Kim

unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.

They ate together in great content, clearing the beggingbowl. Then the

lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd, fingered his

rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the shadow

of Zam-Zammah grew long.

Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively young

Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that they sell

to students of the Punjab University who copy English customs. Then he

smoked and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the gun, and the

outcome of his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in the

direction of Nila Ram's timber-yard.

The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun with

lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed clerks and subordinates

from the Government offices. He stared dizzily in all directions, but

none looked at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty turban and

Isabella-coloured clothes. Suddenly he bowed his head on his knees and

wailed.

'What is this?' said the boy, standing before him. 'Hast thou been

robbed?'

'It is my new chela [disciple] that is gone away from me, and I know

not where he is.'

'And what like of man was thy disciple?'

'It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of

the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there.'

He pointed towards the Museum. 'He came upon me to show me a road

which I had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by his talk

emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was

cheered and made strong. And when I was faint with hunger he begged

for me, as would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent.

Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have taught him the

Law upon the road to Benares.'

Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the

Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a

thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.

'But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I know that

I shall find a certain River for which I seek.'

'The River of the Arrow?' said Kim, with a superior smile.

'Is this yet another Sending?' cried the lama. 'To none have I spoken

of my search, save to the Priest of the Images. Who art thou?'

'Thy chela,' said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. 'I have never seen

anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to Benares.

And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to

chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.'

'But the River--the River of the Arrow?'

'Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I lay

against the door.'

The lama sighed. 'I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted. Such

things fall sometimes--but I am not worthy. Thou dost not, then, know

the River?'

'Not I,' Kim laughed uneasily. 'I go to look for--for a bull--a Red.

Bull on a green field who shall help me.' Boylike, if an acquaintance

had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his own; and, boylike, he

had really thought for as much as twenty minutes at a time of his

father's prophecy.

'To what, child?' said the lama.

'God knows, but so my father told me'. I heard thy talk in the Wonder

House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if one so old

and so little--so used to truth-telling--may go out for the small

matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must go a-travelling. If

it is our fate to find those things we shall find them--thou, thy

River; and I, my Bull, and the Strong Pillars and some other matters

that I forget.'

'It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,' said the

lama.

'That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king,' said Kim,

serenely prepared for anything.

'I will teach thee other and better desires upon the road,' the lama

replied in the voice of authority. 'Let us go to Benares.'

'Not by night. Thieves are abroad. Wait till the day.'

'But there is no place to sleep.' The old man was used to the order of

his monastery, and though he slept on the ground, as the Rule decrees,

preferred a decency in these things.

'We shall get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai,' said Kim, laughing at

his perplexity. 'I have a friend there. Come!'

The hot and crowded bazars blazed with light as they made their way

through the press of all the races in Upper India, and the lama mooned

through it like a man in a dream. It was his first experience of a

large manufacturing city, and the crowded tram-car with its continually

squealing brakes frightened him. Half pushed, half towed, he arrived

at the high gate of the Kashmir Serai: that huge open square over

against the railway station, surrounded with arched cloisters, where

the camel and horse caravans put up on their return from Central Asia.

Here were all manner of Northern folk, tending tethered ponies and

kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales and bundles; drawing water

for the evening meal at the creaking well-windlasses; piling grass

before the shrieking, wild-eyed stallions; cuffing the surly caravan

dogs; paying off camel-drivers; taking on new grooms; swearing,

shouting, arguing, and chaffering in the packed square. The cloisters,

reached by three or four masonry steps, made a haven of refuge around

this turbulent sea. Most of them were rented to traders, as we rent

the arches of a viaduct; the space between pillar and pillar being

bricked or boarded off into rooms, which were guarded by heavy wooden

doors and cumbrous native padlocks. Locked doors showed that the owner

was away, and a few rude--sometimes very rude--chalk or paint scratches

told where he had gone. Thus: 'Lutuf Ullah is gone to Kurdistan.'

Below, in coarse verse: 'O Allah, who sufferest lice to live on the

coat of a Kabuli, why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to live so

long?'

Kim, fending the lama between excited men and excited beasts, sidled

along the cloisters to the far end, nearest therailway station, where

Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader, lived when he came in from that

mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North.

Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life, especially

between his tenth and his thirteenth year--and the big burly Afghan,

his beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not wish

his grey hairs to show), knew the boy's value as a gossip. Sometimes

he would tell Kim to watch a man who had nothing whatever to do with

horses: to follow him for one whole day and report every soul with

whom he talked. Kim would deliver himself of his tale at evening, and

Mahbub would listen without a word or gesture. It was intrigue of some

kind, Kim knew; but its worth lay in saying nothing whatever to anyone

except Mahbub, who gave him beautiful meals all hot from the cookshop

at the head of the serai, and once as much as eight annas in money.

'He is here,' said Kim, hitting a bad-tempered camel on the nose. 'Ohe.

Mahbub Ali!' He halted at a dark arch and slipped behind the

bewildered lama.

The horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed, was

lying on a pair of silk carpet saddle-bags, pulling lazily at an

immense silver hookah. He turned his head very slightly at the cry;

and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in his deep chest.

'Allah! A lama! A Red Lama! It is far from Lahore to the Passes.

What dost thou do here?'