'Who hath desired the Sea--the sight of salt-water unbounded?
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber
wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm--gray, foamless, enormous,
and growing?
Stark calm on the lap of the Line--or the crazy-eyed hurricane
blowing?
His Sea in no showing the same--his Sea and the same 'neath all
showing--
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise--so and no otherwise Hill-men desire their
Hills!'
'I HAVE found my heart again,' said E.23, under cover of the platform's
tumult. 'Hunger and fear make men dazed, or I might have thought of this
escape before. I was right. They come to hunt for me. Thou hast saved my
head.'
A group of yellow-trousered Punjab policemen, headed by a hot and
perspiring young Englishman, parted the crowd about the carriages.
Behind them, inconspicuous as a cat, ambled a small fat person who
looked like a lawyer's tout.
'See the young Sahib reading from a paper. My description is in his
hand,' said E.23. 'They go carriage by carriage, like fisher-folk
netting a pool.'
When the procession reached their compartment, E.23 was counting his
beads with a steady jerk of the wrist; while Kim jeered at him for being
so drugged as to have lost the ringed fire-tongs which are the Saddhu's
distinguishing mark. The lama, deep in meditation, stared straight
before him; and the farmer, glancing furtively, gathered up his
belongings.
'Nothing here but a parcel of holy-bolies,' said the Englishman aloud,
and passed on amid a ripple of uneasiness; for native police mean
extortion to the native all India over.
'The trouble now,' whispered E.23, 'lies in sending a wire as to the
place where I hid that letter I was sent to find. I cannot go to the
tar-office in this guise.'
'Is it not enough I have saved thy neck?'
'Not if the work be left unfinished. Did never the healer of sick pearls
tell thee so? Comes another Sahib! Ah!'
This was a tallish, sallowish District Superintendent of Police,--belt,
helmet, polished spurs and all,--strutting and twirling his dark
moustache.
'What fools are these Police Sahibs!' said Kim genially.
E.23 glanced up under his eyelids. 'It is well said,' he muttered in a
changed voice. 'I go to drink water. Keep my place.'
He blundered out almost into the Englishman's arms, and was bad-worded
in clumsy Urdu.
'Tum-mut? You drunk? You mustn't bang about as though Delhi station
belonged to you, my friend.'
E.23, not moving a muscle of his countenance, answered with a stream of
the filthiest abuse, at which Kim naturally rejoiced. It reminded him of
the drummer-boys and the barrack-sweepers at Umballa in the terrible
time of his first schooling.
'My good fool,' the Englishman drawled. 'Nickle-jao! Go back to your
carriage.'
Step by step, withdrawing deferentially, and dropping his voice, the
yellow Saddhu clomb back to the carriage, cursing the D. S. P. to
remotest posterity by--here Kim almost jumped--by the curse of the
Queen's Stone, by the writing under the Queen's Stone, and by an
assortment of Gods with wholly new names.
'I don't know what you're saying,'--the Englishman flushed
angrily,--'but it's some piece of blasted impertinence. Come out of
that!'
E.23, affecting to misunderstand, gravely produced his ticket, which the
Englishman wrenched angrily from his hand.
'Oh zoolum! What oppression!' growled the Jat from his corner. 'All for
the sake of a jest too.' He had been grinning at the freedom of the
Saddhu's tongue. 'Thy charms do not work well to-day, Holy One!'
The Saddhu followed the policeman, fawning and supplicating. The ruck of
passengers, busy with their babies and their bundles, had not noticed
the affair. Kim slipped out behind him; for it flashed through his head
that he had heard this angry, stupid Sahib discoursing loud
personalities to an old lady near Umballa three years ago.
'It is well,' the Saddhu whispered, jammed in the calling, shouting,
bewildered press--a Persian greyhound between his feet and a cadgeful of
yelling hawks under charge of a Rajput falconer in the small of his
back. 'He has gone now to send word of the letter which I hid. They told
me he was in Peshawur. I might have known that he is like the
crocodile--always at the other ford. He has saved me from present
calamity, but I owe my life to thee.'
'Is he also one of Us?' Kim ducked under a Mewar camel-driver's greasy
armpit and cannoned off a covey of jabbering Sikh matrons.
'Not less than the greatest. We are both fortunate! I will make report
to him of what thou hast done. I am safe under his protection.'
He bored through the edge of the crowd besieging the carriages, and
squatted by the bench near the telegraph-office.
'Return, or they take thy place! Have no fear for the work, brother--or
my life. Thou hast given me breathing-space, and Strickland Sahib has
pulled me to land. We may work together at the Game yet. Farewell!'
Kim hurried to his carriage: elated, bewildered, but a little nettled in
that he had no key to the secrets about him.
'I am only a beginner at the Game, that is sure. I could not have leaped
into safety as did the Saddhu. He knew it was darkest under the lamp. I
could not have thought to tell news under pretence of cursing . . . and
how clever was the Sahib! No matter, I saved the life of one. . . . Where
is the Kamboh gone, Holy One?' he whispered, as he took his seat in the
now crowded compartment.
'A fear gripped him,' the lama replied, with a touch of tender malice.
'He saw thee change the Mahratta to a Saddhu in the twinkling of an
eye, as a protection against evil. That shook him. Then he saw the
Saddhu fall sheer into the hands of the polis--all the effect of thy
art. Then he gathered up his son and fled; for he said that thou didst
change a quiet trader into an impudent bandier of words with the Sahibs,
and he feared a like fate. Where is the Saddhu?'
'With the polis,' said Kim. . . . 'Yet I saved the Kamboh's child.'
The lama snuffed blandly.
'Ah, chela, see how thou art overtaken! Thou didst cure the Kamboh's
child solely to acquire merit. But thou didst put a spell on the
Mahratta with prideful workings--I watched thee--and with side-long
glances to bewilder an old old man and a foolish farmer: whence calamity
and suspicion.'
Kim controlled himself with an effort beyond his years. Not more than
any other youngster did he like to eat dirt or to be misjudged, but he
saw himself in a cleft stick. The train rolled out of Delhi into the
night.
'It is true,' he murmured. 'Where I have offended thee I have done
wrong.'
'It is more, chela. Thou hast loosed an Act upon the world, and as a
stone thrown into a pool so spread the consequences thou canst not tell
how far.'
This ignorance was well both for Kim's vanity and for the lama's peace
of mind, when we think that there was then being handed in at Simla a
code-wire reporting the arrival of E.23 at Delhi, and, more important,
the whereabouts of a letter he had been commissioned to--abstract.
Incidentally, an over-zealous policeman had arrested, on charge of
murder done in a far southern State, a horribly indignant Ajmir
cotton-broker, who was explaining himself to a Mr. Strickland on Delhi
platform, while E.23 was paddling through by-ways into the locked heart
of Delhi city. In two hours several telegrams had reached the angry
minister of a southern State reporting that all trace of a somewhat
bruised Mahratta had been lost; and by the time the leisurely train
halted at Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim had helped to
heave was lapping against the steps of a mosque in far-away Roum--where
it disturbed a pious man at prayers.
The lama made his in ample form near the dewy bougainvillea-trellis near
the platform, cheered by the clear sunshine and the presence of his
disciple. 'We will put these things behind us,' he said, indicating the
brazen engine and the gleaming track. 'The jolting of the
te-rain--though a wonderful thing--has turned my bones to water. We will
use clean air henceforward.'
'Let us go to the Kulu woman's house,' said Kim, and stepped forth
cheerily under the bundles. Early morning Saharunpore-way is clean and
well scented. He thought of the other mornings at St. Xavier's, and it
topped his already thrice-heaped contentment.
'Where is this new haste born from? Wise men do not run about like
chickens in the sun. We have come hundreds upon hundreds of kos already,
and, till now, I have scarcely been alone with thee an instant. How
canst thou receive instruction all jostled of crowds? How can I, whelmed
by a flux of talk, meditate upon the Way?'
'Her tongue grows no shorter with the years, then?' The disciple smiled.
'Nor her desire for charms. I remember once when I spoke of the Wheel of
Life'--the lama fumbled in his bosom for his latest copy--'she was only
curious about the devils that besiege children. She shall acquire merit
by entertaining us--in a little while--at an after-occasion--softly,
softly. Now we will wander loose-foot, waiting upon the Chain of Things.
The Search is sure.'
So they travelled very easily across and among the broad bloomful
fruit-gardens--by way of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and
little Phulesa--the line of the Sewaliks always to the north, and behind
them again the snows. After long, sweet sleep under the dry stars came
the lordly, leisurely passage through a waking village--begging-bowl
held forth in silence, but eyes roving in defiance of the Law from sky's
edge to sky's edge. Then would Kim return soft-footed through the soft
dust to his master under the shadow of a mango tree or the thinner shade
of a white Doon siris, to eat and drink at ease. At mid-day, after talk
and a little wayfaring, they slept; meeting the world refreshed when the
air was cooler. Night found them adventuring into new territory--some
chosen village spied three hours before across the fat land, and much
discussed upon the road.
There they told their tale,--a new one each evening so far as Kim was
concerned,--and there were they made welcome, either by priest or
headman, after the custom of the kindly East.
When the shadows shortened and the lama leaned more heavily upon Kim,
there was always the Wheel of Life to draw forth, to hold flat under
wiped stones, and with a long straw to expound cycle by cycle. Here sat
the Gods on high--and they were dreams of dreams. Here was our Heaven
and the world of the demi-Gods--horsemen fighting among the hills. Here
were the agonies done upon the beasts, souls ascending or descending
the ladder and therefore not to be interfered with. Here were the Hells,
hot and cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts. Let the chela study
the troubles that come from over-eating--bloated stomach and burning
bowels. Obediently then, with bowed head and brown finger alert to
follow the pointer, did the chela study; but when they came to the Human
World, busy and profitless, that is just above the Hells, his mind was
distracted; for by the roadside trundled the very Wheel itself, eating,
drinking, trading, marrying, and quarrelling--all warmly alive. Often
the lama made the living pictures the matter of his text, bidding,
Kim--too ready--note how the flesh takes a thousand thousand shapes,
desirable or detestable as men reckon; but in truth of no account either
way; and how the stupid spirit, bond-slave to the Hog, the Dove, and the
Serpent--lusting after betel-nut, a new yoke of oxen, women, or the
favour of kings--is bound to follow the body through all the Heavens and
all the Hells, and strictly round again. Sometimes a woman or a poor
man, watching the ritual--it was nothing less--when the great yellow
chart was unfolded, would throw a few flowers or a handful of cowries
upon its edge. It sufficed these humble ones that they had met a Holy
One who might be moved to remember them in his prayers.
'Cure them if they are sick,' said the lama, when Kim's sporting
instincts woke. 'Cure them if they have fever, but by no means work
charms. Remember what befell the Mahratta.'
'Then all Doing is evil?' Kim replied, lying out under a big tree at the
fork of the Doon road, watching the little ants run over his hand.
'To abstain from action is well--except to acquire merit.'
'At the Gates of Learning we were taught that to abstain from action was
unbefitting a Sahib. And I am a Sahib.'
'Friend of all the World,'--the lama looked directly at Kim,--'I am an
old man--pleased with shows as are children. To those who follow the Way
there is neither black nor white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. We be all souls
seeking escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we
come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion--at my side. Hai!
my bones ache for that River, as they ached in the te-rain; but my
spirit sits above my bones, waiting. The Search is sure!'
'I am answered. Is it permitted to ask a question?'
The lama inclined his stately head.
'I ate thy bread for three years--as thou knowest. Holy One, whence
came--?'
'There is much wealth, as men count it, in Bhotiyal,' the lama returned
with composure. 'In my own place I have the illusion of honour. I ask
for that I need. I am not concerned with the account. That is for my
monastery. Ai! The black high seats in the monastery, and the novices
all in order!'
And he told stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the immense
and sumptuous ritual of avalanche-guarded cathedrals; of processions and
devil-dances; of the changing of monks and nuns into swine; of holy
cities fifteen thousand feet in the air; of intrigue between monastery
and monastery; of voices among the hills, and of that mysterious mirage
that dances on dry snow. He spoke even of Lhassa and of the Dalai Lama,
whom he had seen and adored.
Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him off from
his race and his mother-tongue. He slipped back to thinking and dreaming
in the vernacular, and mechanically followed the lama's ceremonial
observances at eating, drinking, and the like. The old man's mind turned
more and more to his monastery as his eyes turned to the steadfast
snows. His River troubled him nothing. Now and again, indeed, he would
gaze long and long at a tuft or a twig, expecting, he said, the earth to
cleave and deliver its blessing; but he was content to be with his
disciple, at ease in the temperate wind that comes down from the Doon.
This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya, nor Bombay, nor some grass-tangled
ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago. He spoke of
those places as a scholar removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in
humility, as an old man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge with
brilliant insight. Bit by bit, disconnectedly, each tale called up by
some wayside thing, he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind;
till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good
reasons. So they enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the
Rule demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not
lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomachs told them
the time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is. They
were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford,
and little Phulesa, where Kim gave the soulless woman a blessing.
But news travels fast in India, and too soon shuffled across the
crop-land, bearing a basket of fruits with a box of Cabul grapes and
gilt oranges, a white-whiskered servitor--a lean, dry Oorya--begging
them to bring the honour of their presence to his mistress, distressed
in her mind that the lama had neglected her so long.
'Now do I remember'--the lama spoke as though it were a wholly new
proposition. 'She is virtuous, but an inordinate talker.'
Kim was sitting on the edge of a cow's manger, telling stories to a
village smith's children.
'She will only ask for another son for her daughter. I have not
forgotten her,' he said. 'Let her acquire merit. Send word that we will
come.'
They covered eleven miles through the fields in two days, and were
overwhelmed with attentions at the end; for the old lady held a fine
tradition of hospitality; to which she forced her son-in-law, who was
under the thumb of his women-folk and bought peace by borrowing of the
money-lender. Age had not weakened her tongue or her memory, and from a
discreetly barred upper window, in the hearing of not less than a dozen
servants, she paid Kim compliments that would have flung European
audiences into unclean dismay.
'But thou art still the shameless beggar-brat of the parao,' she
shrilled. 'I have not forgotten thee. Wash ye and eat. The father of my
daughter's son is gone away awhile. So we poor women are dumb and
useless.'
For proof, she harangued the entire household unsparingly till food and
drink were brought; and in the evening--the smoke-scented evening,
copper-dun and turquoise across the fields--it pleased her to order her
palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by smoky torch-light;
and there, behind not too closely drawn curtains, she gossiped.
'Had the Holy One come alone, I should have received him otherwise; but
with this rogue, who can be too careful?'
'Maharanee,' said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, 'is it my
fault that none other than a Sahib--a polis-sahib--called the Maharanee
whose face he--'
'Chitt! That was on the pilgrimage. When we travel--thou knowest the
proverb.'
'Called the Maharanee a Breaker of Hearts and a Dispenser of Delights?'
'To remember that! It was true. So he did. That was in the time of the
bloom of my beauty.' She chuckled like a contented parrot above the
sugar lump. 'Now tell me of thy goings and comings--as much as may be
without shame. How many maids, and whose wives, hang upon thy eyelashes?
Ye hail from Benares? I would have gone there again this year, but my
daughter--we have only two sons. Phaii! Such is the effect of these low
plains. Now in Kulu men are elephants. But I would ask thy Holy
One--stand aside, rogue--a charm against most lamentable windy colics
that in mango-time overtake my daughter's eldest. Two years back he gave
me a powerful spell.'
'Oh, Holy One!' said Kim, bubbling with mirth at the lama's rueful face.
'It is true. I gave her one against wind.'
'Teeth--teeth--teeth,' snapped the old woman.
'Cure them when they are sick,' Kim quoted relishingly, 'but by no means
work charms. Remember what befell the Mahratta.'
'That was two Rains ago; she wearied me with her continual importunity.'
The lama groaned as the Unjust Judge had groaned before him. 'Thus it
comes--take note, my chela--that even those who would follow the Way
are thrust aside by idle women. Three days through, when the child was
sick, she talked to me.'
'Arre! and to whom else should I talk? The boy's mother knew nothing,
and the father--in the nights of the cold weather it was--"Pray to the
Gods," said he, forsooth, and turning over, snored!'
'I gave her the charm. What is an old man to do?'
'"To abstain from action is well--except when we acquire merit."'
'Ah, chela, if thou desertest me, I am all alone.'
'He found his milk-teeth easily at any rate,' said the old lady. 'But
all priests are alike.'
Kim coughed severely. Being young, he did not approve of her flippancy.
'To importune the wise out of season is to invite calamity.'
'There is a talking mynah'--the thrust came back with the
well-remembered snap of the jewelled forefinger--'over the stables which
has picked up the very tone of the family-priest. Maybe I forget honour
to my guests, but if ye had seen him double his fists into his belly,
which was like a half-grown gourd, and cry: "Here is the pain!" ye would
forgive. I am half minded to take the hakim's medicine. He sells it
cheap, and certainly it makes him fat as Shiv's own bull. He does not
deny remedies, but I doubted for the child because of the inauspicious
colour of the bottles.'
The lama, under cover of the monologue, had faded out into the darkness
towards the room prepared.
'Thou hast angered him, belike,' said Kim.
'Not he. He is wearied, and I forgot, being a grandmother. (None but a
grandmother should ever oversee a child. Mothers are only fit for
bearing.) To-morrow, when he sees how my daughter's son is grown, he
will write the charm. Then, too, he can judge of the new hakim's
drugs.'
'Who is the hakim, Maharanee?'
'A wanderer, as thou art, but a most sober Bengali from Dacca--a master
of medicine. He relieved me of an oppression after meat by means of a
small pill that wrought like a devil unchained. He travels about now,
vending preparations of great value. He has even papers, printed in
Angrezi, telling what things he has done for weak-backed men and slack
women. He has been here four days; but hearing ye were coming (hakims
and priests are snake and tiger the world over) he has, as I take it,
gone to cover.'
While she drew breath after this volley, the ancient servant, sitting
unrebuked on the edge of the torch-light, muttered: 'This house is a
cattle-pound, as it were, for all charlatans and--priests. Let the boy
stop eating mangoes . . . but who can argue with a grandmother?' He
raised his voice respectfully: 'Sahiba, the hakim sleeps after his meat.
He is in the quarters behind the dovecot.'
Kim bristled like an expectant terrier. To outface and down-talk a
Calcutta-taught Bengali, a voluble Dacca drug-vendor, would be a good
game. It was not seemly that the lama, and incidentally himself, should
be thrown aside for such an one. He knew those curious bastard English
advertisements at the backs of native newspapers. St. Xavier's boys
sometimes brought them in by stealth to snigger over among their mates;
for the language of the grateful patient recounting his symptoms is most
simple and revealing. The Oorya, not unanxious to play off one parasite
against the other, slunk away towards the dovecot.
'Yes,' said Kim, with measured scorn. 'Their stock-in-trade is a little
coloured water and a very great shamelessness. Their prey are
broken-down kings and overfed Bengalis. Their profit is in children--who
are not born.'
The old lady chuckled. 'Do not be envious. Charms are better, eh? I
never gainsaid it. See that thy Holy One writes me a good amulet by the
morning.'
'None but the ignorant deny'--a thick, heavy voice boomed through the
darkness, as a figure came to rest squatting--'None but the ignorant
deny the value of charms. None but the ignorant deny the value of
medicines.'
'A rat found a piece of turmeric. Said he: "I will open a grocer's
shop,"' Kim retorted.
Battle was fairly joined now, and they heard the old lady stiffen to
attention.
'The priest's son knows the names of his nurse and three Gods. Says he:
"Hear me, or I will curse you by the three million Great Ones."'
Decidedly this invisible had an arrow or two in his quiver. He went on:
'I am but a teacher of the alphabet. I have learned all the wisdom of
the Sahibs.'
'The Sahibs never grow old. They dance and they play like children when
they are grandfathers. A strong-backed breed,' piped the voice inside
the palanquin.
'I have, too, our drugs which loosen humours of the head in hot and
angry men. Sina well compounded when the moon stands in the proper
House; yellow earths I have--arplan from China that makes a man to renew
his youth and astonish his household; saffron from Kashmir, and the best
salep of Cabul. Many people have died before--'
'That I surely believe,' said Kim.
'They knew the value of my drugs. I do not give my sick the mere ink in
which a charm is written, but hot and rending drugs which descend and
wrestle with the evil.'
'Very mightily they do so,' sighed the old lady.
The voice launched into an immense tale of misfortune and bankruptcy,
studded with plentiful petitions to the Government. 'But for my fate,
which overrules all, I had been now in Government employ. I bear a
degree from the great school at Calcutta--whither, maybe, the son of
this house shall go.'
'He shall indeed. If our neighbour's brat can in a few years be made an
F. A.' (First Arts--she used the English word, of which she had heard so
often), 'how much more shall children clever as some that I know bear
away prizes at rich Calcutta.'
'Never,' said the voice, 'have I seen such a child! Born in an
auspicious hour, and--but for that colic which, alas! turning into black
cholers, may carry him off like a pigeon--destined to many years, he is
enviable.'
'Hai mai!' said the old lady. 'To praise children is inauspicious, or I
could listen to this talk. But the back of the house is unguarded, and
even in this soft air men think themselves to be men and women we
know. . . . The child's father is away too, and I must be chowkedar
(watchman) in my old age. Up! Up! Take up the palanquin. Let the hakim
and the young priest settle between them whether charms or medicine most
avail. Ho! worthless people, fetch tobacco for the guests, and--round
the homestead go I!'
The palanquin reeled off, followed by straggling torches and a horde of
dogs. Twenty villages knew the Sahiba--her failings, her tongue, and
her large charity. Twenty villages cheated her after immemorial custom,
but no man would have stolen or robbed within her jurisdiction for any
gift under Heaven. None the less, she made great parade of her formal
inspections, the riot of which could be heard half-way to Mussoorie.
Kim relaxed, as one augur must when he meets another. The hakim, still
squatting, slid over his hookah with a friendly foot, and Kim pulled at
the good weed. The hangers-on expected grave professional debate, and
perhaps a little free doctoring.
'To discuss medicine before the ignorant is of one piece with teaching
the peacock to sing,' said the hakim.
'True courtesy,' Kim echoed, 'is very often inattention.'
These, be it understood, were company-manners, designed to impress.
'Hi! I have an ulcer on my leg,' cried a scullion. 'Look at it!'
'Get hence! Remove!' said the hakim. 'Is it the habit of the place to
pester honoured guests? Ye crowd in like buffaloes.'
'If the Sahiba knew--' Kim began.
'Ai! Ai! Come away. They are meat for our mistress. When her young
Shaitan's colics are cured perhaps we poor people may be suffered to--'
'The mistress fed thy wife when thou wast in jail for breaking the
money-lender's head. Who speaks against her?' The old servitor curled
his white moustaches savagely in the young moonlight. 'I am responsible
for the honour of this house. Go!' and he drove the underlings before
him.
Said the hakim, hardly more than shaping the words with his lips: 'How
do you do, Mr. O'Hara? I am jolly glad to see you again.'
Kim's hand clenched about the pipe-stem. Anywhere on the open road,
perhaps, he would not have been astonished; but here, in this quiet
backwater of life, he was not prepared for Hurree Babu. It annoyed him,
too, that he had been hoodwinked.
'Ah ha! I told you at Lucknow--resurgam--I shall rise again and you
shall not know me. How much did you bet--eh?'
He chewed leisurely upon a few cardamom seeds, but he breathed uneasily.
'But why come here, Babuji?'
'Ah! Thatt is the question, as Shakespeare hath said. I come to
congratulate you on your extraordinary effeecient performance at Delhi.
Oah! I tell you we are all proud of you. It was verree neat and handy.
Our mutual friend, he is old friend of mine. He has been in some
dam-tight places. Now he will be in some more. He told me; I tell Mr.
Lurgan; and he is pleased you graduate so nicely. All the Department is
pleased.'
For the first time in his life, Kim thrilled to the clean pride (it can
be a deadly pitfall, none the less) of Departmental praise--ensnaring
praise from an equal of work appreciated by fellow-workers. Earth has
nothing on the same plane to compare with it. But, cried the Oriental in
him, Babus do not travel far to retail compliments.
'Tell thy tale, Babu,' he said authoritatively.
'Oah, it is nothing. Onlee I was at Simla when the wire came in about
what our mutual friend said he had hidden, and old Creighton--' He
looked to see how Kim would take this piece of audacity.
'The Colonel Sahib,' the boy from St. Xavier's corrected.
'Of course. He found me at a loose string, and I had to go down to
Chitor to find that beastly letter. I do not like the South--too much
railway travel; but I drew good travelling allowance. Ha! Ha! I meet our
mutual at Delhi on the way back. He lies quiett just now, and says
Saddhu-disguise suits him to the ground. Well, there I hear what you
have done so well, so quickly, upon the instantaneous spur of the
moment. I tell our mutual friend you take the bally bun, by Jove! It was
splendid. I come to tell you so.'
'Umm!'
The frogs were busy in the ditches, and the moon slid to her setting.
Some happy servant had gone out to commune with the night and to beat
upon a drum Kim's next sentence was in the vernacular.
'How didst thou follow us?'
'Oah. Thatt was nothing. I know from our mutual friend you go to
Saharunpore. So I come on. Red lamas are not inconspicuous persons. I
buy myself my drug-box, and I am very good doctor really. I go to Akrola
by the Ford, and hear all about you, and I talk here and talk there. All
the common people know what you do. I know when the hospitable old lady
sent the dooli. They have great recollections of the old lama's visits
here. I know old ladies cannot keep their hands from medicines. So I am
a doctor, and--you hear my talk? I think it is verree good. My word,
Mister O'Hara, they know about you and the lama for fifty miles--the
common people. So I come. Do you mind?'
'Babuji,' said Kim, looking up at the broad, grinning face, 'I am a
Sahib.'
'My dear Mister O'Hara--'
'And I hope to play the Great Game.'
'You are subordinate to me departmentally at present.'
'Then why talk like an ape up in a tree? Men do not come after one from
Simla and change their dress, for the sake of a few sweet words. I am
not a child. Talk Hindi and let us get to the yolk of the egg. Thou art
here--speaking not one word of truth in ten. Why art thou here? Give a
straight answer.'
'That is so verree disconcerting of the European, Mister O'Hara. You
should know a heap better at your time of life.'
'But I want to know,' said Kim, laughing. 'If it is the Game, I may
help. How can I do anything if you bukh (babble) all round the shop.'
Hurree Babu reached for the pipe, and sucked it till it guggled again.
'Now I will speak vernacular. You sit tight, Mister O'Hara. . . . It
concerns the pedigree of a white stallion.'
'Still? That was finished long ago.'
'When every one is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before. Listen
to me till the end. There were Five Kings who prepared a sudden war
three years ago, when thou wast given the stallion's pedigree by Mahbub
Ali. Upon them, because of that news, and ere they were ready, fell our
Army.'
'Ay--eight thousand men with guns. I remember that night.'
'But the war was not pushed. That is the Government custom. The troops
were recalled because the Government believed the Five Kings were cowed;
and it is not cheap to feed men among the high Passes. Hilas and
Bunar--Rajahs with guns--undertook for a price to guard the passes
against all coming from the North. They protested both fear and
friendship.' He broke off with a giggle into English: 'Of course, I tell
you this unoffeecially to elucidate political situation, Mister O'Hara.
Offeecially, I am debarred from criticising any action of superior. Now
I go on.--This pleased the Government, anxious to avoid expense, and a
bond was made for so many rupees a month that Hilas and Bunar should
guard the Passes as soon as the State's troops were withdrawn. At that
time--it was after we two met--I, who had been selling tea in Leh,
became a clerk of accounts in the Army. When the troops were withdrawn,
I was left behind to pay the coolies who made new roads in the Hills.
This road-making was part of the bond between Bunar, Hilas, and the
Government.'
'So; and then?'
'I tell you, it was jolly beastly cold up there too, after summer,' said
Hurree Babu confidentially. 'I was afraid these Bunar men would cut my
throat every night for thee pay-chest. My native sepoy-guard, they
laughed at me! By Jove! I was such a fearful man! Nevar mind thatt. I go
on colloquially. . . . I send word many times that these two Kings were
sold to the North; and Mahbub Ali, who was yet farther north, amply
confirmed it. Nothing was done. Only my feet were frozen, and a toe
dropped off. I sent word that the roads for which I was paying money to
the diggers were being made for the feet of strangers and enemies.'
'For?'
'For the Russians. The thing was an open jest among the coolies. Then I
was called down to tell what I knew by speech of tongue. Mahbub came
South too. See the end! Over the Passes this year after
snow-melting'--he shivered afresh--'come two strangers under cover of
shooting wild goats. They bear guns, but they bear also chains and
levels and compasses.'
'Oho! The thing gets clearer.'
'They are well received by Hilas and Bunar. They make great promises;
they speak as the mouthpiece of a Kaisar with gifts. Up the valleys,
down the valleys go they, saying, "Here is a place to build a
breastwork; here can ye pitch a fort. Here can ye hold the road against
an army"--the very roads for which I paid out the rupees monthly. The
Government knows, but does nothing. The three other Kings, who were not
paid for guarding the passes, tell them by runner of the bad faith of
Bunar and Hilas. When all the evil is done, look you--when these two
strangers with the levels and the compasses make the Five Kings to
believe that a great army will sweep the Passes to-morrow or the next
day--Hill-people are all fools--comes the order to me, Hurree Babu, "Go
North and see what those strangers do." I say to Creighton Sahib, "This
is not a lawsuit, that we go about to collect evidence."' Hurree
returned to his English with a jerk: '"By Jove," I said, "why the dooce
do you not issue demi-offeecial orders to some brave man to poison them,
for an example? It is, if you permit the 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 its 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 his 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 Mussoorie 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
to-morrow, 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 Hindustanee:
'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 snow upon the Hills.' The lama 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 come out from behind the dovecot, 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 therefor--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 experience and adversity, gathering
wisdom from the lama's lips. The old lady confided to Kim that these
rare levels were beyond her. She liked charms with plenty of ink that
one could wash off in water, swallow, and be done with. Else what was
the use of the Gods? She liked men and women, and she spoke of them--of
kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of the
depredations of leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the
incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her son-in-law
(this by allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the young, and the
age's lack of decency. And Kim, as interested in the life of this world
as she soon to leave it, squatted with his feet under the hem of his
robe, drinking all in, while the lama demolished one after another every
theory of body-curing put forward by Hurree Babu.
At noon the Babu strapped up his brass-bound drug-box, took his
patent-leather shoes of ceremony in one hand, a gay blue and white
umbrella in the other, and set off northwards to the Doon, where, he
said, he was in demand among the lesser kings of those parts.
'We will go in the cool of the evening, chela,' said the lama. 'That
doctor, learned in physic and courtesy, affirms that the people among
these lower hills are devout, generous, and much in need of a teacher.
In a very short time--so says the hakim--we come to cool air and the
smell of pines.'
'Ye go to the Hills. And by Kulu-road? Oh, thrice happy!' shrilled the
old lady. 'But that I am a little pressed with the care of the homestead
I would take palanquin . . . but that would be shameless, and my
reputation would be cracked. Ho! Ho! I know the road--every march of the
road I know. Ye will find charity throughout--it is not denied to the
well-looking. I will give orders for provision. A servant to set you
forth upon your journey? No. . . . Then I will at least cook ye good
food.'
'What a woman is the Sahiba!' said the white-bearded Oorya, when a
tumult rose by the kitchen quarters. 'She has never forgotten a friend:
she has never forgotten an enemy in all her years. And her
cookery--wah!' He rubbed his slim stomach.
There were cakes, there were sweetmeats, there was cold fowl stewed to
rags with rice and prunes--enough to burden Kim like a mule.
'I am old and useless,' she said. 'None now love me--and none
respect--but there are few to compare with me when I call on the Gods
and squat to my cooking-pots. Come again, O people of good will! Holy
One and disciple, come again! The room is always prepared; the welcome
is always ready. . . . See the women do not follow thy chela too openly.
I know the women of Kulu. Take heed, chela, lest he run away when he
smells his Hills again. . . . Hai! Do not tilt the rice-bag upside
down. . . . Bless the household, Holy One, and forgive thy servant her
stupidities.'
She wiped her red old eyes on a corner of her veil, and clucked
throatily.
'Women talk,' said the lama at last, 'but that is a woman's infirmity. I
gave her a charm. She is upon the Wheel and wholly given over to the
shows of this life, but none the less, chela, she is virtuous, kindly,
hospitable--of a whole and zealous heart. Who shall say she does not
acquire merit?'
'Not I, Holy One,' said Kim, reslinging the bountiful provision on his
shoulders. 'In my mind--behind my eyes--I have tried to picture such an
one altogether freed from the Wheel--desiring nothing, causing
nothing--a nun, as it were.'
'And, O imp?' The lama almost laughed aloud.
'I cannot make the picture.'
'Nor I. But there are many, many millions of lives before her. She will
get wisdom a little, it may be, in each one.'
'And will she forget how to make stews with saffron upon that road?'
'Thy mind is set on things unworthy. But she has skill. I am refreshed
all over. When we reach the lower hills I shall be yet stronger. The
hakim spoke truly to me this morn when he said a breath from the snows
blows away twenty years from the life of a man. We will go, up into the
Hills--the high hills--up to the sound of snow-water and the sound of
the trees--for a little while. The hakim said that at any time we may
return to the Plains, for we do no more than skirt the pleasant places.
The hakim is full of learning; but he is in no way proud. I spoke to
him--when thou wast talking to the Sahiba--of a certain dizziness that
lays hold upon the back of my neck in the night, and he said it rose
from excessive heat--to be cured by cool air. Upon consideration, I
marvelled that I had not thought of such a simple remedy.'
'Didst thou tell him of thy Search?' said Kim, a little jealously. He
preferred to sway the lama by his own speech--not through the wiles of
Hurree Babu.
'Assuredly. I told him of my dream, and of the manner by which I had
acquired merit by causing thee to be taught wisdom.'
'Thou didst not say I was a Sahib?'
'What need? I have told thee many times we be but two souls seeking
escape. He said--and he is just herein--that the River of Healing will
break forth even as I dreamed--at my feet if need be. Having found the
Way, seest thou, that shall free me from the Wheel, need I trouble to
find a way about the mere fields of earth--which are illusion? That were
senseless. I have my dreams, night upon night repeated; I have the
"Jataka"; and I have thee, Friend of all the World. It was written in
thy horoscope that a Red Bull on a green field--I have not
forgotten--should bring thee to honour. Who but I saw that prophecy
accomplished? Indeed, I was the instrument. Thou shalt find me my River,
being in return the instrument. The Search is sure!'
He set his ivory-yellow face, serene and untroubled, towards the
beckoning Hills; his shadow shouldering far before him in the dust.