Kim

I am called also the Friend of the Stars.'

'Thou art no hillman.'

'Ask him. He will tell thee I was sent to him from the Stars to show

him an end to his pilgrimage.'

'Humph! Consider, brat, that I am an old woman and not altogether a

fool. Lamas I know, and to these I give reverence, but thou art no

more a lawful chela than this my finger is the pole of this wagon. Thou

art a casteless Hindu--a bold and unblushing beggar, attached, belike,

to the Holy One for the sake of gain.'

'Do we not all work for gain?' Kim changed his tone promptly to match

that altered voice. 'I have heard'--this was a bow drawn at a

venture--'I have heard--'

'What hast thou heard?' she snapped, rapping with the finger.

'Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars, which is

doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs--small Hill Rajahs--'

'But none the less of good Rajput blood.'

'Assuredly of good blood. That these even sell the more comely of

their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them--to zemindars and

such--all of Oudh.'

If there be one thing in the world that the small Hill Rajahs deny it

is just this charge; but it happens to be one thing that the bazars

believe, when they discuss the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The

old lady explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whisper, precisely

what manner and fashion of malignant liar he was. Had Kim hinted this

when she was a girl, he would have been pommelled to death that same

evening by an elephant. This was perfectly true.

'Ahai! I am only a beggar's brat, as the Eye of Beauty has said,' he

wailed in extravagant terror.

'Eye of Beauty, forsooth! Who am I that thou shouldst fling

beggar-endearments at me?' And yet she laughed at the long-forgotten

word. 'Forty years ago that might have been said, and not without

truth. Ay. thirty years ago. But it is the fault of this gadding up

and down Hind that a king's widow must jostle all the scum of the land,

and be made a mock by beggars.'

'Great Queen,' said Kim promptly, for he heard her shaking with

indignation, 'I am even what the Great Queen says I am; but none the

less is my master holy. He has not yet heard the Great Queen's order

that--'

'Order? I order a Holy One--a Teacher of the Law--to come and speak to

a woman? Never!'

'Pity my stupidity. I thought it was given as an order--'

'It was not. It was a petition. Does this make all clear?'

A silver coin clicked on the edge of the cart. Kim took it and

salaamed profoundly. The old lady recognized that, as the eyes and the

ears of the lama, he was to be propitiated.

'I am but the Holy One's disciple. When he has eaten perhaps he will

come.'

'Oh, villain and shameless rogue!' The jewelled forefinger shook

itself at him reprovingly; but he could hear the old lady's chuckle.

'Nay, what is it?' he said, dropping into his most caressing and

confidential tone--the one, he well knew, that few could resist.

'Is--is there any need of a son in thy family? Speak freely, for we

priests--' That last was a direct plagiarism from a fakir by the

Taksali Gate.

'We priests! Thou art not yet old enough to--' She checked the joke

with another laugh. 'Believe me, now and again, we women, O priest,

think of other matters than sons. Moreover, my daughter has borne her

man-child.'

'Two arrows in the quiver are better than one; and three are better

still.' Kim quoted the proverb with a meditative cough, looking

discreetly earthward.

'True--oh, true. But perhaps that will come. Certainly those

down-country Brahmins are utterly useless. I sent gifts and monies and

gifts again to them, and they prophesied.'

'Ah,' drawled Kim, with infinite contempt, 'they prophesied!' A

professional could have done no better.

'And it was not till I remembered my own Gods that my prayers were

heard. I chose an auspicious hour, and--perhaps thy Holy One has heard

of the Abbot of the Lung-Cho lamassery. It was to him I put the

matter, and behold in the due time all came about as I desired. The

Brahmin in the house of the father of my daughter's son has since said

that it was through his prayers--which is a little error that I will

explain to him when we reach our journey's end. And so afterwards I go

to Buddh Gaya, to make shraddha for the father of my children.'

'Thither go we.'

'Doubly auspicious,' chirruped the old lady. 'A second son at least!'

'O Friend of all the World!' The lama had waked, and, simply as a

child bewildered in a strange bed, called for Kim.

'I come! I come, Holy One!' He dashed to the fire, where he found the

lama already surrounded by dishes of food, the hillmen visibly adoring

him and the Southerners looking sourly.

'Go back! Withdraw!' Kim cried. 'Do we eat publicly like dogs?' They

finished the meal in silence, each turned a little from the other, and

Kim topped it with a native-made cigarette.

'Have I not said an hundred times that the South is a good land? Here

is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill Rajah on pilgrimage, she

says, to Buddha Gay. She it is sends us those dishes; and when thou

art well rested she would speak to thee.'

'Is this also thy work?' The lama dipped deep into his snuff-gourd.

'Who else watched over thee since our wonderful journey began?' Kim's

eyes danced in his head as he blew the rank smoke through his nostrils

and stretched him on the dusty ground. 'Have I failed to oversee thy

comforts, Holy One?'

'A blessing on thee.' The lama inclined his solemn head. 'I have

known many men in my so long life, and disciples not a few. But to

none among men, if so be thou art woman-born, has my heart gone out as

it has to thee--thoughtful, wise, and courteous; but something of a

small imp.'

'And I have never seen such a priest as thou.' Kim considered the

benevolent yellow face wrinkle by wrinkle. 'It is less than three days

since we took the road together, and it is as though it were a hundred

years.'

'Perhaps in a former life it was permitted that I should have rendered

thee some service. Maybe'--he smiled--'I freed thee from a trap; or,

having caught thee on a hook in the days when I was not enlightened,

cast thee back into the river.'

'Maybe,' said Kim quietly. He had heard this sort of speculation again

and again, from the mouths of many whom the English would not consider

imaginative. 'Now, as regards that woman in the bullock-cart. I think

she needs a second son for her daughter.'

'That is no part of the Way,' sighed the lama. 'But at least she is

from the Hills. Ah, the Hills, and the snow of the Hills!'

He rose and stalked to the cart. Kim would have given his ears to come

too, but the lama did not invite him; and the few words he caught were

in an unknown tongue, for they spoke some common speech of the

mountains. The woman seemed to ask questions which the lama turned

over in his mind before answering. Now and again he heard the singsong

cadence of a Chinese quotation. It was a strange picture that Kim

watched between drooped eyelids. The lama, very straight and erect,

the deep folds of his yellow clothing slashed with black in the light

of the parao fires precisely as a knotted tree-trunk is slashed with

the shadows of the low sun, addressed a tinsel and lacquered ruth which

burned like a many-coloured jewel in the same uncertain light. The

patterns on the gold-worked curtains ran up and down, melting and