fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan; Mission-stations
a week from the nearest railway line; seaports a thousand miles south,
facing the brazen Indian surf; and cinchona-plantations south of all.
The mere story of their adventures, which to them were no adventures,
on their road to and from school would have crisped a Western boy's
hair. They were used to jogging off alone through a hundred miles of
jungle, where there was always the delightful chance of being delayed
by tigers; but they would no more have bathed in the English Channel in
an English August than their brothers across the world would have lain
still while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin. There were boys of
fifteen who had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a
flooded river, taking charge, as by right, of a camp of frantic
pilgrims returning from a shrine. There were seniors who had
requisitioned a chance-met Rajah's elephant, in the name of St Francis
Xavier, when the Rains once blotted out the cart-track that led to
their father's estate, and had all but lost the huge beast in a
quicksand. There was a boy who, he said, and none doubted, had helped
his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush of Akas in
the days when those head-hunters were bold against lonely plantations.
And every tale was told in the even, passionless voice of the
native-born, mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed unconsciously from
native foster-mothers, and turns of speech that showed they had been
that instant translated from the vernacular. Kim watched, listened,
and approved. This was not insipid, single-word talk of drummer-boys.
It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood. The atmosphere
suited him, and he throve by inches. They gave him a white drill suit
as the weather warmed, and he rejoiced in the new-found bodily comforts
as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over the tasks they set him.
His quickness would have delighted an English master; but at St
Xavier's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and
surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two
or twenty-three.
None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly. When tales were
told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his reminiscences;
for St Xavier's looks down on boys who 'go native all-together.' One
must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when
examinations are passed, one will command natives. Kim made a note of
this, for he began to understand where examinations led.
Then came the holidays from August to October--the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the Rains. Kim was informed that he would go
north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father Victor
would arrange for him.
'A barrack-school?' said Kim, who had asked many questions and thought
more.
'Yes, I suppose so,' said the master. 'It will not do you any harm to
keep you out of mischief. You can go up with young De Castro as far as
Delhi.'
Kim considered it in every possible light. He had been diligent, even
as the Colonel advised. A boy's holiday was his own property--of so
much the talk of his companions had advised him,--and a barrack-school
would be torment after St Xavier's. Moreover--this was magic worth
anything else--he could write. In three months he had discovered how
men can speak to each other without a third party, at the cost of half
an anna and a little knowledge. No word had come from the lama, but
there remained the Road. Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud
squishing up between the toes, as his mouth watered for mutton stewed
with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled with strong scented
cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the
forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars. They would feed him raw
beef on a platter at the barrack-school, and he must smoke by stealth.
But again, he was a Sahib and was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub
Ali ... No, he would not test Mahbub's hospitality--and yet ... He
thought it out alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he
had been unjust to Mahbub.
The school was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away; Colonel
Creighton's railway pass lay in his hand, and Kim puffed himself that
he had not spent Colonel Creighton's or Mahbub's money in riotous
living. He was still lord of two rupees seven annas. His new
bullock-trunk, marked 'K. O'H.', and bedding-roll lay in the empty
sleeping-room.
'Sahibs are always tied to their baggage,' said Kim, nodding at them.
'You will stay here' He went out into the warm rain, smiling sinfully,
and sought a certain house whose outside he had noted down some time
before...
'Arre'! Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter? Oh,
shame!'
'Was I born yesterday?' Kim squatted native-fashion on the cushions of
that upper room. 'A little dyestuff and three yards of cloth to help
out a jest. Is it much to ask?'
'Who is she? Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, for this devilry.'
'Oh, she? She is the daughter of a certain schoolmaster of a regiment
in the cantonments. He has beaten me twice because I went over their
wall in these clothes. Now I would go as a gardener's boy. Old men
are very jealous.'
'That is true. Hold thy face still while I dab on the juice.'
'Not too black, Naikan. I would not appear to her as a hubshi
(nigger).'
'Oh, love makes nought of these things. And how old is she?'
'Twelve years, I think,' said the shameless Kim. 'Spread it also on
the breast. It may be her father will tear my clothes off me, and if I
am piebald--' he laughed.
The girl worked busily, dabbing a twist of cloth into a little saucer
of brown dye that holds longer than any walnut-juice.
'Now send out and get me a cloth for the turban. Woe is me, my head is
all unshaved! And he will surely knock off my turban.'
'I am not a barber, but I will make shift. Thou wast born to be a
breaker of hearts! All this disguise for one evening? Remember, the
stuff does not wash away.' She shook with laughter till her bracelets
and anklets jingled. 'But who is to pay me for this? Huneefa herself
could not have given thee better stuff.'
'Trust in the Gods, my sister,' said Kim gravely, screwing his face
round as the stain dried. 'Besides, hast thou ever helped to paint a
Sahib thus before?'
'Never indeed. But a jest is not money.'
'It is worth much more.'
'Child, thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan
that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this play,
and then to say: "Is not the jest enough?" Thou wilt go very far in
this world.' She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in mockery.
'All one. Make haste and rough-cut my head.' Kim shifted from foot to
foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days before
him. He gave the girl four annas, and ran down the stairs in the
likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy--perfect in every detail. A cookshop
was his next point of call, where he feasted in extravagance and greasy
luxury.
On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro, all covered
with prickly-heat, get into a second-class compartment. Kim patronized
a third, and was the life and soul of it. He explained to the company
that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with
fever, and that he would pick up his master at Umballa. As the
occupants of the carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned it