Kim

reach of a letter, it was to Mahbub's camp he headed, and made his

change under the Pathan's wary eye. Could the little Survey paint-box

that he used for map-tinting in term-time have found a tongue to tell

of holiday doings, he might have been expelled. Once Mahbub and he

went together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay, with three

truckloads of tram-horses, and Mahbub nearly melted when Kim proposed a

sail in a dhow across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs, which, he

understood from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul Rahman, fetched better

prices than mere Kabulis.

He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when Mahbub and

a few co-religionists were invited to a big Haj dinner. They came back

by way of Karachi by sea, when Kim took his first experience of

sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a coasting-steamer, well

persuaded he had been poisoned. The Babu's famous drug-box proved

useless, though Kim had restocked it at Bombay. Mahbub had business at

Quetta, and there Kim, as Mahbub admitted, earned his keep, and perhaps

a little over, by spending four curious days as scullion in the house

of a fat Commissariat sergeant, from whose office-box, in an auspicious

moment, he removed a little vellum ledger which he copied out--it

seemed to deal entirely with cattle and camel sales--by moonlight,

lying behind an outhouse, all through one hot night. Then he returned

the ledger to its place, and, at Mahbub's word, left that service

unpaid, rejoining him six miles down the road, the clean copy in his

bosom.

'That soldier is a small fish,' Mahbub Ali explained, 'but in time we

shall catch the larger one. He only sells oxen at two prices--one for

himself and one for the Government--which I do not think is a sin.'

'Why could not I take away the little book and be done with it?'

'Then he would have been frightened, and he would have told his master.

Then we should miss, perhaps, a great number of new rifles which seek

their way up from Quetta to the North. The Game is so large that one

sees but a little at a time.'

'Oho!' said Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon

holidays, after he had taken the prize for mathematics. The Christmas

holidays he spent--deducting ten days for private amusements--with

Lurgan Sahib, where he sat for the most part in front of a roaring

wood-fire--Jakko road was four feet deep in snow that year--and--the

small Hindu had gone away to be married--helped Lurgan to thread

pearls. He made Kim learn whole chapters of the Koran by heart, till

he could deliver them with the very roll and cadence of a mullah.

Moreover, he told Kim the names and properties of many native drugs, as

well as the runes proper to recite when you administer them. And in

the evenings he wrote charms on parchment--elaborate pentagrams crowned

with the names of devils--Murra, and Awan the Companion of Kings--all

fantastically written in the corners. More to the point, he advised

Kim as to the care of his own body, the cure of fever-fits, and simple

remedies of the Road. A week before it was time to go down, Colonel

Creighton Sahib--this was unfair--sent Kim a written examination paper

that concerned itself solely with rods and chains and links and angles.

Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the way, he nearly

died of thirst, plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious

city of Bikanir, where the wells are four hundred feet deep, and lined

throughout with camel-bone. It was not an amusing trip from Kim's

point of view, because--in defiance of the contract--the Colonel

ordered him to make a map of that wild, walled city; and since

Mohammedan horse-boys and pipe-tenders are not expected to drag

Survey-chains round the capital of an independent Native State, Kim was

forced to pace all his distances by means of a bead rosary. He used the

compass for bearings as occasion served--after dark chiefly, when the

camels had been fed--and by the help of his little Survey paint-box of

six colour-cakes and three brushes, he achieved something not remotely

unlike the city of Jeysulmir. Mahbub laughed a great deal, and advised

him to make up a written report as well; and in the back of the big

account-book that lay under the flap of Mahbub's pet saddle Kim fell to

work..

'It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or considered.

Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib himself had come by stealth with a

vast army outsetting to war.'

'How great an army?'

'Oh, half a lakh of men.'

'Folly! Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand. Not a

thousand thirsty men could come near by here.'

'Then write that down--also all the old breaches in the walls and

whence the firewood is cut--and what is the temper and disposition of

the King. I stay here till all my horses are sold. I will hire a room

by the gateway, and thou shalt be my accountant. There is a good lock

to the door.'

The report in its unmistakable St Xavier's running script, and the

brown, yellow, and lake-daubed map, was on hand a few years ago (a

careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E's second Seistan

survey), but by now the pencil characters must be almost illegible. Kim

translated it, sweating under the light of an oil-lamp, to Mahbub, the

second day of their return-journey.

The Pathan rose and stooped over his dappled saddle-bags.

'I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour, and so I made one ready,'

he said, smiling. 'Were I Amir of Afghanistan (and some day we may see

him), I would fill thy mouth with gold.' He laid the garments formally

at Kim's feet. There was a gold-embroidered Peshawur turban-cap,

rising to a cone, and a big turban-cloth ending in a broad fringe of

gold. There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milky

white shirt, fastening to the right, ample and flowing; green pyjamas

with twisted silk waist-string; and that nothing might be lacking,

russia-leather slippers, smelling divinely, with arrogantly curled tips.

'Upon a Wednesday, and in the morning, to put on new clothes is

auspicious,' said Mahbub solemnly. 'But we must not forget the wicked

folk in the world. So!'

He capped all the splendour, that was taking Kim's delighted breath

away, with a mother-of-pearl, nickel-plated, self-extracting .450

revolver.

'I had thought of a smaller bore, but reflected that this takes

Government bullets. A man can always come by those--especially across

the Border. Stand up and let me look.' He clapped Kim on the

shoulder. 'May you never be tired, Pathan! Oh, the hearts to be

broken! Oh, the eyes under the eyelashes, looking sideways!'

Kim turned about, pointed his toes, stretched, and felt mechanically

for the moustache that was just beginning. Then he stooped towards

Mahbub's feet to make proper acknowledgment with fluttering,

quick-patting hands; his heart too full for words. Mahbub forestalled

and embraced him.

'My son, said he, 'what need of words between us? But is not the

little gun a delight? All six cartridges come out at one twist. It is

borne in the bosom next the skin, which, as it were, keeps it oiled.

Never put it elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt some day kill a man

with it.'

'Hai mai!' said Kim ruefully. 'If a Sahib kills a man he is hanged in

the jail.'

'True: but one pace beyond the Border, men are wiser. Put it away;

but fill it first. Of what use is a gun unfed?'

'When I go back to the madrissah I must return it. They do not allow