CHAPTER VIII
'Something I owe to the soil that grew-- More to the life that fed-- But most to Allah Who gave me two Separate sides to my head.
I would go without shirts or shoes, Friends, tobacco or bread Sooner than for an instant lose Either side of my head.'
'THEN in God's Name take blue for red,' said Mahbub, alluding to theHindu colour of Kim's disreputable turban.
Kim countered with the old proverb, 'I will change my faith and mybedding, but thou must pay for it.'
The dealer laughed till he nearly fell from his horse. At a shop on theoutskirts of the city the change was made, and Kim stood up, externallyat least, a Mohammedan.
Mahbub hired a room over against the railway station, sent for a cookedmeal of the finest with almond-curd sweetmeats (balushai we call it) andfine-chopped Lucknow tobacco.
'This is better than some other meat that I ate with the Sikh,' saidKim, grinning as he squatted, 'and assuredly they give no such victualsat my madrissah.'
'I have a desire to hear of that same madrissah.' Mahbub stuffed himselfwith great boluses of spiced mutton fried in fat with cabbage andgolden-brown onions. 'But tell me first, altogether and truthfully, themanner of thy escape. For, O Friend of all the World,'--he loosed hiscracking belt,--'I do not think it is often that a Sahib and the son ofa Sahib runs away from there.'
'How should they? They do not know the land. It was nothing,' said Kim,and began his tale. When he came to the disguisement and the interviewwith the girl in the bazar, Mahbub Ali's gravity went from him. Helaughed aloud and beat his hand on his thigh.
'Shabash! Shabash! Oh, well done, little one! What will the healer ofturquoises say to this? Now, slowly, let us hear what befellafterwards--step by step, omitting nothing.'
Step by step then, Kim told his adventures between coughs as thefull-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs.
'I said,' growled Mahbub Ali to himself, 'I said it was the ponybreaking out to play polo. The fruit is ripe already--except that hemust learn his distances and his pacings, and his rods and hiscompasses. Listen now. I have turned aside the Colonel's whip from thyskin, and that is no small service.'
'True.' Kim puffed serenely. 'That is all true.'
'But it is not to be thought that this running out and in is any waygood.'
'It was my holiday, Hajji. I was a slave for many weeks. Why should Inot run away when the school was shut? Look, too, how I, living upon myfriends or working for my bread, as I did with the Sikh, have saved theColonel Sahib a great expense.'
Mahbub's lips twitched under his well-pruned Mohammedan moustache.
'What are a few rupees'--the Pathan threw out his open handcarelessly--'to the Colonel Sahib? He spends them for a purpose, not inany way for love of thee.'
'That,' said Kim slowly, 'I knew a very long time ago.'
'Who told?'
'The Colonel Sahib himself. Not in those many words, but plainly enoughfor one who is not altogether a mud-head. Yea, he told me in the te-rainwhen we went down to Lucknow.'
'Be it so. Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World, thoughin the telling I lend thee my head.'
'It was forfeit to me,' said Kim, with deep relish, 'in Umballa, whenthou didst pick me up on the horse after the drummer-boy beat me.'
'Speak a little plainer. All the world may tell lies save thou and I.For equally is thy life forfeit to me if I chose to raise my fingerhere.'
'And this is known to me also,' said Kim, readjusting the livecharcoal-ball on the weed. 'It is a very sure tie between us. Indeed thyhold is surer even than mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to death,or, it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Many people here andin Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would, on the otherhand, say: "What has come to Mahbub Ali," if he were found dead amonghis horses. Surely too the Colonel Sahib would make inquiries. Butagain,'--Kim's face puckered with cunning,--'he would not make overlonginquiry, lest people should ask: "What has this Colonel Sahib to do withthat horse-dealer?" But I--if I lived--'
'As thou wouldst surely die--'
'It may be; but I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, would know that onehad come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to Mahbub Ali's bulkheadin the serai, and there had slain him, either before or after that thiefhad made a full search into his saddle-bags and between the soles of hisslippers. Is that news to tell to the Colonel, or would he say to me--(Ihave not forgotten when he sent me back for a cigar-case that he had notleft behind him)--"What is Mahbub Ali to me?"'
Up went a gout of heavy smoke. There was a long pause; then Mahbub Alispoke in admiration: 'And with these things on thy mind, dost thou liedown and rise again among all the Sahibs' little sons at the madrissahand meekly take instruction from thy teachers?'
'It is an order,' said Kim blandly. 'Who am I to dispute an order?'
'A most finished son of Eblis,' said Mahbub Ali. 'But what is this taleof the thief and the search?'
'That which I saw,' said Kim, 'the night that my lama and I lay next thyplace in the Kashmir Serai. The door was left unlocked, which I think isnot thy custom, Mahbub. He came in as one assured that thou wouldst notsoon return. My eye was against a knot-hole in the plank. He searched asit were for something--not a rug, not stirrups, nor a bridle, nor brasspots--something little and most carefully hid. Else why did he prickwith an iron between the soles of thy slippers?'
'Ha!' Mahbub Ali smiled gently. 'And seeing these things, what taledidst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the Truth?'
'None. I put my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my skin,and, remembering the pedigree of a white stallion that I had bitten outof a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa perceiving that aheavy trust was laid upon me. At that hour, had I chosen, thy head wasforfeit. It needed only to say to that man, "I have here a paperconcerning a horse which I cannot read." And then?' Kim peered at Mahbubunder his eyebrows.
'Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice--perhaps thrice, afterwards. Ido not think more than thrice,' said Mahbub simply.
'It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I lovedthee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but (andthis thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see whatColonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion'spedigree.'
'And what did he?' for Kim had bitten off the conversation.
'Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?' Kim asked.
'I sell and--I buy.' Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt andheld it up.
'Eight!' said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of theEast.
Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. 'It is too easy to deal in thatmarket, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in eachother's hand.'
'Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib (the Commander-in-Chief) come toa big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw the two readthe white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders given for theopening of a great war.'
'Hah!' Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. The game is well played.That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before theflower--thanks to me--and thee. What didst thou later?'
'I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour amongthe villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I bore awaythe old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So next morning hewas angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the news when I fell into the handsof that white regiment with their Bull!'
'That was foolishness.' Mahbub scowled. 'News is not meant to be thrownabout like dung-cakes, but used sparingly--like bhang.'
'So I think now, and, moreover, it did me no sort of good. But that wasvery long ago,'--he made as to brush it all away with a thin brownhand,--'and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah atthe madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'
'Is it permitted to ask whither
the Heaven-born's thought might haveled?' said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarletbeard.
'It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone. 'They say atNucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a fault.'
Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a 'black man'(kala admi) is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed. 'Speak,Sahib: thy black man hears.'
'But,' said Kim, 'I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault when Icursed thee, Mahbub Ali, on the day at Umballa I thought I was betrayedby a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wishedto kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it was welldone; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service. I willstay in the madrissah till I am ripe.'
'Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of usingcompasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills above toshow thee.'
'I will learn their teaching upon a condition--that my time is given tome without question when the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me of theColonel.'
'But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahib's tongue?'
'The Colonel is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither and yonat a word, and must consider his own advancement. (See how much I havealready learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since threemonths only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years. So! To themadrissah I will go. At the madrissah I will learn. In the madrissah Iwill be a Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must I be free andgo among my people. Otherwise I die!'
'And who are thy People, Friend of all the World?'
'This great and beautiful land,' said Kim, waving his paw round thelittle clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned heavilythrough the tobacco-smoke. 'And, further, I would see my lama again. Andfurther, I need money.'
'That is the need of everyone,' said Mahbub ruefully. 'I will give theeeight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses' hooves, and itmust suffice for many days. As to all the rest, I am well pleased, andno further talk is needed. Make haste to learn, and in three years, orit may be less, thou wilt be an aid--even to me.'
'Have I been such a hindrance till now?' said Kim, with a boy's giggle.
'Do not give answers,' Mahbub grunted. 'Thou art my new horse-boy. Goand bed among my men. They are near the north end of the station, withthe horses.'
'They will beat me to the south end of the station if I come withoutauthority.'
Mahbub felt in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese ink, anddabbed the impression on a piece of soft native paper. From Balkh toBombay men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar runningdiagonally across it.
'That is enough to show my headman. I come in the morning.'
'By which road?' said Kim.
'By the road from the City. There is but one, and then we return toCreighton Sahib. I have saved thee a beating.'
'Allah! What is a beating when the very head is loose on the shoulders?'
Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house,keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a mileor so. Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at leisure, for heneeded time to invent a story if any of Mahbub's retainers askedquestions.
They were camped on a piece of waste ground beside the railway, and,being natives, had not, of course, unloaded the two trucks in whichMahbub's animals stood among a consignment of country-breds bought bythe Bombay tram-company. The headman, a broken-down, consumptive-lookingMohammedan, promptly challenged Kim, but was pacified at sight ofMahbub's sign-manual.
'The Hajji has of his favour given me service,' said Kim testily. 'Ifthis be doubted, wait till he comes in the morning. Meantime, a place bythe fire.'
Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must raiseon every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the little knotof Mahbub's followers, almost under the wheels of a horse-truck, aborrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among brickbats andballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded horses and unwashenBaltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but Kim was utterly happy.Change of scene, service, and surroundings were the breath of his littlenostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots of St. Xavier's all arowunder the punkah gave him joy as keen as the repetition of themultiplication-table in English.
'I am very old,' he thought sleepily. 'Every month I become a year moreold. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub's messageto Umballa. Even when I was with that white regiment I was very youngand small and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day, and in threeyears the Colonel will take me out of the madrissah and let me go uponthe Road with Mahbub hunting for horses' pedigrees, or maybe I shall goby myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with him. Yes; that isbest. To walk again as a chela with my lama when he comes back toBenares.' The thoughts came more slowly and disconnectedly. He wasplunging into a beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a whisper, thinand sharp, above the monotonous babble round the fire. It came frombehind the iron-skinned horse-truck.
'He is not here then?'
'Where should he be but roystering in the City. Who looks for a rat in afrog-pond? Come away. He is not our man.'
'He must not go back beyond the Passes a second time. It is the order.'
'Hire some woman to drug him. It is a few rupees only, and there is noevidence.'
'Except the woman. It must be more certain; and remember the price uponhis head.'
'Ay, but the police have a long arm, and we are far from the Border. Ifit were in Peshawur now!'
'Yes--in Peshawur,' the second voice sneered. 'Peshawur, full of hisblood-kin--full of bolt-holes and women behind whose clothes he willhide. Yes, Peshawur or Jehannum would suit us equally well.'
'Then what is the plan?'
'O fool, have I not told it a hundred times. Wait till he comes to liedown, and then one sure shot. The trucks are between us and pursuit. Wehave but to run back over the lines and go our way. They will not seewhence the shot came. Wait here at least till the dawn. What manner offaquir art thou to shiver at a little watching?'
'Oho!' thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes. 'Once again it is Mahbub.Indeed a white stallion's pedigree is not a good thing to peddle toSahibs! Or maybe Mahbub has been selling other news. Now what is to do,Kim? I know not where Mahbub houses, and if he comes here before thedawn they will shoot him. That would be no profit for thee, Kim. Andthis is not a matter for the police. That would be no profit for Mahbub;and,' he giggled almost aloud, 'I do not remember any lesson at Nucklaowhich will help me. Allah! Here is Kim and yonder are they. First then,Kim must wake and go away, so that they shall not suspect. A bad dreamwakes a man--thus--'
He threw the blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly with theterrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by nightmare.
'Urr-urr-urr-urr! Ya-la-la-la-la! Narain! The churel! The churel!'
A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died inchild-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on theankles, and she leads men to torment.
Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his feet andstaggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for waking them. Sometwenty yards farther up the line he lay down again, taking care that thewhisperers should hear his grunts and groans as he recomposed himself.After a few minutes he rolled towards the road and stole away into thethick darkness.
'They are all most holy and--most greedy . . . I havewalked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed, andthe child is no whit better.']
He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped behindit, his chin on a level with the coping-stone. Here he could command allthe night-traffic, himself unseen.
Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughingpoliceman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off evilspirits. Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.
/> 'Ah! This is more like Mahbub,' thought Kim, as the beast shied at thelittle head above the culvert.
'Ohe, Mahbub Ali,' he whispered, 'have a care!'
The horse was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced towards theculvert.
'Never again,' said Mahbub, 'will I take a shod horse for night-work.They pick up all the bones and nails in the city.' He stooped to liftits forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of Kim's.'Down--keep down,' he muttered. 'The night is full of eyes.'
'Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will shoot theeat thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head. I heard,sleeping near the horses.'
'Didst thou see them? . . . Hold still, Sire of Devils!' This furiouslyto the horse.
'No.'
'Was one dressed belike as a faquir?'
'One said to the other, "What manner of a faquir art thou, to shiver ata little watching?"'
'Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do not die to-night.'
Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished. Kim tore back down the ditch tillhe reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped across theroad like a weasel, and recoiled himself in the blanket.
'At least Mahbub knows,' he thought contentedly. 'And certainly he spokeas one expecting it. I do not think those two men will profit byto-night's watch.'
An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake allnight, he slept deeply. Now and again a night train roared along themetals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental'sindifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream throughhis slumber.
Mahbub was anything but asleep. It annoyed him vehemently that peopleoutside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should pursue himfor the life. His first and natural impulse was to cross the line lowerdown, work up again, and, catching his well-wishers from behind,summarily slay them. Here, he reflected with sorrow, another branch ofthe Government, totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton, might demandexplanations which would be hard to supply; and he knew that south theBorder a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse or so. He hadnot been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to Umballa with themessage, and hoped that suspicion had been finally diverted.
Then a most brilliant notion struck him.
'The English do eternally tell the truth,' he said, 'therefore we ofthis country are eternally made foolish. By Allah, I will tell the truthto an Englishman! Of what use is the Government police if a poor Kabulibe robbed of his horses in their very trucks. This is as bad asPeshawur! I should lay a complaint at the station. Better still, someyoung Sahib on the Railway! They are zealous, and if they catch thievesit is remembered to their honour.'
He tied up his horse outside the station, and strode on to the platform.
'Hullo, Mahbub Ali!' said a young Assistant District TrafficSuperintendent who was waiting to go down the line--a tall, tow-haired,horsey youth in dingy white linen. 'What are you doing here? Sellingweeds--eh?'
'No; I am not troubled for my horses. I come to look for Lutuf Ullah. Ihave a truck-load up the line. Could any one take them out without theRailway's knowledge?'
'Shouldn't think so, Mahbub. You can claim against us if they do.'
'I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucksnearly all the night. Faquirs do not steal horses, so I gave them nomore thought. I would find Lutuf Ullah, my partner.'
'The deuce you did? And you didn't bother your head about it? 'Pon myword, it's just almost as well that I met you. What were they like, eh?'
'They were only faquirs. They will no more than take a little grainperhaps from one of the trucks. There are many up the line. The Statewill never miss the dole. I came here seeking for my partner, LutufUllah--'
'Never mind your partner. Where are your horse-trucks?'
'A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps forthe trains.'
'The signal-box. Yes.'
'And upon, the rail nearest to the road upon the right-handside--looking up the line thus. But as regards Lutuf Ullah--a tall manwith a broken nose, and a Persian greyhound--Aie!'
The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic policeman;for, as he said, the Railway had suffered much from depredations in thegoods-yard. Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard.
'They will walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they willwonder why there are no faquirs. They are very clever boys--Barton Sahiband Young Sahib.'
He waited idly for a few minutes, expecting to see them hurry up theline girt for action. A light engine slid through the station, and hecaught a glimpse of young Barton in the cab.
'I did that child an injustice. He is not altogether a fool,' saidMahbub Ali. 'To take a fire-carriage for a thief is a new game!'
When Mahbub Ali came to his camp in the dawn, no one thought it worthwhile to tell him any news of the night. No one, at least, but one smallhorse-boy, newly advanced to the great man's service, whom Mahbub calledto his tiny tent to assist in some packing.
'It is all known to me,' whispered Kim, bending above saddle-bags. 'TwoSahibs came up on a te-rain. I was running to and fro in the dark onthis side of the trucks as the te-rain moved up and down slowly. Theyfell upon two men sitting under this truck--Hajji, what shall I do withthis lump of tobacco? Wrap it in paper and put it under the salt-bag?Yes--and struck them down. But one man struck at a Sahib with a faquir'sbuck's horn' (Kim meant the conjoined black-buck horns, which are afaquir's sole temporal weapon)--'the blood came. So the other Sahib,first smiting his own man senseless, smote the stabber with a short gunwhich had rolled from the first man's hand. They all raged as though madtogether.'
Mahbub smiled with heavenly resignation. 'No! That is not so muchdewanee (madness, or a case for the civil court--the word can be punnedupon both ways) as nizamut (a criminal case). A gun sayest thou? Tengood years in jail.'
'Then they both lay still, but I think they were nearly dead when theywere put on the te-rain. Their heads moved thus. And there is much bloodon the line. Come and see?'
'I have seen blood before. Jail is the sure place--and assuredly theywill give false names, and assuredly no man will find them for a longtime. They were unfriends of mine. Thy Fate and mine seem on one string.What a tale for the healer of pearls! Now swiftly with the saddle-bagsand the cooking-platter. We will take out the horses and away to Simla.'
Swiftly,--as Orientals understand speed,--with long explanations, withabuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a hundred checks for littlethings forgotten, the untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen stiffand fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the rain-sweptdawn. Kim, regarded as Mahbub Ali's favourite by all who wished to standwell with the Pathan, was not called upon to work. They strolled on bythe easiest of stages, halting every few hours at a wayside shelter.Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka road; and, as Mahbub Ali says,every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a judge of a horse, and,though he be over head in debt to the money-lender, must make as if tobuy. That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib, rolling along in astage-carriage, would stop and open talk. Some would even descend fromtheir vehicles and feel the horses' legs; asking inane questions, or,through sheer ignorance of the vernacular, grossly insulting theimperturbable trader.
'When first I dealt with Sahibs, and that was when Colonel Soady Sahibwas Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the Commissioner'scamping-ground for spite,' Mahbub confided to Kim as the boy filled hispipe under a tree, 'I did not know how greatly they were fools, and thismade me wroth. As thus--' and he told Kim a tale of an expression,misused in all innocence, that doubled Kim up with mirth. 'Now I see,however,'--he exhaled smoke slowly,--'that it is with them as with allmen--in certain matters they are wise, and in others most foolish. Veryfoolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heartmay be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is morelike to search truth with a dagger.'
'True. True talk,' said Kim
solemnly. 'Fools speak of a cat when a womanis brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them.'
'Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves thee toremember this with both kinds of faces. Among Sahibs, never forgettingthou art a Sahib; among the folk of Hind, always remembering thou art--'he paused, with a puzzled smile.
'What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard nut.'
'Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt bedamned. So says my Law--or I think it does. But thou art also my LittleFriend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart. This matterof creeds is like horseflesh. The wise man knows horses are good--thatthere is a profit to be made from all; and for myself--but that I am agood Sunni and hate the men of Tirah--I could believe the same of allthe Faiths. Now manifestly a Kattiawar mare taken from the sands of herbirthplace and removed to the west of Bengal founders--nor is even aBalkh stallion (and there are no better horses than those of Balkh, werethey not so heavy in the shoulder) of any account in the great Northerndeserts beside the snow-camels I have seen. Therefore I say in my heartthe Faiths are like the horses. Each has merit in its own country.'
'But my lama said altogether a different thing.'
'Oh, he is an old dreamer of dreams from Bhotiyal. My heart is a littleangry, Friend of all the World, that thou shouldst see such worth in aman so little known.'
'It is true, Hajji; but that worth do I see; and to him my heart isdrawn.'
'And his to thine, I hear. Hearts are like horses. They come and they goagainst bit or spur. Shout Gul Sher Khan yonder to drive in that baystallion's pickets more firmly. We do not want a horse-fight at everyresting-stage, and the dun and the black will be locked in a little. . . .Now hear me. Is it necessary to the comfort of thy heart to see thatlama?'
'It is one part of my bond,' said Kim. 'If I do not see him, and if heis taken from me, I will go out of that madrissah in Nucklao and,and--once gone, who is to find me again?'
'It is true. Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than thou.'Mahbub nodded his head.
'Do not be afraid.' Kim spoke as though he could have evanished on themoment. 'My lama has said that he will come to see me at themadrissah--'
'A beggar and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa--'
'Not all!' Kim cut in with a snort. 'Their eyes are blued and theirnails are blackened with low-caste blood, many of them. Sons ofmetheeranees--brothers-in-law to the bhungi' (sweeper).
We need not follow the rest of the pedigree; but Kim made his littlepoint clearly and without heat, chewing a piece of sugar-cane the while.
'Friend of all the World,' said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe for theboy to clean, 'I have met many men, women, and boys, and not a fewSahibs. I have never in all my days met such an imp as thou art.'
'And why? When I always tell thee the truth.'
'Perhaps the very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest men.'Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground, girt in his belt, and wentover to the horses.
'Or sell it?'
There was that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn. 'What newdevilry?'
'Eight annas, and I will tell,' said Kim, grinning. 'It touches thypeace.'
'O Shaitan!' Mahbub gave the money.
'Rememberest thou the little business of the thieves in the dark, downyonder at Umballa?'
'Seeing they sought my life, I have not altogether forgotten. Why?'
'Rememberest thou the Kashmir Serai?'
'I will twist thy ears in a moment--Sahib.'
'No need--Pathan. Only, the second faquir, whom the Sahibs beatsenseless, was the man who came to search thy bulkhead at Lahore. I sawhis face as they helped him on the engine. The very same man.'
'Why didst thou not tell before?'
'Oh, he will go to jail, and be safe for some years. There is no need totell more than is necessary at any one time. Besides, I did not thenneed money for sweetmeats.'
'Allah Karim!' said Mahbub Ali. 'Wilt thou some day sell my head for afew sweetmeats if the fit takes thee?'
* * * * *
Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from Umballa,through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by, up to Simla. A suddenspate in the Gugger River swept down one horse (the most valuable, besure), and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders. Farther up theroad the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant, and being inhigh condition of grass food, it cost a day and a half to get themtogether again. Then they met Sikandar Khan coming down with a fewunsaleable screws,--remnants of his string,--and Mahbub, who has more ofhorse-coping in his little finger nail than Sikandar Khan in all histents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that meant eight hours'laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco. But it was all pure delight--thewandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the growing spurs;the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows; the branchedcacti, tier upon tier on the stony hillsides; the voices of a thousandwater-channels; the chatter of the monkeys; the solemn deodars, climbingone after another with down-drooped branches; the vista of the Plainsrolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging of the tonga-hornsand the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga swung round a curve;the halts for prayers (Mahbub was very religious in dry-washings andbellowings when time did not press); the evening conferences by thehalting-places, when camels and bullocks chewed solemnly together andthe stolid drivers told the news of the Road--all these things liftedKim's heart to song within him.
'But, when the singing and dancing is done,' said Mahbub Ali, 'comes theColonel Sahib's, and that is not so sweet.'
'A fair land--a most beautiful land is this of Hind--and the land of theFive Rivers is fairer than all,' Kim half chanted. 'Into it I will goagain if Mahbub Ali or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me. Oncegone, who shall find me? Look, Hajji, is yonder the city of Simla?Allah, what a city!'
'My father's brother, and he was an old man when Mackerson Sahib's wellwas new at Peshawur, could recall when there were but two houses in it.'
He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar--thecrowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the town-hall atan angle of forty-five. A man who knows his way there can defy all thepolice of India's summer capital; so cunningly does veranda communicatewith veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with bolt-hole.Here live those who minister to the wants of the glad city--jhampaniswho pull the pretty ladies' rickshaws by night and gamble till the dawn;grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors, firewood dealers, priests,pickpockets, and native employees of the Government: here are discussedby courtesans the things which are supposed to be profoundest secrets ofthe India Council; and here gather all the sub-sub-agents of half thenative States. Here, too, Mahbub Ali rented a room, much more securelylocked than his bulkhead at Lahore, in the house of a Mohammedancattle-dealer. It was a place of miracles, too, for there went in attwilight a Mohammedan horse-boy, and there came out an hour later aEurasian lad--the Lucknow girl's dye was of the best--in badly fittingshop-clothes.
'I have spoken with Creighton Sahib,' quoth Mahbub Ali, 'and a secondtime has the Hand of Friendship averted the Whip of Calamity. He saysthat thou hast altogether wasted sixty days upon the Road, and it is toolate, therefore, to send thee to any hill-school.'
'I have said that my holidays are my own. I do not go to school twiceover. That is one part of my bond.'
'The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of the contract. Thou art to lodgein Lurgan Sahib's house till it is time to go again to Nucklao.'
'I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub.'
'Thou dost not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee.Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou mustforget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub Ali,who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not know. Rememberthis order.'
Kim nodded. 'Good,' said he, 'and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay'--he caughtMahbub's sword-k
een glance 'indeed I have never heard his name. Is he bychance'--he lowered his voice--'one of us?'
'What talk is this of us, Sahib?' Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone heused towards Europeans. 'I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the son ofa Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops. All Simlaknows it. Ask there . . . and, Friend of all the World, he is one to beobeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes. Men say he does magic, butthat should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here begins theGreat Game.'