CHAPTER III
'Yea, voice of every Soul that clung To Life that strove from rung to rung When Devadatta's rule was young, The warm wind brings Kamakura.'
BEHIND them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was amarket-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers forUmballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.
'Such an one,' said the lama, disregarding the dogs, 'is impolite tostrangers, intemperate of speech and uncharitable. Be warned by hisdemeanour, my disciple.'
'Ho, shameless beggars!' shouted the farmer. 'Begone! Get hence!'
'We go,' the lama returned, with quiet dignity. 'We go from theseunblessed fields.'
'Ah,' said Kim, sucking in his breath. 'If the next crops fail, thoucanst only blame thy own tongue.'
The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. 'The land is full ofbeggars,' he began, half apologetically.
'And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O Mali?'said Kim tartly, using the name that a market-gardener least likes. 'Allwe sought was to look at that river beyond the field there.'
'River, forsooth!' the man snorted. 'What city do ye hail from not toknow a canal-cut? It runs as straight as an arrow, and I pay for thewater as though it were molten silver. There is a branch of a riverbeyond. But if ye need water I can give that--and milk.'
'Nay, we will go to the river,' said the lama, striding out.
'Milk and a meal,' the man stammered, as he looked at the strange tallfigure. 'I--I would not draw evil upon myself--or my crops; but beggarsare so many in these hard days.'
'Take notice,' the lama turned to Kim. 'He was led to speak harshly bythe Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he becomes courteousand of an affable heart. May his fields be blessed. Beware not to judgemen too hastily, O farmer.'
'I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone tobyre,' said Kim to the abashed man. 'Is he not wise and holy? I am hisdisciple.'
He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the narrowfield-borders with great dignity.
'There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no prideamong such as follow the Middle Way.'
'But thou hast said he was low caste and discourteous.'
'Low caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwardshe amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is aswe are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way ofdeliverance.' He halted at a little runlet among the fields, andconsidered the hoof-pitted bank.
'Now, how wilt thou know thy River?' said Kim, squatting in the shade ofsome tall sugar-cane.
'When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I feel, isnot the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou couldst tellme where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the fields bear!'
'Look! Look!' Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A yellow andbrown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank,stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still--a big cobra withfixed, lidless eyes.
'I have no stick--I have no stick,' said Kim. 'I will get me one andbreak his back.'
'Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are--a life ascending ordescending--very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul havedone that is cast into this shape.'
'I hate all snakes,' said Kim. No native training can quench the whiteman's horror of the Serpent.
'Let him live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened itshood. 'May thy release come soon, brother,' the lama continued placidly.'Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?'
'Never have I seen such a man as thou art,' Kim whispered, overwhelmed.'Do the very snakes understand thy talk?'
'Who knows?'. He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head. Itflattened itself among the dusty coils.
'Come thou!' he called over his shoulder.
'Not I,' said Kim. 'I go round.'
'Come. He does no hurt.'
Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some dronedChinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and boundedacross the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.
'Never have I seen such a man.' Kim wiped the sweat from his forehead.'And now, whither go we?'
'That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger--far from my ownplace. But that the rel-carriage fills my head with noises ofdevil-drums I would go in it to Benares now. . . . Yet by so going wemay miss the River. Let us find another river.'
Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops ayear--through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, andnol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpseof water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; thelama replying to the vollied questions with an unswerving simplicity.They sought a River--a River of miraculous healing. Had any oneknowledge of such a stream? Sometimes men laughed, but more often heardthe story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade, a drinkof milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and the little childrenas children are the world over, alternately shy and venturesome. Eveningfound them at rest under the village tree of a mud-walled, mud-roofedhamlet, talking to the headman as the cattle came in from thegrazing-grounds and the women prepared the day's last meal. They hadpassed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and wereamong the mile-wide green of the staple crops.
He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertainingstrangers. He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warmcooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening ceremoniesbeing finished in the village temple, sent for the village priest.
Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of Lahore, ofrailway travel, and such-like city things, while the men talked, slowlyas their cattle chew the cud.
'I cannot fathom it,' said the headman at last to the priest. 'Howreadest thou this talk?' The lama, his tale told, was silently tellinghis beads.
'He is a Seeker,' the priest answered. 'The land is full of such.Remember him who came only last month--the faquir with the tortoise?'
'Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared ina vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he journeyedto Prayag. This man seeks no god who is within my knowledge.'
'Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,' thesmooth-shaven priest replied. 'Hear me.' He turned to the lama. 'Threekos (six miles) to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta.'
'But I would go to Benares--to Benares.'
'And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of Hind. Nowmy word to thee, Holy One, is rest here till to-morrow. Then take theroad' (it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant) 'and test each stream thatit overpasses; for, as I understand, the virtue of thy River liesneither in one pool nor place, but throughout its length. Then, if thygods will, be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom.'
'That is well said.' The lama was much impressed by the plan. 'We willbegin to-morrow, and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such a nearroad.' A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the sentence. Eventhe priest was impressed, and the headman feared an evil spell: but nonecould look at the lama's simple, eager face and doubt him long.
'Seest thou my chela?' he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with animportant sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy.
'I see--and hear.' The headman rolled his eye where Kim was chatting toa girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a fire.
'He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a Red Bullon a green field will some day raise him to honour. He is, I think, notaltogether of this world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me in thissearch, and his name is Friend of all the World.'
The priest smiled. 'Ho there, Friend of all the World,' he cried acrossthe sharp-smelling smoke, 'what art thou?'
'This Holy One's disciple,' said Kim.
'He says thou
art a but' (a spirit).
'Can buts eat?' said Kim, with a twinkle. 'For I am hungry.'
'It is no jest,' cried the lama. 'A certain astrologer of that citywhose name I have forgotten--'
'That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night,'Kim whispered to the priest.
'Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my chelashould find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaningof the stars, Friend of all the World?'
Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village graybeards.
'The meaning of my Star is War,' he replied pompously.
Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on thebrickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have laindown, Kim's white blood set him upon his feet.
'Ay, War,' he answered.
'That is a sure prophecy,' rumbled a deep voice. 'For there is alwayswar along the Border--as I know.'
It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the daysof the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment.The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and thoughthe demands of his sons, now gray-bearded officers on their own account,had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence. Englishofficials--Deputy Commissioners even--turned aside from the main road tovisit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the uniform ofancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.
'But this shall be a great war--a war of eight thousand,' Kim's voiceshrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.
'Redcoats or our own regiments?' the old man snapped, as though he wereasking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.
'Redcoats,' said Kim at a venture. 'Redcoats and guns.'
'But--but the astrologer said no word of this,' cried the lama, snuffingprodigiously in his excitement.
'But I know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One's disciple.There will rise a war--a war of eight thousand redcoats. From Pindi andPeshawur they will be drawn. This is sure.'
'The boy has heard bazar-talk,' said the priest.
'But he was always by my side,' said the lama. 'How should he know? Idid not know.'
'He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,' muttered thepriest to the headman. 'What new trick is this?'
'A sign. Give me a sign,' thundered the old soldier suddenly. 'If therewere war my sons would have told me.'
'When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a longroad from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie.' Kimwarmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in theletter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended toknow more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things--thesheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath and wenton.
'Old man, give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eightthousand redcoats--with guns?'
'No.' Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.
'Dost thou know who He is then that gives the order?'
'I have seen Him.'
'To know again?'
'I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana' (theArtillery).
'A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?' Kim took a fewpaces in a stiff, wooden style.
'Ay. But that any one may have seen.' The crowd were breathless-stillthrough all this talk.
'That is true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now. First thegreat man walks thus. Then He thinks thus. (Kim drew a forefinger overhis forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the angle of thejaw.) Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He thrusts his hat underhis left armpit.' Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.
The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowdshivered.
'So--so--so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?'
'He rubs the skin at the back of his neck--thus. Then falls one fingeron the table and he makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. ThenHe speaks, saying: "Loose such and such a regiment. Call out suchguns."'
The old man rose stiffly and saluted.
'"For"'--Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences hehad heard in the dressing-room at Umballa--'"For," says He, "we shouldhave done this long ago. It is not war--it is a chastisement. Snff!"'
'Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seenand heard. It is He!'
'I saw no smoke'--Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of thewayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man tomake things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He, standing in a ringof light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spokentruth?'
'It is He. Past all doubt it is He.'
The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the oldman, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.
'Said I not--said I not he was from the other world?' cried the lamaproudly. 'He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of theStars!'
'At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou youngsoothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have ared-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know--'
'Or I care,' said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with thycattle.'
'Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a buffalo, orhe would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?'
Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play;but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the faquirs by theTaksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.
The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly--a dry andblighting smile.
'Is there no priest then in the village? I thought I had seen a greatone even now,' cried Kim.
'Ay--but--' the woman began.
'But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful ofthanks.' The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couplein the village. 'It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calfto thy own priest, and, unless thy gods are angry past recall, she willgive milk within a month.'
'A master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest approvingly. 'Not thecunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made theold man rich?'
'A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,' Kimretorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious--'does one growrich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me whileI learn the road at least.'
He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talkedamong themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewddisciples.
'Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may betreasure.'
'He is mad--many times mad. There is nothing else.'
Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim would accept hishospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, butinsisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to thetemple--at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one faceto the other, and drew his own conclusions.
'Where is the money?' he whispered, beckoning the old man off into thedarkness.
'In my bosom. Where else?'
'Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me.'
'But why? Here is no ticket to buy.'
'Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet about theways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it.' He slipped hishand above the lama's girdle and brought away the purse.
'Be it so--be it so.' The old man nodded his head. 'This is a great andterrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in it.'
Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was quitehappy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the old man,who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry knees,told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in theirgraves, till Kim
dropped off to sleep.
'Certainly the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I sleeplightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broadday. Even now I am heavy.'
'Drink a draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not a few suchremedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. 'It is time to take theroad again.'
'The long road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,' said the lamagaily. 'Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense thesepeople, and especially the priest, for their great kindness? Truly theyare but-parast, but in other lives, may be, they will receiveenlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is no more thanstone and red paint, but the heart of man we must acknowledge when andwhere it is good.'
'Holy One, hast thou ever taken the road alone?' Kim looked up sharply,like the Indian crows so busy about the fields.
'Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot--from Kulu, where my first cheladied. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men werewell-disposed throughout all the Hills.'
'It is otherwise in Hind,' said Kim drily. 'Their gods are many-armedand malignant. Let them alone.'
'I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all theWorld--thou and thy yellow man.' The old soldier ambled up the villagestreet, all shadowy in the dawn, on a gaunt, scissor-hocked pony. 'Lastnight broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried heart, and itwas as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in the air. I smellit. See! I have brought my sword.'
He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at hisside,--hand dropped on the pommel,--staring fiercely over the flat landstowards the north. 'Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come upand sit behind me. The beast will carry two.'
'I am this Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared thevillage-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, butthe priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium ona man who carried no money.
'That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect isalways good. There is no respect in these days--not even when aCommissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star leadshim to war follow a holy man?'
'But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in talk andin act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an one.We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'
'Thou art not, that I can see; but I do not know that other. He marcheswell, though.'
The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long, easy,camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically clicking hisrosary.
They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across theflat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of thesnow-capped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work inthe fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmenbehind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony feltthe good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand onthe stirrup-leather.
'It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said the lamaon the last bead of his eighty-one.
The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the firsttime was aware of him.
'Seekest thou the River also?' said he, turning.
'The day is new,' was the reply. 'What need of a river save to water atbefore sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.'
'That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will; but why thesword?'
The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game ofmake-believe.
'The sword,' he said, fumbling it. 'Oh, that was a fancy of mine--anold man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bearweapons throughout Hind, but'--he cheered up and slapped the hilt--'allthe constabeels hereabout know me.'
'It is not a good fancy,' said the lama. 'What profit to kill men?'
'Very little--as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain itwould not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speakwithout knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash withblood.'
'What madness was that, then?'
'The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into allthe Army, and they turned against their officers. That was the firstevil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But theychose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then came the Sahibs fromover the sea and called them to most strict account.'
'Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They called itthe Black Year, as I remember.'
'What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumourindeed! All earth knew, and trembled.'
'Our earth never shook but once--upon the day that the Excellent Onereceived Enlightenment.'
'Umph! I saw Delhi shake at least; and Delhi is the navel of the world.'
'So they turned against women and children? That was a bad deed, forwhich the punishment cannot be avoided.'
'Many strove to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in aregiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and eighty sabres stoodfast to their salt--how many think you? Three. Of whom I was one.'
He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the bigsword at his side--hand dropped on the pommel--staring fiercely ever theflat Lands. . .]
'The greater merit.'
'Merit! We did not consider it merit in those days. My people, myfriends, my brothers fell from me. They said: "The time of the Englishis accomplished. Let each strike out a little holding for himself." ButI had talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chillianwallah, of Moodkee andFerozeshah. I said: "Abide a little and the wind turns. There is noblessing in this work." In those days I rode seventy miles with anEnglish memsahib and her babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow! That was a horsefit for a man!) I placed them in safety, and back came I to myofficer--the one that was not killed of our five. "Give me work," saidI, "for I am an outcast among my own kin, and my cousin's blood is weton my sabre." "Be content," said he. "There is great work forward. Whenthis madness is over there is a recompense."'
'Ay, there is a recompense when the madness is over, surely?' the lamamuttered half to himself.
'They did not hang medals in those days on all who by accident had hearda gun fired. No! In nineteen pitched battles was I; in six-and-fortyskirmishes of horse; and in small affairs without number. Nine wounds Ibear; a medal and four clasps and the medal of an Order, for my captainswho are now generals, remembered me when the Kaiser-i-Hind hadaccomplished fifty years of her reign, and all the land rejoiced. Theysaid: "Give him the order of Berittish India." I carry it upon my necknow. I have also my jaghir (holding) from the hands of the State--a freegift to me and mine. The men of the old days--they are nowCommissioners--come riding to me through the crops,--high upon horses sothat all the village sees,--and we talk out the old skirmishes, onedead man's name leading to another.'
'And after?' said the lama.
'Oh, afterwards they go away, but not before my village has seen.'
'And at the last what wilt thou do?'
'At the last I shall die.'
'And after?'
'Let the Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with prayers: I donot think they will pester me. Look you, I have noticed in my long lifethat those who eternally break in upon Those Above with complaints andreports and bellowings and weepings are presently sent for in haste, asour colonel used to send for slack-jawed down-country men who talked toomuch. No, I have never wearied the Gods. They will remember this, andgive me a quiet place where I can drive my lance in the shade, and waitto welcome my sons: I have no less than three--ressaldar-majors all--inthe regiments.'
'And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life tolife--from despair to despair,' said the lama below his breath, 'hot,uneasy, snatching.'
'Ay,' the old soldier chuckled. 'Three ressaldar-majors in threeregiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I. They must be well mounted;and one cannot take the horses as in
the old days one took women. Well,well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It is awell-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask saveat the lance's point. Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and they feignpenitence, but behind my back I know they call me a toothless old ape.'
'Hast thou never desired any other thing?'
Yes--yes--a thousand times! A straight back and a close-clinging kneeonce more; a quick wrist and a keen eye; and the marrow that makes aman. Oh, the old days--the good days of my strength!'
'That strength is weakness.'
'It has turned so; but fifty years since I could have proved itotherwise,' the old soldier retorted, driving his stirrup-edge into thepony's lean flank.
'But I know a River of great healing.'
'I have drunk Gunga-water to the edge of dropsy. All she gave me was aflux, and no sort of strength.'
'It is not Gunga. The River that I know washes from all taint of sin.Ascending the far bank one is assured of Freedom. I do not know thylife, but thy face is the face of the honourable and courteous. Thouhast clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was hard to give, inthat Black Year of which I now remember other tales. Enter now upon theMiddle Way, which is the path to Freedom. Hear the Most Excellent Law,and do not follow dreams.'
'Speak then, old man,' the soldier smiled, half saluting. 'We be allbabblers at our age.'
The lama squatted under the shade of a mango, whose shadow playedcheckerwise over his face; the soldier sat stiffly on the pony; and Kim,making sure that there were no snakes, lay down in the crotch of thetwisted roots.
There was a drowsy buzz of small life in hot sunshine, a cooing ofdoves, and a sleepy drone of well-wheels across the fields. Slowly andimpressively the lama began. At the end of ten minutes the old soldierslid from his pony, to hear better as he said, and sat with the reinsround his wrist. The lama's voice faltered--the periods lengthened. Kimwas busy watching a gray squirrel. When the little scolding bunch offur, close pressed to the branch, disappeared, preacher and audiencewere fast asleep, the old officer's strong-cut head pillowed on his arm,the lama's thrown back against the tree hole, where it showed likeyellow ivory. A naked child toddled up, stared, and, moved by some quickimpulse of reverence made a solemn little obeisance before thelama--only the child was so short and fat that it toppled over sideways,and Kim laughed at the sprawling, chubby legs. The child, scared andindignant, yelled aloud.
'Hai! Hai!' said the soldier leaping to his feet. 'What is it? Whatorders? . . . It is . . . a child! I dreamed it was an alarm. Littleone--little one--do not cry. Have I slept? That was discourteousindeed!'
'I fear! I am afraid!' roared the child.
'What is it to fear? Two old men and a boy? How wilt thou ever make asoldier, Princeling?'
The lama had waked too, but, taking no direct notice of the child,clicked his rosary.
'What is that?' said the child, stopping a yell midway. 'I have neverseen such things. Give them me.'
'Aha,' said the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop of it on the grass:
'This is a handful of cardamoms, This is a lump of ghi: This is millet and chillies and rice, A supper for thee and me!'
The child shrieked with joy, and snatched at the dark, glancing beads.
'Oho!' said the old soldier. 'Whence had thou that song, despiser ofthis world?'
'I learned it in Pathankot--sitting on a door-step,' said the lamashyly. 'It is good to be kind to babes.'
'As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst told me thatmarriage and bearing were darkeners of the true light, stumbling-blocksupon the way. Do children drop from heaven in thy country? Is it the Wayto sing them songs?'
'No man is all perfect,' said the lama gravely, recoiling the rosary.'Run now to thy mother, little one.'
'Hear him!' said the soldier to Kim. 'He is ashamed for that he has madea child happy. There was a very good householder lost in thee, mybrother. Hai, child!' He threw it a pice. 'Sweetmeats are always sweet.'And as the little figure capered away into the sunshine: 'They grow upand become men. Holy One, I grieve that I slept in the midst of thypreaching. Forgive me.'
'We be two old men,' said the lama. 'The fault is mine. I listened tothy talk of the world and its madness, and one fault led to the next.'
'Hear him! What harm do thy Gods suffer from play with a babe? And thatsong was very well sung. Let us go on and I will sing thee the song ofNikal Seyn before Delhi--the old song.'
And they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's high,shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn wail heunfolded the story of Nikal Seyn (Nicholson)--the song that men sing inthe Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama listened withdeep interest.
'Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead--he died before Delhi! Lances of North takevengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the end, marking thetrills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump.
'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving thecompliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. 'It is long sinceI have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, HolyOne--the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For the most partit is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle road--allhard--takes the quick traffic. In the days before rail-carriages theSahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now there are onlycountry-carts and such like. Left and right is the rougher road for theheavy carts--grain and cotton and timber, bhoosa, lime and hides. A mangoes in safety here--for at every few kos is a police-station. Thepolice are thieves and extortioners (I myself would patrol it withcavalry--young recruits under a strong captain), but at least they donot suffer any rivals. All castes and kinds of men move here. Look!Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrimsand potters--all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river fromwhich I am withdrawn like a log after a flood.'
And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runsstraight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundredmiles--such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world. Theylooked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length of it, the whitebreadth speckled with slow-pacing folk; and the two-roomedpolice-station opposite.
'Who bears arms against the law?' a constable called out laughingly, ashe caught sight of the soldier's sword, 'Are not the police enough todestroy evil-doers?'
'It was because of the police I bought it,' was the answer. 'Does all gowell in Hind?'
'Ressaldar Sahib, all goes well.'
'I am like an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out from thebank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the road of Hindustan. All mencome by this way. . . .'
'Son of a swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee to scratchthy back upon? Father of all the daughters of shame and husband of tenthousand virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted to a devil, being ledthereto by her mother; thy aunts have never had a nose for sevengenerations! Thy sister--What owl's folly told thee to draw thy cartsacross the road? A broken wheel? Then take a broken head and put the twotogether at leisure!'
The voice and a venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of dustfifty yards away, where a cart had broken down. A thin, high Kattiwarmare, with eyes and nostrils aflame, rocketed out of the jam, snortingand wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of a shoutingman. He was tall and gray-bearded, sitting the almost mad beast as apiece of her, and scientifically lashing his victim between plunges.
The old man's face lit with pride. 'My child!' said he briefly, andstrove to rein the pony's neck to a fitting arch.
'Am I to be beaten before the police?' cried the carter. 'Justice! Iwill have Justice--'
'Am I to be blocked by a shouting ape who upsets ten thousand sacksunder a young horse's nose? That is the way to ruin a mare.'
'He speaks truth. He speaks truth. But she follows her man close,' saidthe old man. The carter ran under the wheels of his cart and
thencethreatened all sorts of vengeance.
'They are strong men, thy sons,' said the policeman serenely, pickinghis teeth.
The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and came on ata canter.
'My father!' He reined back ten yards and dismounted.
The old man was off his pony in an instant, and they embraced as dofather and son in the East.