Kim

music. Kim was waked twice by someone calling his name. The second

time he set out in search, and ended by bruising his nose against a box

that certainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort of human

accent. It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to

a smaller box on the floor--so far, at least, as he could judge by

touch. And the voice, very hard and whirring, came out of the trumpet.

Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious, thinking, as usual, in Hindi.

'This with a beggar from the bazar might be good, but--I am a Sahib and

the son of a Sahib and, which is twice as much more beside, a student

of Nucklao. Yess' (here he turned to English), 'a boy of St Xavier's.

Damn Mr Lurgan's eyes!--It is some sort of machinery like a

sewing-machine. Oh, it is a great cheek of him--we are not frightened

that way at Lucknow--No!' Then in Hindi: 'But what does he gain? He

is only a trader--I am in his shop. But Creighton Sahib is a

Colonel--and I think Creighton Sahib gave orders that it should be

done. How I will beat that Hindu in the morning! What is this?'

The trumpet-box was pouring out a string of the most elaborate abuse

that even Kim had ever heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for a

moment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing drew

breath, Kim was reassured by the soft, sewing-machine-like whirr.

'Chup! [Be still]' he cried, and again he heard a chuckle that decided

him. 'Chup--or I break your head.'

The box took no heed. Kim wrenched at the tin trumpet and something

lifted with a click. He had evidently raised a lid. If there were a

devil inside, now was its time, for--he sniffed--thus did the

sewing-machines of the bazar smell. He would clean that shaitan. He

slipped off his jacket, and plunged it into the box's mouth. Something

long and round bent under the pressure, there was a whirr and the voice

stopped--as voices must if you ram a thrice-doubled coat on to the wax

cylinder and into the works of an expensive phonograph. Kim finished

his slumbers with a serene mind.

In the morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib looking down on him.

'Oah!' said Kim, firmly resolved to cling to his Sahib-dom. 'There

was a box in the night that gave me bad talk. So I stopped it. Was it

your box?'

The man held out his hand.

'Shake hands, O'Hara,' he said. 'Yes, it was my box. I keep such

things because my friends the Rajahs like them. That one is broken,

but it was cheap at the price. Yes, my friends, the Kings, are very

fond of toys--and so am I sometimes.'

Kim looked him over out of the corners of his eyes. He was a Sahib in

that he wore Sahib's clothes; the accent of his Urdu, the intonation of

his English, showed that he was anything but a Sahib. He seemed to

understand what moved in Kim's mind ere the boy opened his mouth, and

he took no pains to explain himself as did Father Victor or the Lucknow

masters. Sweetest of all--he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiatic

side.

'I am sorry you cannot beat my boy this morning. He says he will kill

you with a knife or poison. He is jealous, so I have put him in the

corner and I shall not speak to him today. He has just tried to kill

me. You must help me with the breakfast. He is almost too jealous to

trust, just now.'

Now a genuine imported Sahib from England would have made a great to-do

over this tale. Lurgan Sahib stated it as simply as Mahbub Ali was

used to record his little affairs in the North.

The back veranda of the shop was built out over the sheer hillside, and

they looked down into their neighbours' chimney-pots, as is the custom

of Simla. But even more than the purely Persian meal cooked by Lurgan

Sahib with his own hands, the shop fascinated Kim. The Lahore Museum

was larger, but here were more wonders--ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels

from Tibet; turquoise and raw amber necklaces; green jade bangles;

curiously packed incense-sticks in jars crusted over with raw garnets;

the devil-masks of overnight and a wall full of peacock-blue draperies;

gilt figures of Buddha, and little portable lacquer altars; Russian

samovars with turquoises on the lid; egg-shell china sets in quaint

octagonal cane boxes; yellow ivory crucifixes--from Japan of all places

in the world, so Lurgan Sahib said; carpets in dusty bales, smelling

atrociously, pushed back behind torn and rotten screens of geometrical

work; Persian water-jugs for the hands after meals; dull copper

incense-burners neither Chinese nor Persian, with friezes of fantastic

devils running round them; tarnished silver belts that knotted like raw

hide; hairpins of jade, ivory, and plasma; arms of all sorts and kinds,

and a thousand other oddments were cased, or piled, or merely thrown

into the room, leaving a clear space only round the rickety deal table,

where Lurgan Sahib worked.

'Those things are nothing,' said his host, following Kim's glance. 'I

buy them because they are pretty, and sometimes I sell--if I like the

buyer's look. My work is on the table--some of it.'

It blazed in the morning light--all red and blue and green flashes,

picked out with the vicious blue-white spurt of a diamond here and

there. Kim opened his eyes.

'Oh, they are quite well, those stones. It will not hurt them to take

the sun. Besides, they are cheap. But with sick stones it is very

different.' He piled Kim's plate anew. 'There is no one but me can

doctor a sick pearl and re-blue turquoises. I grant you opals--any

fool can cure an opal--but for a sick pearl there is only me. Suppose I

were to die! Then there would be no one ... Oh no! You cannot do

anything with jewels. It will be quite enough if you understand a

little about the Turquoise--some day.'

He moved to the end of the veranda to refill the heavy, porous clay

water-jug from the filter.

'Do you want drink?'

Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet off, laid one hand on the jar.

Next instant, it stood at Kim's elbow, full to within half an inch of

the brim--the white cloth only showing, by a small wrinkle, where it

had slid into place.

'Wah!' said Kim in most utter amazement. 'That is magic.' Lurgan

Sahib's smile showed that the compliment had gone home.

'Throw it back.'

'It will break.'

'I say, throw it back.'

Kim pitched it at random. It fell short and crashed into fifty pieces,

while the water dripped through the rough veranda boarding.

'I said it would break.'

'All one. Look at it. Look at the largest piece.'

That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve, as it were a star on the

floor. Kim looked intently. Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently on the

nape of his neck, stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered: 'Look! It

shall come to life again, piece by piece. First the big piece shall

join itself to two others on the right and the left--on the right and

the left. Look!'

To save his life, Kim could not have turned his head. The light touch

held him as in a vice, and his blood tingled pleasantly through him.

There was one large piece of the jar where there had been three, and

above them the shadowy outline of the entire vessel. He could see the

veranda through it, but it was thickening and darkening with each beat

of his pulse. Yet the jar--how slowly the thoughts came!--the jar had

been smashed before his eyes. Another wave of prickling fire raced down

his neck, as Lurgan Sahib moved his hand.

'Look! It is coming into shape,' said Lurgan Sahib.