CHAPTER XIV
My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) To stone and brass in heathen-wise, But in my brother's voice I hear My own unanswered agonies. His God is as his Fates assign-- His prayer is all the world's--and mine. Kabir.
AT moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. The lama, refreshed byhis sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim's shoulder to bear himalong--a silent, swift-striding man. They held the shale-sprinkled grassfor an hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal cliff, and climbedinto a new country entirely blocked off from all sight of Chini valley.A huge pasture-ground ran up fan-shaped to the living snow. At its basewas perhaps half an acre of flat land, on which stood a few soil andtimber huts. Behind them--for, hill-fashion, they were perched on theedge of all things--the ground fell sheer two thousand feet to Shamleghmidden, where never yet man has set foot.
The men made no motion to divide the plunder till they had seen the lamabedded down in the best room of the place, with Kim shampooing his feet,Mohammedan fashion.
'We will send food,' said the Ao-chung man, 'and the red-topped kilta.By dawn there will be none to give evidence, one way or the other. Ifanything is not needed in the kilta--see here!'
He pointed through the window--opening into space that was filled withmoonlight reflected from the snow--and threw out an empty whisky-bottle.
'No need to listen for the fall. This is the world's end,' he said, andswung off. The lama looked forth, a hand on either sill, with eyes thatshone like yellow opals. From the enormous pit before him white peakslifted themselves yearning to the moonlight. The rest was as thedarkness of interstellar space.
'These,' he said slowly, 'are indeed my Hills. Thus should a man abide,perched above the world, separated from delights, considering vastmatters.'
'Yes; if he has a chela to prepare tea for him, and to fold a blanketfor his head, and to chase out calving cows.'
A smoky lamp burned in a niche, but the full moonlight beat it down; andby the mixed light, stooping above the food-bag and cups, Kim moved likea tall ghost.
'Ai! But now I have let the blood cool my head still beats and drums,and there is a cord round the back of my neck.'
'No wonder. It was a strong blow. May he who dealt it--'
'But for my own passions there would have been no evil.'
'What evil? Thou hast saved the Sahibs from death they deserved ahundred times.'
'The lesson is not well learnt, chela.' The lama came to rest on afolded blanket, as Kim went forward with his evening routine. 'The blowwas but a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in itself--my legs weary apacethese latter days!--it met evil in me--anger, rage, and a lust to returnevil. These wrought in my blood, woke tumult in my stomach, and dazzledmy ears.' Here he drank scalding black-tea ceremonially, taking the hotcup from Kim's hand. 'Had I been passionless, the evil blow would havedone only bodily evil--a scar, or a bruise--which is illusion. But mymind was not abstracted, for rushed in straightway a lust to let theSpiti men kill. In fighting that lust, my soul was torn and wrenchedbeyond a thousand blows. Not till I had repeated the Blessings (he meantthe Buddhist Beatitudes) did I achieve calm. But the evil planted in meby that moment's carelessness works out to its end. Just is the Wheel,swerving not a hair! Learn the lesson, chela.'
'It is too high for me,' Kim muttered. 'I am still all shaken. I am gladI hurt the man.'
'I felt that sleeping upon thy knees, in the wood below. It disquietedme in my dreams--the evil in thy soul working through to mine. Yet onthe other hand'--he loosed his rosary--'I have acquired merit by savingtwo lives--the lives of those that wronged me. Now I must see into theCause of Things. The boat of my soul staggers.'
'Sleep, and be strong. That is wisest.'
'I meditate: there is a need greater than thou knowest.'
Till the dawn, hour after hour, as the moonlight paled on the highpeaks, and that which had been belted blackness on the sides of the farhills showed as tender green forest, the lama stared fixedly at thewall. From time to time he groaned. Outside the barred door, wherediscomfited kine came to ask for their old stable, Shamlegh and thecoolies gave itself up to plunder and riotous living. The Ao-chung manwas their leader, and once they had opened the Sahibs' tinned foods andfound that they were very good they dared not turn back. Shamleghkitchen-midden took the dunnage.
When Kim, after a night of bad dreams, stole forth to brush his teeth inthe morning chill, a fair-coloured woman with turquoise-studded headgeardrew him aside.
'The others have gone. They left thee this kilta as the promise was. Ido not love Sahibs, but thou wilt make us a charm in return for it. Wedo not wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name on account ofthe--accident. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.' She looked him over withbold, bright eyes, unlike the usual furtive glance of hillwomen.
'Assuredly. But it must be done in secret.'
She raised the heavy kilta like a toy and slung it into her own hut.
'Out and bar the door! Let none come near till it is finished.'
'But afterwards--we may talk?'
Kim tilted the kilta on the floor--a cascade of Survey-instruments,books, diaries, letters, maps, and queerly scented, nativecorrespondence. At the very bottom was an embroidered bag covering asealed, gilded, and illuminated document such as one King sends toanother. Kim caught his breath with delight, and reviewed the situationfrom a Sahib's point of view.
'The books I do not want. Besides, they are logarithms--Survey, Isuppose.' He laid them aside. 'The letters I do not understand, butColonel Creighton will. They must all be kept. The maps--they drawbetter maps than me--of course. All the native letters--oho!--andparticularly the murasla.' He sniffed the embroidered bag. 'That must befrom Hilas or Bunar, and Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove! It is a finehaul. I wish Hurree could know. . . . The rest must go out of the window.'He fingered a superb prismatic compass and the shiny top of atheodolite. But after all, a Sahib cannot very well steal, and thethings might be inconvenient evidence later. He sorted out every scrapof manuscript, every map, and the native letters. They made one softishslab. The three locked ferril-backed books, with five worn pocket-books,he put aside.
'The letters and the murasla I must carry inside my coat and under mybelt, and the hand-written books I must put into the food-bag. It willbe very heavy. No. I do not think there is anything more. If there is,the coolies have thrown it down the khud, so thatt is all right. Now yougo too.' He repacked the kilta with all he meant to lose, and hove it upon to the window-sill. A thousand feet below lay a long, lazy,round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by the morning sun. Athousand feet below that was an hundred-year-old pine-forest. He couldsee the green tops looking like a bed of moss when a wind-eddy thinnedthe cloud.
'No! I don't think any one will go after you!'
The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The theodolitehit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded like a shell; the books,inkstand, paint-boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few secondslike a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though Kim, hanging halfout of window, strained his young ears, never a sound came up from thegulf.
'Five hundred--a thousand rupees could not buy them,' he thoughtsorrowfully. 'It was verree wasteful, but I have all their otherstuff--everything they did--I hope. Now how the deuce am I to tellHurree Babu, and whatt the deuce am I to do? And my old man is sick. Imust tie up the letters in oilcloth. That is something to do first--elsethey will get all sweated. . . . And I am all alone!' He bound them intoa neat packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilcloth at the corners,for his roving life had made him as methodical as an old hunter inmatters of the road. Then with double care he packed away the books atthe bottom of the food-bag.
The woman rapped at the door.
'But thou hast made no charm,' she said, looking about.
'There is no need.' Kim had completely overlooked the necessity for alittle patter-talk. The woma
n laughed at his confusion irreverently.
'None--for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the mere winking of an eye.But think of us poor people when thou art gone! They were all too drunklast night to hear a woman. Thou art not drunk?'
'I am a priest.' Kim had recovered himself, and, the woman being aughtbut unlovely, thought best to stand on his office.
'I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make aninquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also the Babu with them.Clerks have long tongues.'
'Is that all thy trouble?' The plan rose fully formed in Kim's mind, andhe smiled ravishingly.
'Not all,' quoth the woman, putting out a hard brown hand all coveredwith turquoises set in silver.
'I can finish that in a breath,' he went on quickly. 'The Babu is thevery hakim (thou hast heard of him?) who was wandering among the hillsby Ziglaur. I know him.'
'He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs cannot distinguish onehillman from another, but Babus have eyes for men--and women.'
'Carry a word to him from me.'
'There is nothing I would not do for thee.'
He accepted the compliment calmly, as men must in lands where women makethe love, tore a leaf from a note-book, and with a patent indeliblepencil wrote in gross Shikast--the script that bad little boys use whenthey write dirt on walls: 'I have everything that they have written:their pictures of the country, and many letters. Especially the murasla.Tell me what to do. I am at Shamlegh-under-the-Snow. The old man issick.'
'Take this to him. It will altogether shut his mouth. He cannot havegone far.'
'Indeed no. They are still in the forest across the spur. Our childrenwent to watch them when the light came, and have cried the news as theymoved.'
Kim looked his astonishment; but from the edge of the sheep-pasturefloated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending cattle had picked itup from a brother or sister on the far side of the slope that commandedChini valley.
'My husbands are also out there gathering wood.' She drew a handful ofwalnuts from her bosom, split one neatly, and began to eat. Kim affectedblank ignorance.
'Dost thou not know the meaning of the walnut--priest?' she said coyly,and handed him the half-shells.
'Well thought of.' He slipped the piece of paper between them quickly.'Hast thou a little wax to close them on this letter?'
The woman sighed aloud, and Kim relented.
'There is no payment till service has been rendered. Carry this to theBabu, and say it was sent by the Son of the Charm.'
'Ai! Truly! Truly! By a magician--who is like a Sahib.'
'Nay, Son of the Charm: and ask if there be any answer.'
'But if he offer a rudeness? I--I am afraid.'
Kim laughed. 'He is, I have no doubt, very tired and very hungry. TheHills make cold bedfellows. Hai, my'--it was on the tip of his tongue tosay Mother, but he turned it to Sister--'thou art a wise and wittywoman. By this time all the villages know what has befallen theSahibs--eh?'
'True. News was at Ziglaur by midnight, and by to-morrow should be atKotgarh. The villages are both afraid and angry.'
'No need. Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs and pass them on, inpeace. We must get them quietly away from our valleys. To steal is onething--to kill another. The Babu will understand, and there will be noafter-complaints. Be swift. I must tend my master when he wakes.'
'So be it. After service--thou hast said?--comes the reward. I am theWoman of Shamlegh, and I hold from the Rajah. I am no common bearer ofbabes. Shamlegh is thine: hoof and horn and hide, milk and butter. Takeor leave.'
She turned resolutely uphill, her silver necklaces clicking on her broadbreast, to meet the morning sun fifteen hundred feet above them. Thistime Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin edges ofthe packets.
'How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternallypestered by women? There was that girl at Akrola by the Ford; and therewas the scullion's wife behind the dovecot--not counting the others--andnow comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I ama man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts indeed! Ho! ho! Itis almonds in the Plains!'
He went out to levy on the village--not with a begging-bowl, which mightdo for down-country, but in the manner of a prince. Shamlegh's summerpopulation is only three families--four women and eight or nine men.They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks, from ammoniatedquinine to white vodka, for they had taken their full share in theovernight loot. The neat Continental tents had been cut up and sharedlong ago, and there were patent aluminum saucepans abroad.
But they considered the lama's presence a perfect safeguard against allconsequences, and impenitently brought Kim of their best--even to adrink of chang--the barley-beer that comes from Ladakh-way. Then theythawed out in the sun, and sat with their legs hanging over infiniteabysses, chattering, laughing, and smoking. They judged India and itsGovernment solely from their experience of wandering Sahibs who hademployed them or their friends as shikarris. Kim heard tales of shotsmissed upon ibex, serow, or markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in theirgraves--every detail lighted from behind like twigs on tree-tops seenagainst lightning. They told him of their little diseases, and, moreimportant, the diseases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle; of trips asfar as Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries live, and beyond even tomarvellous Simla, where the streets are paved with silver, and any one,look you, can get service with the Sahibs, who ride about in two-wheeledcarts and spend money with a spade. Presently, grave and aloof, walkingvery heavily, the lama joined himself to the chatter under the eaves,and they gave him great room. The thin air refreshed him, and he sat onthe edge of precipices with the best of them, and, when talk languished,flung pebbles into the void. Thirty miles away, as the eagle flies, laythe next range, seamed and channelled and pitted with little patches ofbrush--forests, each a day's dark march. Behind the village, Shamleghhill itself cut off all view to southward. It was like sitting in aswallow's nest under the eaves of the roof of the world.
From time to time the lama stretched out his hand, and with a little,low-voiced prompting would point out the road to Spiti and north acrossthe Parungla.
'Beyond, where the hills lie thickest, lies De-ch'en' (he meant Han-le),'the great Monastery. s'Tag-stanras-ch'en built it, and of him thereruns this tale.' Whereupon he told it: a fantastic piled narrative ofbewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh agasping. Turning west alittle, he speered for the green hills of Kulu, and sought Kailung underthe glaciers. 'For thither came I in the old, old days. From Leh Icame; over the Baralachi.'
'Yes, yes; we know it,' said the far-faring people of Shamlegh.
'And I slept two nights with the priests of Kailung. These are the hillsof my delight! Shadows blessed above all other shadows! There my eyesopened on this world; there my eyes were opened to this world; there Ifound Enlightenment; and there I girt my loins for my Search. Out of theHills I came--the high Hills and the strong winds. Oh, just is theWheel!' He blessed them in detail--the great glaciers, the naked rocks,the piled moraines and tumbled shale; dry upland, hidden salt-lake,age-old timber and fruitful water-shot valley one after the other, as adying man blesses his folk, and Kim marvelled at his passion.
'Yes--yes. There is no place like our Hills,' said the people ofShamlegh. And they fell to wondering how a man could live in the hotterrible Plains where the cattle run as big as elephants, unfit toplough on a hillside; where village touches village, they had heard, fora hundred miles; where folk went about stealing in gangs, and what therobbers spared the Police carried utterly away.
So the still forenoon wore through, and at the end of it Kim's messengerdropped from the steep pasture as unbreathed as when she had set out.
'I sent a word to the hakim,' Kim explained, while she made reverence.
'He joined himself to the idolaters? Nay, I remember he did a healingupon one of them. He has acquired merit, though the healed employed hisstrength for evil. Just is the Wheel! What of the haki
m?'
'I feared that thou hadst been bruised and--and I knew he was wise.' Kimtook the waxed walnut-shell and read in English on the back of his note:'Your favour received. Cannot get away from present company at present,but shall take them into Simla. After which, hope to rejoin you.Inexpedient to follow angry gentlemen. Return by same road you came, andwill overtake. Highly gratified about correspondence due to myforethought.' 'He says, Holy One, that he will escape from theidolaters, and will return to us. Shall we wait awhile at Shamlegh,then?'
The lama looked long and lovingly upon the hills and shook his head.
'That may not be, chela. From my bones outward I do desire it, but it isforbidden. I have seen the Cause of Things.'
'Why? When the Hills give thee back thy strength day by day? Remember wewere weak and fainting down below there in the Doon.'
'I became strong to do evil and to forget. A brawler and a swashbucklerupon the hillsides was I.' Kim bit back a smile. 'Just and perfect isthe Wheel, swerving not a hair. When I was a man--a long time ago--I didpilgrimage to Guru Ch'wan among the poplars' (he pointed Bhotanwards),'where they keep the Sacred Horse.'
'Quiet, be quiet!' said Shamlegh, all arow. 'He speaks ofJam-lin-nin-k'or, the Horse That Can Go Round The World In a Day.'
'I speak to my chela only,' said the lama, in gentle reproof, and theyscattered like frost on south eaves of a morning. 'I did not seek truthin those days, but the talk of doctrine. All illusion! I drank the beerand ate the bread of Guru Ch'wan. Next day one said: "We go out tofight Sangor Gutok down the valley to discover (mark again how Lust istied to Anger!) which abbot shall bear rule in the valley, and take theprofit of the prayers they print at Sangor Gutok." I went, and we foughta day.'
'But how, Holy One?'
'With our long pencases as I could have shown. . . . I say, we foughtunder the poplars, both abbots and all the monks, and one laid open myforehead to the bone. See!' He tilted back his cap and showed a puckeredsilvery scar. 'Just and perfect is the Wheel! Yesterday the scar itched,and after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and the face of himwho dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion. Followed that which thoudidst see--strife and stupidity. Just is the Wheel! The idolater's blowfell upon the scar. Then I was shaken in my soul: my soul was darkened,and the boat of my soul rocked upon the waters of illusion. Not till Icame to Shamlegh could I meditate upon the Cause of Things, or trace therunning grass-roots of Evil. I strove all the long night.'
'But, Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil. May I be thy sacrifice!'
Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man's sorrow, and Mahbub Ali'sphrase slipped out unawares.
'In the dawn,' he went on more gravely, ready rosary clicking betweenthe slow sentences, 'came enlightenment. It is here. . . . I am an oldman . . . hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my Hills. Threeyears I travelled through Hind, but--can earth be stronger than MotherEarth? My stupid body yearned to the Hills and the snow of the Hills,from below there. I said, and it is true, my Search is sure. So, at theKulu woman's house I turned hillward, over-persuaded by myself. There isno blame to the hakim. He--following Desire--foretold that the Hillswould make me strong. They strengthened me to do evil, to forget mySearch. I delighted in life and the lust of life. I desired strongslopes to climb. I cast about to find them. I measured the strength ofmy body, which is evil, against the high hills. I made a mock of theewhen thy breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested when thou wouldstnot face the snow of the pass.'
'But what harm? I was afraid. It was just. I am not a hillman; and Iloved thee for thy new strength.'
'More than once I remember,' he rested his cheek dolefully on his hand,'I sought thy praise and the hakim's for the mere strength of my legs.Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full. Just is the Wheel! AllHind for three years did me all honour. From the Fountain of Wisdom inthe Wonder House to'--he smiled--'a little child playing by a biggun--the world prepared my road. And why?'
'Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I myself amstill sick and shaken.'
'No! It was because I was upon the Way--tuned as are sinen (cymbals) tothe purpose of the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune wasbroken: followed the punishment. In my own Hills, on the edge of my owncountry, in the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet--here!'(He touched his brow.) 'As a novice is beaten when he misplaces thecups, so am I beaten, who was Abbot of Suchzen. No word, look you, but ablow, chela.'
'But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?'
'We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and Lust uponthe road, and they begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am nobetter than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who can read theCause of an act is half-way to Freedom! "Back to the path," says theBlow. "The Hills are not for thee. Thou canst not choose Freedom and goin bondage to the delight of life."'
'If we had never met that thrice-cursed Russian!'
'Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel swing backward. And for my meritthat I had acquired I gain yet another sign.' He put his hand in hisbosom, and drew forth the Wheel of Life. 'Look! I considered this afterI had meditated. There remains untorn by the idolater no more than thebreadth of my finger-nail.'
'I see.'
'So much, then, is the span of my life in this body. I have served theWheel all my days. Now the Wheel serves me. But for the merit I haveacquired in guiding thee upon the Way, there would have been added to meyet another life ere I had found my River. Is it plain, chela?'
Kim stared at the brutally disfigured chart. From left to rightdiagonally the rent ran--from the Eleventh House where Desire givesbirth to the Child (as it is drawn by Tibetans)--across the human andanimal worlds, to the Fifth House--the empty House of the Senses. Thelogic was unanswerable.
'Before our Lord won enlightenment,' the lama folded all away withreverence, 'He was tempted. I too have been tempted, but it is finished.The Arrow fell in the Plains--not in the Hills. Therefore, what make wehere?'
'Shall we at least wait for the hakim?'
'I know how long I live in this body. What can a hakim do?'
'But thou art all sick and shaken. Thou canst not walk.'
'How can I be sick if I see Freedom?' He rose unsteadily to his feet.
'Then I must get food from the village. Oh, the weary Road!' Kim feltthat he too needed rest.
'That is lawful. Let us eat and go. The Arrow fell in Plains . . . butI yielded to Desire. Make ready, chela.'
Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise headgear who had been idlypitching pebbles over the cliff. She smiled very kindly.
'I found him like a strayed buffalo in a corn-field--the Babu; snortingand sneezing with cold. He was so hungry that he forgot his dignity andgave me sweet words. The Sahibs have nothing.' She flung out an emptypalm. 'One is very sick about the stomach. Thy work?'
Kim nodded, with a bright eye.
'I spoke to the Bengali first--and to the people of a nearby villageafter. The Sahibs will be given food as they need it--nor will thepeople ask money. The plunder is already distributed. That Babu makeslying speeches to the Sahibs. Why does he not leave them?'
'Out of the greatness of his heart.'
''Was never a Bengali yet had one bigger than a dried walnut. But it isno matter. . . . Now as to walnuts. After service comes reward. I havesaid the village is thine.'
'It is my loss,' Kim began. 'Even now I had planned desirable things inmy heart which'--there is no need to go through the compliments properto these occasions. He sighed deeply . . . 'But my master, led by avision--'
'Huh! What can old eyes see except a full begging-bowl?'
'--turns from this village to the Plains again.'
'Bid him stay.'
Kim shook his head. 'I know my Holy One, and his rage if he be crossed,'he replied impressively. 'His curses shake the Hills.'
'Pity they did not save him from a broken head! I heard that thou wastthe tiger-hearted one who smote the Sahib. Let him dre
am a littlelonger. Stay!'
'Hillwoman,' said Kim, with austerity that could not harden the outlinesof his young oval face, 'these matters are too high for thee.'
'The Gods be good to us! Since when have men and women been other thanmen and women?'
'A priest is a priest. He says he will go upon this hour. I am hischela, and I go with him. We need food for the Road. He is an honouredguest in all the villages, but'--he broke into a pure boyish grin--'thefood here is good. Give me some.'
'What if I do not give it thee? I am the woman of this village.'
'Then I curse thee--a little--not greatly, but enough to remember.' Hecould not help smiling.
'Thou hast cursed me already by the down-dropped eyelash and theuplifted chin. Curses? What should I care for mere words?' She clenchedher hands upon her bosom. . . . 'But I would not have thee to go inanger, thinking hardly of me--a gatherer of cow-dung and grass atShamlegh, but still a woman of substance.'
'I think nothing,' said Kim, 'but that I am grieved to go, for I am verytired, and that we need food. Here is the bag.'
The woman snatched it angrily. 'I was foolish,' said she. 'Who is thywoman in the Plains? Fair or black? I was fair once. Laughest thou?Once, long ago, if thou canst believe, a Sahib looked on me with favour.Once, long ago, I wore European clothes at the Mission-house yonder.'She pointed towards Kotgarh. 'Once, long ago, I was Ker-lis-ti-an andspoke English--as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib said he wouldreturn and wed me--yes, wed me. He went away--I had nursed him when hewas sick--but he never returned. Then I saw that the Gods of theKerlistians lied, and I went back to my own people. . . . I have neverset eyes on a Sahib since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit is past, littlepriestling.) Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put me inmind of my Sahib, though thou art only a wandering mendicant to whom Igive a dole. Curse me? Thou canst neither curse nor bless!' She set herhands on her hips and laughed bitterly. 'Thy Gods are lies; thy worksare lies; thy words are lies. There are no Gods under all the heavens. Iknow it. . . . But for a while I thought it was my Sahib come back, andhe was my God. Yes, once I made music on a pianno in the Mission-houseat Kotgarh. Now I give alms to priests who are heatthen.' She wound upwith the English word, and tied the mouth of the brimming bag.
'I wait for thee, chela,' said the lama, leaning against the door-post.
The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes. 'He walk? He cannot coverhalf a mile. Whither would old bones go?'
At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama's collapse, and foreseeingthe weight of the bag, fairly lost his temper.
'What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he goes?'
'Nothing--but something to thee, priest with a Sahib's face. Wilt thoucarry him on thy shoulders?'
'I go to the Plains. None must hinder my return. I have wrestled with mysoul till I am strengthless. The stupid body is spent, and we are farfrom the Plains.'
'Behold!' she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his own utterhelplessness. 'Curse me. May be it will give him strength. Make a charm!Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest.' She turned away.
The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the door-post. One cannotstrike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in a night.Weakness bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on Kim werealive and imploring.
'It is all well,' said Kim. 'It is the thin air that weakens thee. In alittle while we go! It is the mountain-sickness. I too am a little sickat stomach,' . . . and he knelt and comforted with such poor words ascame first to his lips. Then the woman returned, more erect than ever.
'Thy Gods useless, heh? Try mine. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.' Shehailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen her two husbands andthree others with a dooli, the rude native litter of the Hills, thatthey use for carrying the sick and for visits of state. 'These cattle,'she did not condescend to look at them, 'are thine for so long as thoushalt need.'
'But we will not go Simla-way. We will not go near the Sahibs,' criedthe first husband.
'They will not run away as the others did, nor will they steal baggage.Two I know for weaklings. Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and Taree.' Theyobeyed swiftly. 'Lower now, and lift in that holy man. I will see to thevillage and your virtuous wives till ye return.'
'When will that be?'
'Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the food-bag at the foot, itbalances better so.'
'Oh, Holy One, thy Hills are kinder than our Plains!' cried Kim,relieved, as the lama tottered to the litter. 'It is a very king'sbed--a place of honour and ease. And we owe it to--'
'A woman of ill-omen. I need thy blessings as much as I do thy curses.It is my order and none of thine. Lift and away! Here! Hast thou moneyfor the road?'
She beckoned Kim to her hut, and stooped above a battered Englishcash-box under her cot.
'I do not need anything,' said Kim, angered where he should have beengrateful. 'I am already rudely loaded with favours.'
She looked up with a curious smile and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Atleast, thank me. I am foul-faced and a hillwoman, but, as thy talk goes,I have acquired merit. Shall I show thee how the Sahibs render thanks?'and her hard eyes softened.
'I am but a wandering priest,' said Kim, his eyes lighting in answer.'Thou needest neither my blessings nor my curses.'
'Nay. But for one little moment--thou canst overtake the dooli in tenstrides--if thou wast a Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst do?'
'How if I guess, though?' said Kim, and putting his arm round her waist,he kissed her on the cheek, adding in English: 'Thank you verree much,my dear.'
Kissing is practically unknown among Asiatics, which may have been thereason that she leaned back with wide-open eyes and a face of panic.
'Next time,' Kim went on, 'you must not be so sure of your heatthenpriests. Now I say good-bye.' He held out his hand English-fashion. Shetook it mechanically. 'Good-bye, my dear.'
'Good-bye, and--and'--she was remembering her English words one byone--'you will come back again? Good-bye, and--thee God bless you.'
Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path thatleads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hutdoor waving a white rag.
'She has acquired merit beyond all others,' said the lama. 'For to set aman upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had herselffound it.'
'Umm,' said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. 'It may be that Ihave acquired merit also. . . . At least she did not treat me like achild.' He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the slab ofdocuments and maps, restowed the precious food-bag at the lama's feet,laid his hand on the litter edge, and buckled down to the slow pace ofthe grunting husbands.
'These also acquire merit,' said the lama, after three miles.
'More than that, they shall be paid in silver,' quoth Kim. The Woman ofShamlegh had given it to him; and it was only fair, he argued, that hermen should earn it back again.