Kim

rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me

while I learn the road at least.'

He knew what the fakirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked

among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd

disciples.

'Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be

treasure.'

'He is mad--many times mad. There is nothing else.'

Here the old soldier bobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his

hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but

insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the

temple--at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one

face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.

'Where is the money?' he whispered, beckoning the old man off into the

darkness.

'In my bosom. Where else?'

'Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me.'

'But why? Here is no ticket to buy.'

'Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet about

the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it.' He slipped

his hand above the lama's girdle and brought away the purse.

'Be it so--be it so.' The old man nodded his head. 'This is a great

and terrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in it.'

Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was

quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the

old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry

knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in

their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep.

'Certainly the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I sleep

lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broad

day. Even now I am heavy.'

'Drink a draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not a few such

remedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. 'It is time to take the

Road again.'

'The long Road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,' said the lama

gaily. 'Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense these

people, and especially the priest, for their great kindness? Truly they

are but parast, but in other lives, maybe, they will receive

enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is no more

than stone and red paint, but the heart of man we must acknowledge when

and where it is good.'

'Holy One, hast thou ever taken the Road alone?' Kim looked up

sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the fields.

'Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot--from Kulu, where my first

chela died. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men

were well-disposed throughout all the Hills.'

'It is otherwise in Hind,' said Kim drily. 'Their Gods are many-armed

and malignant. Let them alone.'

'I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the World,

thou and thy yellow man.' The old soldier ambled up the village

street, all shadowy in the dawn, on a punt, scissor-hocked pony. 'Last

night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried heart, and

it was as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in the air. I

smell it. See! I have brought my sword.'

He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at his

side--hand dropped on the pommel--staring fiercely over the flat lands

towards the North. 'Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come

up and sit behind me. The beast will carry two.'

'I am this Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared the

village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, but

the priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium

on a man who carried no money.

'That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is

always good. There is no respect in these days--not even when a

Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star

leads him to war follow a holy man?'

'But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in talk and

in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an

one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'

'Thou art not. That I can see. But I do not know that other. He

marches well, though.'

The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long,

easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically

clicking his rosary.

They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the

flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the

snowcapped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work in

the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmen

behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt

the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on

the stirrup-leather.

'It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said the

lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.

The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first

time was aware of him.

'Seekest thou the River also?' said he, turning.

'The day is new,' was the reply. 'What need of a river save to water

at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.'

'That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will. But why the

sword?'

The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game of

make-believe.

'The sword,' he said, fumbling it. 'Oh, that was a fancy of mine an

old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear

weapons throughout Hind, but'--he cheered up and slapped the hilt--'all

the constabeels hereabout know me.'

'It is not a good fancy,' said the lama. 'What profit to kill men?'

'Very little--as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it

would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak

without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with

blood.'

'What madness was that, then?'

'The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into

all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was the

first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But

they chose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then came the

Sahibs from over the sea and called them to most strict account.'

'Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They called it

the Black Year, as I remember.'

'What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumour

indeed! All earth knew, and trembled!'

'Our earth never shook but once--upon the day that the Excellent One

received Enlightenment.'

'Umph! I saw Delhi shake at least--and Delhi is the navel of the

world.'

'So they turned against women and children? That was a bad deed, for

which the punishment cannot be avoided.'

'Many strove to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in a

regiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and eighty sabres stood

fast to their salt--how many, think you? Three. Of whom I was one.'

'The greater merit.'

'Merit! We did not consider it merit in those days. My people, my

friends, my brothers fell from me. They said: "The time of the

English is accomplished. Let each strike out a little holding for

himself." But I had talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chilianwallah,

of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: "Abide a little and the wind

turns. There is no blessing in this work." In those days I rode

seventy miles with an English Memsahib and her babe on my saddle-bow.