CHAPTER XI
Give the man who is not made To his trade Swords to fling and catch again, Coins to ring and snatch again, Men to harm and cure again, Snakes to charm and lure again-- He'll be hurt by his own blade, By his serpents disobeyed, By his clumsiness bewrayed, By the people mocked to scorn. So 'tis not with juggler born. Pinch of dust or withered flower, Chance-flung fruit or borrowed staff, Serve his need and shore his power, Bind the spell, or loose the laugh! 'But a man who, etc.,' Op. 15.
FOLLOWED a sudden natural reaction.
'Now am I alone--all alone,' he thought. 'In all India is no one soalone as I! If I die to-day, who shall bring the news--and to whom? If Ilive and God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for I am a Sonof the Charm--I, Kim.'
A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves into amazement as it were by repeating their own names over and over again tothemselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation as to what iscalled personal identity. When one grows older, the power, usually,departs, but while it lasts it may descend upon a man at any moment.
'Who is Kim--Kim--Kim?'
He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from allother thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted topin-points. In a minute--in another half second--he felt he would arriveat the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always happens,his mind dropped away from those heights with the rush of a woundedbird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his head.
A long-haired Hindu bairagi (holy man), who had just bought a ticket,halted before him at that moment and stared intently.
'I also have lost it,' he said sadly. 'It is one of the Gates to theWay, but for me it has been shut many years.'
'What is the talk?' said Kim, abashed.
'Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing thy soulmight be. The seizure came of a sudden. I know. Who should know but I?Whither goest thou?'
'Toward Kashi'(Benares).
'There are no Gods there. I have proved them. I go to Prayag (Allahabad)for the fifth time--seeking the road to Enlightenment. Of what faith artthou?'
'I too am a Seeker,' said Kim, using one of the lama's pet words.'Though'--he forgot his Northern dress for the moment--'though Allahalone knoweth what I seek.'
The old fellow slipped the bairagi's crutch under his armpit and satdown on a patch of ruddy leopard's skin as Kim rose at the call for theBenares train.
'Go in hope, little brother,' he said. 'It is a long road to the feet ofthe One; but thither do we all travel.'
Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and ere he had sat out twentymiles in the crowded compartment, was cheering his neighbours with astring of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master's magicalgifts.
Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city, though it was pleasantto find how his cloth was respected. At least one-third of thepopulation prays eternally to some group or other of the many milliondeities, and so revere every sort of holy man. Kim was guided to theTemple of the Tirthankers, about a mile outside the city, near Sarnath,by a chance-met Punjabi farmer--a Kamboh from Jullundur-way who hadappealed in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his small son,and was trying Benares as a last resort.
'Thou art from the North?' he asked, shouldering through the press ofthe narrow, stinking streets much like his own pet bull at home.
'Ay, I know the Punjab. My mother was a Pahareen, but my father camefrom Amritzar--by Jandiala,' said Kim, oiling his ready tongue for theneeds of the Road.
'Jandiala--Jullundur? Oho! Then we be neighbours in some sort, as itwere.' He nodded tenderly to the wailing child in his arms. 'Whom dostthou serve?'
'A most holy man at the Temple of the Tirthankers.'
'They are all most holy and--most greedy,' said the Jat with bitterness.'I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet areflayed, and the child is no whit better. And the mother being sicktoo. . . . Hush, then, little one. . . . We changed his name when thefever came. We put him into girl's clothes. There was nothing we did notdo, except--I said to his mother when she bundled me off to Benares--sheshould have come with me--I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan would serve usbest. We know His generosity, but these down-country Gods arestrangers.'
The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked atKim through heavy eyelids.
'And was it all worthless?' Kim asked, with easy interest.
'All worthless--all worthless,' said the child, lips cracking withfever.
'The Gods have given him a good mind, at least,' said the fatherproudly. 'To think he should have listened so cleverly. Yonder is thytemple. Now I am a poor man,--many priests have dealt with me,--but myson is my son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him--I am at my verywits' end.'
Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride. Three years ago hewould have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way withouta thought; but now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved that he wasa man. Moreover, he had tasted fever once or twice already, and knewenough to recognise starvation when he saw it.
'Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke, so that thechild is cured.'
Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple. A white-clad Oswalbanker from Ajmir, his sins of usury new wiped out, asked him what hedid.
'I am chela to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from Bhotiyal--within there. Hebade me come. I wait. Tell him.'
'Do not forget the child,' cried the importunate Jat over his shoulder,and then bellowed in Punjabi: 'O Holy One--O disciple of the Holy One--OGods above all the Worlds--behold affliction sitting at the gate!' Thatcry is so common in Benares that the passers never turned their heads.
The Oswal, at peace with mankind, carried the message into the darknessbehind him, and the easy, uncounted Eastern minutes slid by; for thelama was asleep in his cell, and no priest would wake him. When theclick of his rosary again broke the hush of the inner court where thecalm images of the Arhats stand, a novice whispered, 'Thy chela ishere,' and the old man strode forth, forgetting the end of that prayer.
Hardly had the tall figure shown in the doorway than the Jat ran beforehim, and, lifting up the child, cried: 'Look upon this, Holy One; and ifthe Gods will, he lives--he lives!'
He fumbled in his waist-belt and drew out a small silver coin.
'What is now?' The lama's eyes turned to Kim. It was noticeable he spokefar clearer Urdu than long ago, under Zam-Zammah; but the father wouldallow no private talk.
'It is no more than a fever,' said Kim. 'The child is not well fed.'
'He sickens at everything, and his mother is not here.'
'If it be permitted, I may cure, Holy One.'
'What! Have they made thee a healer? Wait here,' said the lama, and hesat down by the Jat upon the lowest step of the temple, while Kim,looking out of the corner of his eyes, slowly opened the littlebetel-box. He had dreamed dreams at school of returning to the lama asa Sahib--of chaffing the old man before he revealed himself--boy'sdreams all. There was more drama in this abstracted, brow-puckeredsearch through the tabloid-bottles, with a pause here and there forthought and a muttered invocation between whiles. Quinine he had intablets, and dark brown meat-lozenges--beef most probably, but that wasnot his business. The little thing would not eat, but it sucked at alozenge greedily, and said it liked the salt taste.
'Take then these six.' Kim handed them to the man. 'Praise the Gods, andboil three in milk; other three in water. After he has drunk the milkgive him this (it was the half of a quinine pill), and wrap him warm.Give him the water of the other three, and the other half of this whitepill when he wakes. Meantime, here is another brown medicine that he maysuck at on the way home.'
'Gods, what wisdom!' said the Kamboh, snatching.
It was as much as Kim could remember of his o
wn treatment in a bout ofautumn malaria--if you except the patter that he added to impress thelama.
'Now go! Come again in the morning.'
'But the price--the price,' said the Jat, and threw back his sturdyshoulders. 'My son is my son. Now that he will be whole again, how shallI go back to his mother and say I took help by the wayside and did noteven give a bowl of curds in return?'
'They are alike, these Jats,' said Kim softly. 'The Jat stood on hisdunghill and the King's elephants went by. "O driver," said he, "whatwill you sell those little donkeys for?"'
The Jat burst into a roar of laughter, stifled with apologies to thelama. 'It is the saying of my own country--the very talk of it. Soare we Jats all. I will come to-morrow with the child; and the blessingof the Gods of the Homesteads--who are good little Gods--be on youboth. . . . Now, son, we grow strong again. Do not spit it out, littlePrinceling! King of my Heart, do not spit it out, and we shall be strongmen, wrestlers and club-wielders, by morning.'
He moved away, crooning and mumbling. The lama turned to Kim, and allthe loving old soul of him looked out through his narrow eyes.
'To heal the sick is to acquire merit; but first one gets knowledge.That was wisely done, O Friend of all the World.'
'I was made wise by thee, Holy One,' said Kim, forgetting the littleplay just ended; forgetting St. Xavier's; forgetting his white blood;forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan fashion, totouch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain temple. 'My teaching Iowe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. My time is finished. Iam loosed from the schools. I come to thee.'
'Herein is my reward. Enter! Enter! And is all well?' They passed to theinner court, where the afternoon sun sloped golden across. 'Stand that Imay see. So!' He peered critically. 'It is no longer a child, but a man,ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician. I did well--I did well when Igave thee up to the armed men on that black night. Dost thou rememberour first day under Zam-Zammah?'
'Ay,' said Kim. 'Dost thou remember when I leapt off the carriage thefirst day I went to--'
'The Gates of Learning? Truly. And the day that we ate the cakestogether at the back of the river by Nucklao. Aha! Many times hast thoubegged for me, but that day I begged for thee.'
'Good reason,' quoth Kim. 'I was then a scholar in the Gates ofLearning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One,' he went onplayfully, 'I am still a Sahib--by thy favour.'
'True. And a Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, chela.'
'How is that known to thee?'
The lama smiled. 'First by means of letters from the kindly priest whomwe met in the camp of armed men; but he is now gone to his own country,and I sent the money to his brother.' Colonel Creighton, who hadsucceeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor went to England with theMavericks, was hardly the chaplain's brother. 'But I do not wellunderstand Sahibs' letters. They must be interpreted to me. I chose asurer way. Many times when I returned from my Search to this temple,which has always been a nest to me, there came one seekingEnlightenment--a man from Leh--that had been, he said, a Hindu, butwearied of all those Gods.' The lama pointed to the Arhats.
'A fat man?' said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.
'Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given up touseless things--such as devils and charms and the form and fashion ofour tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we initiated thenovices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a friend of thine,chela. He told me that thou wast on the road to much honour as a scribe.And I see thou art a physician.'
'Yes, that am I--a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside whenI come as thy disciple. I have accomplished the years appointed for aSahib.'
'As it were a novice?' said the lama, nodding his head. 'Art thou freedfrom the schools? I would not have thee unripe.'
'I am all free. In due time I take service under the Government as ascribe--'
'Not as a warrior. That is well.'
'But first I come to wander--with thee. Therefore I am here. Who begsfor thee, these days?' he went on quickly. The ice was thin.
'Very often I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom here, exceptwhen I come to look again at my disciple. From one end to another ofHind have I travelled afoot and in the te-rain. A great and a wonderfulland! But here, when I put in, is as though I were in my own Bhotiyal.'
He looked round the little clean cell complacently. A low cushion gavehim a seat, on which he had disposed himself in the cross-leggedattitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation; a black teak-woodtable, not twenty inches high, set with copper tea-cups, was before him.In one corner stood a tiny altar, also of heavily carved teak, bearing acopper-gilt image of the seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp, anincense-holder, and a pair of copper flower-pots.
'The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by givingme these a year since,' he said, following Kim's eye. 'When one is farfrom one's own land such things carry remembrance; and we must reverencethe Lord for that He showed the Way. See!' he pointed to acuriously-built mound of coloured rice crowned with a fantastic metalornament. 'When I was abbot in my own place--before I came to betterknowledge--I made that offering daily. It is the Sacrifice of theUniverse to the Lord. Thus do we of Bhotiyal offer all the world dailyto the Excellent Law. And I do it even now, though I know that theExcellent One is beyond all pinchings and pattings.' He snuffed from hisgourd.
'It is well done, Holy One,' Kim murmured, sinking at ease on thecushions, very happy and rather tired.
'And also,' the old man chuckled, 'I write pictures of the Wheel ofLife. Three days to a picture. I was busied on it--or it may be I shutmy eyes a little--when they brought word of thee. It is good to havethee here: I will show thee my art--not for pride's sake, but becausethou must learn. The Sahibs have not all this world's wisdom.'
He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinesepaper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outlinehe had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is theconjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whosecompartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of humanlife. Men say that the Bodhisat Himself first drew it with grains ofrice upon dust, to teach His disciples the cause of things. Many ageshave crystallised it into a most wonderful convention crowded withhundreds of little figures whose every line carries a meaning. Few cantranslate the picture-parable; there are not twenty in all the world whocan draw it surely without a copy: of those who can both draw andexpound are but three.
'I have a little learned to draw,' said Kim. 'But this is a marvelbeyond marvels.'
'I have written it for many years,' said the lama. 'Time was when Icould write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I will teachthee the art--after due preparation; and I will show thee the meaning ofthe Wheel.'
'We take the Road, then?'
'The Road and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was made plainto me in a hundred dreams--notably one that came upon the night of theday that the Gates of Learning first shut--that without thee I shouldnever find my River. Again and again, as thou knowest, I put this fromme, fearing an illusion. Therefore I would not take thee with me thatday at Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take thee till thetime was ripe and auspicious. From the Hills to the Sea, from the Sea tothe Hills have I gone, but it was vain. Then I remembered the "Jataka."'
He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had toldit so often to the Jain priests.
'Further testimony is not needed,' he ended serenely. 'Thou wast sentfor an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught. Therefore wewill go out again together, and our Search is sure.'
'Whither go we?'
'What matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say, is sure. Ifneed be, the River will break from the ground before us. I acquiredmerit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewelthat is Wisdom. Thou didst return, I saw even now, a fol
lower ofSakyamuni, the Physician, whose altars are many in Bhotiyal. It issufficient. We are together, and all things are as they were--Friend ofall the World--Friend of the Stars--my chela!'
Then they talked of matters secular; but it was noticeable that the lamanever demanded any details of life at St. Xavier's, nor showed thefaintest curiosity as to the manners and customs of Sahibs. His mindmoved all in the past, and he revived every step of their wonderfulfirst journey together, rubbing his hands and chuckling, till it pleasedhim to curl himself up into the sudden sleep of old age.
Kim watched the last dusty sunshine fade out of the court, and playedwith his ghost-dagger and rosary. The clamour of Benares, oldest of allearth's cities awake before the Gods, day and night, beat round thewalls as the sea's roar round a breakwater. Now and again, a Jain priestcrossed the court, with some small offering to the images, and swept thepath about him lest by chance he should take the life of a living thing.A lamp twinkled, and there followed the sound of a prayer. Kim watchedthe stars as they rose one after another in the still, sticky dark, tillhe fell asleep at the foot of the altar. That night he dreamed inHindustanee, with never an English word. . . .
'Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave the medicine,' he said,about three o'clock in the morning, when the lama, also waking fromdreams, would have fared forth on pilgrimage. 'The Jat will be here atthe light.'
'I am well answered. In my haste I would have done a wrong.' He sat downon the cushions and returned to his rosary. 'Surely old folk are aschildren,' he said pathetically. 'They desire a matter--behold, it mustbe done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times when I was upon theRoad I have been ready to stamp with my feet at the hindrance of anox-cart in the way, or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I was aman--a long time ago. None the less it is wrongful--'
'But thou art indeed old, Holy One.'
'The thing was done. A Cause was put out into the world, and, old oryoung, sick or sound, knowing or unknowing, who can rein in the effectof that Cause? Does the Wheel hang still if a child spin it--or adrunkard? Chela, this is a great and a terrible world.'
'I think it good,' Kim yawned. 'What is there to eat? I have not eatensince yesterday even.'
'I had forgotten thy need. Yonder is good Bhotiyal tea and cold rice.'
'We cannot walk far on such stuff.' Kim felt all the European's lust forflesh-meat, which is not accessible in a Jain temple. Yet, instead ofgoing out at once with the begging-bowl, he stayed his stomach on slabsof cold rice till the full dawn. It brought the farmer, voluble,stuttering with gratitude.
'In the night the fever broke and the sweat came,' he cried. 'Feelhere--his skin is fresh and new! He esteemed the salt lozenges, and tookmilk with greed.' He drew the cloth from the child's face, and it smiledsleepily at Kim. A little knot of Jain priests, silent butall-observant, gathered by the temple door. They knew, and Kim knew thatthey knew, how the old lama had met his disciple. Being courteous folk,they had not obtruded themselves overnight by presence, word, orgesture. Wherefore Kim repaid them as the sun rose.
'Thank the Gods of the Jains, brother,' he said, not knowing how thoseGods were named. 'The fever is indeed broken.'
'Look! See!' The lama beamed in the background upon his hosts of threeyears. 'Was there ever such a chela? He follows our Lord the Healer.'
Now the Jains officially recognise all the Gods of the Hindu creed, aswell as the Lingam and the Snake. They wear the Brahminical thread; theyadhere to every claim of Hindu caste-law. But, because they knew andloved the lama, because he was an old man, because he sought the Way,because he was their guest, and because he collogued long of nights withthe head-priest--as free-thinking a metaphysician as ever split one hairinto seventy--they murmured assent.
'Remember,'--Kim bent over the child,--'this trouble may come again.'
'Not if thou hast the proper spell,' said the father.
'But in a little while we go away.'
'True,' said the lama to all the Jains. 'We go now together upon theSearch whereof I have often spoken. I waited till my chela was ripe.Behold him! We go North. Never again shall I look upon this place of myrest, O people of good will.'
'But I am not a beggar.' The cultivator rose to his feet, clutching thechild.
'Be still. Do not trouble the Holy One,' a priest cried.
'Go,' Kim whispered. 'Meet us again under the big railway bridge, andfor the sake of all the Gods of our Punjab, bring food--curry, pulse,cakes fried in fat, and sweetmeats. Specially sweetmeats. Be swift!'
The pallor of hunger suited Kim very well as he stood, tall and slim, inhis sad-coloured, sweeping robes, one hand on his rosary and the otherin the attitude of benediction, faithfully copied from the lama. AnEnglish observer might have said that he looked rather like the youngsaint of a stained-glass window, whereas he was but a growing lad faintwith emptiness.
Long and formal were the farewells, thrice ended and thrice renewed. TheSeeker--he who had invited the lama to that haven from far-away Tibet, asilver-faced, hairless ascetic--took no part in it, but meditated, asalways, alone among the images. The others were very human; pressingsmall comforts upon the old man,--a betel-box, a fine new iron pencase,a food-bag, and such like,--warning him against the dangers of the worldwithout, and prophesying a happy end to the Search. Meantime Kim,lonelier than ever, squatted on the steps, and swore to himself in thelanguage of St. Xavier's.
'But it is my own fault,' he concluded. 'With Mahbub, I ate Mahbub'sbread, or Lurgan Sahib's. At St. Xavier's, three meals a day. Here Imust jolly well look out for myself. Besides, I am not in good training.How I could eat a plate of beef now! . . . Is it finished, Holy One?'
The lama, both hands raised, intoned a final blessing in ornate Chinese.'I must lean on thy shoulder,' said he, as the temple-gates closed. 'Wegrow stiff, I think.'
The weight of a six-foot man is not light to steady through miles ofcrowded streets, and Kim, loaded down with bundles and packages for theway, was glad to reach the shadow of the railway bridge.
'Here we eat,' he said resolutely, as the Kamboh, blue-robed andsmiling, hove in sight, a basket in one hand and the child on the other.
'Fall to, Holy Ones!' he cried from fifty yards. (They were by the shoalunder the first bridge-span, out of sight of hungry priests.) 'Rice andgood curry, cakes all warm and well scented with hing (asafoetida),curds and sugar. King of my fields,' this to the small son, 'let us showthese holy men that we Jats of Jullundur can pay a service. . . . I hadheard the Jains would eat nothing that they had not cooked, buttruly'--he looked away politely over the broad river--'where there is noeye there is no caste.'
'And we,' said Kim, turning his back and heaping a leaf-platter for thelama, 'are beyond all castes.'
They gorged themselves on the good food in silence. Nor till he hadlicked the last of the sticky sweet-stuff from his little finger did Kimnote that the Kamboh too was girt for travel.
'If our roads lie together,' he said roughly, 'I go with thee. One doesnot often find a worker of miracles, and the child is still weak. But Iam not altogether a reed.' He picked up his lathi--a five-footmale-bamboo ringed with bands of polished iron--and flourished it in theair. 'The Jats are called quarrelsome, but that is not true. Except whenwe are crossed, we are like our own buffaloes.'
'So be it,' said Kim. 'A good stick is a good reason.'
The lama gazed placidly up-stream, where in long, smudged perspectivethe ceaseless columns of smoke go up from the burning-ghats by theriver. Now and again, despite all municipal regulations, the fragment ofa half-burned body bobbed by on the full current.
'But for thee,' said the Kamboh to Kim, drawing his child into his hairybreast, 'I might to-day have gone thither--with this one. The prieststell us that Benares is holy--which none doubt--and desirable to die in.But I do not know their Gods, and they ask for money; and when one hasdone one worship a shaved-head vows it is of none effect except one doanother. Wash here! Wash there! Pour, drink, lave, and scatterflowers--but always
pay the priests. No, the Punjab for me, and the soilof the Jullundur-doab for the best soil in it.'
'I have said many times--in the temple I think--that if need be, theRiver will open at our feet. We will therefore go North,' said the lama,rising. 'I remember a pleasant place, set about with fruit-trees, whereone can walk in meditation--and the air is cooler there. It comes fromthe Hills and the snow of the Hills.'
'What is the name?' said Kim.
'How should I know? Didst thou not--no, that was after the Army rose outof the earth and took thee away. I abode there in meditation in a roomagainst the dovecot--except when she talked eternally.'
'Oho! the woman from Kulu. That is by Saharunpore,' Kim laughed.
'How does the spirit move thy master? Does he go afoot, for the sake ofpast sins?' the Jat demanded cautiously. 'It is a far cry to Delhi.'
'No,' said Kim. 'I will beg a tikkut for the te-rain.' One does not ownto the possession of money in India.
'Then in the name of the Gods, let us take the fire-carriage. My son isbest in his mother's arms. The Government has brought on us many taxes,but it gives us one good thing--the te-rain that joins friends andunites the anxious. A wonderful matter is the te-rain.'
They all piled into it a couple of hours later, and slept through theheat of the day. The Kamboh plied Kim with ten thousand questions as tothe lama's walk and work in life, and received some curious answers. Kimwas content to be where he was, to look out upon the flat North-Westernlandscape, and to talk to the changing mob of fellow-passengers. Evento-day, tickets and ticket-clipping are dark oppression to Indianrustics. They do not understand why, when they have paid for a magicpiece of paper, strangers should punch great pieces out of the charm. Solong and furious are the debates between travellers and Eurasianticket-collectors. Kim assisted at two or three with grave advice, meantto darken council and to show off his wisdom before the lama and theadmiring Kamboh. But at Somna Road the Fates sent him a matter to thinkupon. There tumbled into the compartment, as the train was moving off, amean, lean little person--a Mahratta, so far as Kim could judge by thecock of the tight turban. His face was cut, his muslin upper-garment wasbadly torn, and one leg was bandaged. He told them that a country-carthad upset and nearly slain him: he was going to Delhi, where his sonlived. Kim watched him closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolledover and over on the earth, there should have been signs of gravel-rashon the skin. But all his injuries seemed clean cuts, and a mere fallfrom a cart could not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As, withshaking fingers, he knotted up the torn cloth about his neck he laidbare an amulet of the kind called a keeper-up of the heart. Now, amuletsare common enough, but they are not generally strung on square-plaitedcopper wire, and still fewer amulets bear black enamel on silver. Therewere none except the Kamboh and the lama in the compartment, which,luckily, was of an old type with solid ends. Kim made as to scratch inhis bosom, and thereby lifted his own amulet. The Mahratta's facechanged altogether at the sight, and he disposed the amulet fairly onhis breast.
'Yes,' he went on to the Kamboh, 'I was in haste, and the cart, drivenby a bastard, bound its wheel in a water-cut, and besides the harm doneto me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean. I was not a Son of theCharm (a lucky man) that day.'
'That was a great loss,' said Kamboh, withdrawing interest. Hisexperience of Benares had made him suspicious.
'Who cooked it?' said Kim.
'A woman.' The Mahratta raised his eyes.
'But all women can cook tarkeean,' said the Kamboh. 'It is a good curry,as I know.'
'Oh, yes, it is a good curry,' said the Mahratta.
'And cheap,' said Kim. 'But what about caste?'
'Oh, there is no caste where men go to--look for tarkeean,' the Mahrattareplied, in the prescribed cadence. 'Of whose service art thou?'
'Of the service of this Holy One.' Kim pointed to the happy, drowsylama, who woke with a jerk at the well-loved word.
'Ah, he was sent from Heaven to aid me. He is called the Friend of allthe World. He is also called the Friend of the Stars. He walks as aphysician--his time being ripe. Great is his wisdom.'
'And a Son of the Charm,' said Kim under his breath, as the Kamboh madehaste to prepare a pipe lest the Mahratta should beg.
'And who is that?' the Mahratta asked, glancing sideways nervously.
'One whose child I--we have cured, who lies under great debt to us.--Sitby the window, man from Jullundur. Here is a sick one.'
'Humph! I have no desire to mix with chance-met wastrels. My ears arenot long. I am not a woman wishing to overhear secrets.' The Jat slidhimself heavily into a far corner.
'Art thou anything of a healer? I am ten leagues deep in calamity,'cried the Mahratta, picking up the cue.
'The man is cut and bruised all over. I go about to cure him,' Kimretorted. 'None interfered between thy babe and me.'
'I am rebuked,' said the Kamboh meekly. 'I am thy debtor for the life ofmy son. Thou art a miracle-worker--I know it.'
'Show me the cuts.' Kim bent over the Mahratta's neck, his heart nearlychoking him; for this was the Great Game with a vengeance. 'Now, tellthy tale swiftly, brother, while I say a charm.'
'I come from the South, where my work lay. One of us they slew by theroadside. Hast thou heard?' Kim shook his head. He, of course, knewnothing of E.23's predecessor, slain down South in the habit of an Arabtrader. 'Having found a certain letter which I was sent to seek, I cameaway. I escaped from the city and ran to Mhow. So sure was I that noneknew, I did not change my face. At Mhow a woman brought charge againstme of theft of jewellery in that city which I had left. Then I saw thecry was out against me. I ran from Mhow by night, bribing the police,who had been bribed to hand me over without question to my enemies inthe South. Then I lay in old Chitor city a week, a penitent in a temple,but I could not get rid of the letter which was my charge. I buried itunder the Queen's Stone, at Chitor, in the place known to us all.'
Kim did not know, but not for worlds would he have broken the thread.
'At Chitor, look you, I was all in Kings' country; for Kotah to the eastis beyond the Queen's law, and east again lie Jeypur and Gwalior.Neither love spies, and there is no justice. I was hunted like a wetjackal; but I broke through at Bandakui, where I heard there was acharge against me of murder in the city I had left--of the murder of aboy. They have both the corpse and the witnesses waiting.'
'But cannot the Government protect?'
'We of the Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our names areblotted from the book. That is all. At Bandakui, where lives one of us,I thought to slip the scent by changing my face, and so made me aMahratta. Then I came to Agra, and would have turned back to Chitor torecover the letter. So sure I was I had slipped them. Therefore I didnot send a tar (telegram) to any one saying where the letter lay. Iwished the credit of it all.'
Kim nodded. He understood that feeling well.
'But at Agra, walking in the streets, a man cried a debt against me, andapproaching with many witnesses, would hale me to the courts then andthere. Oh, they are clever in the South! He recognised me as his agentfor cotton. May he burn in Hell for it!'
'And wast thou?'
'O fool! I was the man they sought for the matter of the letter! I raninto the Fleshers' Ward and came out by the House of the Jew, who feareda riot and pushed me forth. I came afoot to Somna Road--I had only moneyfor my tikkut to Delhi--and there, while I lay in a ditch with a fever,one sprang out of the bushes and beat me and cut me and searched mefrom head to foot. Within earshot of the te-rain it was!'
'Why did he not slay thee out of hand?'
'They are not so foolish. If I am taken in Delhi at the instance oflawyers, upon a proven charge of murder, my body is handed over to theState that desires it. I go back guarded, and then--I die slowly for anexample to the rest of us. The South is not my country. I run incircles--like a goat with one eye. I have not eaten for two days. I ammarked'--he touched the filthy bandage on his leg--'so that they willknow me at
Delhi.'
'Thou art safe in the te-rain, at least.'
'Live a year at the Great Game and tell me that again! The wires will beout against me at Delhi, describing every tear and rag upon me.Twenty--a hundred, if need be--will have seen me slay that boy. And thouart useless!'
Kim knew enough of native methods of attack not to doubt that the casewould be deadly complete--even to the corpse. The Mahratta twitched hisfingers with pain from time to time. The Kamboh in his corner glaredsullenly; the lama was busy over his beads; and Kim, fumblingdoctor-fashion at the man's neck, thought out his plan betweeninvocations.
'Hast thou a charm to change my shape? Else I am dead. Five--ten minutesalone, if I had not been so pressed, and I might--'
'Is he cured yet, miracle-worker?' said the Kamboh jealously. 'Thou hastchanted long enough.'
'Nay. There is no cure for his hurts, as I see, except he sit for threedays in the habit of a bairagi.' This is a common penance, often imposedon a fat trader by his spiritual teacher.
'One priest always goes about to make another priest,' was the retort.Like most grossly superstitious folk, the Kamboh could not keep histongue from deriding his Church.
'Will thy son be a priest, then? It is time he took more of my quinine.'
'We Jats are all buffaloes,' said the Kamboh, softening anew.
Kim rubbed a finger-tip of bitterness on the child's trusting littlelips. 'I have asked for nothing,' he said sternly to the father, 'exceptfood. Dost thou grudge me that? I go to heal another man. Have I thyleave--Prince?'
Up flew the man's huge paws in supplication. 'Nay--nay. Do not mock methus.'
'It pleases me to cure this sick one. Thou shalt acquire merit byaiding. What colour ash is there in thy pipe-bowl? White. That isauspicious. Was there raw turmeric among thy food-stuffs?'
'I--I--'
'Open thy bundle!'
It was the usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth, quackmedicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of atta,--grayish, rough-groundnative flour,--twists of down-country tobacco, tawdry pipe-stems, and apacket of curry-stuff, all wrapped in a quilt. Kim turned it over withthe air of a wise warlock, muttering a Mohammedan invocation.
'This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs,' he whispered to the lama;and here, when one thinks of his training at Lurgan's, he spoke no morethan the truth. 'There is a great evil in this man's fortune, as shownby the stars, which--which troubles him. Shall I take it away?'
'Friend of the Stars, thou hast done well in all things. Let it be atthy pleasure. Is it another healing?'
'Quick! Be quick!' gasped the Mahratta. 'The train may stop.'
'A healing against the shadow of death,' said Kim, mixing the Kamboh'sflour with the mingled charcoal and tobacco ash in the red-earth bowl ofthe pipe. E.23, without a word, slipped off his turban and shook downhis long black hair.
'That is my food--priest,' the Jat growled.
'A buffalo in the temple! Hast thou dared to look even thus far?' saidKim. 'I must do mysteries before fools; but have a care for thy eyes. Isthere a film before them already? I save the babe, and for returnthou--oh, shameless!' The man flinched at the direct gaze, for Kim waswholly in earnest. 'Shall I curse thee, or shall I--' He picked up theouter cloth of the bundle and threw it over the bowed head. 'Dare somuch as to think a wish to see, and--and--even I cannot save thee. Sit!Be dumb!'
'I am blind--dumb. Forbear to curse! Co--come, child; we will play agame of hiding. Do not, for my sake, look from under the cloth.'
'I see hope,' said E.23. 'What is thy scheme?'
'This comes next,' said Kim, plucking the thin body-shirt. E.23hesitated, with all a North-West man's dislike of baring his body.
'What is caste to a cut throat?' said Kim, rending it to the waist. 'Wemust make thee a yellow Saddhu all over. Strip--strip swiftly, and shakethy hair over thy eyes while I scatter the ash. Now, a caste-mark on thyforehead.' He drew from his bosom the little Survey paint-box and a cakeof crimson lake.
'Art thou only a beginner?' said E.23, labouring literally for the dearlife, as he slid out of his body-wrappings and stood clear in theloin-cloth while Kim splashed in a noble caste-mark on the ash-smearedbrow.
'But two days entered to the Game, brother,' Kim replied. 'Smear moreash on the bosom.'
'Hast thou met--a physician of sick pearls?' He switched out his long,tight-rolled turban-cloth and, with swiftest hands, rolled it over andunder about his loins into the intricate devices of a Saddhu's cincture.
'Hah! Dost thou know his touch, then? He was my teacher for a while. Wemust bar thy legs. Ash cures wounds. Smear it again.'
'I was his pride once, but thou art almost better. The Gods are kind tous! Give me that.'
It was a tin box of opium pills among the rubbish of the Jat's bundle.E.23 gulped down a half handful. 'They are good against hunger, fear,and chill. And they make the eyes red too,' he explained. 'Now I shallhave heart to play the Game. We lack only a Saddhu's tongs. What of theold clothes?'
Kim rolled them small, and stuffed them into the slack folds of histunic. With a yellow-ochre paint cake he smeared the legs and breast,great streaks against the background of flour, ash, and turmeric.
'The blood on them is enough to hang thee, brother.'
'May be; but no need to throw them out of the window. . . . It isfinished.' His voice thrilled with a boy's pure delight in the Game.'Turn and look, O Jat!'
'The Gods protect us,' said the hooded Kamboh, emerging like a buffalofrom the reeds. 'But--whither went the Mahratta? What hast thou done?'
Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib; and E.23, by virtue of hisbusiness, was no bad actor. In place of the tremulous, shrinking traderthere lolled against the corner an all but naked, ash-smeared,ochre-barred, dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes--opium takes quickeffect on an empty stomach--luminous with insolence and bestial lust,his legs crossed under him, Kim's brown rosary round his neck, and ascant yard of worn, flowered chintz on his shoulders. The child buriedhis face in his amazed father's arms.
'Look up, Princeling! We travel with warlocks, but they will not hurtthee. Oh, do not cry. . . . What is the sense of curing a child one dayand killing him with fright the next?'
'The child will be fortunate all his life. He has seen a great healing.When I was a child I made clay men and horses.'
'I have made them too. Sir Banas, he comes in the night and makes themall alive at the back of our kitchen-midden,' piped the child.
'And so thou art not frightened at anything. Eh, Prince?'
'I was frightened because my father was frightened. I felt his armsshake.'
'Oh, chicken-man,' said Kim, and even the abashed Jat laughed. 'I havedone a healing on this poor trader. He must forsake his gains and hisaccount-books, and sit by the wayside three nights to overcome themalignity of his enemies. The Stars are against him.'
'The fewer money-lenders the better, say I; but, Saddhu or no Saddhu, heshould pay for my stuff on his shoulders.'
'So? But that is thy child on thy shoulder--given over to theburning-ghat not two days ago. There remains one thing more. I did thischarm in thy presence because need was great. I changed his shape andhis soul. None the less, if, by any chance, O man from Jullundur, thourememberest what thou hast seen, either among the elders sitting underthe village tree, or in thy own house, or in company of thy priest whenhe blesses thy cattle, a murrain will come among the buffaloes, and afire in thy thatch, and rats in the corn-bin, and the curse of our Godsupon thy fields that they may be barren before thy feet and after thyploughshare.' This was part of an old curse picked up from a faquir bythe Taksali Gate in the days of Kim's innocence. It lost nothing byrepetition.
'Cease, Holy One! In mercy, cease!' cried the Jat. 'Do not curse thehousehold. I saw nothing! I heard nothing! I am thy cow!' and he made tograb at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on the carriage floor.
'But since thou hast been permitted to aid me in the matter of a pinchof flour and a little opium and such trifl
es as I have honoured by usingin my art, so will the Gods return a blessing,' and he gave it atlength, to the man's immense relief. It was one that he had learned fromLurgan Sahib.
The lama stared through his spectacles as he had not stared at thebusiness of disguisement.
'Friend of the Stars,' he said at last, 'thou hast acquired greatwisdom. Beware that it do not give birth to pride. No man having the Lawbefore his eyes speaks hastily of any matter which he has seen orencountered.'
'No--no--no indeed,' cried the farmer, fearful lest the master should beminded to improve on the pupil. E.23, with relaxed mouth, gave himselfup to the opium that is meat, tobacco, and medicine to the spentAsiatic.
So, in a silence of awe and great miscomprehension, they slid into Delhiabout lamp-lighting time.