Kim

He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar--the

crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the Town Hall

at an angle of forty-five. A man who knows his way there can defy all

the police of India's summer capital, so cunningly does veranda

communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with

bolt-hole. Here live those who minister to the wants of the glad

city--jhampanis who pull the pretty ladies' 'rickshaws by night and

gamble till the dawn; grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors,

firewood-dealers, priests, pickpockets, and native employees of the

Government. Here are discussed by courtesans the things which are

supposed to be profoundest secrets of the India Council; and here

gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the Native States. Here, too,

Mahbub Ali rented a room, much more securely locked than his bulkhead

at Lahore, in the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer. It was a place

of miracles, too, for there went in at twilight a Mohammedan horseboy,

and there came out an hour later a Eurasian lad--the Lucknow girl's dye

was of the best--in badly-fitting shop-clothes.

'I have spoken with Creighton Sahib,' quoth Mahbub Ali, 'and a second

time has the Hand of Friendship averted the Whip of Calamity. He says

that thou hast altogether wasted sixty days upon the Road, and it is

too late, therefore, to send thee to any Hill-school.'

'I have said that my holidays are my own. I do not go to school twice

over. That is one part of my bond.'

'The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of that contract. Thou art to

lodge in Lurgan Sahib's house till it is time to go again to Nucklao.'

'I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub.'

'Thou dost not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee.

Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou must

forget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub

Ali, who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not know.

Remember this order.'

Kim nodded. 'Good,' said he, 'and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay'--he

caught Mahbub's sword-keen glance--'indeed I have never heard his name.

Is he by chance--he lowered his voice--'one of us?'

'What talk is this of us, Sahib?' Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone he

used towards Europeans. 'I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the son

of a Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops. All

Simla knows it. Ask there ... and, Friend of all the World, he is one

to be obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes. Men say he does magic,

but that should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here begins

the Great Game.'

Chapter 9

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!

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.

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

'I do not understand English,' was the answer, and Kim shifted his

speech accordingly.

'I 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

deodar-crowned 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 the 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 jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.

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

pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a fakir 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 Lurgan Sahib suddenly.

'Why should I fear?'

'Thou wilt sleep here tonight, 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. '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 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 khandas and kuttars gave back the

unsteady gleam. But what interested Kim more than all these things--he

had seen devil-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.

'I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid. And I am sure

that that 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.

'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 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