Kim

Sahibs may have a medicine.'

'Oho! Then I know it,' said the Ao-chung man with a laugh. 'Not for

five years was I Yankling Sahib's shikarri without knowing that

medicine. I too have tasted it. Behold!'

He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap whisky--such as is sold to

explorers at Leh--and cleverly forced a little between the lama's teeth.

'So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor. Aha! I

have already looked into their baskets--but we will make fair division

at Shamlegh. Give him a little more. It is good medicine. Feel! His

heart goes better now. Lay his head down and rub a little on the

chest. If he had waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs this

would never have come. But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us here. Then

it would not be wrong to shoot them with their own guns, heh?'

'One is paid, I think, already,' said Kim between his teeth. 'I kicked

him in the groin as we went downhill. Would I had killed him!'

'It is well to be brave when one does not live in Rampur,' said one

whose hut lay within a few miles of the Rajah's rickety palace. 'If we

get a bad name among the Sahibs, none will employ us as shikarris any

more.'

'Oh, but these are not Angrezi Sahibs--not merry-minded men like Fostum

Sahib or Yankling Sahib. They are foreigners--they cannot speak

Angrezi as do Sahibs.'

Here the lama coughed and sat up, groping for the rosary.

'There shall be no killing,' he murmured. 'Just is the Wheel! Evil on

evil--'

'Nay, Holy One. We are all here.' The Ao-chung man timidly patted his

feet. 'Except by thy order, no one shall be slain. Rest awhile. We

will make a little camp here, and later, as the moon rises, we go to

Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.'

'After a blow,' said a Spiti man sententiously, 'it is best to sleep.'

'There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of my neck, and a

pinching in it. Let me lay my head on thy lap, chela. I am an old

man, but not free from passion ... We must think of the Cause of

Things.'

'Give him a blanket. We dare not light a fire lest the Sahibs see.'

'Better get away to Shamlegh. None will follow us to Shamlegh.'

This was the nervous Rampur man.

'I have been Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am Yankling Sahib's

shikarri. I should have been with Yankling Sahib now but for this

cursed beegar [the corvee]. Let two men watch below with the guns lest

the Sahibs do more foolishness. I shall not leave this Holy One.'

They sat down a little apart from the lama, and, after listening

awhile, passed round a water-pipe whose receiver was an old Day and

Martin blacking-bottle. The glow of the red charcoal as it went from

hand to hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the high Chinese

cheek-bones, and the bull-throats that melted away into the dark duffle

folds round the shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some magic

mine--gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while they talked, the

voices of the snow-waters round them diminished one by one as the

night-frost choked and clogged the runnels.

'How he stood up against us!' said a Spiti man admiring. 'I remember

an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a

shoulder-shot, seven seasons back, standing up just like him. Dupont

Sahib was a good shikarri.'

'Not as good as Yankling Sahib.' The Ao-chung man took a pull at the

whisky-bottle and passed it over. 'Now hear me--unless any other man

thinks he knows more.'

The challenge was not taken up.

'We go to Shamlegh when the moon rises. There we will fairly divide

the baggage between us. I am content with this new little rifle and

all its cartridges.'

'Are the bears only bad on thy holding? said a mate, sucking at the

pipe.

'No; but musk-pods are worth six rupees apiece now, and thy women can

have the canvas of the tents and some of the cooking-gear. We will do

all that at Shamlegh before dawn. Then we all go our ways, remembering

that we have never seen or taken service with these Sahibs, who may,

indeed, say that we have stolen their baggage.'

'That is well for thee, but what will our Rajah say?'

'Who is to tell him? Those Sahibs, who cannot speak our talk, or the

Babu, who for his own ends gave us money? Will he lead an army against

us? What evidence will remain? That we do not need we shall throw on

Shamlegh-midden, where no man has yet set foot.'

'Who is at Shamlegh this summer?' The place was only a grazing centre

of three or four huts.'

'The Woman of Shamlegh. She has no love for Sahibs, as we know. The

others can be pleased with little presents; and here is enough for us

all.' He patted the fat sides of the nearest basket.

'But--but--'

'I have said they are not true Sahibs. All their skins and heads were

bought in the bazar at Leh. I know the marks. I showed them to ye

last march.'

'True. They were all bought skins and heads. Some had even the moth

in them.'

That was a shrewd argument, and the Ao-chung man knew his fellows.

'If the worst comes to the worst, I shall tell Yankling Sahib, who is a

man of a merry mind, and he will laugh. We are not doing any wrong to

any Sahibs whom we know. They are priest-beaters. They frightened us.

We fled! Who knows where we dropped the baggage? Do ye think Yankling

Sahib will permit down-country police to wander all over the hills,

disturbing his game? It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and farther

from Shamlegh to Shamlegh-midden.'

'So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top that

the Sahibs pack themselves every morning.'

'Thus it is proved,' said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they are

Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling

Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights to shoot

serow--I say, who, ever heard of these Sahibs coming into the hills

without a down-country cook, and a bearer, and--and all manner of

well-paid, high-handed and oppressive folk in their tail? How can they

make trouble? What of the kilta?'

'Nothing, but that it is full of the Written Word--books and papers in

which they wrote, and strange instruments, as of worship.'

'Shamlegh-midden will take them all.'

'True! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods thereby! I do not like

to handle the Written Word in that fashion. And their brass idols are

beyond my comprehension. It is no plunder for simple hill-folk.'

'The old man still sleeps. Hst! We will ask his chela.' The Ao-chung

man refreshed himself, and swelled with pride of leadership.

'We have here,' he whispered, 'a kilta whose nature we do not know.'

'But I do,' said Kim cautiously. The lama drew breath in natural, easy

sleep, and Kim had been thinking of Hurree's last words. As a player

of the Great Game, he was disposed just then to reverence the Babu.

'It is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful things, not to be

handled by fools.'

'I said it; I said it,' cried the bearer of that burden. 'Thinkest

thou it will betray us?'

'Not if it be given to me. I can draw out its magic. Otherwise it

will do great harm.'

'A priest always takes his share.' Whisky was demoralizing the

Ao-chung man.

'It is no matter to me.' Kim answered, with the craft of his

mother-country. 'Share it among you, and see what comes!'

'Not I. I was only jesting. Give the order. There is more than enough

for us all. We go our way from Shamlegh in the dawn.'

They arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans for another