp^lighting and the next* I will
teach thee the art — after due preparation ; and I
will show thee the meaning of the Wheel*'

4 We take the Road, then ? '

4 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 JatakaJ

He told Kim the story of the elephant with
the leg'iron, as he had told it so often to the Jain
priests.

4 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

77

KIM

'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 Sakya^
muni, the Physician, whose altars are many in
Bhotiyal, It is sufficient. We are together, and
all things are as they were — Friend of all the
World — Friend of the Stars— my chela ! '

Then they talked of matters secular; but it
was noticeable that the lama never demanded
any details of life at St. Xavier's, nor showed the
faintest curiosity as to the manners and customs
of Sahibs. His mind moved all in the past, and
he revived every step of their wonderful first
journey together, rubbing his hands and chuckling,
till it pleased him to curl himself up into the
sudden sleep of old age,

Kim watched the last dusty sunshine fade out
of the court, and played with his ghost - dagger
and rosary. The clamour of Benares, oldest of
-all earth's cities awake before the Gods, day and
night, beat round the walls as the sea's roar
round a breakwater. Now and again, a Jain
priest crossed the court, with some small offering
to the images, and swept the path about him lest

78

KIM

by chance he should take the life of a living
thing* A lamp twinkled, and there followed the
sound of a prayer, Kim watched the stars as
they rose one after another in the still, sticky dark,
till he fell asleep at the foot of the altar. That
night he dreamed in Hindustanee, with never an
English word* . , *

' Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave
the medicine/ he said, about three o'clock in the
morning, when the lama, also waking from dreams,
would have fared forth on pilgrimage. 4 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. 4 Surely old
folk are as children/ he said pathetically. * They
desire a matter — behold, it must be done at once,
or they fret and weep ! Many times when I was
upon the Road I have been ready to stamp with
my feet at the hindrance of an ox^cart in the way,
or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I
was a man — a long time ago. None the less it is
wrongful '

'But thou art indeed old, Holy One/

* The thing was done. A Cause was put out
into the world, and, old or young, sick or sound,
knowing or unknowing, who can rein in the effect
of that Cause? Does the Wheel hang still if a

79

KIM

child spin it — or a drunkard? Chelat this is a
great and a terrible world/

4 1 think it good/ Kim yawned. 4 What is there
to eat ? I have not eaten since yesterday even/

4 1 had forgotten thy need* Yonder is good
Bhotiyal tea and cold rice/

'We cannot walk far on such stuff/ Kim felt
all the European's lust for fleshxmeat, which is
not accessible in a Jain temple. Yet, instead of
going out at once with the beggingxbowl, he
stayed his stomach on slabs of cold rice till the
full dawn. It brought the farmer, voluble, stutter^
ing with gratitude.

'In the night the fever broke and the sweat
came/ he cried. ' Feel here — his skin is fresh and
new! He esteemed the salt lozenges, and took
milk with greed/ He drew the cloth from the
child's face, and it smiled sleepily at Kim. A
little knot of Jain priests, silent but 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.
4 The fever is indeed broken/

80

KIM

'Look! SeeF The lama beamed in the
background upon his hosts of three years. ' Was
there ever such a chelal He follows our Lord
the Healer/

Now the Jains officially recognise all the Gods
of the Hindu creed, as well as the Lingam and
the Snake. They wear the Brahminical thread;
they adhere to every claim of Hindu caste^law.
But, because they knew and loved the lama,
because he was an old man, because he sought the
Way, because he was their guest, and because he
collogued long of nights with the head^priest — as
free'thinking a metaphysician as ever split one
hair into seventy — they murmured assent*

' Remember/ — Kim bent over the child, — ' this
trouble may come again/

* Not if thou hast the proper spell/ said the father.

' But in a little while we go away/

'True/ said the lama to all the fains. '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.

K. Vol. II 81 G

KIM

'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 sadxcoloured, sweep*
ing robes, one hand on his rosary and the other
in the attitude of benediction, faithfully copied
from the lama. An English observer might have
said that he looked rather like the young saint of
a stained ' glass window, whereas he was but a
growing lad faint with emptiness.

Long and formal were the farewells, thrice
ended and thrice renewed. The Seeker — he who
had invited the lama to that haven from far-away
Tibet, a silver ' faced, hairless ascetic — took no
part in it, but meditated, as always, alone among
the images* The others were very human ; pressing
small comforts upon the old man, — a betel'box, a
fine new iron pencase, a food'bag, and such like, —
warning him against the dangers of the world with'
out, and prophesying a happy end to the Search.
Meantime Kim, lonelier than ever, squatted on
the steps, and swore to himself in the language of
St. Xavier's.

4 But it is my own fault/ he concluded. * With
Mahbub, I ate Mahbub's bread, or Lurgan Sahib's.

82

KIM

At St. Xavier's, three meals a day* Here I must
jolly well look out for myself. Besides, I am not
in good training. How I could eat a plate of
beef now ! ... Is it f inished, Holy One ? *

The lama, both hands raised, intoned a final
blessing in ornate Chinese. * I must lean on thy
shoulder/ said he, as the temple*gates closed. 4 We
grow stiff, I think/

The weight of a six-foot man is not light to
steady through miles of crowded streets, and Kim,
loaded down with bundles and packages for the
way, was glad to reach the shadow of the railway
bridge.

4 Here we eat/ he said resolutely, as the Kamboh,
blue-robed and smiling, hove in sight, a basket in
one hand and the child on the other.

4 Fall to, Holy Ones ! ' he cried from fifty yards.
(They were by the shoal under the first bridge<span,
out of sight of hungry priests.) 4 Rice and good
curry, cakes all warm and well scented with king
(asafcetida), 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

83

KIM

heaping a leaf-platter for the lama, 'are beyond
all castes/

They gorged themselves on the good food in
silence* Nor till he had licked the last of the
sticky sweet-stuff from his little finger did Kim
note that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.

4 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 / am
not altogether a reed/ He picked up his lathi —
a five-foot male-bamboo ringed with bands of
polished iron — and flourished it in the air. 'The
Jats are called quarrelsome, but that is not true.
Except when we are crossed, we are like our own
buffaloes/

* So be it/ said Kim. * A good stick is a good
reason/

The lama gazed placidly up-stream, where in
long, smudged perspective the ceaseless columns
of smoke go up from the burning-ghats by the
river. Now and again, despite all municipal
regulations, the fragment of a half-burned body
bobbed by on the full current.

'But for thee/ said the Kamboh, drawing the
child into his hairy breast, 'I might to-day have
gone thither — with this one. The priests tell us
that Benares is holy — which none doubt — and
desirable to die in. But I do not know their

84

KIM

Gods, and they ask for money ; and when one has
done one worship a shavedxhead vows it is of none
effect except one do another. Wash here ! Wash
there! Pour, drink, lave, and scatter flowers —
but always pay the priests* No, the Punjab for
me, and the soil of the ]ullundur'doab for the
best soil in it/

4 1 have said many times — in the temple I
think — that if need be, the River will open at
our feet. We will therefore go North/ said the
lama, rising. 'I remember a pleasant place, set
about with fruit-trees, where one can walk in
meditation — and the air is cooler there. It comes
from the Hills and the snow of the Hills/

* What is the name ? ' said Kim.

'How should I know? Didst thou not — no,
that was after the Army rose out of the earth and
took thee away. I abode there in meditation in a
room against the dovecot — except when she talked
eternally/

'Oho! the woman from Kulu. That is by
Saharunpore/ Kim laughed.

* How does the spirit move thy master ? Does
he go afoot, for the sake of past sins ? ' the Jat de'
manded cautiously. 4 It is a far cry to Delhi/

'No/ said Kim. 4l will beg a tikkut for the
terrain! One does not own to the possession of
money in India.

85

KIM

4 Then in the name of the Gods, let us take the
fire*carriage. My son is best in his mother's arms.
The Government has brought on us many taxes,
but it gives us one good thing — the terrain that
joins friends and unites the anxious* A wonderful
matter is the terrain!

They all piled into it a couple of hours later,
and slept through the heat of the day. The
Kamboh plied Kim with ten thousand questions
as to the lama's walk and work in life, and re*
ceived some curious answers. Kim was content to
be where he was, to look out upon the flat North*
Western landscape, and to talk to the changing
mob of fellow'passengers. Even to*day, tickets
and ticket-clipping are dark oppression to Indian
rustics. They do not understand why, when they
have paid for a magic piece of paper, strangers
should punch great pieces out of the charm. So,
long and furious are the debates between travellers
and Eurasian ticket*collectors. Kim assisted at
two or three with grave advice, meant to darken
council and to show off his wisdom before the
lama and the admiring Kamboh. But at Somna
Road the Fates sent him a matter to think upon.
There tumbled into the compartment, as the train
was moving off, a mean, lean little person — a
Mahratta, so far as Kim could judge by the cock
of the tight turban. His face was cut, his muslin

86

KIM

upper-garment was badly torn, and one leg was
bandaged. He told them that a country-cart had
upset and nearly slain him: he was going to
Delhi, where his son lived* Kim watched him
closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolled over
and over on the earth, there should have been signs
of gravel-rash on the skin. But all his injuries
seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from a cart
could not cast a man into such extremity of terror.
As, with shaking fingers, he knotted up the torn
cloth about his neck he laid bare an amulet of
the kind called a keeper-up of the heart. Now,
amulets are common enough, but they are not
generally strung on square-plaited copper wire,
and still fewer amulets bear black enamel on silver.
There were none except the Kamboh and the lama
in the compartment, which, luckily, was of an old
type with solid ends. Kim made as to scratch in
his bosom, and thereby lifted his own amulet.
The Mahratta's face changed altogether at the
sight, and he disposed the amulet fairly on his
breast.

'Yes/ he went on to the Kamboh, 'I was in
haste, and the cart, driven by a bastard, bound its
wheel in a water-cut, and besides the harm done to
me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean. I was
not a Son of the Charm (a lucky man) that day/

'That was a great loss/ said the Kamboh,

87

KIM

withdrawing interest* His experience of Benares
had made him suspicious.

4 Who cooked it ?' said Kim.

4 A woman/ The Mahratta raised his eyes.

'But all women can cook tarkeeanf said the
Kamboh. 4 It is a good curry, as I know/

4 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 pre*
scribed cadence. ' Of whose service art thou ? '

4 Of the service of this Holy One/ Kim pointed
to the happy, drowsy lama, who woke with a jerk
at the welMoved 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 thatt9 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/

88

KIM

4 Humph ! / have no desire to mix with
chance 'met wastrels. My ears are not long, /
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, pick*
ing up the cue,

'The man is cut and bruised all over, I go
about to cure him/ Kim retorted, 'None inter*
fered between thy babe and me/

'I am rebuked/ said the Kamboh meekly, 'I
am thy debtor for the life of my son, Thou art a
miracle'Worker I know it/

'Show me the cuts/ Kim bent over the
Mahratta's neck, his heart nearly choking him;
for this was the Great Game with a vengeance,
' Now, tell thy tale swiftly, brother, while I say a
charm/

'I come from the South, where my work lay.
One of us they slew by the roadside. Hast thou
heard ?' Kim shook his head. He, of course,
knew nothing of E,23's predecessor, slain down
South in the habit of an Arab trader, 'Having
found a certain letter which I was sent to seek, I
came away. I escaped from the city and ran to
Mhow. So sure was I that none knew, I did not
change my face. At Mhow a woman brought
charge against me of theft of jewellery in that

89

KIM

city which I had left. Then I saw the cry was
out against me* I ran from Mhow by night,
bribing the police, who had been bribed to hand
me over without question to my enemies in the
South* Then I lay in old Chitor city a week.
a penitent in a temple, but I could not get rid of
the letter which was my charge. I buried it under
the Queen's Stone, at Chitor, in the place known
to us all/

Kim did not know, but not for worlds would
he have broken the thread,

'At Chitor, look you, I was all in Kings'
country; for Kotah to the east is beyond the
Queen's law. and east again lie Jeypur and
Gwalior* Neither love spies, and there is no
justice, I was hunted like a wet jackal; but I
broke through at Bandakui, where I heard there
was a charge against me of murder in the city I
had left — of the murder of a boy. They have
both the corpse and the witnesses waiting/

* But cannot the Government protect ? '

4 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

90

KIM

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 ! '
4 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 tihkut
to Delhi— and there, while I lay in a ditch with a
fever, one sprang out of the bushes and beat me
and cut me and searched me from head to foot.
Within earshot of the terrain it was ! '
4 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

91

KIM

two days. I am marked ' — he touched the filthy
bandage on his leg — 4 so that they will know me
at Delhi/

4 Thou art safe in the te^raint at least/

4 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 doctorxfashion
at the man's neck, thought out his plan between
invocations.

'Hast thou a charm to change my shape?
Else I am dead. Five — ten minutes alone, if I
had not been so pressed, and I might—

4 Is he cured yet, miracle * worker ? ' said the
Kamboh jealously. 'Thou hast chanted long
enough/

4 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 im*
posed on a fat trader by his spiritual teacher.

4 One priest always goes about to make another

92

KIM

priest/ was the retort Like most grossly super*
stitious folk, the Kamboh could not keep his
tongue from deriding his Church.

4 Will thy son be a priest, then ? It is time he
took more of my quinine/

'We Jats are all buffaloes/ said the Kamboh,
softening anew.

Kim rubbed a finger-tip of bitterness on the
child's trusting little lips* 4l have asked for
nothing/ he said sternly to the father, 4 except
food. Dost thou grudge me that ? I go to heal
another man. Have I thy leave — Prince ? '

Up flew the man's huge paws in supplication.
4 Nay — nay. Do not mock me thus/

'It pleases me to cure this sick one. Thou
shalt acquire merit by aiding. What colour ash
is there in thy pipe* bowl? White. That is
auspicious. Was there raw turmeric among thy
food-stuffs?'

'I -I '

4 Open thy bundle ! '

It was the usual collection of small oddments :
bits of cloth, quack medicines, cheap fairings, a
clothful of atta, — grayish, rough* ground native
flour, — twists of down* country tobacco, tawdry
pipe*stems, and a packet of curry*stuff, all wrapped
in a quilt. Kim turned it over with the air of a wise
warlock, muttering a Mohammedan invocation.

93

KIM

4 This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs/ he
whispered to the lama ; and here, when one thinks
of his training at Lurgan's, he spoke no more than
the truth, * There is a great evil in this man's
fortune, as shown by the stars, which— which
troubles him. Shall I take it away ? '

4 Friend of the Stars, thou hast done well in all
things. Let it be at thy pleasure. Is it another
healing ? '

4 Quick! Be quick!' gasped the Mahratta,
4 The train may stop/

4 A healing against the shadow of death/ said
Kim, mixing the Kamboh's flour with the mingled
charcoal and tobacco ash in the red^earth bowl of
the pipe. E.23, without a word, slipped off his
turban and shook down his long black hair,

4 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, shame^
less!' The man flinched at the direct gaze, for
Kim was wholly in earnest. 4 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 ! '

94

KIM

4 1 am blind — dumb. Forbear to curse ! C<
come, child ; we will play a game of hiding. Do
not, for my sake, look from under the cloth/

4 1 see hope/ said E.2 3. 'What is thy
scheme ? '

4 This comes next/ said Kim, plucking the thin
body-shirt. E.2 3 hesitated, with all a North- West
man's dislike of baring his body.

'What is caste to a cut throat ?' said Kim,
rending it to the waist. 'We must make thee a
yellow Saddhu all over. Strip — strip swiftly, and
shake thy hair over thy eyes while I scatter the
ash. Now, a caste-mark on thy forehead/ He
drew from his bosom the little Survey paint-box
and a cake of crimson lake.

'Art thou only a beginner?' said E.2 3,
labouring literally for the dear life, as he slid
out of his body - wrappings and stood clear in
the loin-cloth while Kim splashed in a noble
caste-mark on the ash-smeared brow.

'But two days entered to the Game, brother/
Kim replied. ' Smear more ash on the bosom/

'Hast thou met — a physician of sick pearls?'
He switched out his long, tight -rolled turban -
cloth and, with swiftest hands, rolled it over and
under about his loins into the intricate devices of
a Saddhu's cincture.

' Hah ! Dost thou know his touch, then ? He

95

KIM

was my teacher for a while* We must bar thy legs.
Ash cures wounds. Smear it again.'

4 1 was his pride once, but thou art almost
better. The Gods are kind to us! Give me
that: '

It was a tin box of opium pills among the
rubbish of the Jat's bundle. E.23 gulped down
a half handful, 'They are good against hunger,
fear, and chill. And they make the eyes red
too/ he explained, 'Now I shall have heart to
play the Game, We lack only a Saddhu's tongs.
What of the old clothes?'

Kim rolled them small, and stuffed them into
the slack folds of his tunic. With a yellow^ochre
paint cake he smeared the legs and the breast,
great streaks against the background of flour, ash,
and turmeric,

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

'May be; but no need to throw them out of
the window. . * * It is finished/ His voice
thrilled with a boy's pure delight in the Game*
' Turn and look, O Jat ! '

'The Gods protect us/ said the hooded Kanv
boh, emerging like a buffalo from the reeds.
'But — whither went the Mahratta? What hast
thou done ? *

Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib; and

96

KIM

E.23, by virtue of his business, was no bad
actor. In place of the tremulous, shrinking trader
there lolled against the corner an all but naked,
ash'smeared, ochre^barred, dusty^haired Saddhu,
his swollen eyes — opium takes quick effect on an
empty stomach — luminous with insolence and
bestial lust, his legs crossed under him, Kim's
brown rosary round his neck, and a scant yard of
worn, flowered chintz on his shoulders. The
child buried his face in his amazed father's arms*

'Look up, Princeling! We travel with war*-
locks, 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 ? '

4 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 Bands, he comes
in the night and makes them all alive at the back
of our kitchen<midden/ piped the child.

'And so thou art not frightened at anything.
Eh, Prince ?'

4 1 was frightened because my father was
frightened. I felt his arms shake/

'Oh, chicken - man/ said Kim, and even the
abashed fat laughed. ' I have done a healing on
this poor trader. He must forsake his gains and
his accountxbooks, and sit by the wayside three

K. Vol. II 97 H

KIM

nights to overcome the malignity of his enemies*
The Stars are against him/

4 The fewer money-lenders the better say I ; but,
Saddhu or no Saddhu, he should pay for my stuff
on his shoulders/

4 So ? But that is thy child on thy shoulder-
given over to the burning-ghat not two days ago.
There remains one thing more. I did this charm
in thy presence because need was great. I changed
his shape and his soul. None the less, if, by any
chance, O man from Jullundur, thou rememberest
what thou hast seen, either among the elders
sitting under the village tree, or in thy own house,
or in company of thy priest when he blesses thy
cattle, a murrain will come among the buffaloes,
and a fire in thy thatch, and rats in the corn-bin,
and the curse of our Gods upon thy fields that
they may be barren before thy feet and after thy
ploughshare/ This was part of an old curse picked
up from a faquir by the Taksali Gate in the days
of Kim's innocence. It lost nothing by repetition.

4 Cease, Holy One I In mercy, cease ! ' cried the
fat* 4 Do not curse the household. I saw nothing !
I heard nothing ! I am thy cow ! ' and he made to
grab at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on
the carriage floor.

4 But since thou hast been permitted to aid me
in the matter of a pinch of flour and a little

98

KIM

opium and such trifles as I have honoured by
using in my art, so will the Gods return a blessing/
and he gave it at length, to the man's immense
relief. It was one that he had learned from
Lurgan Sahib,

The lama stared through his spectacles as he
had not stared at the business of disguisement.

4 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/

4 No — no — no indeed/ cried the farmer, fearful
lest the master should be minded to improve on
the pupil, E,23, with relaxed mouth, gave hin>
self up to the opium that is meat, tobacco, and
medicine to the spent Asiatic,

So, in a silence of awe and great miscompre-
hension, they slid into Delhi about lamp-lighting
time.

99

CHAPTER XII

Who hath desired the Sea — the sight of salt-water unbounded ?

The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the
comber wind-hounded ?

The sleek-barrelled swell before storm — gray, foamless, enor-
mous, and growing ?

Stark calm on the lap of the Line — or the crazy-eyed hurri-
cane blowing ?

His Sea in no showing the same — his Sea and the same 'neath
all showing —

His Sea that his being fulfils ?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise Hill-men desire
their Hills I

HAVE found my heart again/ said E.23,

under cover of the platform's tumult.

^ 4 Hunger and fear make men dazed, or I

might have thought of this escape before. I was

right. They come to hunt for me. Thou hast

saved my head/

A group of yellow-trousered Punjab policemen,
headed by a hot and perspiring young Englishman,
parted the crowd about the carriages. Behind

100

KIM

them, inconspicuous as a cat, ambled a small fat
person who looked like a lawyer's tout.

4 See the young Sahib reading from a paper.
My description is in his hand,' said E.2 3. 4 They go
carriage by carriage, like fisher^folk netting a pool/

When the procession reached their compart>
ment, E.2 3 was counting his beads with a steady
jerk of the wrist; while Kim jeered at him for
being so drugged as to have lost the ringed fire*
tongs which are the Saddhu's distinguishing mark.
The lama, deep in meditation, stared straight before
him ; and the farmer, glancing furtively, gathered
up his belongings.

4 Nothing here but a parcel of holy^bolies/ said
the Englishman aloud, and passed on amid a ripple
of uneasiness ; for native police mean extortion to
the native all India over.

'The trouble now/ whispered E.2 3, Mies in
sending a wire as to the place where I hid that
letter I was sent to find. I cannot go to the tar*
office in this guise/

4 Is it not enough I have saved thy neck ? '

4 Not if the work be left unfinished. Did never
the healer of sick pearls tell thee so? Comes
another Sahib ! Ah P

This was a tallish, sallowish District Super*
intendent of Police, — belt, helmet, polished spurs
and all, — strutting and twirling his dark moustache.

101

KIM

4 What fools are these Police Sahibs ! ' said Kim
genially,

E,23 glanced up under his eyelids, 'It is well
said/ he muttered in a changed voice, 4 1 go to
drink water. Keep my place/

He blundered out almost into the Englishman's
arms, and was bad^worded in clumsy Urdu,

'Tummut? You drunk? You mustn't bang
about as though Delhi station belonged to you,
my friend/

E.23, not moving a muscle of his countenance,
answered with a stream of the filthiest abuse, at
which Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded him
of the drummer^boys and the barrack^sweepers at
Umballa in the terrible time of his first schooling,

'My good fool/ the Englishman drawled,
4 Nickle'jao ! Go back to your carriage/

Step by step, withdrawing deferentially, and
dropping his voice, the yellow Saddhu clomb back
to the carriage, cursing the D,S,P. to remotest
posterity by — here Kim almost jumped — by the
curse of the Queen's Stone, by the writing under
the Queen's Stone, and by an assortment of Gods
with wholly new names.

'I don't know what you're saying/ — the
Englishman flushed angrily, — ' but it's some piece
of blasted impertinence. Come out of that ! '

E.23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely pro*

102

KIM

duced his ticket, which the Englishman wrenched
angrily from his hand.

4 Oh zoolum ! What oppression ! ' growled the
Jat from his corner* 'All for the sake of a jest
too/ He had been grinning at the freedom of the
Saddhu's tongue* * Thy charms do not work well
to-day, Holy One ! '

The Saddhu followed the policeman, fawning
and supplicating. The ruck of passengers, busy
with their babies and their bundles, had not noticed
the affair. Kim slipped out behind him ; for it
flashed through his head that he had heard this
angry, stupid Sahib discoursing loud personalities
to an old lady near Umballa three years ago.

¥It is well/ the Saddhu whispered, jammed in
the calling, shouting, bewildered press — a Persian
greyhound between his feet and a cadgeful of
yelling hawks under charge of a Rajput falconer in
the small of his back. * He has gone now to send
word of the letter which I hid. They told me he
was in Peshawur. I might have known that he is
like the crocodile — always at the other ford. He
has saved me from present calamity, but I owe my
life to thee/

* Is he also one of Us ? ' Kim ducked under a
Mewar cameLdriver's greasy armpit and cannoned
off a covey of jabbering Sikh matrons.

'Not less than the greatest. We are both

103

KIM

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 be^
sieging the carriages, and squatted by the bench
near the telegraplvoffice.

'Return, or they take thy place! Have no
fear for the work, brother — or my life, Thou
hast given me breathing-space, and Strickland
Sahib has pulled me to land. We may work
together at the Game yet. Farewell ! '

Kim hurried to his carriage : elated, bewildered,
but a little nettled in that he had no key to the
secrets about him,

4 1 am only a beginner at the Game, that is sure.
/ could not have leaped into safety as did the
Saddhu, He knew it was darkest under the lamp,
/ could not have thought to tell news under
pretence of cursing . * . and how clever was the
Sahib ! No matter, I saved the life of one, , . .
Where is the Kamboh gone, Holy One?' he
whispered, as he took his seat in the now crowded
compartment,

'A fear gripped him/ the lama replied, with a
touch of tender malice. ' He saw thee change the
Mahratta to a Saddhu in the twinkling of an eye,
as a protection against evil. That shook him.
Then he saw the Saddhu fall sheer into the hands
of the polis—a\i the effect of thy art. Then he

104

KIM

gathered up his son and fled; for he said that
thou didst change a quiet trader into an impudent
handier of words with the Sahibs, and he feared
a like fate. Where is the Saddhu ? '

'With the polish said Kim, . . . ' Yet I saved
the Kamboh's child/

The lama snuffed blandly.

4 Ah, chela, see how thou art overtaken I Thou
didst cure the Kamboh's child solely to acquire
merit. But thou didst put a spell on the Mahratta
with prideful workings — I watched thee — and
with side * long glances to bewilder an old old
man and a foolish farmer : whence calamity and
suspicion/

Kim controlled himself with an effort beyond
his years* Not more than any other youngster
did he like to eat dirt or to be misjudged, but he
saw himself in a cleft stick. The train rolled out
of Delhi into the night.

'It is true/ he murmured. 'Where I have
offended thee I have done wrong/

'It is more, chela. Thou hast loosed an Act
upon the world, and as a stone thrown into a pool
so spread the consequences thou canst not tell
how far/

This ignorance was well both for Kim's vanity
and for the lama's peace of mind, when we think
that there was then being handed in at Simla a

105

KIM

code'Wire reporting the arrival of E.23 at Delhi,
and, more important, the whereabouts of a letter
he had been commissioned to — abstract* Incident^
ally, an over^zealous policeman had arrested, on
charge of murder done in a far southern State, a
horribly indignant Ajmir cotton ^broker, who was
explaining himself to a Mr, Strickland on Delhi
platform, while E.23 was paddling through by^
ways into the locked heart of Delhi city. In two
hours several telegrams had reached the angry
minister of a southern State reporting that all
trace of a somewhat bruised Mahratta had been
lost ; and by the time the leisurely train halted at
Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim had
helped to heave was lapping against the steps of a
mosque in far-away Roum — where it disturbed a
pious man at prayers.

The lama made his in ample form near the
dewy bougainvillea * trellis near the platform,
cheered by the clear sunshine and the presence of
his disciple, 'We will put these things behind
us/ he said, indicating the brazen engine and the
gleaming track. 'The jolting of the terrain —
though a wonderful thing — has turned my bones
to water. We will use clean air henceforward/

4 Let us go to the Kulu woman's house/ Kim
stepped forth cheerily under the bundles. Early
morning Saharunpore * way is clean and well

106

KIM

scented* He thought of the other mornings at
St. Xavier's, and it topped his already thrice^
heaped contentment.

4 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 lr
whelmed by a flux of talk, meditate upon the
Way?'

4 Her tongue grows no shorter with the years,
then ? f The disciple smiled.

4 Nor her desire for charms. I remember once
when I spoke of the Wheel of Life' — the lama
fumbled in his bosom for his latest copy — 4 she
was only curious about the devils that besiege
children. She shall acquire merit by entertaining
us — in a little while — at an after*occasion — softly,
softly. Now we will wander loose^foot, waiting
upon the Chain of Things. The Search is sure.'

So they travelled very easily across and among
the broad bloomful fruit - gardens — by way of
Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and
little Phulesa — the line of the Sewaliks always to
the north, and behind them again the snows.
After long, sweet sleep under the dry stars came
the lordly, leisurely passage through a waking

107

KIM

village — begging'bowl held forth in silence, but
eyes roving in defiance of the Law from sky's
edge to sky's edge* Then would Kim return
softvfooted through the soft dust to his master
under the shadow of a mango tree or the thinner
shade of a white Doon siris, to eat and drink at
ease. At mid'day, after talk and a little wayfar^
ing, 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 head'
man, after the custom of the kindly East.

When the shadows shortened and the lama
leaned more heavily upon Kim, there was always
the Wheel of Life to draw forth, to hold flat
under wiped stones, and with a long straw to
expound cycle by cycle. Here sat the Gods on
high — and they were dreams of dreams. Here
was our Heaven and the world of the demi-Gods
—horsemen fighting among the hills. Here were
the agonies done upon the beasts, souls ascending
or descending the ladder and therefore not to be
interfered with. Here were the Hells, hot and
cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts. Let

108

KIM

the chela study the troubles that come from over"
eating — bloated stomach and burning bowels*
Obediently then, with bowed head and brown
finger alert to follow the pointer, did the chela
study ; but when they came to the Human World,
busy and profitless, that is just above the Hells, his
mind was distracted ; for by the roadside trundled
the very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading,
marrying, and quarrelling — all warmly alive.
Often the lama made the living pictures the
matter of his text, bidding Kim — too ready-
note how the flesh takes a thousand thousand
shapes, desirable or detestable as men reckon, but
in truth of no account either way ; and how the
stupid spirit, bond'slave to the Hog, the Dove,
and the Serpent — lusting after betel^nut, a new
yoke of oxen, women, or the favour of kings — is
bound to follow the body through all the Heavens
and all the Hells, and strictly round again. Some'
times a woman or a poor man, watching the
ritual — it was nothing less — when the great yellow
chart was unfolded, would throw a few flowers or
a handful of cowries upon its edge. It sufficed
these humble ones they had met a Holy One
who might be moved to remember them in his
prayers*

'Cure them if they are sick/ said the lama,
when Kim's sporting instincts woke, ' Cure them

109

KIM

if they have fever, but by no means work charms.
Remember what befell the Mahratta/

'Then all Doing is evil?' Kim replied, lying
out under a big tree at the fork of the Doon road,
watching the little ants run over his hand,

'To abstain from action is well — except to
.acquire merit/

4 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. Hail my bones
ache for that River, as they ached in the terrain ;
but my spirit sits above my bones, waiting. The
Search is sure ! '

4 1 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

110

KIM

my own place I have the illusion of honour. I
ask for that I need, I am not concerned with the
account. That is for my monastery. Ai ! The
black high seats in the monastery, and the novices
all in order ! '

And he told stories, tracing with a finger in the
dust, of the immense and sumptuous ritual of
avalanche-guarded cathedrals ; of processions and
devil*dances ; of the changing of monks and nuns
into swine ; of holy cities fifteen thousand feet in
the air ; of intrigue between monastery and mon*
astery ; of voices among the hills, and of that
mysterious mirage that dances on dry snow. He
spoke even of Lhassa and of the Dalai Lama, whom
he had seen and adored.

Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a
barrier to cut him off from his race and his mother*
tongue. He slipped back to thinking and dream*
ing in the vernacular, and mechanically followed
the lama's ceremonial observances at eating, drink*
ing, and the like. The old man's mind turned
more and more to his monastery as his eyes turned
to the steadfast snows. His River troubled him
nothing. Now and again, indeed, he would gaze
long and long at a tuft or a twig, expecting, he
said, the earth to cleave and deliver its blessing*
but he was content to be with his disciple, at ease
in the temperate wind that comes down from the
111

KIM

Doon. This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya,
nor Bombay, nor some grass^tangled ruins that
he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago.
He spoke of those places as a scholar removed from
vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old
man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge
with brilliant insight* Bit by bit, disconnectedly,
each tale called up by some wayside thing, he
spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind ;
till Kim, who had loved him without reason,
now loved him for fifty good reasons. So they
enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining,
as the Rule demands, from evil words, covetous
desires; not overheating, not lying on high beds,
nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomach 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 soul>
less woman a blessing.

But news travels fast in India, and too soon
shuffled across the crop * land, bearing a basket
of fruits with a box of Kabul grapes and gilt
oranges, a white^whiskered servitor — a lean, dry
Oorya — begging them to bring the honour of
their presence to his mistress, distressed in her
mind that the lama had neglected her so long.

'Now do I remember ' — the lama spoke as

112

KIM

though it were a wholly new proposition, 'She
is virtuous, but an inordinate talker/

Kim was sitting on the edge of a cow's manger,
telling stories to a village smith's children*

'She will only ask for another son for her
daughter, I have not forgotten her/ he said.
'Let her acquire merit. Send word that we will
come/

They covered eleven miles through the fields
in two days, and were overwhelmed with atten-
tions at the end; for the old lady held a fine
tradition of hospitality, to which she forced her son-
in-law, who was under the thumb of his women-
folk and bought peace by borrowing of the money-
lender. Age had not weakened her tongue or
her memory, and from a discreetly barred upper
window, in the hearing of not less than a dozen
servants, she paid Kim compliments that would
have flung European audiences into unclean dismay.

'But thou art still the shameless beggar-brat of
the parao? she shrilled. 'I have not forgotten
thee. Wash ye and eat. The father of my
daughter's son is gone away awhile. So we poor
women are dumb and useless/

For proof, she harangued the entire household
unsparingly till food and drink were brought;
and in the evening — the smoke-scented evening,
copper -dun and turquoise across the fields — it

K. Vol. II 113 i

KIM

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,

4 Had the Holy One come alone, I should have
received him otherwise ; but with this rogue, who
can be too careful ? '

4 Maharanee/ said Kim, choosing as always the
amplest title, * is it my fault that none other than
a Sahib — a polls- sahib — called the Maharanee
whose face he '

'Chitt! That was on the pilgrimage. When
we travel — thou knowest the proverb/

4 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. 4 Now tell me of thy goings and
comings — as much as may be without shame.
How many maids, and whose wives, hang upon
thy eyelashes ? Ye hail from Benares ? I would
have gone there again this year, but my daughter
—we have only two sons. Phaii! Such is the
effect of these low plains. Now in Kulu men are
elephants. But I would ask thy Holy One — stand
aside, rogue — a charm against most lamentable
windy colics that in mango* time overtake my
114

KIM

daughter's eldest. Two years back he gave me
a powerful spell/

4 Oh, Holy One ! ' said Kim, bubbling with mirth
at the lama's rueful face*

4 It is true* I gave her one against wind/

4 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/

4 That was two Rains ago ; she wearied me with
her continual importunity/ The lama groaned
as the Unjust Judge had groaned before him.
'Thus it comes — take note, my chela — that even
those who would follow the Way are thrust aside
by idle women. Three days through, when the
child was sick, she talked to me/

'Arre! and to whom else should I talk? The
boy's mother knew nothing, and the father — in
the nights of the cold weather it was — "Pray to
the Gods/' said he, forsooth, and turning over,
snored ! '

'I gave her the charm. What is an old man
to do?'

4 " To abstain from action is well — except when
we acquire merit." '

4 Ah, chela, if thou desertest me, I am all alone/

'He found his milk-teeth easily at any rate/
said the old lady. ' But all priests are alike/

115

KIM

Kim coughed severely. Being young, he did
not approve of her flippancy. 'To importune
the wise out of season is to invite calamity/

4 There is a talking mynah* — the thrust came
back with the well - remembered snap of the
jewelled forefinger — 'over the stables which has
picked up the very tone of the family* priest.
Maybe I forget honour to my guests, but if ye
had seen Mm double his fists into his belly, which
was like a half<grown gourd, and cry: "Here is
the pain ! " ye would forgive. I am half minded
to take the hakim's medicine. He sells it cheap, and
certainly it makes him fat as Shiv's own bull. He
does not deny remedies, but I doubted for the child
because of the inauspicious colour of the bottles/

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

' Thou hast angered him, belike/ said Kim.

4 Not he. He is wearied, and I forgot, being a
grandmother. (None but a grandmother should
ever oversee a child. Mothers are only fit for
bearing.) To-morrow, when he sees how my
daughter's son is grown, he will write the charm.
Then, too, he can judge of the new hakim's drugs/

' Who is the hakim, Maharanee ? '

4 A wanderer, as thou art, but a most sober
Bengali from Dacca — a master of medicine. He

116

KIM

relieved me of an oppression after meat by means
of a small pill that wrought like a devil unchained,
He travels about now, vending preparations of
great value. He has even papers, printed in
Angrezi, telling what things he has done for
weak 'backed men and slack women. He has
been here four days ; but hearing ye were coming
(hakims and priests are snake and tiger the world
over) he has, as I take it, gone to cover/

While she drew breath after this volley, the
ancient servant, sitting unrebuked on the edge of
the torchlight, muttered : 4 This house is a cattle*
pound, as it were, for all charlatans and — priests*
Let the boy stop eating mangoes * * , but who
can argue with a grandmother ? ' He raised his
voice respectfully : 4 Sahiba, the hakim sleeps after
his meat. He is in the quarters behind the
dovecot/

Kim bristled like an expectant terrier. To
outface and down^talk a Calcutta-taught Bengali,
a voluble Dacca drug*vendor, would be a good
game. It was not seemly that the lama, and in*
cidentally himself, should be thrown aside for such
an one. He knew those curious bastard English
advertisements at the backs of native newspapers.
St. Xavier's boys sometimes brought them in by
stealth to snigger over among their mates; for
the language of the grateful patient recounting

117

KIM

his symptoms is most simple and revealing. The
Oorya, not unanxious to play off one parasite
against the other, slunk away towards the dovecot*

4 Yes/ said Kim, with measured scorn* 4 Their
stock-in-trade is a little coloured water and a very
great shamelessness. Their prey are broken-
down kings and overfed Bengalis, Their profit
is in children — who are not born/

The old lady chuckled, 'Do not be envious.
Charms are better, eh ? / 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:
44 1 will open a grocer's shop/' ' Kim retorted.

Battle was fairly joined now, and they heard the
old lady stiffen to attention.

4 The priest's son knows the names of his nurse
and three Gods. Says he: "Hear me, or I will
curse you by the three million Great Ones/' ' De-
cidedly this invisible had an arrow or two in his
quiver. He went on : 4 1 am but a teacher of the
alphabet. I have learned all the wisdom of the
Sahibs/

118

KIM

4 The Sahibs never grow old. They dance and
they play like children when they are grandfathers.
A strong'backed breed/ piped the voice inside the
palanquin.

4 1 have, too, our drugs which loosen humours
of the head in hot and angry men. Sind well conv
pounded when the moon stands in the proper
House ; yellow earths I have — arplan from China
that makes a man renew his youth and astonish his
household; saffron from Kashmir, and the best
salep of Kabul. Many people have died before —

4 That I surely believe/ said Kim.

'They knew the value of my drugs. I do
not give my sick the mere ink in which a charm is
written, but hot and rending drugs which descend
and wrestle with the evil/

' Very mightily they do so/ sighed the old lady.

The voice launched into an immense tale of
misfortune and bankruptcy, studded with plentiful
petitions to the Government. 'But for my fate,
which overrules all, I had been now in Government
employ. I bear a degree from the great school at
Calcutta — whither, maybe, the son of this house
shall go/

' He shall indeed. If our neighbour's brat can
in a few years be made an F.A/ (First Arts — she
used the English word, of which she had heard
so often), 'how much more shall children clever

119

KIM

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/

4 Hal mail* said the old lady* 'To praise
children is inauspicious, or I could listen to this
talk* But the back of the house is unguarded, and
even in this soft air men think themselves to be
men and women we know, . . . The child's father
is away too, and I must be chowkedar (watchman)
in my old age. Up ! Up ! Take up the palan^
quin. Let the hakim and the young priest settle
between them whether charms or medicine most
avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch tobacco for
the guests, and — round the homestead go I ! '

The palanquin reeled off, followed by straggling
torches and a horde of dogs. Twenty villages
knew the Sahiba — her failings, her tongue, and her
large charity. Twenty villages cheated her after
immemorial custom, but no man would have stolen
or robbed within her jurisdiction for any gift under
Heaven. None the less, she made great parade of
her formal inspections, the riot of which could be
heard half*way to Mussoorie.

Kim relaxed, as one augur must when he meets

120

KIM

another. The hakimt still squatting, slid over his
hookah with a friendly foot, and Kim pulled at the
good weed. The hangers-on expected grave pro*
fessional debate, and perhaps a little free doctoring.

'To discuss medicine before the ignorant is of
one piece with teaching the peacock to sing/ said
the hakim.

'True courtesy/ Kim echoed, 'is very often
inattention/

These, be it understood, were company-manners,
designed to impress.

'Hi! I have an ulcer on my leg/ cried a
scullion. ' Look at it I '

'Get hence! Remove P said the hakim. 'Is
it the habit of the place to pester honoured guests ?
Ye crowd in like buffaloes/

' If the Sahiba knew— -' Kim began.

*Ai! Ai! Come away. They are meat for
our mistress. When her young Shaitan's colics
are cured perhaps we poor people may be suffered
to-

' The mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in
jail for breaking the money-lender's head. Who
speaks against her ? ' The old servitor curled his
white moustaches savagely in the young moonlight.
'/ am responsible for the honour of this house.
Go ! ' and he drove the underlings before him.

Said the hakim, hardly more than shaping the

121

KIM

words with his lips: 'How do you do, Mr.
O'Hara ? I am jolly glad to see you again/

Kim's hand clenched about the pipe * stem.
Anywhere on the open road, perhaps, he would not
have been astonished ; but here, in this quiet back*
water of life, he was not prepared for Hurree Babu.
It annoyed him, too, that he had been hoodwinked.

4 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.

4 But why come here, Babuji ? '

'Ah! Thatt is the question, as Shakespeare
hath said. I come to congratulate you on your
extraordinary effeecient performance at Delhi.
Oah ! I tell you we are all proud of you. It was
verree neat and handy. Our mutual friend, he is
old friend of mine. He has been in some dam*
tight places. Now he will be in some more. He
told me; I tell Mr. Lurgan; and he is pleased
you graduate so nicely* All the Department is
pleased/

For the first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the
clean pride (it can be a deadly pitfall, none the
less) of Departmental praise — ensnaring praise from
an equal of work appreciated by fellow^workers.
Earth has nothing on the same plane to compare

122

KIM

with it. But, cried the Oriental in him, Babus do
not travel far to retail compliments.

4 Tell thy tale, Babu/ he said authoritatively.

4 Oah, it is nothing. Onlee I was at Simla when
the wire came in about what our mutual friend
said he had hidden, and old Creighton— He
looked to see how Kim would take this piece of
audacity.

4 The Colonel Sahib/ the boy from St. Xavier's
corrected.

4 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 I
Ha ! I meet our mutual at Delhi on the way back.
He lies quiett just now, and says Saddhu^disguise
suits him to the ground. Well, there I hear what
you have done so well, so quickly, upon the in^
stantaneous 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/

'Umml'

The frogs were busy in the ditches, and the
moon slid to her setting. Some happy servant
had gone out to commune with the night and to
beat upon a drum. Kim's next sentence was in
the vernacular.

4 How didst thou follow us ? '

123

KIM

* Oah. Thatt was nothing. I know from our
mutual friend you go to Saharunpore. So I come
on. Red lamas are not inconspicuous persons. I
buy myself my drug-box, and I am very good
doctor really. I go to Akrola by the Ford, and
hzar all about you, and I talk here and talk there.
All the common people know what you do. I
know when the hospitable old lady sent the dooli.
They have great recollections of the old lama's
visits here. I know old ladies cannot keep their
hands from medicines. So I am a doctor, and —
you hear my talk ? / think it is verree good. My
word, Mister O'Hara, they know about you and
the lama for fifty miles — the common people. So
I come. Do you mind ? '

'Babuji/ said Kim, looking up at the broad,
grinning face, ' I am a Sahib/
'My dear Mister CXHara '

* And I hope to play the Great Game/

4 You are subordinate to me departmentally at
present/

4 Then why talk like an ape in a tree ? Men do
not come after one from Simla and change their
dress, for the sake of a few sweet words. I am not
a child. Talk Hindi and let us get to the yolk
of the egg. Thou art here — speaking not one
word of truth in ten. Why art thou here ? Give
a straight answer/

124

KIM

4 That is so veree disconcerting of the European,
Mister O'Hara. You should know a heap better
at your time of life/

4 But I want to know/ said Kim, laughing, * If
it is the Game, I may help. How can I do any*
thing if you bukh (babble) all round the shop/

Hurree Babu reached for the pipe, and sucked
it till it guggled again,

'Now I will speak vernacular. You sit tight,

Mister O'Hara, It concerns the pedigree

of a white stallion/

4 Still ? That was finished long ago/

'When every one is dead the Great Game is
finished. Not before. Listen to me till the end.
There were Five Kings who prepared a sudden war
three years ago, when thou wast given the stallion's
pedigree by Mahbub Ali, Upon them, because
of that news, and ere they were ready, fell our
Army/

'Ay — eight thousand men with guns, I re*
member that night/

'But the war was not pushed. That is the
Government custom. The troops were recalled
because the Government believed the Five Kings
were cowed; and it is not cheap to feed men
among the high Passes, Hilas and Bunar — Rajahs
with guns — undertook for a price to guard the
passes against all coming from the North, They

125

KIM

protested both fear and friendship/ He broke off
with a giggle into English : 4 Of course, I tell you
this unofficially to elucidate political situation,
Mister O'Hara. Offeecially, I am debarred from
criticising any action of superior. Now I go on* —
This pleased the Government, anxious to avoid ex^
pense, and a bond was made for so many rupees
a month that Hilas and Bunar should guard the
Passes as soon as the State's troops were withdrawn.
At that time— it was after we two met — I, who had
been selling tea in Leh. became a clerk of accounts
in the Army. When the troops were withdrawn,
I was left behind to pay the coolies who made new
roads in the Hills. This road^making was part of
the bond between Bunar, Hilas, and the Govern*
ment/

4 So ; and then ? '

'I tell you, it was jolly beastly cold up there
too, after summer/ said Hurree Babu confidentially.
4 1 was afraid these Bunar men would cut my
throat every night for thee pay Behest. My native
sepoy^guard, they laughed at me ! By Jove ! I was
such a fearful man. Nevar mind thatt. I go on
colloquially. ... I send word many times that
these two Kings were sold to the North; and
Mahbub Ali, who was yet farther north, amply
confirmed it. Nothing was done. Only my feet
were frozen, and a toe dropped off. I sent word

126

KIM

that the roads for which I was paying money to
the diggers were being made for the feet of
strangers and enemies/

'For?'

4 For the Russians. The thing was an open jest
among the coolies. Then I was called down to
tell what I knew by speech of tongue. Mahbub
came south too. See the end ! Over the Passes
this year after snow^melting ' — he shivered afresh —
* come two strangers under cover of shooting wild
goats. They bear guns, but they bear also chains
and levels and compasses/

4 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 notlv
ing. The three other Kings, who were not paid for
guarding the passes, tell them by runner of the
bad faith of Bundr and Hilas. When all the evil
is done, look you — when these two strangers with
the levels and the compasses make the Five Kings
to believe that a great army will sweep the Passes
to-morrow or the next day — Hill "people are all
127

KIM

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/" He returned to
his English with a jerk : ' " By Jove/' I said, " why
the dooce do you not issue demi^offeecial orders to
some brave man to poison them, for an example ?
It is, if you permit the observation, most reprehen*
sible laxity on your part/' And Colonel Creighton,
he laughed at me ! It is all your beastly English
pride. You think no one dare conspire! That
is all tommy *rott/

Kim smoked slowly, revolving the business, so
far as he understood it, in his quick mind.

4 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/

4 Then what is to fear from them ? f
4 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/

4 Will they kill thee?'

128

KIM

'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*
4 Of course I shall affeeliate myself to their camp in
supernumerary capacity as perhaps interpreter, or
person mentally impotent and hungree, or some
such thing* And then I must pick up what I
can, I suppose. That is as easy for me as
playing Mister Doctor to the old lady. Onlee
— onlee — you see, Mister O'Hara, I am unfor^
tunately Asiatic, which is serious detriment in
some respects. And allso I am Bengali — a fearful

man/

4 God made the Hare and the Bengali. What
shame ? ' said Kim, quoting the proverb.

4 It was process of Evolution, / think, from
Primal Necessity, but the fact remains in all its
cui bono. I am, oh, awfully fearful I — I remember
once they wanted to cut off my head on the road
to Lhassa. (No, I have never reached to Lhassa.)
I sat down and cried, Mister O'Hara, anticipating
Chinese tortures. I do not suppose these two
gentlemen will torture me, but I like to provide
for possible contingency with European assistance
in emergency/ He coughed and spat out the

K. Vol.11 129 K

KIM

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 adjudi-
cated. It will be a great feather in your cap.
That is why I come really/

4 Humph ! The end of the tale, I think, is
true ; but what of the fore-part ? '

4 About the Five Kings ? Oah ! there is ever so
much truth in it. A lots more than you would
suppose/ said Hurree earnestly. 'You come —
eh ? I go from here straight into the Doon. It is
verree verdant and painted meads. I shall go
to Mussoorie — to good old Munsoorie Pahar, as
the gentlemen and ladies say. Then by Rampur
into Chini. That is the only way they can come.
I do not like waiting in the cold, but we must
wait for them. I want to walk with them to
Simla. You see, one Russian is a Frenchman, and
I know my French pretty well. I have friends in
Chandern agore/

4 He would certainly rejoice to see the Hills
again/ said Kim meditatively. 'All his speech

130

KIM

these ten days past has been of little else. If we
go together —

4 Oah ! We can be quite strangers on the road,
if your lama prefers. I shall just be four or five
miles ahead. There is no hurry for Hurree.
That is an Europe pun, ha ! ha ! and you come
after. There is plenty of time; they will plot
and survey and map of course. I shall go to*
morrow, and you the next day, if you choose.
Eh ? You go think on it till morning. By Jove,
it is near morning now/ He yawned ponderously,
and with never a civil word lumbered off to his
sleeping < place. But Kim slept little, and his
thoughts ran in Hindustanee :

'Well is the Game called great! I was four
days a scullion at Quetta, waiting on the wife of
the man whose book I stole. And that was part
of the Great Game! From the South — God
knows how far — came up the Mahratta, playing
the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I shall
go far and far into the North playing the Great
Game. Truly, it runs like a shuttle throughout
all Hind. And my share and my joy' — he
smiled to the darkness — 4 1 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.

131

KIM

But I will see these strangers with their levels and
chains . . .'

4 What was the upshot of last night's babble ? '
said the lama, after his orisons,

4 There came a strolling seller of drugs — a
hanger-on of the Sahiba's. Him I abolished by
arguments and prayers, proving that our charms
are worthier than his coloured waters/

4 Alas! my charms. Is the virtuous woman
still bent upon a new one ? '

4 Very strictly/

'Then it must be written, or she will deafen
me with her clamour/ He fumbled at his pen^case.

* In the Plains/ said Kim, * are always too many
people. In the Hills, as I understand, there are
fewer/

4 Oh ! the Hills, and the snow upon the Hills/
The lama tore off a tiny square of paper fit to go
in an amulet. * But what dost thou know of the
Hills?'

'They are very close/ Kim thrust open the
door and looked at the long, peaceful line of the
Himalayas flushed in morning^gold. 'Except in
the dress of a Sahib, I have never set foot among
them/

The lama snuffed the wind wistfully.

4 If we go north/ — Kim put the question to the
waking sunrise, — * would not much mid*day heat

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KIM

be avoided by walking among the lower hills at
least ? , . , Is the charm made, Holy One ? '

4 1 have written the names of seven silly devils
— not one of whom is worth a grain of dust in the
eye. Thus do foolish women drag us from the
Way!'

Hurree Babu came out from behind the dovecot,
washing his teeth with ostentatious ritual. Full'
fleshed, heavy^haunched, bulknecked, and deep*
voiced, he did not look like 4 a fearful man/ Kim
signed almost imperceptibly that matters were in
good train, and when the morning toilet was over
Hurree Babu, in flowery speech, came to do
honour to the lama. They ate, of course, apart, and
afterwards the old lady, more or less veiled behind
a window, returned to the vital business of green*
mango colics in the young. The lama's know*
ledge of medicine was of course sympathetic only.
He believed that the dung of a black horse, mixed
with sulphur, and carried in a snake*skin, was a
sound remedy for cholera; but the symbolism
interested him far more than the science, Hurree
Babu deferred to these views with enchanting
politeness, so that the lama called him a courteous
physician, Hurree Babu replied that he was no
more than an inexpert dabbler in the mysteries;
but at least — he thanked the Gods therefor — he
knew when he sat in the presence of a master.

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KIM

He himself had been taught by the Sahibs, who do
not consider expense, in the lordly halls of Calcutta ;
but, as he was ever first to acknowledge, there
lay a wisdom behind earthly wisdom — the high
and lonely lore of meditation, Kim looked on
with envy. The Hurree Babu of his knowledge
— oily, effusive, and nervous — was gone; gone
too was the brazen drug ' vendor of overnight.
There remained — polished, polite, attentive — a
sober, learned son of experience and adversity,
gathering wisdom from the lama's lips. The old lady
confided to Kim that these rare levels were beyond
her. She liked charms with plenty of ink that
one could wash off in water, swallow, and be done
with. Else what was the use of the Gods ? She
liked men and women, and she spoke of them — of
kinglets she had known in the past ; of her own
youth and beauty ; of the depredations of leopards
and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the
incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral cere*
monies, her son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to
be followed), the care of the young, and the age's
lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in the
life of this world as she soon to leave it, squatted
with his feet under the hem of his robe, drinking
all in, while the lama demolished one after another
every theory of body-curing put forward by Hurree
Babu.

134

KIM

At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound
drug-box, took his patent-leather shoes of ceremony
in one hand, a gay blue and white umbrella in the
other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where,
he said, he was in demand among the lesser kings
of those parts,

4 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/

4 Ye go to the Hills. And by Kulu-road ? Oh,
thrice happy ! ' shrilled the old lady. ' But that I
am a little pressed with the care of the homestead
I would take palanquin * . . but that would be
shameless, and my reputation would be cracked.
Ho! Ho! I know the road — every march of
the road I know. Ye will find charity through*
out — it is not denied to the well-looking. I will
give orders for provision. A servant to set you
forth upon your journey ? No. . . . Then I will
at least cook ye good food/

4 What a woman is the Sahiba ! ' said the white*
bearded Oorya, when a tumult rose by the kitchen
quarters. 4 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.

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KIM

There were cakes, there were sweetmeats, there
was cold fowl stewed to rags with rice and prunes
— enough to burden Kim like a mule,

4 1 am old and useless/ she said, 'None now
love me — and none respect — but there are few to
compare with me when I call on the Gods and
squat to my cooking<pots. Come again, O people
of good will* Holy One and disciple, come again.
The room is always prepared; the welcome is
always ready. . . . See the women do not follow
thy chela too openly. / know the women of
Kulu, Take heed, chela, lest he run away when
he smells his Hills again* » . . Hai ! Do not tilt
the rice^bag upside down. . . . Bless the household,
Holy One, and forgive thy servant her stupidities/

She wiped her red old eyes on a corner of her
veil, and clucked throatily,

4 Women talk/ said the lama at last, ' but that
is a woman's infirmity. I gave her a charm. She
is upon the Wheel and wholly given over to the
shows of this life, but none the less, chela, she
is virtuous, kindly, hospitable — of a whole and
zealous heart. Who shall say she does not acquire
merit ? '

'Not I, Holy One/ said Kim, reslinging the
bountiful provision on his shoulders. Mn my
mind — behind my eyes — I have tried to picture
such an one altogether freed from the Wheel —

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KIM

desiring nothing, causing nothing — a nun, as it

were/

' And, O imp ? ' The lama almost laughed aloud*

' I cannot make the picture/

'Nor L But there are many, many millions
of lives before hen She will get wisdom a little,
it may be, in each one/

'And will she forget how to make stews with
saffron upon that road ? '

'Thy mind is set on things unworthy* But
she has skill I am refreshed all over. When we
reach the lower hills I shall be yet stronger. The
hakim spoke truly to me this morn when he said a
breath from the snows blows away twenty years
from the life of a man* We will go up into the
Hills — the high hills — up to the sound of snow*
water and the sound of the trees — for a little while*
The hakim said that at any time we may return
to the Plains, for we do no more than skirt the
pleasant places* The hakim is full of learning;
but he is in no way proud. I spoke to him—
when thou wast talking to the Sahiba — of a certain
dizziness that lays hold upon the back of my neck
in the night, and he said it rose from excessive
heat — to be cured by cool air* Upon considera^
tion, I marvelled that I had not thought of such a
simple remedy/

4 Didst thou tell him of thy Search ? ' said Kim,

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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/

4 Thou didst not say I was a Sahib ? '

'What need? I have told thee many times
we be but two souls seeking escape* He said —
and he is just herein — that the River of Healing will
break forth even as I dreamed — at my feet if need
be. Having found the Way, seest thou, that
shall free me from the Wheel, need I trouble to
find a way about the mere fields of earth — which
are illusion? That were senseless. I have my
dreams, night upon night repeated; I have the
Jataka ; and I have thee, Friend of all the World*
It was written in thy horoscope that a Red Bull on
a green field — I have not forgotten — should bring
thee to honour* Who but I saw that prophecy
accomplished? Indeed, I was the instrument*
Thou shalt find me my River, being in return the
instrument* The Search is sure ! '

He set his ivory - yellow face, serene and un*
troubled, towards the beckoning Hills ; his shadow
shouldering far before him in the dust*

138

CHAPTER XIII

Who hath desired the Sea — the immense and contemptuous
surges ?

The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the star-stabbing
bowsprit emerges —

The orderly clouds of the trade and the ridged roaring
sapphire thereunder —

Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails' low-
volleying thunder ?

His Sea in no wonder the same — his Sea and the same in
each wonder

His Sea that his being fulfils ?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise hillmen desire
their Hills I

*TT7r7"HO goes to the Hills goes to his mother/

\A/ They had crossed the Sewaliks and

» * the half-tropical Doon, left Mussoorie

behind them, and headed north along the narrow

hill-roads* Day after day they struck deeper into

the huddled mountains, and day after day Kim

watched the lama return to a man's strength*

Among the terraces of the Doon he had leaned on

139

KIM

the boy's shoulder, ready to profit by wayside
halts* Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he
drew himself together as an old hunter faces a
well'remembered bank, and where he should have
sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about
him, drew a deep double^lungful of the diamond
air, and walked as only a hillman can, Kim,
plains * bred and plains * fed, sweated and panted
astonished, 'This is my country/ said the lama*
4 Beside Suchxzen, this is flatter than a rice^field ' $
and with steady, driving strokes from the loins he
strode upwards. But it was on the steep downhill
marches, three thousand feet in three hours, that
he went utterly away from Kim, whose back ached
with holding back, and whose big toe was nigh cut
off by his grass sandaLstring. Through the speckled
shadow of the great deodar^forests ; through oak
feathered and plumed with ferns; birch, ilex,
rhododendron, and pine, out on to the bare hillsides'
slippery sunburnt grass, and back into the wood'
lands' coolth again, till oak gave way to bamboo
and palm of the valley, he swung untiring.

Glancing back in the twilight at the huge
ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the
road whereby they had come, he would lay out,
with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh
marches for the morrow ; or, halting in the neck of
some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu,

140

KIM

would stretch out his hands yearningly towards
the high snows of the horizon* In the dawns they
flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedarnath
and Badrinath — kings of that wilderness — took
the first sunlight. All day long they lay like
molten silver under the sun, and at evening put
on their jewels again* At first they breathed
temperately upon the travellers, winds good to
meet when one crawled over some gigantic hog*
back ; but in a few days, at a height of nine or ten
thousand feet, those breezes bit ; and Kim kindly
allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by
giving him a rough blanket-coat. The lama was
mildly surprised that any one should object to the
knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his
shoulders.

4 These are but the lower hills, chela. There
is no cold till we come to the true Hills/

4 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/

4 We might at the least keep to the road/

Kim had all a plains-man's affection for the

well-trodden track, not six feet wide, that snaked

141

KIM

among the mountains ; but the lama, being
Tibetan, could not refrain from short cuts over
spurs and the rims of gravel-strewn slopes. As
he explained to his limping disciple, a man bred
among mountains can prophesy the course of a
mountain-road, and though low-lying clouds might
be a hindrance to a short-cutting stranger, they
made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man.
Thus, after long hours of what would be reckoned
very fair mountaineering in civilised countries,
they would pant over a saddle-back, sidle past a
few landslips, and drop through forest at an angle
of forty-five on to the road again. Along their
track lay the villages of the hill-folk—mud and
earth huts, timbers now and then rudely carved
with an axe — clinging like swallows' nests against
the steeps, huddled on tiny flats half-way down
a three -thousand -foot glissade; jammed into a
corner between cliffs that funnelled and focused
every wandering blast ; or, for the sake of summer
pasture, cowering down on a neck that in winter
would be ten feet deep in snow. And the people
— the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with short
bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux — would
flock out and adore. The Plains — kindly and
gentle — had treated the lama as a holy man among
holy men. But the Hills worshipped him as one
in the confidence of all the devils. Theirs was

142

KIM

an almost obliterated Buddhism, overlaid with a
nature^worship fantastic as their own landscapes,
elaborate as the terracing of their tiny fields ;
but they recognised the big hat, the clicking
rosary, and the rare Chinese texts for great
authority; and they respected the man under
the hat.

4 We saw thee come down over the black Breasts
of Eua/ said a Betah who gave them cheese, sour
milk, and stone^hard bread one evening* * We do
not use that often — except when calving cows
stray in summer. There is a sudden wind
among those stones that casts men down on the
stillest day. But what should such folk care for
the Devil of Eua !'

Then did Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with
looking down, footsore with cramping desperate
toes into inadequate crannies, take joy in the day's
march — such joy as a boy of St. Xavier's who had
won the quarter^mile on the flat might take in the
praises of his friends. The hills sweated the ghi
and sugar suet off his bones; the dry air, taken
sobbingly at the head of cruel passes, firmed and
built out his upper ribs ; and the tilted levels put
new hard muscles into calf and thigh.

They meditated often on the Wheel of Life —
the more so since, as the lama said, they were
freed from its visible temptations. Except the

143

KIM

gray eagle and an occasional faivseen bear grubbing
and rooting on the hillside, the vision of a furious
painted leopard met at dawn in a still valley
devouring a goat, and now and again a bright-
coloured bird, they were alone with the winds and
the grass singing under the wind. The women of
the smoky huts over whose roofs the two walked
as they descended the mountains, were unlovely and
unclean, wives of many husbands, and afflicted with
goitre. The men were wood -cutters when they
were not farmers — meek, and of an incredible
simplicity. But that suitable discourse might not
fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and overtaken
upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who
paid for his food in ointments good for goitre and
councils that restore peace between men and women,
He seemed to know these hills as well as he knew
the hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of the
land towards Ladakh and Tibet, He said they
could return to the Plains at any moment. Mean*
time, for such as loved mountains, yonder road
might amuse. This was not all revealed in a
breath, but at evening encounters on the stone
threshing-floors, when, patients disposed of, the
doctor would smoke and the lama snuff, while
Kim watched the wee cows grazing on the house*
tops, or threw his soul after his eye across the
deep blue gulfs between range and range. And

144

KIM

there were talks apart in the dark woods, when the
doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as budding
physician, must accompany him,

4 You see, Mister O'Hara, I do not know what
the deuce-an'^all I shall do when I find our sporting
friends ; but if you will kindly keep within sight
of my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for
cadastral survey, I feel much better/

Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks,
4 This is not my country, hakim. Easier, I think,
to find one louse in a bearskin/

4 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 — 4 they
march and they march away East to Leh (ah ! it
is cold there), and down the Indus to Handle (I

K. vol. II 145 L

KIM

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 some*
where in Chini valley. Please keep your eye on
the umbrella.'

It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the
valleys and round the mountain sides, and in due
time the lama and Kim, who steered by compass,
would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders
at eventide. 4 We came by such and such a way ! '
The lama would throw a careless finger backward
at the ridges, and the umbrella would expend
itself in compliments.

They crossed a snowy pass in cold moonlight,
when the lama, mildly chaffing Kim, went through
up to his knees, like a Bactrian camel — the snow*
bred, shag'haired sort that come into the Kashmir
Serai. They dipped across beds of light snow and
snowxpowdered shale, where they took refuge from
a gale in a camp of Tibetans hurrying down tiny
sheep, each laden with a bag of borax. They
came out upon grassy shoulders still snoW'Speckled,
and through forest, to grass anew. For all their
marchings, Kedarnath and Badrinath were not

146

KIM

impressed ; and it was only after days of travel
that Kim, uplifted upon some insignificant ten"
thousand'foot hummock, could see that a shoulder^
knot or horn of the two great lords had — ever so
slightly — changed outline.

At last they entered a world within a world—
a valley of leagues where the high hills were
fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse from off
the knees of the mountains. Here one day's march
carried them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer's
clogged pace bears him in a nightmare. They
skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and, behold,
it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress
of the main pile! A rounded meadow revealed
itself, when they had reached it, for a vast tableland
running far into the valley. Three days later, it
was a dim fold in the earth to southward.

4 Surely the Gods live here/ said Kim, beaten
down by the silence and the appalling sweep and
dispersal of the cloud*shadows after rain. 'This
is no place for men ! '

1 Long and long ago/ said the lama, as to himx
self, * 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,

147

KIM

but — look, and know illusion, chelal These are
the true Hills ! They are like my hills by Suchzen.
Never were such hills ! '

Above them, still enormously above them, earth
towered away towards the snow^line, where from
east to west across hundreds of miles, ruled as
with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped.
Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the
rocks strove to fight their heads above the white
smother. Above these again, changeless since the
world's beginning, but changing to every mood
of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal snow.
They could see blots and blurs on its face where
storm and wandering wullie^wa got up to dance.
Below them, as they stood, the forest slid away
in a sheet of blue ^ green for mile upon mile;
below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of
terraced fields and steep grazing^grounds ; below
the village they knew, though a thunderstorm
worried and growled there for the moment, a
pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the
moist valley where the streams gather that are the
mothers of young Sutluj.

As usual, the lama had led Kim by cow'track
and 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

148

KIM

of way* Hurree was no game-shot, — the snick of
a trigger made him change colour, — but, as he him-
self would have said, he was 4 fairly effeecient
stalker/ and he had raked the huge valley with a
pair of cheap binoculars to some purpose. More-
over, the white of worn canvas tents against green
carries fan Hurree Babu had seen all he wanted
to see when he sat on the threshing-floor of
Ziglaur, twenty miles away as the eagle flies, and
forty by road — that is to say, two small dots
which one day were just below the snow-line, and
the next had moved downward perhaps six inches
on the hillside. Once cleaned out and set to the
work, his fat bare legs could cover a surprising
amount of ground, and this was the reason why,
while Kim and the lama lay in a leaky hut at
Ziglaur till the storm should be overpassed, an
oily, wet, but always smiling Bengali, talking the
best of English with the vilest of phrases, was
ingratiating himself with two sodden and rather
rheumatic foreigners. He had arrived, revolving
many wild schemes, on the heels of a thunderstorm
which had split a pine over against their camp, and
so convinced a dozen or two forcibly impressed
baggage - coolies the day was inauspicious for
farther travel that with one accord they had
thrown down their loads and jibbed. They were
subjects of a Hill-Rajah who farmed out their

149

KIM

services, as is the custom, for his private gain;
and, to add to their personal distresses, the strange
Sahibs had already threatened them with rifles*
The most of them knew rifles and Sahibs of old :
they were trackers and shikarris of the Northern
valleys, keen after bear and wild goat ; but they
had never been thus treated in their lives* So the
forest took them to her bosom, and, for all oaths
and clamour, refused to restore* There was no
need to feign madness or — the Babu had thought
of another means of securing a welcome. He
wrung out his wet clothes, slipped on his patent^
leather shoes, opened the blue and white umbrella,
and with mincing gait and a heart beating against
his tonsils appeared as 4 agent for His Royal High'
ness, the Rajah of Rampur, gentlemen* What can
I do for you, please ? '

The gentlemen were delighted. One was
visibly French, the other Russian, but they spoke
English not much inferior to the Babu's* They
begged his kind offices* Their native servants
had gone sick at Leh* They had hurried on
because they were anxious to bring the spoils of
the chase to Simla ere the skins grew mothxeaten.
They bore a general letter of introduction (the
Babu salaamed to it orientally) to all Government
officials* No, they had not met any other shooting^
parties en route. They did for themselves. They

150

KIM

had plenty of supplies. They only wished to
push on as soon as might be* At this he waylaid
a cowering hillman among the trees, and after
three minutes' talk and a little silver (one cannot
be economical upon State service, though Hurree's
heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies and the
three hangers-on reappeared. At least the Babu
would be a witness to oppression.

'My royal master, he will be much annoyed,
but these people are onlee common people and
grossly ignorant* If your honours will kindly
overlook unfortunate affair* I shall be much
pleased. In a little while rain will stop and we
can then proceed* You have been shooting, eh ?
That is fine performance ! '

He skipped nimbly from one kilta to the next,
making pretence to adjust each conical basket*
The Englishman is not. as a rule* familiar with
the Asiatic, but he would not strike across the
wrist a kindly Babu who had accidently upset a
kilta with a red oilskin top* On the other hand,
he would not press drink upon a Babu were he
never so friendly* nor would he invite him to
meat. The strangers did all these things, and
asked many questions* — about women mostly, —
to which Hurree returned gay and unstudied
answers. They gave him a glass of whitish fluid
like to gin. and then more; and in a little time

151

KIM

his gravity departed from him. He became
thickly treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping
indecency of a Government which had forced upon
him a white man's education and neglected to
supply him with a white man's salary. He
babbled tales of oppression and wrong till the
tears ran down his cheeks for the miseries of his
land. Then he staggered off, singing love*songs
of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a wet tree*
trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product of
English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon
aliens,

'They are all just of that pattern/ said one
sportsman to the other in French, 4 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/

4 We have not time. We must get into Simla
as soon as may be/ his companion replied, 4 For
my own part, I wish our reports had been sent
back from Hilas, or even Leh/

'The English post is better and safer, Re^
member we are given all facilities — and name of
God ! — they give them to us too 1 Is it unbeliev-
able stupidity ? 9

'It is pride — pride that deserves and will
receive punishment/

152

KIM

'Yes! To fight a fellow - Continental in our
game is something. There is a risk attached, but
these people — bah ! It is too easy/

4 Pride — all pride, my friend/

4 Now what the deuce is good of Chandernagore
being so close to Calcutta and all/ said Hurree,
snoring open-mouthed on the sodden moss, 'if I
cannot understand their French. They talk so
particularly fast ! It would have been much better
to cut their beastly throats/

When he presented himself again he was
racked with a headache — penitent, and volubly
afraid that in his drunkenness he might have
been indiscreet* He loved the British Govern-
ment — it was the source of all prosperity and
honour, and his master at Rampur held the very
same opinion. Upon this the men began to
deride him and to quote past words, till step by
step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and leers
of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out
of his defences and forced to speak — truth.
When Lurgan was told the tale later, he mourned
aloud that he could not have been in the place of
the stubborn, inattentive coolies, who with grass
mats over their heads and the raindrops puddling
in their footprints, waited on the weather. All
the Sahibs of their acquaintance — rough -clad
men joyously returning year after

153

KIM

chosen gullies — had servants and cooks and
orderlies, very often hillmen. These Sahibs
travelled without any retinue* Therefore they
were poor Sahibs, and ignorant ; for no Sahib in his
senses would follow a Bengali's advice. But the
Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had given
them money, and would make shift with their
dialect* Used to comprehensive ill-treatment from
their own colour, they suspected a trap somewhere,
and stood by to run if occasion offered*

Then through the new ^ washed air, steaming
with delicious earth-smells, the Babu led the way
down the slopes — walking ahead of the coolies in
pride ; walking behind the foreigners in humility.
His thoughts were many and various* The least
of them would have interested his companions
beyond words* But he was an agreeable guide,
ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal
master's domain. He peopled the hills with any^
thing they had a mind to slay — thar, ibex, or
markhor, and bears by Elisha's allowance* He
discoursed of botany and ethnology with uninv
peachable inaccuracy, and his store of local legends
—he had been a trusted agent of the State for
fifteen years, remember — was inexhaustible,

4 Decidedly this fellow is an original/ said the
taller of the two foreigners* 'He is like the
nightmare of a Viennese courier.'

154

KIM

'He represents in petto India in transition — the
monstrous hybridism of East and West/ the Russian
replied* 4 It is we who can deal with Orientals/

4 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 quickxpoured
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 Hindu-
stan, and Herbert Spencer, that there remained
some valuables to steal,

On the second day the road rose steeply to a
grass spur above the forest ; and it was here, about
sunset, that they came across an aged lama — but
they called him a bonze — sitting cross-legged
above a mysterious chart held down by stones,
which he was explaining to a young man, evidently
a neophyte, of singular, though unwashen, beauty.
The striped umbrella had been sighted half a march
away, and Kim had suggested a halt till it came up
to them.

said Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss*

155

KIM

in x Boots. 'That is eminent local holy man.
Probably subject of my royal master/

4 What is he doing ? It is very curious/

'He is expounding holy picture — all hand-
worked/

The two men stood bare-headed in the wash of
the afternoon sunlight low across the gold-coloured
grass. The sullen coolies, glad of the check,
halted and slid down their loads.

'Look!' said the Frenchman. 'It is like a
picture for the birth of a religion — the first teacher
and the first disciple. Is he a Buddhist ? '

'Of some debased kind/ the other answered.
'There are no true Buddhists among the Hills.
But look at the folds of the drapery. Look at his
eyes — how insolent! Why does this make one
feel that we are so young a people ? 9 The speaker
struck passionately at a tall weed. ' We have no*
where 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.

156

KIM

4 Holy One, these be Sahibs, My medicines
cured one of a flux, and I go into Simla to oversee
his recovery. They wish to see thy picture —

* To heal the sick is always good. This is the
Wheel of Life/ said the lama, 4 the same I showed
thee in the hut at Ziglaur when the rain fell/

4 And to hear thee expound it/

The lama's eyes lighted at the prospect of new
listeners. 4 To expound the Most Excellent Way is
good. Have they any knowledge of Hindi, such
as had the Keeper of Images ? '

4 A little, maybe/

Hereat, simply as a child engrossed with a new
game, the lama threw back his head and began the
full-throated invocation of the Doctor of Divinity
ere he opens the full doctrine. The strangers
leaned on their alpenstocks and listened. Kim,
squatting humbly, watched the red sunlight on
their faces, and the blend and parting of their long
shadows. They wore un-English leggings and
curious girt-in belts that reminded him hazily of
the pictures in a book at St. Xavier's library : The
Adventures of a Young Naturalist in Mexico was its
name. Yes, they looked very like the wonderful
M. Sumichrast of that tale, and very unlike the
4 highly unscrupulous folk' of Hurree Babu's
imagining. The coolies, earth-coloured and mute,
crouched reverently some twenty or thirty yards

157

KIM

away, and the Babu, the slack of his thin gear
snapping like a marking-flag in the chill breeze,
stood by with an air of happy proprietorship*

4 These are the men/ Hurree whispered, as the
ritual went on and the two whites followed the
grass blade sweeping from Hell to Heaven and
back again. 'All their books are in the large
kilta with the reddish top, — books and reports and
maps, — and I have seen a King's letter that either
Hilas or Bunar has written* They guard it most
carefully* They have sent nothing back from Hilas
or Leh* That is sure/

4 Who is with them ? '

'Only the beegar * coolies. They have no
servants. They are so close they cook their
own food/

4 But what am I to do ? '

'Wait and see. Only if any chance comes to
me thou wilt know where to seek for the papers/

'This were better in Mahbub Ali's hands than
a Bengali's/ said Kim scornfully.

' There are more ways of getting to a sweetheart
than butting down a wall/

' See here the Hell appointed for avarice and
greed. Flanked upon the one side by Desire and
on the other by Weariness/ The lama warmed to
his work, and one of the strangers sketched him
in the quick*fading light.

158

KIM

4 That is enough/ the man said at last brusquely,
4 1 cannot understand him, but I want that picture.
He is a better artist than L 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.

4 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?

4 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 halfVjestingly at the chart,
which tore in the lama's grip. A low murmur of
horror went up from the coolies — some of whom
were Spiti men and, by their lights, good Buddhists.
The lama rose at the insult; his hand went to
the heavy iron pencase that is the priest's weapon,
and the Babu danced in agony.

159

KIM

4 Now you see — you see why I wanted witnesses.
They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh Sar!
Sar ! You must not hit holy man I '

4 Chela ! He has defiled the Written Word ! '

It was too late* Before Kim could ward him
off, the Russian struck the old man full on the face*
Next instant he was rolling over and over down
hill with Kim at his throat The blow had waked
every unknown Irish devil in the boy's blood,
and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest.
The lama dropped to his knees, half^stunned ; the
coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as
plainsmen run across the level. They had seen
sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get
away before the Gods and devils of the hills took
vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the lama,
fumbling at his revolver with some notion of
making him a hostage for his companion. A
shower of cutting stones — hillmen are very straight
shots — drove him away, and a coolie from Ao*
chung snatched the lama into the stampede. All
came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain *
darkness.

'They have taken the baggage and all the
guns/ yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into
the twilight.

'All right. Sar! All right! Don't shoot. I
go to rescue/ and Hurree. pounding down the

160

KIM

slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted and
astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless
foe's head against a boulder.

'Go back to the coolies/ whispered the Babu
in his ear. 4 They have the baggage. The papers
are in the kilta with the red top, but look through
all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla
(King's letter). Go I The other man comes I '

Kim tore up hill. A revolver^bullet rang on
a rock by his side, and he cowered partridge'
wise.

4 If you shoot/ shouted Hurree, 'they will
descend and annihilate us. I have rescued the
gentleman, Sar. This is particularly dangerous/

4 By Jove ! * Kim was thinking hard in English.
'This is dam*tight place, but / think it is self'
defence/ He felt in his bosom for Mahbub's gift,
and uncertainly — save for a few practice shots in
the Bikaner desert, he had never used the little gun
—pulled trigger.

4 What did I say, Sar ! ' The Babu seemed to be
in tears. 4 Come down here and assist to resus*
citate. We are all up a tree, I tell you/

The shots ceased. There was a sound of
stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through
the gloom, swearing like a cat — or a country^bred.

4 Did they wound thee, chela ? ' called the lama
above him.

K. Vol. II 161 M

KIM

t No. And thou ? ' He dived into a clump of
stunted firs*

4 Unhurt. Come away. We go with these
folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow/

4 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 I Our
cattle will be barren — our wives will cease to
bear! The snows will slide upon us as we
go home. . * . On top of all other oppression
too!'

The little fir-clump filled with clamouring
coolies — panic*stricken, and in their terror capable
of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked
the breeclvbolt of his gun impatiently, and made
as to go down hill.

4 Wait a little, Holy One ; they cannot go far :
wait till I return/

4 It is this person who has suffered wrong/ said
the lama, his hand over his brow.

4 For that very reason/ was the reply.

Mf this person overlooks it, your hands are
clean. Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedience/

4 Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together/
the man insisted.

For a moment, for just so long as it needs to
stuff a cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama

162

KIM

hesitated* Then he rose to his feet, and laid a
finger on the man's shoulder,

'Hast thou heard? / say there shall be no
killing — I who was Abbot of Such-zen. Is it any
lust of thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake under
the eaves — a worm in the belly of the most mean
beast ? Is it thy wish to—

The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for
the voice boomed like a Tibetan devil-gong,

4 Ai ! ai ! ' cried the Spiti men, 4 Do not curse
us — do not curse him. It was but his zeal, Holy
One ! . . . Put down the rifle, fool ! '

4 Anger on anger! Evil on evil! There will
be no killing. Let the priest-beaters go in bondage
to their own acts. Just and sure is the Wheel,
swerving not a hair ! They will be born many
times — in torment/ His head drooped, and he
leaned heavily on Kim's shoulder.

4 1 have come near to great evil, chela? he
whispered in that dead hush under the pines, * I
was tempted to loose the bullet; and truly, in
Tibet there would have been a heavy and a slow
death for them. , « . He struck me across the
face . . . upon the flesh . . / He slid to the
ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear
the over-driven heart bump and check.

4 Have they hurt him to the death ? ' said the
Ao-chung man, while the others stood mute.

163

KIM

Kim knelt over the body in deadly fear* 4 Nay/
he cried passionately, 'this is only a weakness/
Then he remembered that he was a white man,
with a white man's camp^fittings at his service,
'Open the kiltasl The Sahibs may have a
medicine/

'Oho! Then I know it/ said the Ao^chung
man with a laugh, 'Not for five years was I
Yankling Sahib's shikarri without knowing that
medicine, I too have tasted it. Behold ! '

He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap
whisky — such as is sold to explorers at Leh — and
cleverly forced a little between the lama's teeth,

4 So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot
beyond Astor, Aha 1 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 be*
tween his teeth, 'I kicked him in the groin as
we went down hill. Would I had killed him ! '

4 It is well to be brave when one does not live

164

KIM

in Rampur/ said one whose hut lay within a few
miles of the Rajah's rickety palace, 'If we get
a bad name among the Sahibs, none will employ
us as shikarris any more/

4 Oh, but these are not Angrezi Sahibs — not
merry -minded men like Fostum Sahib or Yankling
Sahib, They are foreigners — they cannot speak
Angrezi as do Sahibs/

Here the lama coughed and sat up, groping
for the rosary,

'There shall be no killing/ he murmured.
4 Just is the Wheel I Evil on evil—

'Nay, Holy One, We are all here/ The
Ao-chung man timidly patted his feet, 'Except
by thy order, no one shall be slain. Rest awhile,
We will make a little camp here, and later, as the
moon rises, we go to Shamlegh^underxthe-Snow/

' After a blow/ said a Spiti man sententiously,
' it is best to sleep/

' There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of
my neck, and a pinching in it. Let me lay my
head on thy lap, chela. I am an old man, but not
free from passion. . . . We must think of the
Cause of Things/

'Give him a blanket We dare not light a
fire lest the Sahibs see/

'Better get away to Shamlegh, None will
follow us to Shamlegh/

165

KIM

This was the nervous Rampur man*

4 1 have been Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am
Yankling Sahib's shikarri. I should have been
with Yankling Sahib now but for this cursed
beegar (the corvee). Let two men watch below
with the guns lest the Sahibs do more foolishness,
/ shall not leave this Holy One/

They sat down a little apart from the lama,
and, after listening awhile, passed round a water*
pipe whose receiver was an old Day and Martin
blacking x bottle. The glow of the red charcoal
as it went from hand to hand lit up the narrow,
blinking eyes, the high Chinese cheek-bones, and
the bull x throats that melted away into the dark
duffle folds round the shoulders* They looked
like kobolds from some magic mine — gnomes of
the hills in conclave. And while they talked, the
voices of the snow-waters round them diminished
one by one as the nightxfrost choked and clogged
the runnels.

'How he stood up against us!' said a Spiti
man admiring. 'I remember an old ibex, out
Ladakhxway, that Dupont Sahib missed on a
shoulder x shot, seven seasons back, standing up
just like him. Dupont Sahib was a good
shikarriJ

'Not as good as Yankling Sahib/ The Aox
chung man took a pull at the whiskyxbottle and

166

KIM

passed it oven 4 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/

4 Are the bears only bad on thy holding ? ' said
a mate, sucking at the pipe.

'No; but musk * pods are worth six rupees
apiece now, and thy women can have the canvas
of the tents and some of the cooking*gear. We
will do all that at Shamlegh before dawn. Then
we all go our ways, remembering that we have
never seen or taken service with these Sahibs,
who may, indeed, say that we have stolen their
baggage/

4 That is well for thee, but what will our Rajah
say?'

4 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.

167

KIM

'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. / know the marks. I showed them to ye
last march/

4 True. They were all bought skins and heads.
Some had even the moth in them/

That was a shrewd argument, and the Ao*
chung man knew his fellows.

'If the worst comes to the worst, I shall
tell Yankling Sahib, who is a man of a merry
mind, and he will laugh. We are not doing any
wrong to any Sahibs whom we know. They are
priest * beaters. They frightened us. We fled!
Who knows where we dropped the baggage ? Do
ye think Yankling Sahib will permit down^country
police to wander all over the hills, disturbing his
game ? It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and
farther from Shamlegh to Shamlegh midden/

'So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket
with the red top that the Sahibs pack themselves
every morning/

'Thus it is proved/ said the Shamlegh man

168

KIM

adroitly, 'that they are Sahibs of no account
Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling
Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of
nights to shoot serow — I say, who ever heard of
these Sahibs coming into the hills without a down^
country cook, and a bearer, and — and all manner
of well-paid, high-handed and oppressive folk in
their tail? How can they make trouble? What
of the MtaV

'Nothing, but that it is full of the Written
Word — books and papers in which they wrote,
and strange instruments, as of worship/

4 Shamlegh midden will take them all/

4 True ! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods
thereby? I do not like to handle the Written
Word in that fashion. And their brass idols are
beyond my comprehension. It is no plunder for
simple hill-folk/

'The old man still sleeps* Hst! We will
ask his chela! The Ao^chung man refreshed
himself, and swelled with pride of leadership,

'We have here/ he whispered, 'a hilta whose
nature we do not know/

'But I do/ said Kim cautiously. The lama
drew breath in natural, easy sleep, and Kim had
been thinking of Hurree's last words. As a
player of the Great Game, he was disposed just
then to reverence the Babu. 'It is a kilta with a

169

KIM

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, 4 Thinkest thou it will betray us ? '

4 Not if it be given to me. I will draw out its
magic. Otherwise it will do great harm/

'A priest always takes his share/ Whisky
was demoralising the Ao^chung man*

'It is no matter to me/ Kim answered, with
the craft of his motherxcountry. 4 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. V/e go our
way from Shamlegh in the dawn/

They arranged and re 'arranged their artless
little plans for another hour, while Kim shivered
with cold and pride. The humour of the situation
tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul.
Here were the emissaries of the dread Power of
the North, very possibly as great in their own
land as Mahbub or Colonel Creighton, suddenly
smitten helpless. One of them, he privately knew,
would be lame for a time. They had made pro*
mises to Kings. To-night they lay out somewhere
below him, chartless, foodless, tentless, gunless —
except for Hurree Babu, guideless. And this
collapse of their Great Game (Kim wondered to
whom they would report it), this panicky bolt into

170

KIM

the night, had come about through no craft of
Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but simply,
beautifully, and inevitably as the capture of Malv
bub's faquir ^friends by the zealous young policex
man at Umballa,

4 They are there — with nothing ; and, by
Jove, it is cold ! I am here with all their things,
Oh, they will be angry ! I am sorry for Hurree
Babu,'

Kim might have saved his pity, for though
at that moment the Bengali suffered acutely in
the flesh, his soul was puffed and lofty, A mile
down the hill, on the edge of the pine^forest, two
half 'frozen men — one powerfully sick at intervals
— were varying mutual recriminations with the
most poignant abuse of the Babu, who seemed disx
traught with terror. They demanded a plan of
action. He explained that they were very lucky
to be alive ; that their coolies, if not then stalking
them, had passed beyond recall ; that the Rajah, his
master, was ninety miles away, and, so far from
lending them money and a retinue for the Simla
journey, would surely cast them into prison if he
heard that they had hit a priest. He enlarged on
this sin and its consequences till they bade him
change the subject. Their one hope, said he, was
unostentatious flight from village to village till
they reached civilisation; and, for the hundredth

171

KIM

time dissolved in tears, he demanded of the high
stars why the Sahibs ' had beaten holy man/

Ten steps would have taken Hurree into the
creaking gloom utterly beyond their reach — to the
shelter and food of the nearest village, where glib'
tongued doctors were scarce* But he preferred to
endure cold, belly -pinch, bad words, and occasional
blows in the company of his honoured employers.
Crouched against a tree-trunk, he sniffed dolefully.

'And have you thought/ said the uninjured
man hotly, 4 what sort of spectacle we shall pre*
sent wandering through these hills among these
aborigines ? '

Hurree Babu had thought of little else for some
hours, but the remark was not to his address.

'We cannot wander! I can hardly walk/
groaned Kim's victim.

'Perhaps the holy man will be merciful in
loving-kindness, Sar, otherwise —

4 1 promise myself a peculiar pleasure in empty'
ing my revolver into that young bonze when next
we meet/ was the unchristian answer.

'Revolvers! Vengeance! Bonzes!' Hurree
crouched lower. The war was breaking out afresh.
' Have you no consideration for our loss ? The
baggage! The baggage!' He could hear the
speaker literally dancing on the grass. 'Every-
thing we bore! Everything we have secured!

172

KIM

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 kiltast and in the hiltas
lay eight months of good diplomacy. There was
no means of communicating with the boy, but he
could be trusted. For the rest, he could so stage-
manage the journey through the hills that Hilas,
Bunar, and four hundred miles of hill -roads
should tell the tale for a generation. Men who
cannot control their own coolies are little respected
in the Hills, and the hillman has a very keen sense
of humour.

'If I had done it myself/ thought Hurree, 'it
would not have been better ; and, by Jove, now I
think of it, of course I arranged it myself. How
quick I have been I 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/

173

CHAPTER XIV

My brother kneels (so saith Kabir)
To stone and brass in heathen*wise,

But in my brother's voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies.

His God is as his Fates assign —

His prayer is all the world's — and mine.

Kabir.

Amoonrise the cautious coolies got under
way* The lama, refreshed by his sleep
and the spirit, needed no more than Kim's
shoulder to bear him along — a silent, swift>striding
man. They held the shak'Sprinkled grass for an
hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal
cliff, and climbed into a new country entirely
blocked off from all sight of Chini valley. A huge
pasture^ground ran up fan^shaped to the living
snow. At its base was perhaps half an acre of
flat land, on which stood a few soil and timber
huts. Behind them — for, hill^fashion, they were
perched on the edge of all things — the ground fell

174

KIM

sheer two thousand feet to Shamlegh midden,
where never yet man has set foot.

The men made no motion to divide the plunder
till they had seen the lama bedded down in the
best room of the place, with Kim shampooing his
feet, Mohammedan fashion.

4 We will send food/ said the Ao'chung man,
'and the red'topped kilta. By dawn there will
be none to give evidence, one way or the other.
If anything is not needed in the kilta — see here ! '

He pointed through the window — opening into
space that was filled with moonlight reflected from
the snow — and threw out an empty whisky -bottle.

'No need to listen for the fall. This is the
world's end/ he said, and swung off. The lama
looked forth, a hand on either sill, with eyes that
shone like yellow opals. From the enormous pit
before him white peaks lifted themselves yearning
to the moonlight. The rest was as the darkness
of interstellar space.

* These/ he said slowly, ' are indeed my Hills.
Thus should a man abide, perched above the
world, separated from delights, considering vast
matters/

' Yes ; if he has a chela to prepare tea for him,
and to fold a blanket for his head, and to chase
out calving cows/

A smoky lamp burned in a niche, but the full
175

KIM

moonlight beat it down ; and by the mixed light,
stooping above the food, bag and cups, Kim moved
like a tall ghost

'Ail 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/

4 No wonder. It was a strong blow. May he
who dealt it —

'But for my own passions there would have
been no evil/

4 What evil ? Thou hast saved the Sahibs from
death they deserved a hundred times/

'The lesson is not well learnt, chela.' The
lama came to rest on a folded blanket, as Kim
went forward with his evening routine* 'The
blow was but a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in
itself — my legs weary apace these latter days ! — it
met evil in me — anger, rage, and a lust to return
evil. These wrought in my blood, woke tumult
in my stomach, and dazzled my ears/ Here he
drank scalding block-tea ceremonially, taking the
hot cup from Kim's hand. ' Had I been passion-
less, 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 straight-
way 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

176

KIM

Blessings (he meant the Buddhist Beatitudes) did
I achieve calm* But the evil planted in me by
that moment's carelessness works out to its end*
Just is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! Learn
the lesson, chela?

4 It is too high for me/ Kim muttered. * I am
still all shaken. I am glad I hurt the man/

4 1 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 — 4 1 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/

4 Sleep, and be strong. That is wisest/

M meditate: there is a need greater than thou
knowest/

Till the dawn, hour after hour, as the moon^
light paled on the high peaks, and that which had
been belted blackness on the sides of the far hills
showed as tender green forest, the lama stared
fixedly at the wall. From time to time he groaned.
Outside the barred door, where discomfited kine
came to ask for their old stable, Shamlegh and the
coolies gave itself up to plunder and riotous living.
The Ao'chung man was their leader, and once
they had opened the Sahibs' tinned foods and
found that they were very good they dared not

K. Vol. II 177 N

KIM

turn back. Shamlegh kitchenxmidden took the
dunnage.

When Kim, after a night of bad dream s, stole
forth to brush his teeth in the morning chill, a
fairxcoloured woman with turquoise^studded head-
gear drew him aside.

'The others have gone. They left thee this
kilta as the promise was. I do not love Sahibs,
but thou wilt make us a charm in return for it.
We do not wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name
on account of the — accident. I am the Woman
of Shamlegh/ She looked him over with bold,
bright eyes, unlike the usual furtive glance of
hillwomen.

4 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 doorl Let none come near
till it is finished/

4 But afterwards — we may talk ? '

Kim tilted the kilta on the floor — a cascade of
Survey'instruments, books, diaries, letters, maps,
and queerly scented native correspondence. At
the very bottom was an embroidered bag covering
a sealed, gilded, and illuminated document such as
one King sends to another. Kim caught his breath
with delight, and reviewed the situation from a
Sahib's point of view.

178

KIM

'The books I do not want Besides, they are
logarithms — Survey, I suppose/ He laid them
aside. 'The letters I do not understand, but
Colonel Creighton will. They must all be kept.
The maps — they draw better maps than me— of
course. All the native letters — oho ! — and partial-
larly the muraslaJ He sniffed the embroidered
bag. 'That must be from Hilas or Bunar, and
Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove ! It is a fine
haul. I wish Hurree could know. . . . The rest
must go out of the window/ He fingered a
superb prismatic compass and the shiny top of a
theodolite. But after all, a Sahib cannot very well
steal, and the things might be inconvenient evidence
later. He sorted out every scrap of manuscript,
every map, and the native letters. They made
one softish slab. The three locked ferril-backed
books, with five worn pocket-books, he put aside.

' The letters and the murasla I must carry inside
my coat and under my belt, and the hand-written
books I must put into the food-bag. It will be
very heavy. No. I do not think there is any-
thing more. If there is, the coolies have thrown
it down the khudt so thatt is all right. Now you
go too/ He repacked the kilta with all he meant
to lose, and hove it up on to the window-sill.
A thousand feet below lay a long, lazy,
shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched

179

KIM

morning sun* A thousand feet below that was
an hundred - year * old pine * forest* He could see
the green tops looking like a bed of moss when a
wind-eddy thinned the cloud*

' No ! I don't think any one will go after you I '

The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it
dropped* The theodolite hit a jutting cliff^ledge
and exploded like a shell; the books* inkstands*
paint-boxes, compasses* and rulers showed for a
few seconds like a swarm of bees. Then they
vanished ; and* though Kim* hanging half out of
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— every*
thing they did — I hope* Now how the deuce am
I to tell Hurree Babu* and whatt the deuce am I
to do ? And my old man is sick* I must tie up
the letters in oilcloth. That is something to do
first — else they will get all sweated* , * * And I
am all alone ! ' He bound them into a neat packet,
swedging down the stiff* sticky oilcloth at the
corners* for his roving life had made him as
methodical as an old hunter in matters of the road.
Then with double care he packed away the books
at the bottom of the food'bag.

The woman rapped at the door.

180

KIM

4 But thou hast made no charm/ she said, look-
ing about*

4 There is no need/ Kim had completely over^
looked the necessity for a little patteMalk. The
woman laughed at his confusion irreverently*

'None — for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by
the mere winking of an eye. But think of us poor
people when thou art gone ! They were all too
drunk last night to hear a woman. Thou art not
drunk?'

'I am a priest/ Kim had recovered himself,
and, the woman being aught but unlovely, thought
best to stand on his office.

'I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry
and will make an inquisition and a report to the
Rajah. There is also the Babu with them. Clerks
have long tongues/

4 Is that all thy trouble ? ' The plan rose fully
formed in Kim's mind, and he smiled ravishingly.

4 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/

4 He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs
cannot distinguish one hillman from another, but
Babus have eyes for men — and women/

181

KIM

4 Carry a word to him from me/

4 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:
4 1 have everything that they have written : their
pictures of the country, and many letters. Esped*
ally the murasla. Tell me what to do. / am
at Shamlegh * under * the * Snow. Tlie old man is
sick.'

4 Take this to him. It will altogether shut his
mouth. He cannot have gone far/

* Indeed no. They are still in the forest across
the spur. Our children went to watch them
when the light came, and have cried the news as
they moved/

Kim looked his astonishment ; but from the
edge of the sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like
trill. A child tending cattle had picked it up
from a brother or sister on the far side of the
slope that commanded Chini valley.

4 My husbands are also out there gathering
wood/ She drew a handful of walnuts from her
bosom, split one neatly, and began to eat. Kim
affected blank ignorance.

4 Dost thou not know the meaning of the

182

KIM

walnut — priest ? ' she said coyly, and handed him
the half shells.

'Well thought of/ He slipped the piece of
paper between them quickly* 4 Hast thou a
little wax to close them on this letter ? '

The woman sighed aloud, and Kim relented.

4 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/

4 Nay, Son of the Charm : and ask if there be
any answer/

4 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 bed'
fellows. Hai, my' — it was on the tip of his
tongue to say Mother, but he turned it to Sister—
4 thou art a wise and witty woman. By this time
all the villages know what has befallen the Sahibs
-eh?'

'True. News was at Ziglaur by midnight, and
by to-morrow should be at Kotgarh. The villages
are both afraid and angry/

' No need. Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs
and pass them on, in peace. We must get them
quietly away from our valleys. To steal is one
thing — to kill another. The Babu will understand,

183

KIM

and there will be no afteivcomplaints* Be swift*
I must tend my master when he wakes/

4 So be it. After service — thou hast said ?—
comes the reward. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.
and I hold from the Rajah. I am no common
bearer of babes* Shamlegh is thine: hoof and
horn and hide, milk and butter. Take or leave/

She turned resolutely uphill, her silver necklaces
clicking on her broad breast, to meet the morning
sun fifteen hundred feet above them. This time
Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down
the oilskin edges of the packets.

' How can a man follow the Way or the Great
Game when he is eternally pestered by women ?
There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford ; and
there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecot —
not counting the others — and now comes this one !
When I was a child it was well enough, but now I
am a man and they will not regard me as a man.
Walnuts indeed! Ho! ho! It is almonds in
the Plains !'

He went out to levy on the village — not with
a begging'bowl, which might do for down^country,
but in the manner of a prince. Shamlegh's
summer population is only three families — four
women and eight or nine men. They were all
full of tinned meats— and mixed drinks, from
ammoniated quinine to white vodka — for they had
184

KIM

taken their full share in the overnight loot* The
neat Continental tents had been cut up and shared
long ago, and there were patent aluminium sauce^
pans abroad.

But they considered the lama's presence a
perfect safeguard against all consequences, and
impenitently brought Kim of their best — even to
a drink of chang — the barley-beer that comes from
Ladakhxway. Then they thawed out in the sun,
and sat with their legs hanging over infinite
abysses, chattering, laughing, and smoking. They
judged India and its Government solely from their
experience of wandering Sahibs who had employed
them or their friends as shikarris. Kim heard
tales of shots missed upon ibex, serow, or
markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in their graves —
every detail lighted from behind like twigs on
tree-tops seen against lightning* They told him
of their little diseases, and, more important, the
diseases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle; of trips
as far as Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries
live, and beyond even to marvellous Simla, where
the streets are paved with silver, and any one, look
you, can get service with the Sahibs, who ride
about in two-wheeled carts and spend money with
a spade. Presently, grave and aloof, walking very
heavily, the lama joined himself to the chatter
under the eaves, and they gave him great room.

185

KIM

The thin air refreshed him, and he sat on the edge
of precipices with the best of them, and, when talk
languished, flung pebbles into the void. Thirty
miles away, as the eagle flies, lay the next range,
seamed and channelled and pitted with little
patches of brush — forests, each a day's dark
march. Behind the village, Shamlegh hill itself
cut off all view to southward. It was like sitting
in a swallow's nest under the eaves of the roof of
the world.

From time to time the lama stretched out his
hand, and with a little, low * voiced prompting
would point out the road to Spiti and north
across the Parungla,

'Beyond, where the hills lie thickest, lies
De^ch'en ' (he meant Handle), * the great Monastery.
s'Tag <• stan * ras ^ ch'en built it, and of him there
runs this tale/ Whereupon he told it : a fantastic
piled narrative of bewitchment and miracles that
set Shamlegh agasping. Turning west a little,
he speered for the green hills of Kulu, and sought
Kailung under the glaciers. 4 For thither came I
in the old, old days. From Leh I came, over the
Baralachi/

'Yes, yes; we know it/ said the far-* faring
people of Shamlegh.

'And I slept two nights with the priests of
Kailung. These are the hills of my delight!

186

KIM

Shadows blessed above all other shadows ! There
my eyes opened on this world ; there my eyes were
opened to this world; there I found Enlighten-
ment ; and there I girt my loins for my Search.
Out of the Hills I came — the high Hills and the
strong winds. Oh, just is the Wheel ! ' He blessed
them in detail — the great glaciers, the naked rocks,
the piled moraines and tumbled shale ; dry upland,
hidden salt-lake, age-old timber and fruitful water-
shot valley one after the other, as a dying man
blesses his folk, and Kim marvelled at his passion.

'Yes — yes. There is no place like our Hills/
said the people of Shamlegh. And they fell to
wondering how a man could live in the hot terrible
Plains where the cattle run as big as elephants,
unfit to plough on a hillside; where village
touches village, they had heard, for a hundred
miles ; where folk went about stealing in gangs,
and what the robbers spared the Police carried
utterly away.

So the still forenoon wore through, and at the
end of it Kim's messenger dropped from the steep
pasture as unbreathed as when she had set out.

'I sent a word to the hakim! Kim explained,
while she made reverence.

'He joined himself to the idolaters? Nay, I
remember he did a healing upon one of them.
He has acquired merit, though the healed

187

KIM

employed his strength for evil Just is the
Wheel ! What of the hakim ? '

4 1 feared that thou hadst been bruised and—
and I knew he was wise/ Kim took the waxed
walnut'shell and read in English on the back of
his note : 4 " Your favour received. Cannot get away
from present company at present, but shall take them
into Simla. After which, hope to rejoin you. In*
expedient to follow angry gentlemen. Return by
same road you came, and will overtake. Highly
gratified about correspondence due to my fore*
thought." 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 gave thee back thy
strength day by day ? Remember we were weak
and fainting down below there in the Doon/

4 1 became strong to do evil and to forget* A
brawler and a swashbuckler upon the hillsides was
I/ Kim bit back a smile. 'Just and perfect is
the Wheel, swerving not a hair* When I was
a man — a long time ago — I did pilgrimage to
Guru Ch'wan among the poplars' (he pointed

188

KIM

Bhotanwards), 4 where they keep the Sacred
Horse/

4 Quiet, be quiet !' said Shamlegh, all arow.
'He speaks of Jam'lin.'nin'k'or, the Horse That
Can Go Round The World In a Day/

' I speak to my chela only/ said the lama, in
gentle reproof, and they scattered like frost on
south eaves of a morning* 4 1 did not seek truth
in those days, but the talk of doctrine. All
illusion! I drank the beer and ate the bread of
Guru Ch'wan. Next day one said : " We go out
to fight Sangor Gutok down the valley to discover
(mark again how Lust is tied to Anger !) which
abbot shall bear rule in the valley, and take the
profit of the prayers they print at Sangor Gutok/'
I went, and we fought a day/

'But how, Holy One?' "

4 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. 4 Just and perfect
is the Wheel! Yesterday the scar itched, and
after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and
the face of him who dealt it ; dwelling a little in
illusion. Followed that which thou didst see — strife
and stupidity. Just is the Wheel ! The idolater's
blow fell upon the scar. Then I was shaken in

189

KIM

my soul : my soul was darkened, and the boat of
my soul rocked upon the waters of illusion. Not
till I came to Shamlegh could I meditate upon
the Cause of Things, or trace the running grass*
roots of Evil. I strove all the long night/

' But, Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil
May I be thy sacrifice I '

Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man's
sorrow, and Mahbub Ali's phrase slipped out un*
awares.

' In the dawn/ he went on more gravely, ready
rosary clicking between the slow sentences, * came
enlightenment. It is here* » . . I am an old
man . . . hill-bred, hilWed, never to sit down
among my hills. Three years I travelled through
Hind, but — can earth be stronger than Mother
Earth ? My stupid body yearned to the Hills and
the snow of the Hills, from below there. I said,
and it is true, my Search is sure. So, at the Kulu
woman's house I turned hillward, over-persuaded
by myself. There is no blame to the hakim*
He — following Desire — foretold that the Hills
would make me strong. They strengthened me
to do evil, to forget my Search. I delighted in
life and the lust of life. I desired strong slopes
to climb. I cast about to find them. I measured
the strength of my body, which is evil, against the
high hills. I made a mock of thee when thy

190

KIM

breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested when
thou wouldst not face the snow of the pass/

4 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 hakim9 S for the mere strength of my legs*
Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full. Just
is the Wheel! All Hind for three years did me
all honour* From the Fountain of Wisdom in
the Wonder House to ' — he smiled — * a little child
playing by a big gun — the world prepared my
road. And why ? '

4 Because we loved thee. It is only the fever
of the blow. I myself am still sick and shaken/

4 No ! It was because 1 was upon the Way —
tuned as are si^nen (cymbals) to the purpose of
the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The
tune was broken: followed the punishment. In
my own hills, on the edge of my own country, in
the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet
— here!' (He touched his brow.) 'As a novice
is beaten when he misplaces the cups, so am I
beaten, who was Abbot of Suclvzen. No word,
look you, but a blow, chela!

4 But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One ? '

'We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust

191

KIM

met Ignorance and Lust upon the road, and they
begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who
am no better than a strayed yak, that my place is
not here. Who can read the Cause of an act is
half * way to Freedom ! " Back to the path," says
the Blow. "The Hills are not for thee. Thou
canst not choose Freedom and go in bondage to
the delight of life." '

'If we had never met that thrice * cursed
Russian ! '

4 Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel
swing backward. And for my merit that I had
acquired I gain yet another sign/ He put his
hand in his bosom, and drew forth the Wheel
of Life. 'Look! I considered this after I had
meditated* There remains untorn by the idolater
no more than the breadth of my finger-nail/

'I see/

4 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

192

KIM

human and animal worlds, to the Fifth House —
the empty House of the Senses* The logic was
unanswerable,

4 Before our Lord won enlightenment/ the
lama folded all away with reverence, 'He was
tempted, I too have been tempted, but it is
finished. The Arrow fell in the Plains — not in
the Hills, Therefore, what make we here ? '

4 Shall we at least wait for the hakim ? '

4 1 know how long I live in this body. What
can a hakim do ? '

4 But thou art all sick and shaken. Thou canst
not walk/

4 How can I be sick if I see Freedom ? ' He
rose unsteadily to his feet,

4 Then I must get food from the village. Oh,
the weary Road ! ' Kim felt that he too needed
rest.

'That is lawful. Let us eat and go. The
Arrow fell in Plains . , , but I yielded to Desire.
Make ready, chela?

Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise
head-gear who had been idly pitching pebbles over
the cliff. She smiled very kindly.

' I found him like a strayed buffalo in a corn-
field— the Babu ; snorting and sneezing with cold.
He was so hungry that he forgot his dignity and
gave me sweet words. The Sahibs have nothing/

K. Vol. II 193 o

KIM

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 ? '

4 Out of the greatness of his heart/

4 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/

4 It is my loss/ Kim began. 4 Even now I had
planned desirable things in my heart which '—there
is no need to go through the compliments proper
to these occasions. He sighed deeply . . . 'But
my master, led by a vision —

'Huh! What can old eyes see except a full
begging-bowl ? '

—turns from this village to the Plains again/

4 Bid him stay/

Kim shook his head. 4 1 know my Holy One,
and his rage if he be crossed/ he replied impres-
sively, ' His curses shake the Hills/

'Pity they did not save him from a broken
head! I heard that thou wast the tiger-hearted

194

KIM

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/

4 The Gods be good to us ! Since when have
men and women been other than men and women ? '

4 A priest is a priest He says he will go upon
this hour. I am his chela, and I go with him.
We need food for the Road. He is an honoured
guest in all the villages, but ' — he broke into a pure
boy's grin — 'the food here is good. Give me
some/

4 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*

4 Thou hast cursed me already by the down*
dropped eyelash and the uplifted chin. Curses?
What should I care for mere words ? ' She clenched
her hands upon her bosom. . . . 'But I would
not have thee to go in anger, thinking hardly of
me — a gatherer of cow^dung and grass at Shanv
legh, 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/

195

KIM

said she, 'Who is thy woman in the Plains?
Fair or black ? I was fair once. Laughest thou ?
Once, long ago, if thou canst believe, a Sahib
looked on me with favour. Once, long ago, I
wore European clothes at the Mission ' house
yonder/ She pointed towards Kotgarh. ' Once,
long ago, I was Ker4is4i^an and spoke English —
as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib said he
would return and wed me — yes, wed me. He
went away — I had nursed him when he was sick —
but he never returned. Then I saw that the Gods
of the Kerlistians lied, and I went back to my own
people ... I have never set eyes on a Sahib
since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit is past,
little priestling.) Thy face and thy walk and thy
fashion of speech put me in mind of my Sahib,
though thou art only a wandering mendicant to
whom I give a dole. Curse me? Thou canst
neither curse nor bless !' She set her hands on
her hips and laughed bitterly. 'Thy Gods are
lies ; thy works are lies ; thy words are lies. There
are no Gods under all the heavens. I know it. ...
But for awhile I thought it was my Sahib come
back, and he was my God. Yes, once I made
music on a pianno in the Missionxhouse at Kotgarh.
Now I give alms to priests who are heatthenJ She
wound up with the English word, and tied the
mouth of the brimming bag.

196

KIM

'I wait for thee, chela! said the lama, leaning
against the door-post.

The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes.
4 He walk ! He cannot cover half a mile. Whither
would old bones go ? '

At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama's
collapse and foreseeing the weight of the bag, fairly
lost his temper*

4 What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where
he goes ? '

4 Nothing — but something to thee, priest with
a Sahib's face. Wilt thou carry him on thy
shoulders ? '

'I go to the Plains. None must hinder my
return. I have wrestled with my soul till I am
strengthless. The stupid body is spent, and we
are far from the Plains/

* Behold!' she said simply, and drew aside to
let Kim see his own utter helplessness. 4 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.

4 It is all well/ said Kim. 'It is the thin air

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KIM

that weakens thee. In a little while we go ! It is
the mountain-sickness. I too am a little sick at
stomach/ . . . and he knelt and comforted with
such poor words as came first to his lips. Then the
woman returned, more erect than ever.

'Thy Gods useless, heh? Try mine. / am
the Woman of Shamlegh/ She hailed hoarsely,
and there came out of a cow * pen her two
husbands and three others with a dooli, the rude
native litter of the Hills, that they use for carrying
the sick and for visits of state. ' These cattle/ she
did not condescend to look at them, 4 are thine for
so long as thou shalt need/

4 But we will not go Simla-way. We will not
go near the Sahibs/ cried the first husband.

4 They will not run away as the others did, nor
will they steal baggage. Two I know for weaklings.
Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and Taree/ They
obeyed swiftly. 4 Lower now, and lift in that holy
man. I will see to the village and your virtuous
wives till ye return/

4 When will that be?'

* Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the
food-bag at the foot, it balances better so/

' Oh, Holy One, thy Hills are kinder than our
Plains ! ' cried Kim, relieved, as the lama tottered
to the litter. * It is a very king's bed— a place of
honour and ease. And we owe it to—

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KIM

4 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 cash * box under her
cot

'I do not need anything/ said Kim, angered
where he should have been grateful ' I am already
rudely loaded with favours/

She looked up with a curious smile and laid a
hand on his shoulder. 'At least, thank me. I
am 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/

4 Nay. But for one little moment — thou canst
overtake the dooli in ten strides — if thou wast a
Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst
do?'

4 How if I guess, though ? ' said Kim, and putting
his arm round her waist, he kissed her on the
cheek, adding in English : 4 Thank you verree much,
my dear/

Kissing is practically unknown among Asia^

199

KIM

which may have been the reason that she
leaned back with wide-open eyes and a face of
panic*

'Next time/ Kim went on, 'you must not be
so sure of your heathen priests* Now I say
good-bye/ He held out his hand English-
fashion. She took it mechanically. ' Good-bye,
my dear/

'Good-bye, and — and' — she was remembering
her English words one by one — 'you will come
back again? Good-bye, and — thee God bless
you/

Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted
up the hill path that leads south-easterly from
Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut door
waving a white rag.

' She has acquired merit beyond all others/ said
the lama. 'For to set a man upon the way to
Freedom is half as great as though she had herself
found it/

' Umm/ said Kim thoughtfully, considering the
past. ' It may be that I have acquired merit also.
... At least she did not treat me like a child/
He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the
slab of documents and maps, restowed the precious
food-bag at the lama's feet, laid his hand on the
litter edge, and buckled down to the slow pace of
the grunting husbands.

200

KIM

4 These also acquire merit/ said the lama, after
three miles.

4 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*

201

CHAPTER XV

I'd not give room for an Emperor —

I'd hold my road for a King.
To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down —

But this is a different thing I
yil not fight with the Powers of Air —

Sentries pass him through I
Drawbridge let fall — He's the Lord of us all —

The Dreamer whose dream came true I

The Siege of the Fairies.

TWO hundred miles north of Chini, on the
blue shale of Ladakh, lies Yankling Sahib,
the merry ^minded man, spy ^glassing wrath-
fully across the ridges for some sign of his pet
tracker — a man from Ao'diung. But that rene-
gade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred
cartridges, is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the
market, and Yankling Sahib will learn next season
how very ill he has been.

Up the valleys of Bushahr — the far-beholding
eagles of the Himalayas swerve at his new blue-
and -white gored umbrella — hurries a Bengali,

202

KIM

once fat and welUooking, now lean and weatherx
worn. He has received the thanks of two
foreigners of distinction, piloted not unskilfully
to Mashobra tunnel which leads to the great
and gay capital of India. It was not his fault
that, blanketed by wet mists, he conveyed them
past the telegraph'Station and European colony of
Kotgarh. It was not his fault, but that of the
Gods, of whom he discoursed so engagingly, that
he led them into the borders of Nahan, where
the Rajah of that state mistook them for deserting
British soldiery. Hurree Babu explained the great'
ness and glory, in their own country, of his
companions, till the drowsy kinglet smiled. He
explained it to every one who asked — many times
— aloud — variously. He begged food, arranged
accommodation, proved a skilful leech for an
injury of the groin — such a blow as one may
receive rolling down a rock^covered hillside in the
dark — and in all things indispensable. The reason
of his friendliness did him credit. With millions
of fellow ' serf s, 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

203

KIM

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 re-
member him in their future greatnesses, for he
* opined subtly ' that he, even he, Mohendro Lai
Dutt, M.A. of Calcutta, had ' done the state some
service/

They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy,
helpfulness, and unerring skill as a guide. He
put it in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion ;
they had endured so many dangers together. He
led them at high noon along crowded Simla Mall
to the Alliance Bank of Simla where they wished
to establish their identity. Thence he vanished
like a dawn-cloud on Jakko.

Behold him, too fine drawn to sweat, too
pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brass-
bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man
made perfect. Watch him, all Babudom laid
aside, smoking at noon on a cot, while a woman
with turquoise - studded head -gear points south-
easterly across the bare grass. Litters, she says,

204

KIM

do not travel as fast as single men, but his birds
should now be in the Plains, The holy man
would not stay though Lispeth pressed him. The
Babu groans heavily, girds up his huge loins,
and is off again. He does not care to travel after
dusk; but his days' marches — there is none to
enter them in a book — would astonish folk who
mock at his race. Kindly villagers, remembering
the Dacca drug'vendor of two months ago, give
him shelter against evil spirits of the wood. He
dreams of Bengali Gods, University text * books
of education, and the Royal Society, London,
England, Next dawn the bobbing bluexand^white
umbrella goes forward.

On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well
behind them and the Plains spread out in golden
dust before, rests a worn litter in which — all the
Hills know it — lies a sick lama who seeks a River for
his healing. Villages have almost come to blows
over the honour of bearing it, for not only has the
lama given them blessings, but his disciple good
money — full one « third Sahibs' prices. Twelve
miles a day has the dooli travelled, as the greasy,
rubbed pole^ends show, and by roads that few
Sahibs use. Over the Nilang Pass in storm when
the driven snow - dust filled every fold of the
impassive lama's drapery; between the black
horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of
205

KIM

the wild goats through the clouds; pitching and
strained on the shale below; hard^held between
shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the
hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati ;
swinging and creaking to the steady jog'trot of
the descent into the Valley of the Waters ; pressed
along the steamy levels of that locked valley ; up,
up and out again, to meet the roaring gusts off
Kedarnath ; set down of mid'days in the dun^
gloom of kindly oak^forests; passed from village
to village in dawn^chill, when even devotees may
be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men;
or by torchlight, when the least fearful think of
ghosts — the dooli has reached her last stage. The
little hill'folk sweat in the modified heat of the
lower Sewaliks, and gather round the priests for
their blessing and their wage,

'Ye have acquired merit/ says the lama.
4 Merit greater than your knowing. And ye will
return to the Hills/ he sighs.

4 Surely. The high hills as soon as may be/
The bearer rubs his shoulder, drinks water, spits
it out again, and readjusts his grass sandal. Kim
—his face is drawn and tired — pays very small
silver from his belt, heaves out the food^bag, crams
an oilskin packet — they are holy writings — into
his bosom, and helps the lama to his feet. The
peace has come again into the old man's eyes, and

206

KIM

he does not look for the hills to fall down and
crush him as he did that terrible night when they
were delayed by the flooded river.

The men pick up the dooli and swing out of
sight between the scrub clumps.

The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of
the Himalayas. * Not with you, O blessed among
all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord ! And never
shall I breathe your air again ! '

4 But thou art ten times the stronger man in
this good air/ says Kim, for to his wearied soul
appeal the well * cropped, kindly plains. 4 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/

4 Ay, our Search is sure. I have come out of
great temptation/

It was never more than a couple of miles a day
now, and Kim's shoulders bore all the weight of
it — the burden of an old man, the burden of the
heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load
of the writings on his heart, and the details of
the daily routine. He begged in the dawn, set
blankets for the lama's meditation, held the weary
head on his lap through the noonday heats, fanning
away the flies till his wrist ached, begged again

207

KIM

in the evenings, and rubbed the lama's feet, who
rewarded him with promise of Freedom — to-day,
to-morrow, or at furthest, the next day.

4 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/

4 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/

4 Patience a little! We reach Freedom to*
gether. Then thou and I, upon the far bank of
the River, will look back upon our lives as in the
Hills we saw our day's marches laid out behind
us. Perhaps I was once a Sahib/

4 'Was never a Sahib like thee, I swear it/

4 1 am certain the Keeper of the Images in the
Wonder House was in past life a very wise abbot.
But even his spectacles do not make my eyes see.
There fall shadows when I would look steadily.
No matter — we know the tricks of the poor stupid
carcass — shadow changing to another shadow. I
am bound by the illusion of Time and Space.
How far came we to-day in the flesh ? '

208

KIM

4 Perhaps half a host Three quarters of a mile,
and it was a weary march*

'Half a kos. Ha! I went ten thousand
thousand in the spirit. How we are all lapped
and swathed and swaddled in these senseless things/
He looked at his thin blue^veined hand that found
the beads so heavy, 4 Chela, hast thou never a
wish to leave me ? '

Kim thought of the oilskin packet and the
books in the foodxbag. If some one duly author*
ised 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.

4 No/ he said almost sternly, ' I am not a dog
or a snake to bite when I have learned to love/

4 Thou art too tender for me/

4 Not that either, I have moved in one matter
without consulting thee, I have sent a message
to the Kulu woman by that woman who gave us
the goat's milk this morn, saying that thou wast
a little feeble and would need a litter, I beat
myself in my mind that I did not do it when we
entered the Doon. We stay in this place till the
litter returns/

4 1 am content. She is a woman with a heart
of gold, as thou sayest, but a talker — something
of a talker/

K. Vol. II 209 P

KIM

'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 hysteri-
cal catch rose in his throat, 4 1 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 . . , Hat mail But I love
thee . , , and it is all too late. , , , I was a child.
. . . Oh why was I not a man ! . . . ' Overborne
by strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond his
years, Kim broke down and sobbed at the lama's
feet,

4 What a to-do is here/ said the old man gently.
' Thou hast never stepped a hair's breadth from the
Way of Obedience. Neglect me ? Child, I have
lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the
lime of a new wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh
down, I have stolen strength from thee. Therefore,
not through any sin of thine, art thou weakened.
It is the Body— the silly, stupid Body — that speaks
now. Not the assured Soul. Be comforted!
Know at least the devils that thou fightest. They
are earth-born — children of illusion. We will go
to the woman from Kulu. She shall acquire merit
in housing us, and specially in tending me. Thou
shalt run free till strength returns. I had forgotten
the stupid Body. If there be any blame, I bear it.

210

KIM

But we are too close to the gates of deliverance to
weigh blame* I could praise thee, but what need ?
In a little— in a very little— we shall sit beyond all
needs/

And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise
saws and grave texts on that little understood
beast, our Body, who, being but a delusion, insists
on posing as the Soul, to the darkening of the
Way, and the immense multiplication of unneces'
sary 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 I My tale was told. Said he to
me, "Chela know this* There are many lies in
the world, and not a few liars, but there are no
liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of
our bodies." Considering this I was comforted,
and of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea
in his presence. Suffer me now to drink tea, for I
am thirsty.'

With a laugh above his tears, Kim kissed the
lama's feet, and went about teaxmaking.

'Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One,

211

KIM

but I lean on thee for some other things* Dost
know it ? '

4 1 have guessed maybe/ and the lama's eyes
twinkled* * We must change that/

So, when with scufflings and scrapings and a
hot air of importance* paddled up nothing less
than the Sahiba's pet palanquin sent twenty miles,
with that same grizzled old Oorya servant in
charge, and when they reached the disorderly
order of the long white rambling house behind
Saharunpore. the lama took his own measures.

Said the Sahiba cheerily from an upper window,
after compliments : ' What is the good of an old
woman's advice to an old man? I told thee — I
told thee. Holy One. to keep an eye upon the
chela. How didst thou do it ? Never answer me !
/ 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 sick'
ness 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

212

KIM

sniffed, but forbore to make any new jokes, * May
this present hospitality restore ye. Hold awhile
and I will come to gossip of the high good hills/

At evening time — her son^in^law was returned,
so she did not need to go on inspection round the
farm — she won to the meat of the matter, ex*
plained low^voicedly by the lama. The two old
heads nodded wisely together. Kim had reeled to
a room with a cot in it, and was dozing soddenly.
The lama had forbidden him to set blankets or get
food.

4 1 know— I know. Who but I ? ' she cackled.
4 We. who go down to the burning-ghats clutch
at the hands of those coming up from the River
of Life with full water ^ jars — yes, brimming
waterxjars. 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 —

4 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 —

4 He that had the belly -pain ? '

4 To think the Holy One remembers thatl I
must tell his mother. It is most singular honour I
"He that had the belly -pain" — straightway the
Holy One remembered. She will be proud/

213

KIM

'My chela is to me as is a son to the unen*
lightened/

4 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 ad'
dress a Buddhist monk may sometimes employ
towards a nun, ' if charms comfort thee—

4 They are better than ten thousand doctors/

4 1 say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot
of Such'Zen, will make as many as thou mayest
desire. I have never seen thy face —

4 That even the monkeys who steal our loquats
count for a gain. Hee ! hee ! '

'But as he who sleeps there said/ he nodded
at the shut door of the guest - chamber across
the forecourt, 'thou hast a heart of gold. . . .
And he is in the spirit my very "grandson" to

me/

4 Good ! I am the Holy One's cow/ This was
pure Hinduism, but the lama never heeded. 'I
am old. I have borne sons in the body. Oh

214

KIM

once I could please men ! Now I can cure them/
He heard her armlets tinkle as though she bared
arms for action. 'I will take over the boy and
dose him, and stuff him, and make him all
whole. Hail hail We old people know some'
thing yet/

Wherefore when Kim, aching in every bone,
opened his eyes, and would go to the cook-house
to get his master's food, he found strong coercion
about him, and a veiled old figure at the door,
flanked by the grizzled manservant, who told him
precisely the very things that he was on no account
to do.

4 Thou must have — thou shalt have nothing.
What? A locked box in which to keep holy
books? Oh, that is another matter. Heavens
forbid I should come between a priest and his
prayers ! It shall be brought, and thou shalt keep
the key/

They pushed the coffer under his cot, and
Kim shut away Mahbub's pistol, the oilskin
packet of letters, and the locked books and
diaries, with a groan of relief. For some absurd
reason their weight on his shoulders was nothing
to their weight on his poor mind. His neck ached
under it of nights.

4 Thine is a sickness uncommon in youth these
days : since young folk have given up tending their

215

KIM

betters. The remedy is sleep, and certain drugs/
said the Sahiba ; and he was glad to give himself
up to the blankness that half menaced and half
soothed him.

She brewed drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic
equivalent to the still-room — drenches that smelt
pestilently and tasted worse. She stood over Kim
till they went down, and inquired exhaustively
after they had come up. She laid a taboo upon the
forecourt, and enforced it by means of an armed
man. It is true he was seventy odd, that his
scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt ; but he re-
presented the authority of the Sahiba, and loaded
wains, chattering servants, calves, dogs, hens, and
the like, fetched a wide compass by those parts.
Best of all, when the body was cleared, she cut
out from the mass of poor relations that crowded
the back of the buildings — household dogs, we
name them — a cousin's widow, skilled in what
Europeans, who know nothing about it, call
massage. And the two of them, laying him east
and west, that the mysterious earth-currents which
thrill the clay of our bodies might help and not
hinder, took him to pieces all one long afternoon
—bone by bone, muscle by muscle, ligament by
ligament, and lastly, nerve by nerve. Kneaded to
irresponsible pulp, half hypnotised by the per*
petual flick and readjustment of the uneasy

216

KIM

chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim slid ten
thousand miles into slumber — thirty-six hours of
it — sleep that soaked like rain after drought

Then she fed him, and the house spun to
her clamour* She caused fowls to be slain ; she
sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking
gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it ; she
took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish
from the brooks — anon limes for sherbets, quails
of the pit, then chicken-livers upon a skewer, with
sliced ginger between*

4 1 have seen something of this world/ she said
over the crowded trays, 4 and there are but two
sorts of women in it — those who take the strength
out of a man and those who put it back. Once I
was that one, and now I am this. Nay — do not
play the priestling with me. Mine was but a jest.
If it does not hold good now, it will when thou
takest the road again. Cousin ' — this to the poor
relation, never wearied of extolling her patroness's
charity — 4 he is getting a bloom on the skin of a
new-curried horse. Our work is like polishing
jewels to be thrown to a dance-girl — eh ? '

Kim sat up and smiled. The terrible weakness
had dropped from him like an old shoe. His
tongue itched for free speech again, and but a week
back the lightest word clogged it like ashes. The
pain in his neck (he must have caught it from the

217

KIM

lama) had gone with the heavy dengue^aches and
the evil taste in the mouth. The two old women,
a little, but not much more careful about their
veils now, clucked as merrily as the hens that
had entered pecking through the open door.

4 Where is my Holy One ? ' he demanded.

4 Hear him I Thy Holy One is well/ she
snapped viciously. 4 Though that is none of his
merit. Knew I a charm to make him wise, Yd 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. / could have told him that before he
wetted himself all over. He is well now — this
happened a week ago — but burn me such holi^
ness! 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/

218

KIM

'A lethargy that comes by right some few
score years later. But it is all done now/

4 Maharanee/ Kim began, but led by the look
in her eye, changed it to the title of plain love —
4 Mother, I owe my life to thee. How shall I
make thanks ? Ten thousand blessings upon thy
house and '

4 The house be unblessed/ (It is impossible to
give exactly the old lady's word,) * Thank the
Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me if thou
carest as a son. Heavens above I Have I shifted
thee and lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy
ten toes to find texts flung at my head ? Some'
where a mother must have borne thee to break
her heart. What used thou to her — son ? '

4 1 had no mother, my mother/ said Kim.
4 She died, they tell me, when I was young/

4 Hai mail Then none can say I have robbed
her of any right if — when thou takest the road
again and this house is but one of a thousand used
for shelter and forgotten, after an easy * flung
blessing. No matter. I need no blessings, but —
but — She stamped her foot at the poor re^
lation : 4 Take up the trays to the house. What
is the good of stale .food in the room, oh woman
of ill'omen ? '

4 1 ha — have borne a son in my time too, but
he died/ whimpered the bowed sister^figure behind

219

KIM

the chudder. 'Thou knowest he died! I only
waited for the order to take away the tray/

4 It is I that am the woman of ill-omen/ cried
the old lady penitently, 'We that go down to
the chattris (the big umbrellas above the burning'
ghats where the priests take their last dues) clutch
hard at the bearers of the chattis (water-jars —
young folk full of the pride of life, she meant *, but
the pun is clumsy). When one cannot dance in
the festival one must e'en look out of the window,
and grandmothering takes all a woman's time.
Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire
for my daughter's eldest, by reason — is it ? — that
he is wholly free from sin. The hakim is brought
very low these days. He goes about poisoning
my servants for lack of their betters/

4 What hakim, mother ? '

'That very Dacca man who gave me the pill
which rent me in three pieces. He cast up like
a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and
thou had been blood^brothers together up Kulu*
way, and feigning great anxiety for thy health,
He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders
to have him stuffed too — him and his anxiety 1 '

4 1 would see him if he is here/

4 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

220

KIM

sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself
with scraps. He will keep* We shall never get
rid of him/

4 Send him here, mother ' — the twinkle returned
to Kim's eye for a flash — 4 and I will try/

Til 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/

4 He is a very wise hakim. Send him, mother/

4 Priest praising priest? A miracle! If he is
any friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last
meeting) I'll hale him here with horse-ropes and
— and give him a caste -dinner afterwards, my
son. . . . Get up and see the world ! This lying
abed is the mother of seventy devils * * , my
son ! my son ! '

She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the
cook-house, and almost on her shadow rolled in
the Babu, robed as to the shoulders like a Roman
emperor, jowled like Titus, bare-headed, with new
patent-leather shoes, in highest condition of fat,
exuding joy and salutations.

'By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I am jolly glad
to see you. I will kindly shut the door. It is a
pity you are sick. Are you very sick ? '

4 The papers — the papers from the kilta. The
maps and the muraslaV He held out the key

221

KIM

impatiently ; for the present need on his soul was
to get rid of the loot.

'You are quite right. That is correct depart*
mental view to take. You have got everything ? '

4 All that was handwritten in the kilta I took.
The rest I threw down the hill/ He could hear
the key's grate in the lock, the sticky pull of the
slow* rending oil* cloth, and a quick shuffling of
papers. He had been annoyed out of all reason
by the knowledge that they lay below him through
the sick idle days — a burden incommunicable.
For that reason the blood tingled through his
body, when Hurree, skipping elephantinely, shook
hands again.

4 This is fine ! This is finest I Mister O'Hara !
You have — ha! ha! — swiped the whole bag of
tricks — locks, stocks, and barrels. They told me
it was eight months' work gone up the spouts!
By Jove, how they beat me! ... Look, here is
the letter from Hilas!' He intoned a line or
two of Court Persian, which is the language of
authorised and unauthorised diplomacy. * Mister
Rajah Sahib has just about put his foot in the holes.
He will have to explain offeecially how the deuce-
an'^all he is writing love-letters to the Czar. And
they are very cunning maps . . . and there is
three or four Prime Ministers of these parts
implicated by the correspondence. By Gad, Sar !

222

KIM

The British Government will change the succesx
sion in Hilas and Bundr, and nominate new heirs
to the throne, "Treason most base" . . * but
you do not understand ? Eh ? '

f Are they in thy hands ? ' said Kim. It was all
he cared for.

4 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,

223

KIM

O'Hara, do you know, he is afflicted with
infirmity of fits, Yess, I tell you. Cataleptic,
too, if not also epileptic, I found him in such a
state under a tree in articulo mortem, and he
jumped up and walked into a brook and he
was nearly drowned but for me, I pulled him
out/

'Because I was not there!' said Kim, 'He
might have died/

* Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now,
and asserts he has undergone transfiguration/ The
Babu tapped his forehead knowingly. 'I took
notes of his statements for Royal Society— in posse.
You must make haste and be quite well and come
back to Simla, and I will tell you all my tale at
Lurgan's, It was splendid. The bottoms of their
trousers were quite torn, and old Nahan Rajah, he
thought they were European soldiers deserting/

4 Oh, the Russians ? How long were they with
thee?'

* One was a Frenchman. Oh, days and days
and days! Now all the hill * people believe all
Russians are all beggars. By Jove ! they had not
one dam x thing that I did not get them. And I
told the common people — oah, such tales and
anecdotes ! I will tell you at old Lurgan's when
you come up. We will have — ah — a night out!
It is feather in both our caps! Yess, and they

224

KIM

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/

4 Ay, Mahbub. And where is he ? '

4 Selling horses in this vicinity, of course/

4 Here ! Why ? Speak slowly. There is a
thickness in my head still/

The Babu looked shyly down his nose. ' Well,
you see, I am fearful man, and I do not like
responsibility. You were sick, you see, and I did
not know where deuce ' an'* all the papers were,
and if so, how many. So when I had come down
here I slipped in private wire to Mahbub — he was
at Meerut for races — and I tell him how case
stands. He comes up with his men and he
consorts with the lama, and then he calls me a
fool, and is very rude —

4 But wherefore — wherefore ? '

'That is what / 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

K. Vol. II 225 Q

KIM

see they are vitally important, and Mahbub AH he
did not know where you were/

4 Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahiba's house ? Thou
art mad, Babu/ said Kim with indignation.

'I wanted the papers. Suppose she had stole
them? It was only practical suggestion, / think.
You are not pleased, eh ? '

A native proverb — unquotable — showed the
blackness of Kim's disapproval*

* Well/ — Hurree shrugged his shoulders, — 4 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. / 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 danvtight
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/

4 Allah be merciful/ said Kim on his elbow,
rejoicing. 'What a beast of wonder is a Babu!
And that man walked alone — if he did walk — with
robbed and angry foreigners ! '

'Oah, thatt was nothing, after they had done
beating me ; but if I lost the papers it was pretty

226

KIM

jolly serious. Mahbub he nearly beat me too, and
he went and consorted with the lama no end, I
shall stick to ethnological investigations hencefcHV
wards. Now good 'bye, Mister O'Hara, I can
catch 4.25 p.m. to Umballa if I am quick. It will
be good times when we all tell thee tale up at
Mister Lurgan's. I shall report you offeecially
better. Good'bye, my dear fallow, and when next
you are under thee emotions please do not use the
Mohammedan terms with the Tibet dress/

He shook hands twice — a Babu to his boot'
heels — and opened the door. With the fall of the
sunlight upon his still triumphant face he returned
to the humble Dacca quack,

'He robbed them/ thought Kim, forgetting
his own share in the game. 'He tricked them.
He lied to them like a Bengali, They give him a
chit (a testimonial). He makes them a mock at
the risk of his life — / never would have gone down
to them after the pistol'shots — and then he says he
is a fearful man. . . . And he is a fearful man.
I must get into the world again/

At first his legs bent like bad pipe'Stems, and
the flood and rush of the sunlit air dazzled him,
He squatted by the white wall, the mind rummag'
ing among the incidents of the long dooli journey,
the lama's weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus
of talk was removed, his own self 'pity, of

227

KIM

which, like the sick, he had great store. The
unnerved brain edged away from all the outside,
as a raw horse, once rowelled, sidles from the spur.
It was enough, amply enough, that the spoil of
the kilta was away — off his hands — out of his
possession. He tried to think of the lama, — to
wonder why he had tumbled into a brook, — but
the bigness of the world, seen between the fore'
court gates, swept linked thought aside. Then he
looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with
the thatched huts hidden among crops — looked
with strange eyes unable to take up the size and
proportion and use of things — stared for a still
half 'hour. All that while he felt, though he
could not put it into words, that his soul was out
of gear with its surroundings — a cog' wheel un'
connected with any machinery, just like the idle
cog'wheel of a cheap Beheea sugar'Crusher laid by
in a corner. The breezes fanned over him, the
parrots shrieked at him, the noises of the populated
house behind — squabbles, orders, and reproofs — hit
on dead ears.

4 1 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

228

KIM

being lock up anew on the world without Things
that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant
before slid into proper proportion. Roads were
meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in,
cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men
and women to be talked to* They were all real
and true — solidly planted upon the feet — perfectly
comprehensible — clay of his clay, neither more nor
less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in
his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the
Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this
move: 'Let him go. I have done my share.
Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy
One comes back from meditation, tell him/

There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little
knoll half a mile away, with a young banian tree
behind — a look-out, as it were, above some new
ploughed levels; and his eyelids, bathed in soft
air, grew heavy as he neared it. The ground was
good clean dust — no new herbage that, living, is
half-way to death already, but the hopeful dust
that holds the seed of all life. He felt it between
his toes, patted it with his palms, and joint by
joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him down full
length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned
cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as the
Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the
poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off

229

KIM

from her good currents* His head lay powerless
upon her breast, and his opened hands surrendered
to her strength. The many ' rooted tree above
him, and even the dead manhandled wood beside,
knew what he sought, as he himself did not know.
Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep*

Towards evening, when the dust of returning
kine made all the horizons smoke, came the lama
and Mahbub Ali, both afoot, walking cautiously,
for the house had told them where he had gone.

4 Allah ! What a fool's trick to play in open
country/ muttered the horse-dealer. ' He could be
shot a hundred times — but this is not the Border/

4 And/ said the lama, repeating a many'times'
told tale, * never was such a chela. Temperate,
kindly, wise, of ungrudging disposition, a merry
heart upon the road, never forgetting, learned,
truthful, courteous. Great is his reward ! '

4 1 know the boy — as I have said/

4 And he was all those things ? '

'Some of them — but I have not yet found a
Red Hat's charm for making him overly truthful.
He has certainly been well nursed/

* The Sahiba is a heart of gold/ said the lama
earnestly. 4 She looks upon him as her son/

4 Hmph ! Half Hind seems that-way disposed.
I only wished to see that the boy had come to no
harm and was a free agent. As thou knowest, he

230

KIM

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 new-dyed
beard.

4 1 was meditating upon other matters that tide.
It was the hakim from Dacca broke my medita*
tions/

4 Otherwise ' — this was in Pashtu for decency's
sake — 4 thou wouldst have ended thy meditations
upon the sultry side of Hell — being an unbeliever
and an idolater for all thy child's simplicity. But
now, Red Hat, what is to be done ? '

'This very night/ — the words came slowly,
vibrating with triumph, — 4 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, 4 that my
time is short; but I shall have safe-guarded him
throughout the years. Remember, I have reached
Knowledge, as I told thee only three nights back/

4 It must be true, as the Tirah priest said when
I stole his cousin's wife, that I am a sufi (a free*

231

KIM

thinker) ; for here I sit/ said Mahbub to himself,
'drinking in blasphemy unthinkable* . . . I re*
member the tale. On that, then, he goes tojannatu
I'Adn (the Gardens of Eden), But how ? Wilt
thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful
river from which the Babu dragged thee ? '

4 1 was dragged from no river/ said the lama
simply. 'Thou hast forgotten what befell, I
found it by Knowledge/

4 Oh, aye. True/ stammered Mahbub, divided
between high indignation and enormous mirth.
4 1 had forgotten the exact run of what happened.
Thou didst find it knowingly/

'And to say that I would take life is — not a
sin, but a madness simple. My chela aided me to
the River. It is his right to be cleansed from sin —
with me/

'Ay, he needs cleansing. But afterwards, old
man — afterwards ? '

' What matter under all the heavens ? He is
sure of Nibban — enlightened — as I am/

'Well said. I had a fear he might mount
Mohammed's Horse and fly away/

' Nay — he must go forth as a teacher/

'Aha! Now I see! That is the right gait
for the colt. Certainly he must go forth as a
teacher. He is somewhat urgently needed as a
scribe by the State, for instance/

232

KIM

'To that end he was prepared* I acquired
merit in that I gave alms for his sake. A good
deed does not die. He aided me in my Search.
I aided him in his. Just is the Wheel, O horse*
seller from the North. Let him be a teacher;
let him be a scribe — what matter ? He will have
attained Freedom at the end. The rest is illusion/

' What matter ? When I must have him with
me beyond Balkh in six months I I come up with
ten lame horses and three strong'backed men —
thanks to that chicken of a Babu — to break a sick
boy by force out of an old trot's house. It
seems that I stand by while a young Sahib is
hoisted into Allah knows what of an idolater's
heaven by means of old Red Hat. And I am
reckoned something of a player of the Game my'
self ! But the madman is fond of the boy ; and I
must be very reasonably mad too/

4 What is the prayer ? ' said the lama, as the
rough Pashtu rumbled into the red beard.

4 No matter at all ; but now I understand that
the boy, sure of Paradise, can yet enter Govern*
ment 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

233

KIM

altogether of thy faith, Red Hat — if so small a
matter concern thee/

4 It is nothing/ said the lama.

'I thought not* Therefore it will not move
thee sinless, newvwashed and three parts drowned
to boot, when I call thee a good man — a very good
man. We have talked together some four or five
evenings now, and for all I am a horse-coper I can
still, as the saying is, see holiness beyond the legs
of a horse. Yea, can see, too, how our Friend of
all the World put his hand in thine at the first.
Use him well, and suffer him to return to the world
as a teacher, when thou hast — bathed his legs, if
that be the proper medicine for the colt/

'Why not follow the Way thyself, and so
accompany the boy ? '

Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent
insolence of the demand, which across the Border
he would have paid with more than a blow. Then
the humour of it touched his worldly soul.

4 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 ? '

4 What need?'

'O Allah, hear him! "What need" in this
Thy world ! Nor ever harmed a man ? '
234

KIM

4 Once — with a pencase — before I was wise/

'So? I think the better of thee. Thy
teachings are good Thou hast turned one man
that I know from the path of strife/ He laughed
immensely* 'He came here open-minded to
commit a dacoity (a house-robbery with violence).
Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry off what he desired/

* A great foolishness ! '

'Oh! black shame too. So he thought after
he had seen thee — and a few others, male and
female. So he abandoned it; and now he goes
to beat a big fat Babu man/

' I do not understand/

'Allah forbid it! Some men are strong in
knowledge, Red Hat. Thy strength is stronger
still Keep it — I think thou wilt. If the boy be
not a good servant, pull his ears off/

With a hitch of his broad Bokhariot belt the
Pathan swaggered off into the gloaming, and the
lama came down from his clouds so far as to look
at the broad back.

'That person lacks courtesy, and is deceived
by the shadow of appearances. But he spoke well
of my chelat who now enters upon his reward.
Let me make the prayer! . . . Wake, O for*
tunate above all born of women. Wake! It is
found !'

Kim came up from those deep wells, and

235

KIM

the lama attended his yawning pleasure; duly
snapping fingers to head off evil spirits*

4 1 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 weak'
nesses — the belly and the neck, and the beating
in the ears ? '

4 Gone — all gone. Dost thou not know ? '

4 1 know nothing, but that I have not seen thee
in a monkey's age* Know what ? '

4 Strange the knowledge did not reach out to
thee, when all my thoughts were theeward/

4 1 cannot see the face, but the voice is like a
gong. Has the Sahiba made a young man of thee
by her cookery ? '

He peered at the cross-legged figure, outlined
jet-black against the lemon-coloured drift of light.
So does the stone Bodhisat sit who looks down
upon the patent self-registering turnstiles of the
Lahore Museum.

The lama held his peace. Except for the click
of the rosary and a faint clop-clop of Mahbub's
retreating feet, the soft, smoky silence of evening
in India wrapped them close.

236

KIM

4 Hear me ! I bring news/
'But let us-
Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence*
Kim tucked his feet under his robe^edge obediently*
'Hear me! I bring news! The Search is
finished* Comes now the Reward* . . » Thus*
When we were among the Hills, I lived on thy
strength till the young branch bowed and nigh
broke* When we came out of the Hills. I was
troubled for thee and for other matters which I
held in my heart. The boat of my soul lacked
direction ; I could not see into the Cause of Things.
So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman
altogether. I took no food. I drank no water.
Still I saw not the Way. They pressed food upon
me and cried at my shut door. So I removed
myself to a hollow under a tree. I took no food.
I took no water. I sat in meditation two days
and two nights, abstracting my mind ; inbreathing
and outbreathing in the required manner. . . *
Upon the second night — so great was my reward
— the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body
and went free. This I have never before attained,
though I have stood on the threshold of it.
Consider, for it is a marvel ! '

4 A marvel indeed. Two days and two nights
without food! Where was the Sahiba?' said
Kim under his breath.

237

KIM

4 Yea, my Soul went f ree, 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 con*
templation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea
to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Such*
zen ; I saw every camp and village, to the least,
where we have ever rested. I saw them at one
time arid in one place ; for they were within the
Soul. By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond
the illusion of Time and Space and of Things.
By this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying
in thy cot, and I saw thee falling downhill under
the idolater — at one time, in one place, in my Soul,
which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul Also
I saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down,
and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside, shouting
in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I
saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached
the Great Soul. And I meditated a thousand
thousand years, passionless, well aware of the
Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried : " What
shall come to the boy if thou art dead ? " and I
was shaken back and forth in myself with pity
for thee ; and I said : " I will return to my chela,
lest he miss the Way/' Upon this my Soul, which
is the soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew itself from

238

KIM

the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and
retchings and agonies not to be told. As the egg
from the fish, as the fish from the water, as the
water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick
air ; so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so
fumed up the soul of Teshoo Lama, from the Great
Soul. Then a voice cried: "The River! Take
heed to the River ! " and I looked down upon all
the world, which was as I had seen it before — one
in time, one in place — and I saw plainly the
River of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour
my Soul was hampered by some evil or other
whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay
upon my arms and coiled round my waist ; but I
put it aside, and I cast forth as an eagle in my
flight for the very place of the River. I pushed
aside world upon world for thy sake. I saw the
River below me — the River of the Arrow — and,
descending, the waters of it closed over me ; and
behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama,
but free from sin, and the hakim from Dacca bore
up my head in the waters of the River. It is here !
It is behind the mangO'tope here — even here ! '

'Allah Karim! Oh, well that the Babu was
by ! Wast thou very wet ? '

'Why should I regard? I remember the
hakim was concerned for the body of Teshoo
Lama. He haled it out of the holy water in his

239

KIM

hands, and there came afterwards thy horse^seller
from the North with a cot and men, and they put
the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahiba's
house/

'What said the Sahiba?'

4 1 was meditating in that body, and did not
hear. So thus the Search is ended* For the
merit that I have acquired, the River of the Arrow
is here. It broke forth at our feet, as I have said,
I have found it. Son of my Soul, I have wrenched
my Soul back from the Threshold of Freedom to
free thee from all sin — as I am free, and sinless.
Just is the Wheel! Certain is our deliverance.
Come ! '

He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as
a man may who has won Salvation for himself and
his beloved.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

THE SERVICE KIPLING.

26 Vols. i6mo.
Blue Cloth. 23. 6d. net per Vol.

The volumes are printed in an old-style
type designed after an old Venetian model
and known as the Dolphin Type. They
will be issued in the following order : —

Plain Tales from the Hills. 2 Vols.l
Soldiers Three. 2 Vols. J

Wee Willie Winkie. 2 Vols. j

From Sea to Sea. 4 Vols. J

Life's Handicap. 2 Vols.
The Light that Failed. 2 Vols.
The Naulahka. 2 Vols.
Many Inventions. 2 Vols.
The Day's Work. 2 Vols.
Kim. 2 Vols.

Traffics and Discoveries. 2 Vols.
Actions and Reactions. 2 Vols.

November

\ December

} 1915
> January

\ February

March

April

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING.

UNIFORM EDITION.
Extra Crown 8vo. Red Cloth, with Gilt Tops. 6s. each.

POCKET EDITION.

Fcap 8vo. Printed on Thin Paper. With Gilt Edges. In Scarlet
Limp Leather, 53. net ; in Blue Cloth, 45. 6d. net per Volume.

PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. Seventy-ninth Thousand.
LIFE'S HANDICAP. Being Stories of Mine Own People.

Sixty-sixth Thousand.

MANY INVENTIONS. Sixty-second Thousand.
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. Seventy-eighth Thousand. •
WEE WILLIE WINKIE, and other Stories. Fortieth Thousand.
SOLDIERS THREE, and other Stories. Forty-fifth Thousand.
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS." A Story of the Grand

Banks. Illustrated by I. W. TABER. Forty-eighth Thousand.
THE JUNGLE BOOK. With Illustrations by J. L. KIPLING, W. H.

DRAKE, and P. FRENZENY. One-hundred-and-Thirty-Fourth Thousand.
THE DAY'S WORK. Eighty-sixth Thousand.
THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. With Illustrations by J. LOCKWOOD

KIPLING. Seventy-fifth Thousand.
STALKY & CO. Fifty-ninth Thousand.
FROM SEA TO SEA. Letters of Travel. In Two Vols.

Twenty-ninth Thousand.
THE NAULAHK&. A Story of West and East. By RUDYARD

KIPLING and WOLCOTT BALESTIER. Twenty-fifth Thousand.
KIM. Illustrated by J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING. Ninety-seventh Thousand.
JUST SO STORIES FOR LITTLE CHILDREN. Illustrated by

the Author. Eighty-third Thousand.

TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES. Forty-sixth Thousand.
PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. With Illustrations by H. R. MILLAR.

Forty-ninth Thousand.

ACTIONS AND REACTIONS. Forty-fifth Thousand.
REWARDS AND FAIRIES. With Illustrations by FRANK CRAIG.

Forty-third Thousand.

SONGS FROM BOOKS. Uniform with Poetical Works. Crown 8vo.
6s. Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 45. 6d. net. Leather, 55. net.
Edition de Luxe. 8vo. IDS. 6d. net.

Also issued in Special Binding for Presentation. Extra Gilt Cloth,
Gilt Edges. Price 6s. each.

SOLDIER TALES. With Illustrations by A. S. HARTRICK. Fourteenth

Thousand.

THE JUNGLE BOOK. Illustrated.
THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. Illustrated.
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS." Illustrated.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON

PR 4854 .K4 1915 v.2 SMC
Kipling, Rudyard,