Kim

observation, most reprehensible laxity on your part." And Colonel

Creighton, he laughed at me! It is all your beastly English pride.

You think no one dare conspire! That is all tommy-rott.'

Kim smoked slowly, revolving the business, so far as he understood it,

in his quick mind.

'Then thou goest forth to follow the strangers?'

'No. To meet them. They are coming in to Simla to send down their

horns and heads to be dressed at Calcutta. They are exclusively

sporting gentlemen, and they are allowed special faceelities by the

Government. Of course, we always do that. It is our British pride.'

'Then what is to fear from them?'

'By Jove, they are not black people. I can do all sorts of things with

black people, of course. They are Russians, and highly unscrupulous

people. I--I do not want to consort with them without a witness.'

'Will they kill thee?'

'Oah, thatt is nothing. I am good enough Herbert Spencerian, I trust,

to meet little thing like death, which is all in my fate, you know.

But--but they may beat me.'

'Why?'

Hurree Babu snapped his fingers with irritation. 'Of course I shall

affeeliate myself to their camp in supernumerary capacity as perhaps

interpreter, or person mentally impotent and hungree, or some such

thing. And then I must pick up what I can, I suppose. That is as easy

for me as playing Mister Doctor to the old lady. Onlee--onlee--you

see, Mister O'Hara, I am unfortunately Asiatic, which is serious

detriment in some respects. And all-so I am Bengali--a fearful man.'

'God made the Hare and the Bengali. What shame?' said Kim, quoting

the proverb.

'It was process of Evolution, I think, from Primal Necessity, but the

fact remains in all the cui bono. I am, oh, awfully fearful!--I

remember once they wanted to cut off my head on the road to Lhassa.

(No, I have never reached to Lhassa.) I sat down and cried, Mister

O'Hara, anticipating Chinese tortures. I do not suppose these two

gentlemen will torture me, but I like to provide for possible

contingency with European assistance in emergency.' He coughed and

spat out the cardamoms. 'It is purely unoffeecial indent, to which you

can say "No, Babu". If you have no pressing engagement with your old

man--perhaps you might divert him; perhaps I can seduce his fancies--I

should like you to keep in Departmental touch with me till I find those

sporting coves. I have great opeenion of you since I met my friend at

Delhi. And also I will embody your name in my offeecial report when

matter is finally adjudicated. It will be a great feather in your cap.

That is why I come really.'

'Humph! The end of the tale, I think, is true; but what of the

fore-part?'

'About the Five Kings? Oah! there is ever so much truth in it. A

lots more than you would suppose,' said Hurree earnestly. 'You

come--eh? I go from here straight into the Doon. It is verree verdant

and painted meads. I shall go to Mussoorie to good old Munsoorie

Pahar, as the gentlemen and ladies say. Then by Rampur into Chini.

That is the only way they can come. I do not like waiting in the cold,

but we must wait for them. I want to walk with them to Simla. You see,

one Russian is a Frenchman, and I know my French pretty well. I have

friends in Chandernagore.'

'He would certainly rejoice to see the Hills again,' said Kim

meditatively. 'All his speech these ten days past has been of little

else. If we go together--'

'Oah! We can be quite strangers on the road, if your lama prefers. I

shall just be four or five miles ahead. There is no hurry for

Hurree--that is an Europe pun, ha! ha!--and you come after. There is

plenty of time; they will plot and survey and map, of course. I shall

go tomorrow, and you the next day, if you choose. Eh? You go think on

it till morning. By Jove, it is near morning now.' He yawned

ponderously, and with never a civil word lumbered off to his

sleeping-place. But Kim slept little, and his thoughts ran in

Hindustani:

'Well is the Game called great! I was four days a scullion at Quetta,

waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole. And that was part

of the Great Game! From the South--God knows how far--came up the

Mahratta, playing the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I shall go

far and far into the North playing the Great Game. Truly, it runs like

a shuttle throughout all Hind. And my share and my joy'--he smiled to

the darkness--'I owe to the lama here. Also to Mahbub Ali--also to

Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy One. He is right--a great and

a wonderful world--and I am Kim--Kim--Kim--alone--one person--in the

middle of it all. But I will see these strangers with their levels and

chains...'

'What was the upshot of last night's babble?' said the lama, after his

orisons.

'There came a strolling seller of drugs--a hanger-on of the Sahiba's.

Him I abolished by arguments and prayers, proving that our charms are

worthier than his coloured waters.'

'Alas, my charms! Is the virtuous woman still bent upon a new one?'

'Very strictly.'

'Then it must be written, or she will deafen me with her clamour.' He

fumbled at his pencase.

'In the Plains,' said Kim, 'are always too many people. In the Hills,

as I understand, there are fewer.'

'Oh! the Hills, and the snows upon the Hills.' The lami tore off a

tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet. 'But what dost thou know

of the Hills?'

'They are very close.' Kim thrust open the door and looked at the

long, peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in morning-gold. 'Except

in the dress of a Sahib, I have never set foot among them.'

The lama snuffed the wind wistfully.

'If we go North,'--Kim put the question to the waking sunrise--'would

not much mid-day heat be avoided by walking among the lower hills at

least? ... Is the charm made, Holy One?'

'I have written the names of seven silly devils--not one of whom is

worth a grain of dust in the eye. Thus do foolish women drag us from

the Way!'

Hurree Babu came out from behind the dovecote washing his teeth with

ostentatious ritual. Full-fleshed, heavy-haunched, bull-necked, and

deep-voiced, he did not look like 'a fearful man'. Kim signed almost

imperceptibly that matters were in good train, and when the morning

toilet was over, Hurree Babu, in flowery speech, came to do honour to

the lama. They ate, of course, apart, and afterwards the old lady,

more or less veiled behind a window, returned to the vital business of

green-mango colics in the young. The lama's knowledge of medicine was,

of course, sympathetic only. He believed that the dung of a black

horse, mixed with sulphur, and carried in a snake-skin, was a sound

remedy for cholera; but the symbolism interested him far more than the

science. Hurree Babu deferred to these views with enchanting

politeness, so that the lama called him a courteous physician. Hurree

Babu replied that he was no more than an inexpert dabbler in the

mysteries; but at least--he thanked the Gods therefore--he knew when he

sat in the presence of a master. He himself had been taught by the

Sahibs, who do not consider expense, in the lordly halls of Calcutta;

but, as he was ever first to acknowledge, there lay a wisdom behind

earthly wisdom--the high and lonely lore of meditation. Kim looked on

with envy. The Hurree Babu of his knowledge--oily, effusive, and

nervous--was gone; gone, too, was the brazen drug-vendor of overnight.

There remained--polished, polite, attentive--a sober, learned son of