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Chapter I
O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to judgment Day,
Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!
Buddha at Kamakura.
He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam
Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher -
the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.
Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the
Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.
There was some justification for Kim - he had kicked Lala
Dinanath's boy off the trunnions - since the English held the
Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was burned black as any
native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his
mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he
consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the
bazar; Kim was white - a poor white of the very poorest. The
half-caste woman who looked after him (she smoked opium, and
pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by the square
where the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was
Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a
Colonel's family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-
sergeant of the Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took
a post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and his Regiment
went home without him. The wife died of cholera in Ferozepore,
and O'Hara fell to drink and loafing up and down the line with
the keen-eyed three-year-old baby. Societies and chaplains,
anxious for the child, tried to catch him, but O'Hara drifted
away, till he came across the woman who took opium and learned
the taste from her, and died as poor whites die in India. His
estate at death consisted of three papers - one he called his 'ne
varietur' because those words were written below his signature
thereon, and another his 'clearance-certificate'. The third was
Kim's birth-certificate. Those things, he was used to say, in his
glorious opium-hours, would yet make little Kimball a man. On no
account was Kim to part with them, for they belonged to a great
piece of magic - such magic as men practised over yonder behind
the Museum, in the big blue-and-white Jadoo-Gher - the Magic
House, as we name the Masonic Lodge. It would, he said, all come
right some day, and Kim's horn would be exalted between pillars -
monstrous pillars - of beauty and strength. The Colonel himself,
riding on a horse, at the head of the finest Regiment in the
world, would attend to Kim - little Kim that should have been
better off than his father. Nine hundred first-class devils,
whose God was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim,
if they had not forgotten O'Hara - poor O'Hara that was gang-
foreman on the Ferozepore line. Then he would weep bitterly in
the broken rush chair on the veranda. So it came about after his
death that the woman sewed parchment, paper, and birth-
certificate into a leather amulet-case which she strung round
Kim's neck.
'And some day,' she said, confusedly remembering O'Hara's
prophecies, 'there will come for you a great Red Bull on a green
field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and'
dropping into English - 'nine hundred devils.'
'Ah,' said Kim, 'I shall remember. A Red Bull and a Colonel on a
horse will come, but first, my father said, will come the two men
making ready the ground for these matters. That is how my father
said they always did; and it is always so when men work magic.'
If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those
papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the
Provincial Lodge, and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills;
but what she had heard of magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held
views of his own. As he reached the years of indiscretion, he
learned to avoid missionaries and white men of serious aspect who
asked who he was, and what he did. For Kim did nothing with an
immense success. True, he knew the wonderful walled city of
Lahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; was hand in
glove with men who led lives stranger than anything Haroun al
Raschid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild as that of the
Arabian Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of charitable
societies could not see the beauty of it. His nickname through
the wards was 'Little Friend of all the World'; and very often,
being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night
on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of
fashion. It was intrigue, - of course he knew that much, as he
had known all evil since he could speak, - but what he loved was
the game for its own sake - the stealthy prowl through the dark
gullies and lanes, the crawl up a waterpipe, the sights and
sounds of the women's world on the flat roofs, and the headlong
flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark.
Then there were holy men, ash-smeared fakirs by their brick
shrines under the trees at the riverside, with whom he was quite
familiar - greeting them as they returned from begging-tours,
and, when no one was by, eating from the same dish. The woman who
looked after him insisted with tears that he should wear European
clothes - trousers, a shirt and a battered hat. Kim found it
easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged on
certain businesses. One of the young men of fashion - he who was
found dead at the bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake
had once given him a complete suit of Hindu kit, the costume
of a lowcaste street boy, and Kim stored it in a secret place
under some baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the Punjab
High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after
they have driven down the Ravi. When there was business or frolic
afoot, Kim would use his properties, returning at dawn to the
veranda, all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage
procession, or yelling at a Hindu festival. Sometimes there was
food in the house, more often there was not, and then Kim went
out again to eat with his native friends.
As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and
again from his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and
Abdullah the sweetmeat-seller's son, to make a rude remark to the
native policeman on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door.
The big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So did
the water-carrier, sluicing water on the dry road from his goat-
skin bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Museum carpenter, bent over
new packing-cases. So did everybody in sight except the peasants
from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder House to view the
things that men made in their own province and elsewhere. The
Museum was given up to Indian arts and manufactures, and anybody
who sought wisdom could ask the Curator to explain.
'Off ! Off ! Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up ZamZammah's
wheel.
'Thy father was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi" sang
Kim. 'All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!'
'Let me up!' shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered
cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but
India is the only democratic land in the world.
'The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them
off. Thy father was a pastry-cook -'
He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring
Motee Bazar, such a man as Kim, who thought he knew all castes,
had never seen. He was nearly six feet high, dressed in fold upon
fold of dingy stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it
could Kim refer to any known trade or profession. At his belt
hung a long open-work iron pencase and a wooden rosary such as
holy men wear. On his head was a gigantic sort of tam-o'-shanter.
His face was yellow and wrinkled, like that of Fook Shing, the
Chinese bootmaker in the bazar. His eyes turned up at the corners
and looked like little slits of onyx.
'Who is that?' said Kim to his companions.
'Perhaps it is a man,' said Abdullah, finger in mouth, staring.
'Without doubt.' returned Kim; 'but he is no man of India that I
have ever seen.'
'A priest, perhaps,' said Chota Lal, spying the rosary. 'See! He
goes into the Wonder House!'
'Nay, nay,' said the policeman, shaking his head. 'I do not
understand your talk.' The constable spoke Punjabi. 'O Friend of
all the World, what does he say?'
'Send him hither,' said Kim, dropping from Zam-Zammah,
flourishing his bare heels. 'He is a foreigner, and thou art a
buffalo.'
The man turned helplessly and drifted towards the boys. He was
old, and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of the stinking
artemisia of the mountain passes.
'O Children, what is that big house?' he said in very fair Urdu.
'The Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!' Kim gave him no title - such
as Lala or Mian. He could not divine the man's creed.
'Ah! The Wonder House! Can any enter?'
'It is written above the door - all can enter.'
'Without payment?'
'I go in and out. I am no banker,' laughed Kim.
'Alas! I am an old man. I did not know.' Then, fingering his
rosary, he half turned to the Museum.
'What is your caste? Where is your house? Have you come far?' Kim
asked.
'I came by Kulu - from beyond the Kailas - but what know you?
>From the Hills where' - he sighed - 'the air and water are fresh
and cool.'
'Aha! Khitai [a Chinaman],' said Abdullah proudly. Fook Shing had
once chased him out of his shop for spitting at the joss above
the boots.
'Pahari [a hillman],' said little Chota Lal.
'Aye, child - a hillman from hills thou'lt never see. Didst hear
of Bhotiyal [Tibet]? I am no Khitai, but a Bhotiya [Tibetan],
since you must know - a lama - or, say, a guru in your tongue.'
'A guru from Tibet,' said Kim. 'I have not seen such a man. They
be Hindus in Tibet, then?'
'We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our
lamasseries, and I go to see the Four Holy Places before I die.
Now do you, who are children, know as much as I do who am old.'
He smiled benignantly on the boys.
'Hast thou eaten?'
He fumbled in his bosom and drew forth a worn, wooden begging-
bowl. The boys nodded. All priests of their acquaintance begged.
'I do not wish to eat yet.' He turned his head like an. old
tortoise in the sunlight. 'Is it true that there are many images
in the Wonder House of Lahore?' He repeated the last words as one
making sure of an address.
'That is true,' said Abdullah. 'It is full of heathen buts. Thou
also art an idolater.'
'Never mind him,' said. Kim. 'That is the Government's house and
there is no idolatry in it, but only a Sahib with a white beard.
Come with me and I will show.'
'Strange priests eat boys,' whispered Chota Lal.
'And he is a stranger and a but-parast [idolater],' said
Abdullah, the Mohammedan.
Kim laughed. 'He is new. Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe.
Come!'
Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man
followed and halted amazed. In the entrance-hall stood the larger
figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how
long since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and
not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch.
There were hundreds of pieces, friezes of figures in relief,
fragments of statues and slabs crowded with figures that had
encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of
the North Country and now, dug up and labelled, made the pride of
the Museum. In open-mouthed wonder the lama turned to this and
that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a large alto-
relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord
Buddha. The Master was represented seated on a lotus the petals
of which were so deeply undercut as to show almost detached.
Round Him was an adoring hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time
Buddhas. Below were lotus-covered waters with fishes and water-
birds. Two butterfly-winged dewas held a wreath over His head;
above them another pair supported an umbrella surmounted by the
jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat.
'The Lord! The Lord! It is Sakya Muni himself,' the lama half
sobbed; and under his breath began the wonderful Buddhist
invocation:
To Him the Way, the Law, apart, Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat.
'And He is here! The Most Excellent Law is here also. My
pilgrimage is well begun. And what work! What work!'
'Yonder is the Sahib.' said Kim, and dodged sideways among the
cases of the arts and manufacturers wing. A white-bearded
Englishman was looking at the lama, who gravely turned and
saluted him and after some fumbling drew forth a note-book and a
scrap of paper.
'Yes, that is my name,' smiling at the clumsy, childish print.
'One of us who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places - he is now
Abbot of the Lung-Cho Monastery - gave it me,' stammered the
lama. 'He spoke of these.' His lean hand moved tremulously round.
'Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am
here' - he glanced at the lama's face - 'to gather knowledge.
Come to my office awhile.' The old man was trembling with
excitement.
The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from
the sculpture-lined gallery. Kim laid himself down, his ear
against a crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following his
instinct, stretched out to listen and watch.
Most of the talk was altogether above his head. The lama,
haltingly at first, spoke to the Curator of his own lamassery,
the Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks, four months' march
away. The Curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed
him that very place, perched on its crag, overlooking the
gigantic valley of many-hued strata.
'Ay, ay!' The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of
Chinese work. 'Here is the little door through which we bring
wood before winter. And thou - the English know of these things?
He who is now Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe.
The Lord - the Excellent One - He has honour here too? And His
life is known?'
'It is all carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art
rested.'
Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside
him, went through the collection with the reverence of a devotee
and the appreciative instinct of a craftsman.
Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the unfamiliar Greek
convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove. Where the
sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it
from his mound of books - French and German, with photographs and
reproductions.
Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian
story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while mother and father
listened; and here were incidents in the legend of the cousin
Devadatta. Here was the wicked woman who accused the Master of
impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park;
the miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here was the
Bodhisat in royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth; the
death at Kusinagara, where the weak disciple fainted; while there
were almost countless repetitions of the meditation under the
Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the alms-bowl was everywhere. In
a few minutes the Curator saw that his guest was no mere bead-
telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts. And they went at it
all over again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his spectacles, and
talking at railway speed in a bewildering mixture of Urdu and
Tibetan. He had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fu-
Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was any
translation of their record. He drew in his breath as he turned
helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas Julien. "Tis all
here. A treasure locked.' Then he composed himself reverently to
listen to fragments hastily rendered into Urdu. For the first
time he heard of the labours of European scholars, who by the
help of these and a hundred other documents have identified the
Holy Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted
and traced with yellow. The brown finger followed the Curator's
pencil from point to point. Here was Kapilavastu, here the Middle
Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca of Buddhism; and here was
Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One's death. The old man bowed
his head over the sheets in silence for a while, and the Curator
lit another pipe. Kim had fallen asleep. When he waked, the talk,
still in spate, was more within his comprehension.
'And thus it was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go to
the Holy Places which His foot had trod - to the Birthplace, even
to Kapila; then to Mahabodhi, which is Buddh Gaya - to the
Monastery - to the Deer-park -to the place of His death.'
The lama lowered his voice. 'And I come here alone. For five -
seven - eighteen - forty years it was in my mind that the Old Law
was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with
devildom, charms, and idolatry. Even as the child outside said
but now. Ay, even as the child said, with but-parasti.'
'So it comes with all faiths.'
'Thinkest thou? The books of my lamassery I read, and they were
dried pith; and the later ritual with which we of the Reformed
Law have cumbered ourselves - that, too, had no worth to these
old eyes. Even the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on
feud with one another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya, illusion.
But I have another desire' - the seamed yellow face drew within
three inches of the Curator, and the long forefinger-nail tapped
on the table. 'Your scholars, by these books, have followed the
Blessed Feet in all their wanderings; but there are things which
they have not sought out. I know nothing - nothing do I know -
but I go to free myself from the Wheel of Things by a broad and
open road.' He smiled with most simple triumph. 'As a pilgrim to
the Holy Places I acquire merit. But there is more. Listen to a
true thing. When our gracious Lord, being as yet a youth, sought
a mate, men said, in His father's Court, that He was too tender
for marriage. Thou knobbiest?'
The Curator nodded, wondering what would come next.
'So they made the triple trial of strength against all comers.
And at the test of the Bow, our Lord first breaking that which
they gave Him, called for such a bow as none might bend. Thou
knowest?'
'It is written. I have read.'
'And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far and far
beyond sight. At the last it fell; and, where it touched earth,
there broke out a stream which presently became a River, whose
nature, by our Lord's beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere
He freed himself, is that whoso bathes in it washes away all
taint and speckle of sin.'
'So it is written,' said the Curator sadly.
The lama drew a long breath. "Where is that River? Fountain of
Wisdom, where fell the arrow?"
'Alas', my brother, I do not know,' said the Curator.
'Nay, if it please thee to forget - the one thing only that thou
hast not told me. Surely thou must know? See, I am an old man! I
ask with my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom. We know
He drew the bow! We know the arrow fell! We know the stream
gushed! Where, then, is the River? My dream told me to find it.
So I came. I am here. But where is the River?'
'If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?'
'By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama
went on, unheeding. 'The River of the Arrow! Think again! Some
little stream, maybe - dried in the heats? But the Holy One would
never so cheat an old man.'
'I do not know. I do not know.'
The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a
handsbreadth from the Englishman's. 'I see thou dost not know.
Not being of the Law, the matter is hid from thee.'
'Ay - hidden - hidden.'
'We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I' - he rose with
a sweep of the soft thick drapery - 'I go to cut myself free.
Come also!'
'I am bound,' said the Curator. 'But whither goest thou?'
'First to Kashi [Benares]: where else? There I shall meet one of
the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker
in secret, and from him haply I may learn. Maybe he will go with
me to Buddh Gaya. Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there
will I seek for the River. Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go -
for the place is not known where the arrow fell.'
'And how wilt thou go? It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares.'
'By road and the trains. From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I
came hither in a te-rain. It goes swiftly. At first I was amazed
to see those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and
snatching up their threads,' - he illustrated the stoop and whirl
of a telegraph-pole flashing past the train. 'But later, I was
cramped and desired to walk, as I am used.'
'And thou art sure of thy road?' said the Curator.
'Oh. for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the
appointed persons despatch all to the appointed place. That much
I knew in my lamassery from sure report,' said the lama proudly.
'And when dost thou go?' The Curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India
today.
'As soon as may be. I follow the places of His life till I come
to the River of the Arrow. There is, moreover, a written paper of
the hours of the trains that go south.'
'And for food?' Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money
somewhere about them, but the Curator wished to make sure.
'For the journey, I take up the Master's begging-bowl. Yes. Even
as He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my monastery. There was
with me when I left the hills a chela [disciple] who begged for
me as the Rule demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a fever took
him and he died. I have now no chela, but I will take the alms-
bowl and thus enable the charitable to acquire merit.' He nodded
his head valiantly. Learned doctors of a lamassery do not beg,
but the lama was an enthusiast in this quest.
'Be it so,' said the Curator, smiling. 'Suffer me now to acquire
merit. We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is a new book
of white English paper: here be sharpened pencils two and three -
thick and thin, all good for a scribe. Now lend me thy spectacles.'
The Curator looked through them. They were heavily scratched, but
the power was almost exactly that of his own pair, which he slid
into the lama's hand, saying: 'Try these.'
'A feather! A very feather upon the face? The old man turned his
head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose. 'How scarcely do I
feel them! How clearly do I see!
'They be, bilaur - crystal - and will never scratch. May they
help thee to thy River, for they are thine.'
'I will take them and the pencils and the white note-book,' said
the lama, 'as a sign of friendship between priest and priest -
and now -' He fumbled at his belt, detached the open-work iron
pincers, and laid it on the Curator's table. 'That is for a
memory between thee and me - my pencase. It is something old -
even as I am.'
It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not
smelted these days; and the collector's heart in the Curator's
bosom had gone out to it from the first. For no persuasion would
the lama resume his gift.
'When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a
written picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used to make on
silk at the lamassery. Yes - and of the Wheel of Life,' he
chuckled, 'for we be craftsmen together, thou and I.'
The Curator would have detained him: they are few in the world
who still have the secret of the conventional brush-pen Buddhist
pictures which are, as it were, half written and half drawn. But
the lama strode out, head high in air, and pausing an instant
before the great statue of a Bodhisat in meditation, brushed
through the turnstiles.
Kim followed like a shadow. What he had overheard excited him
wildly. This man was entirely new to all his experience, and he
meant to investigate further, precisely as he would have
investigated a new building or a strange festival in Lahore city.
The lama was his trove, and he purposed to take possession. Kim's
mother had been Irish too.
The old man halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his eye
fell on Kim. The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for
awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty.
'Do not sit under that gun,' said the policeman loftily.
'Huh! Owl!' was Kim's retort on the lama's behalf 'Sit under that
gun if it please thee. When didst thou steal the milkwoman's
slippers, Dunnoo?'
That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the
moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim's clear yell
could call up legions of bad bazar boys if need arose.
'And whom didst thou worship within?' said Kim affably, squatting
in the shade beside the lama.
'I worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent Law.'
Kim accepted this new God without emotion. He knew already a few
score.
'And what dost thou do?'
'I beg. I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk.
What is the custom of charity in this town? In silence, as we do
of Tibet, or speaking aloud?'
'Those who beg in silence starve in silence,' said Kim, quoting a
native proverb. The lama tried to rise, but sank back again,
sighing for his disciple, dead in far-away Kulu. Kim watched head
to one side, considering and interested.
'Give me the bowl. I know the people of this city - all who are
charitable. Give, and I will bring it back filled.'
Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl.
[start here]
'Rest, thou. I know the people.'
He trotted off to the open shop of a kunjri, a low-caste
vegetable-seller, which lay opposite the belt-tramway line down
the Motee Bazar. She knew Kim of old.
'Oho, hast thou turned yogi with thy begging-bowl?' she cried.
'Nay.' said Kim proudly. 'There is a new priest in the city a man
such as I have never seen.'
'Old priest - young tiger,' said the woman angrily. 'I am tired
of new priests! They settle on our wares like flies. Is the
father of my son a well of charity to give to all who ask?'
'No,' said Kim. 'Thy man is rather yagi [bad-tempered] than yogi
[a holy man]. But this priest is new. The Sahib in the Wonder
House has talked to him like a brother. O my mother, fill me this
bowl. He waits.'
'That bowl indeed! That cow-bellied basket! Thou hast as much
grace as the holy bull of Shiv. He has taken the best of a basket
of onions already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy bowl.
He comes here again.'
The huge, mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was
shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen
plantain hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the
shop, well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his
head, and puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making his
choice. Up flew Kim's hard little heel and caught him on his
moist blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked away across
the tram-rails, his hump quivering with rage.
'See! I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over. Now,
mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop - yes, and some
vegetable curry.'
A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.
'He drove away the bull,' said the woman in an undertone. 'It is
good to give to the poor.' She took the bowl and returned it full
of hot rice.
'But my yogi is not a cow,' said Kim gravely, making a hole with
his fingers in the top of the mound. 'A little curry is good, and
a fried cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I
think.'
'It is a hole as big as thy head,' said the woman fretfully. But
she filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable
curry, clapped a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified
butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at
the side; and Kim looked at the load lovingly.
'That is good. When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come to
this house. He is a bold beggar-man.'
'And thou?' laughed the woman. 'But speak well of bulls. Hast
thou not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a
field to help thee? Now hold all straight and ask for the holy
man's blessing upon me. Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my
daughter's -sore eyes. Ask. him that also, O thou Little Friend
of all the World.'
But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging
pariah dogs and hungry acquaintances.
'Thus do we beg who know the way of it,' said he proudly to the
lama, who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl. 'Eat now
and - I will eat with thee. Ohe, bhisti!' he called to the water-
carrier, sluicing the crotons by the Museum. 'Give water here. We
men are thirsty.'
'We men!' said the bhisti, laughing. 'Is one skinful enough for
such a pair? Drink, then, in the name of the Compassionate.'
He loosed a thin stream into Kim's hands, who drank nativefasion;
but the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible
upper draperies and drink ceremonially.
'Pardesi [a foreigner],' Kim explained, as the old man delivered
in an 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 U 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 the -railway
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?'
The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.
'God's curse on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub. 'I do not give to
a lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels.
They may value your blessings. Oh, horseboys, here is a
countryman of yours. See if he be hungry.'
A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and
who was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the
priest, and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at
the horseboys' fire.
'Go!' said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away,
leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister.
'Go!' said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. 'Little Hindu,
run away. God's curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my
tail who are of thy faith.'
'Maharaj,' whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and
thoroughly enjoying the situation; 'my father is dead - my mother
is dead - my stomach is empty.'
'Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There must be some
Hindus in my tall.'
'Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am I a Hindu?' said Kim in English.
The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy
eyebrows.
'Little Friend of all the World,' said he, 'what is this?'
'Nothing. I am now that holy man's disciple; and we go a
pilgrimage together - to Benares, he says. He is quite mad, and I
am tired of Lahore city. I wish new air and water.'
'But for whom dost thou work? Why come to me?' The voice was
harsh with suspicion.
'To whom else should I come? I have no money. It is not good to
go about without money. Thou wilt sell many horses to the
officers. They are very fine horses, these new ones: I have seen
them. Give me a rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I
will give thee a bond and pay.'
'Um!' said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. 'Thou hast never before
lied to me. Call that lama - stand back in the dark.'
'Oh, our tales will agree,' said Kim, laughing.
'We go to Benares,' said the lama, as soon as he understood the
drift of Mahbub Ali's questions. 'The boy and I, I go to seek for
a certain River.'
'Maybe - but the boy?'
'He is my disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that
River. Sitting under a. gun was I when he came suddenly. Such
things have befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed.
But I remember now, he said he was of this world - a Hindu.'
'And his name?'
'That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?'
'His country - his race - his village? Mussalman - Sikh Hindu -
Jain - low caste or high?'
'Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle
Way. If he is my chela - does - will - can anyone take him from
me? for, look you, without him I shall not find my River.' He
wagged his head solemnly.
'None shall take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis,' said
Mahbub Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.
'Is he not quite mad?' said Kim, coming forward to the light
again. 'Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?'
Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost
whispering: 'Umballa is on the road to Benares - if indeed ye two
go there.'
'Tck! Tck! I tell thee he does not know how to lie - as we two
know.'
'And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I
will give thee money. It concerns a horse - a white stallion
which I have sold to an officer upon the last time I returned
from the Passes. But then - stand nearer and hold up hands as
begging -the pedigree of the white stallion was not fully
established, and that officer, who is now at Umballa, bade me
make it clear.' (Mahbub here described the horse and the
appearance of the officer.) 'So the message to that officer will
be: "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established." By
this will he know that thou comest from me. He will then say
"What proof hast thou?" and thou wilt answer: "Mahbub Ali has
given me the proof."'
'And all for the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a
giggle, his eyes aflame.
'That pedigree I will give thee now - in my own fashion and some
hard words as well.' A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding
camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.
'Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead.
Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well - '
He turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of
soft, greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. 'Go and lie down among
my horseboys for tonight - thou and the lama. Tomorrow I may give
thee service.'
Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he
found a small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with
three silver rupees - enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust
money and paper into his leather amulet-case. The lama,
sumptuously fed by Mahbub's Baltis, was already asleep in a
corner of one of the stalls. Kim lay down beside him and laughed.
He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub Ali, and not for one
little minute did he believe the tale of the stallion's pedigree.
But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best
horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader,
whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond,
was registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey
Department as C25 IB. Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a
little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally -
it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4 - quite true. It
concerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities,
explorers of nationalities other than English, and the guntrade -
was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of 'information
received' on which the Indian Government acts. But, recently,
five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate, had
been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage
of news from their territories into British India. So those
Kings' Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps,
after the Oriental fashion. They suspected, among many others,
the bullying, red-bearded horsedealer whose caravans ploughed
through their fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At least, his
caravan that season had been ambushed and shot at twice on the
way down, when Mahbub's men accounted for three strange ruffians
who might, or might not, have been hired for the job. Therefore
Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city of Peshawur,
and had come through without stop to Lahore, where, knowing his
country-people, he anticipated curious developments.
And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an
hour longer than was necessary - a wad of closely folded tissue-
paper, wrapped in oilskin - an impersonal, unaddressed statement,
with five microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most
scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings, the
sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu banker in Peshawur, a firm of
gun-makers in Belgium, and an important, semi-independent
Mohammedan ruler to the south. This last was R17's work, which
Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying in for
R17, who, owing to circumstances over which he had no control,
could not leave his post of observation. Dynamite was milky and
innocuous beside that report Of C25; and even an Oriental, with
an Oriental's views of the value of time, could see that the
sooner it was in the proper hands the better. Mahbub had no
particular desire to die by violence, because two or three family
blood-feuds across the Border hung unfinished on his hands, and
when these scores were cleared he intended to settle down as a
more or less virtuous citizen. He had never passed the serai gate
since his arrival two days ago, but had been ostentatious in
sending telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some of his money;
to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own clan was selling horses
to the agent of a Rajputana state; and to Umballa, where an
Englishman was excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white
stallion. The public letter-writer, who knew English, composed
excellent telegrams, such as: 'Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa.
Horse is Arabian as already advised. Sorrowful delayed pedigree
which am translating.' And later to the same address: 'Much
sorrowful delay. Will forward pedigree.' To his sub-partner at
Delhi he wired: 'Lutuf Ullah. Have wired two thousand rupees your
credit Luchman Narain's bank-' This was entirely in the way of
trade, but every one of those telegrams was discussed and re-
discussed, by parties who conceived themselves to be interested,
before they went over to the railway station in charge of a
foolish Balti, who allowed all sorts of people to read them on
the road.
When, in Mahbub's own picturesque language, he had muddied the
wells of inquiry with the stick of precaution, Kim had dropped on
him, sent from Heaven; and, being as prompt as he was
unscrupulous, Mahbub Ali used to taking all sorts of gusty
chances, pressed him into service on the spot.
A wandering lama with a low-caste boy-servant might attract a
moment's interest as they wandered about India, the land of
pilgrims; but no one would suspect them or, what was more to the
point, rob.
He called for a new light-ball to his hookah, and considered the
case. If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm,
the paper would incriminate nobody. And he would go up to Umballa
leisurely and - at a certain risk of exciting fresh suspicion -
repeat his tale by word of mouth to the people concerned.
But R17's report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it would
be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand.
However, God was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he
could for the time being. Kim was the one soul in the world who
had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on
Kim's character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his
own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim could lie like an Oriental.
Then Mahbub Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the
Harpies who paint their eyes and trap the stranger, and was at
some pains to call on the one girl who, he had reason to believe,
was a particular friend of a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had
waylaid his simple Balti in the matter of the telegrams. It was
an utterly foolish thing to do; because they fell to drinking
perfumed brandy against the Law of the Prophet, and Mahbub grew
wonderfully drunk, and the gates of his mouth were loosened, and
he pursued the Flower of Delight with the feet of intoxication
till he fell flat among the cushions, where the Flower of
Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit, searched him
from head to foot most thoroughly.
About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub's deserted
stall. The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left his door
unlocked, and his men were busy celebrating their return to India
with a whole sheep of Mahbub's bounty. A sleek young gentleman
from Delhi, armed with a bunch of keys which the Flower had
unshackled from the senseless one's belt, went through every
single box, bundle, mat, and saddle-bag in Mahbub's possession
even more systematically than the Flower and the pundit were
searching the owner.
'And I think.' said the Flower scornfully an hour later, one
rounded elbow on the snoring carcass, 'that he is no more than a
pig of an Afghan horse-dealer, with no thought except women and
horses. Moreover, he may have sent it away by now - if ever there
were such a thing.'
'Nay - in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black
heart,' said the pundit. 'Was there nothing?'
The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered. 'I
searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched
his clothes. This is not the man but another. I leave little
unseen.'
'They did not say he was the very man,' said the pundit
thoughtfully. 'They said, "Look if he be the man, since our
counsels are troubled."'
'That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of
lice. There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah all
heads of kafilas [caravans] - who deal there,' said the Flower.
'They have not yet come in,' said the pundit. 'Thou must ensnare
them later.'
Phew!' said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head
from her lap. 'I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan - yaie! Go! I sleep now. This
swine will not stir till dawn.'
When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt,
and staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very
near to it.
'What a colt's trick!' said he to himself 'As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done. Now God He
knows how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to
test me - perhaps with the knife. So it stands that the boy must go to Umballa - and by rail -for the writing is something
urgent. I abide here, following the Flower and drinking wine as
an Afghan coper should.'
He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.
'Up! He stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here last
even - the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?'
'Nay,' grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow
saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.'
'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub heartily,
and climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.
But it was Kim who had wakened the lama - Kim with one eye laid
against a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man's
search through the boxes. This was no common thief that turned
over letters, bills, and saddles - no mere burglar who ran a
little knife sideways into the soles of Mahbub's slippers, or
picked the seams of the saddle-bags so deftly. At first Kim had
been minded to give the alarm - the long-drawn cho-or -choor!
[thief! thief!] that sets the serai ablaze of nights; but he
looked more carefully, and, hand on amulet, drew his own
conclusions.
'It must be the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie,' said he,
'the thing that I carry to Umballa. Better that we go now. Those
who search bags with knives may presently search bellies with
knives. Surely there is a woman behind this. Hai! Hai! in a
whisper to the light-sleeping old man. 'Come. It is time - time
to go to Benares.'
The lama rose obediently, and they passed out of the serai like
shadows.
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