Kim

take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the end, marking

the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump.

'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the

compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. 'It is long

since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, Holy

One--the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For the most

part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle

road--all hard--takes the quick traffic. In the days before

rail-carriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now

there are only country-carts and such like. Left and right is the

rougher road for the heavy carts--grain and cotton and timber, fodder,

lime and hides. A man goes in safety here for at every few koss is a

police-station. The police are thieves and extortioners (I myself

would patrol it with cavalry--young recruits under a strong captain),

but at least they do not suffer any rivals. All castes and kinds of

men move here.

'Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias,

pilgrims and potters--all the world going and coming. It is to me as a

river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood.'

And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs

straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred

miles--such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world. They

looked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length of it, the white

breadth speckled with slow-pacing folk; and the two-roomed

police-station opposite.

'Who bears arms against the law?' a constable called out laughingly,

as he caught sight of the soldier's sword. 'Are not the police enough

to destroy evil-doers?'

'It was because of the police I bought it,' was the answer. 'Does all

go well in Hind?'

'Rissaldar Sahib, all goes well.'

'I am like an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out from the

bank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the Road of Hindustan. All men

come by this way...'

'Son of a swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee to scratch

thy back upon? Father of all the daughters of shame and husband of ten

thousand virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted to a devil, being led

thereto by her mother. Thy aunts have never had a nose for seven

generations! Thy sister--What Owl's folly told thee to draw thy carts

across the road? A broken wheel? Then take a broken head and put the

two together at leisure!'

The voice and a venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of dust

fifty yards away, where a cart had broken down. A thin, high Kathiawar

mare, with eyes and nostrils aflame, rocketed out of the jam, snorting

and wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of a

shouting man. He was tall and grey-bearded, sitting the almost mad

beast as a piece of her, and scientifically lashing his victim between

plunges.

The old man's face lit with pride. 'My child!' said he briefly, and

strove to rein the pony's neck to a fitting arch.

'Am I to be beaten before the police?' cried the carter. 'Justice! I

will have Justice--'

'Am I to be blocked by a shouting ape who upsets ten thousand sacks

under a young horse's nose? That is the way to ruin a mare.'

'He speaks truth. He speaks truth. But she follows her man close,'

said the old man. The carter ran under the wheels of his cart and

thence threatened all sorts of vengeance.

'They are strong men, thy sons,' said the policeman serenely, picking

his teeth.

The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and came on

at a canter.

'My father!' He reigned back ten yards and dismounted.

The old man was off his pony in an instant, and they embraced as do

father and son in the East.

Chapter 4

Good Luck, she is never a lady,

But the cursedest quean alive,

Tricksy, wincing, and jady--

Kittle to lead or drive.

Greet her--she's hailing a stranger!

Meet her--she's busking to leave!

Let her alone for a shrew to the bone

And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve!

Largesse! Largesse, O Fortune!

Give or hold at your will.

If I've no care for Fortune,

Fortune must follow me still!

The Wishing-Caps.

Then, lowering their voices, they spoke together. Kim came to rest

under a tree, but the lama tugged impatiently at his elbow.

'Let us go on. The River is not here.'

'Hai mai! Have we not walked enough for a little? Our River will not

run away. Patience, and he will give us a dole.'

'This.' said the old soldier suddenly, 'is the Friend of the Stars. He

brought me the news yesterday. Having seen the very man Himself, in a

vision, giving orders for the war.'

'Hm!' said his son, all deep in his broad chest. 'He came by a

bazar-rumour and made profit of it.'

His father laughed. 'At least he did not ride to me begging for a new

charger, and the Gods know how many rupees. Are thy brothers'

regiments also under orders?'

'I do not know. I took leave and came swiftly to thee in case--'

'In case they ran before thee to beg. O gamblers and spendthrifts all!

But thou hast never yet ridden in a charge. A good horse is needed

there, truly. A good follower and a good pony also for the marching.

Let us see--let us see.' He thrummed on the pommel.

'This is no place to cast accounts in, my father. Let us go to thy

house.'

'At least pay the boy, then: I have no pice with me, and he brought

auspicious news. Ho! Friend of all the World, a war is toward as thou

hast said.'

'Nay, as I know, the war,' returned Kim composedly.

'Eh?' said the lama, fingering his beads, all eager for the road.

'My master does not trouble the Stars for hire. We brought the news

bear witness, we brought the news, and now we go.' Kim half-crooked

his hand at his side.

The son tossed a silver coin through the sunlight, grumbling something

about beggars and jugglers. It was a four-anna piece, and would feed

them well for days. The lama, seeing the flash of the metal, droned a

blessing.

'Go thy way, Friend of all the World,' piped the old soldier, wheeling

his scrawny mount. 'For once in all my days I have met a true

prophet--who was not in the Army.'

Father and son swung round together: the old man sitting as erect as

the younger.

A Punjabi constable in yellow linen trousers slouched across the road.

He had seen the money pass.

'Halt!' he cried in impressive English. 'Know ye not that there is a

takkus of two annas a head, which is four annas, on those who enter the

Road from this side-road? It is the order of the Sirkar, and the money

is spent for the planting of trees and the beautification of the ways.'

'And the bellies of the police,' said Kim, slipping out of arm's reach.

'Consider for a while, man with a mud head. Think you we came from the

nearest pond like the frog, thy father-in-law? Hast thou ever heard

the name of thy brother?'

'And who was he? Leave the boy alone,' cried a senior constable,

immensely delighted, as he squatted down to smoke his pipe in the

veranda.

'He took a label from a bottle of belaitee-pani [soda-water], and,

affixing it to a bridge, collected taxes for a month from those who

passed, saying that it was the Sirkar's order. Then came an Englishman

and broke his head. Ah, brother, I am a town-crow, not a village-crow!'

The policeman drew back abashed, and Kim hooted at him all down the