CHAPTER IX
S'doaks was son of Yelth the wise-- Chief of the Raven clan. Itswoot the Bear had him in care To make him a medicine-man.
He was quick and quicker to learn-- Bold and bolder to dare: He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance To tickle Itswoot the Bear! 'Oregon Legend.'
KIM flung himself whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel. Hewould be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so soon as he hadreached the broad road under Simla town-hall, he cast about for one toimpress. A Hindu child, some ten years old, squatted under a lamp-post.
'Where is Mr. Lurgan's house?' demanded Kim.
'I do not understand English,' was the answer, and Kim shifted hisspeech accordingly.
'I will show.'
Together they set off through the mysterious dusk, full of the noises ofa city below the hillside, and the breath of a cool wind indeodar-crowned Jakko, shouldering the stars. The house-lights, scatteredon every level, made, as it were, a double firmament. Some were fixed,others belonged to the rickshaws of the careless, open-spoken Englishfolk, going out to dinner.
'It is here,' said Kim's guide, and halted in a veranda flush with themain road. No door stayed them, but a curtain of beaded reeds that splitup the lamp-light beyond.
'He is come,' said the boy, in a voice little louder than a sigh, andvanished. Kim felt sure that the boy had been posted to guide him fromthe first, but putting a bold face on it, parted the curtain. Ablack-bearded man, with a green shade over his eyes, sat at a table,and, one by one, with short, white hands, picked up globules of lightfrom a tray before him, threaded them on a glancing silken string, andhummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious that beyond the circle oflight the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of allthe East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandal-wood, and a breath of sicklyjessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.
'I am here,' said Kim at last, speaking in the vernacular: the smellsmade him forget that he was to be a Sahib.
'Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one,' the man counted to himself,stringing pearl after pearl so quickly that Kim could scarcely followhis fingers. He slid off the green shade and looked fixedly at Kim for afull half-minute. The pupils of the eye dilated and closed topin-pricks, as if at will. There was a faquir by the Taksali Gate whohad just this gift and made money by it, especially when cursing sillywomen. Kim stared with interest. His disreputable friend could furthertwitch his ears, almost like a goat, and Kim was disappointed that thisnew man could not imitate him.
'Do not be afraid,' said Mr. Lurgan suddenly.
'Why should I fear?'
'Thou wilt sleep here to-night, and stay with me till it is time to goagain to Nucklao. It is an order.'
'It is an order,' Kim repeated. 'But where shall I sleep?'
'Here, in this room.' Lurgan Sahib waved his hand towards the darknessbehind him.
'So be it,' said Kim composedly. 'Now?'
He nodded and held the lamp above his head. As the light swept them,there leaped out from the walls a collection of Tibetan devil-dancemasks, hanging above the fiend-embroidered draperies of those ghastlyfunctions--horned masks, scowling masks, and masks of idiotic terror. Ina corner, a Japanese warrior, mailed and plumed, menaced him with ahalberd, and a score of lances and khandas and kuttars gave back theunsteady gleam. But what interested Kim more than all these things--hehad seen devil-dance masks at the Lahore Museum--was a glimpse of thesoft-eyed Hindu child who had left him in the doorway, sittingcross-legged under the table of pearls with a little smile on hisscarlet lips.
'I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid. And I am sure thatthe devil's brat below the table wishes to see me afraid. This place,'he said aloud, 'is like a Wonder House. Where is my bed?'
Lurgan Sahib pointed to a native quilt in a corner by the loathsomemasks, picked up the lamp, and left the room black.
'Was that Lurgan Sahib?' Kim asked as he cuddled down. No answer. Hecould hear the Hindu boy breathing, however, and, guided by the sound,crawled across the floor, and cuffed into the darkness, crying: 'Giveanswer, devil! Is this the way to lie to a Sahib?'
From the darkness he fancied he could hear the echo of a chuckle. Itcould not be his soft-fleshed companion, because he was weeping. So Kimlifted up his voice and called aloud: 'Lurgan Sahib! O Lurgan Sahib! Isit an order that thy servant does not speak to me?'
'It is an order.' The voice came from behind him and he started.
'Very good. But remember,' he muttered, as he resought the quilt, 'Iwill beat thee in the morning. I do not love Hindus.'
That was no cheerful night; the room being overfull of voices and music.Kim was waked twice by some one calling his name. The second time he setout in search, and ended by bruising his nose against a box thatcertainly spoke with a human tongue, but in no sort of human accent. Itseemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smallerbox on the floor--so far, at least, as he could judge by touch. And thevoice, very hard and whirring, came out of the trumpet. Kim rubbed hisnose and grew furious, thinking, as usual, in Hindi.
'This with a beggar from the bazar might be good but--I am a Sahib andthe son of a Sahib and, which is twice as much more beside, a student ofNucklao. Yess' (here he turned to English), 'a boy of St. Xavier's. DamnMr. Lurgan's eyes!--It is some sort of machinery like a sewing-machine.Oh, it is a great cheek of him--we are not frightened that way atLucknow--No!' Then in Hindi: 'But what does he gain? He is only atrader--I am in his shop. But Creighton Sahib is a Colonel--and I thinkCreighton Sahib gave orders that it should be done. How I will beatthat Hindu in the morning! What is this?'
The trumpet-box was pouring out a string of the most elaborate abusethat even Kim had ever heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for amoment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing drewbreath, Kim was reassured by the soft, sewing-machine-like whirr.
'Chup!' (be still) he cried, and again he heard a chuckle that decidedhim. 'Chup--or I break your head.'
The box took no heed. Kim wrenched at the tin trumpet and somethinglifted with a click. He had evidently raised a lid. If there were adevil inside, now was its time for--he sniffed--thus did thesewing-machines of the bazar smell. He would clean that shaitan. Heslipped off his jacket, and plunged it into the box's mouth. Somethinglong and round bent under the pressure, there was a whirr and the voicestopped--as voices must if you ram a thrice-doubled coat on to the waxcylinder and into the works of an expensive phonograph. Kim finished hisslumbers with a serene mind.
In the morning he was aware of Lurgan Sahib looking down on him.
'Oah!' said Kim, firmly resolved to cling to his Sahibdom. 'There was abox in the night that gave me bad talk. So I stopped it. Was it yourbox?'
The man held out his hand.
'Shake hands, O'Hara,' he said. 'Yes, it was my box. I keep such thingsbecause my friends the Rajahs like them. That one is broken, but it wascheap at the price. Yes, my friends the Kings are very fond of toys--andso am I sometimes.'
Full-fleshed, heavy-haunched, bull-necked, anddeep-voiced.]
Kim looked him over out of the corners of his eyes. He was a Sahib inthat he wore Sahib's clothes; the accent of his Urdu, the intonation ofhis English, showed that he was anything but a Sahib. He seemed tounderstand what moved in Kim's mind ere the boy opened his mouth, and hetook no pains to explain himself as did Father Victor or the Lucknowmasters. Sweetest of all--he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiaticside.
'I am sorry you cannot beat my boy this morning. He says he will killyou with a knife or poison. He is jealous, so I have put him in thecorner and I shall not speak to him to-day. He has just tried to killme. You must help me with the breakfast. He is almost too jealous totrust, just now.'
Now a genuine imported Sahib from England would have made a great to doover this tale. Lurgan Sahib stated it as simply as Mahbub Ali was usedto record his little affairs
in the North.
The back veranda of the shop was built out over the sheer hillside, andthey looked down into their neighbours' chimney-pots, as is the customof Simla. But even more than the purely Persian meal cooked by LurganSahib with his own hands, the shop fascinated Kim. The Lahore Museum waslarger, but here were more wonders--ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels fromTibet; turquoise and raw amber necklaces; green jade bangles; curiouslypacked incense-sticks in jars crusted over with raw garnets; thedevil-masks of overnight and a wall of peacock-blue draperies; giltfigures of Buddha, and little portable lacquer altars; Russian samovarswith turquoises on the lid; egg-shell china sets in quaint octagonalcane boxes; yellow ivory crucifixes--from Japan of all places in theworld, so Lurgan Sahib said; carpets in dusty bales, smellingatrociously, pushed back behind torn and rotten screens of geometricalwork; Persian water-jugs for the hands after meals; dull copperincense-burners neither Chinese nor Persian, with friezes of fantasticdevils running round them; tarnished silver belts that knotted like rawhide; hairpins of jade, ivory, and plasma; arms of all sorts and kinds,and a thousand other oddments were cased, or piled, or merely throwninto the room, leaving a clear space only round the rickety deal table,where Lurgan Sahib worked.
'Those things are nothing,' said his host, following Kim's glance. 'Ibuy them because they are pretty, and sometimes I sell--if I like thebuyer's look. My work is on the table--some of it.'
It blazed in the morning light--all red and blue and green flashes,picked out with the vicious blue-white spurt of a diamond here andthere. Kim opened his eyes.
'Oh, they are quite well, those stones. It will not hurt them to takethe sun. Besides, they are cheap. But with sick stones it is verydifferent.' He piled Kim's plate anew. 'There is no one but me candoctor a sick pearl and re-blue turquoises. I grant you opals--any foolcan cure an opal--but for a sick pearl there is only me. Suppose I wereto die! Then there would be no one. . . . Oh no! You cannot do anythingwith jewels. It will be quite enough if you understand a little aboutthe Turquoise--some day.'
He moved to the end of the veranda to refill the heavy, porous claywater-jug from the filter.
'Do you want drink?'
Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet off, laid one hand on the jar.Next instant, it stood at Kim's elbow, full to within half of inch ofthe brim--the white cloth only showing, by a small wrinkle, where it hadslid into place.
'Wah!' said Kim in most utter amazement. 'That is magic.' Lurgan Sahib'ssmile showed that the compliment had gone home.
'Throw it back.'
'It will break.'
'I say, throw it back.'
Kim pitched it at random. It fell short and crashed into fifty pieces,while the water dripped through the rough veranda boarding.
'I said it would break.'
'All one. Look at it. Look at the largest piece.'
That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve, as it were a star on thefloor. Kim looked intently; Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently on thenape of the neck, stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered: 'Look! Itshall come to life again, piece by piece. First the big piece shall joinitself to two others on the right and the left--on the right and theleft. Look!'
To save his life, Kim could not have turned his head. The light touchheld him as in a vise, and his blood tingled pleasantly through him.There was one large piece of the jar where there had been three, andabove them the shadowy outline of the entire vessel. He could see theveranda through it, but it was thickening and darkening with each beatof his pulse. Yet the jar--how slowly the thoughts came!--the jar hadbeen smashed before his eyes. Another wave of prickling fire raced downhis neck, as Lurgan Sahib moved his hand.
'Look! It is coming into shape,' said Lurgan Sahib.
So far Kim had been thinking in Hindi, but a tremor came on him, andwith an effort like that of a swimmer before sharks, who hurls himselfhalf out of the water, his mind leaped up from a darkness that wasswallowing it and took refuge in--the multiplication-table in English!
'Look! It is coming into shape,' whispered Lurgan Sahib.
The jar had been smashed--yess, smashed--not the native word, he wouldnot think of that--but smashed--into fifty pieces, and twice three wassix, and thrice three was nine, and four times three was twelve. Heclung desperately to the repetition. The shadow-outline of the jarcleared like a mist after rubbing eyes. There were the broken shards;there was, the spilt water drying in the sun, and through the cracks ofthe veranda showed, all ribbed, the white house-wall below--and thricetwelve was thirty-six!
'Look! Is it coming into shape?' asked Lurgan Sahib.
'But it is smashed--smashed,' he gasped--Lurgan Sahib had been mutteringsoftly for the last half-minute. Kim wrenched his head aside. 'Look!Dekho! It is there as it was there.'
'It is there as it was there,' said Lurgan, watching Kim closely whilethe boy rubbed his neck. 'But you are the first of a many who have everseen it so.' He wiped his broad forehead.
'Was that more magic?' Kim asked suspiciously. The tingle had gone fromhis veins; he felt unusually wide awake.
'No, that was not magic. It was only to see if there was--a flaw in ajewel. Sometimes very fine jewels will fly all to pieces if a man holdsthem in his hand, and knows the proper way. That is why one must becareful before one sets them. Tell me, did you see the shape of thepot?'
'For a little time. It began to grow like a flower from the ground.'
'And then what did you do? I mean, how did you think?'
'Oah! I knew it was broken, and so, I think, that was what Ithought--and it was broken.'
'Hm! Has any one ever done that same sort of magic to you before?'
'If it was,' said Kim, 'do you think I should let it again? I should runaway.'
'And now you are not afraid--eh?'
'Not now.'
Lurgan Sahib looked at him more closely than ever. 'I shall ask MahbubAli--not now, but some day later,' he muttered. 'I am pleased withyou--yes; and I am pleased with you--no. You are the first that eversaved himself. I wish I knew what it was that . . . But you are right.You should not tell that--not even to me.'
He turned into the dusky gloom of the shop, and sat down at the table,rubbing his hands softly. A small, husky sob came from behind a pile ofcarpets. It was the Hindu child obediently facing towards the wall: histhin shoulders worked with grief.
'Ah! He is jealous, so jealous. I wonder if he will try to poison meagain in my breakfast, and make me cook it twice.'
'Kubbee--kubbee nahin,' came the broken answer.
'And whether he will kill this other boy?'
'Kubbee--kubbee nahin' (never--never. No!).
'What do you think he will do?' He turned suddenly on Kim.
'Oah! I do not know. Let him go, perhaps. Why did he want to poisonyou?'
'Because he is so fond of me. Suppose you were fond of some one, and yousaw some one come, and the man you were fond of was more pleased withhim than he was with you, what would you do?'
Kim thought. Lurgan repeated the sentence slowly in the vernacular.
'I should not poison that man,' said Kim reflectively, 'but I shouldbeat that boy--if that boy was fond of my man. But first I would askthat boy if it were true.'
'Ah! He thinks every one must be fond of me.'
'Then I think he is a fool.'
'Hearest thou?' said Lurgan Sahib to the shaking shoulders. 'The Sahib'sson thinks thou art a little fool. Come out, and next time thy heart istroubled, do not try white arsenic quite so openly. Surely the DevilDasim was lord of our table-cloth that day! It might have made me ill,child, and then a stranger would have guarded the jewels. Come!'
The child, heavy-eyed with much weeping, crept out from behind the baleand flung himself passionately at Lurgan Sahib's feet, with anextravagance of remorse that impressed even Kim.
'I will look into the ink-pools--I will faithfully guard the jewels! Oh,my father and my mother, send him away!' He indicated Kim with abackward jerk of his bare heel.
'Not yet--
not yet. In a little while he will go away again. But now heis at school--at a new madrissah--and thou shalt be his teacher. Playthe Play of the Jewels against him. I will keep tally.'
The child dried his tears at once, and dashed to the back of the shop,whence he returned with a copper tray.
'Give me!' he said to Lurgan Sahib. 'Let them come from thy hand, for hemay say that I knew them before.'
'Gently--gently,' the man replied, and from a drawer under the tabledealt a half handful of clattering trifles into the tray.
'Now,' said the child, waving an old newspaper. 'Look on them as long asthou wilt, stranger. Count and, if need be, handle. One look is enoughfor me.' He turned his back proudly.
'But what is the game?'
'When thou hast counted and handled and art sure that thou canstremember them all, I cover them with this paper, and thou must tell overthe tally to Lurgan Sahib. I will write mine.'
'Oah!' The instinct of competition waked in his breast. He bent over thetray. There were but fifteen stones on it. 'That is easy,' he said aftera minute. The child slipped the paper over the winking jewels andscribbled in a native account-book.
'There are under that paper five blue stones--one big, one smaller, andthree small,' said Kim, all in haste. 'There are four green stones, andone with a hole in it; there is one yellow stone that I can see through,and one like a pipe-stem. There are two red stones, and--and--I made thecount fifteen, but two I have forgotten. No! Give me time. One was ofivory, little and brownish; and--and--give me time . . .'
'One--two'--Lurgan Sahib counted him out up to ten. Kim shook his head.
'Hear my count!' the child burst in, trilling with laughter. 'First, aretwo flawed sapphires--one of two ruttees and one of four as I shouldjudge. The four-ruttee sapphire is chipped at the edge. There is oneTurkestan turquoise, plain with black veins, and there are twoinscribed--one with a Name of God in gilt, and the other being crackedacross, for it came out of an old ring, I cannot read. We have now allfive blue stones. Four flawed emeralds there are, but one is drilled intwo places, and one is a little carven--'
'Their weights?' said Lurgan Sahib impassively.
'Three--five--five--and four ruttees as I judge it. There is one pieceof old greenish pipe amber, and a cut topaz from Europe. There is oneruby of Burma, of two ruttees, without a flaw, and there is abalas-ruby, flawed, of two ruttees. There is a carved ivory from Chinarepresenting a rat sucking an egg; and there is last--ah ha!--a ball ofcrystal as big as a bean set in a gold leaf.'
He clapped his hands at the close.
'He is thy master,' said Lurgan Sahib, smiling.
'Huh! He knew the names of the stones,' said Kim, flushing. 'Try again!With common things such as he and I both know.'
They heaped the tray again with odds and ends gathered from the shop,and even the kitchen, and every time the child won, till Kim marvelled.
'Bind my eyes--let me feel once with my fingers, and even then I willleave thee open-eyed behind,' he challenged.
Kim stamped with vexation when the lad made his boast good.
'If it were men--or horses,' he said, 'I could do better. This playingwith tweezers and knives and scissors is too little.'
'Learn first--teach later,' said Lurgan Sahib. 'Is he thy master?'
'Truly. But how is it done?'
'By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly--for it is worthdoing.'
The Hindu boy, in highest feather, actually patted Kim on the back.
'Do not despair,' he said. 'I myself will teach thee.'
'And I will see that thou art well taught,' said Lurgan Sahib, stillspeaking in the vernacular, 'for except my boy here--it was foolish ofhim, to buy so much white arsenic when, if he had asked, I could havegiven it--except my boy here I have not in a long time met with onebetter worth teaching. And there are ten days more ere thou canst returnto Lucknow where they teach nothing--at the long price. We shall, Ithink, be friends.'
They were a most mad ten days, but Kim enjoyed himself too much toreflect on their craziness. In the morning they played the JewelGame--sometimes with veritable stones, sometimes with piles of swordsand daggers, sometimes with photographs of natives. Through theafternoons he and the Hindu boy would mount guard in the shop, sittingdumb behind a carpet-bale or a screen and watching Mr. Lurgan's many andvery curious visitors. There were small Rajahs, escorts coughing in theveranda, who came to buy curiosities--such as phonographs and mechanicaltoys. There were ladies in search of necklaces, and men, it seemed toKim--but his mind may have been vitiated by early training--in search ofthe ladies; natives from independent and feudatory courts whoseostensible business was the repair of broken necklaces--rivers of lightpoured out upon the table--but whose true end seemed to be to raisemoney for angry Maharanees or young Rajahs. There were Babus to whomLurgan Sahib talked with austerity and authority, but at the end of eachinterview he gave them money in coined silver and currency notes. Therewere occasional gatherings of long-coated theatrical natives whodiscussed metaphysics in English and Bengali, to Mr. Lurgan's greatedification. He was always interested in religions. At the end of theday, Kim and the Hindu boy--whose name varied at Lurgan's pleasure--wereexpected to give a detailed account of all that they had seen andheard--their view of each man's character, as shown in his face, talk,and manner, and their notions of his real errand. After dinner, LurganSahib's fancy turned more to what might be called dressing-up, in whichgame he took a most informing interest. He could paint faces to amarvel; with a brush-dab here and a line there changing them pastrecognition. The shop was full of all manner of dresses and turbans, andKim was apparelled variously as a young Mohammedan of good family, anoilman, and once--which was a joyous evening--as the son of an Oudhlandholder in the fullest of full dress. Lurgan Sahib had a hawk's eyeto detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-woodcouch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a castetalked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since 'hows'matter little in this world, the 'why' of everything. The Hindu childplayed this game clumsily. That little mind, keen as an icicle wheretally of jewels was concerned, could not temper itself to enteranother's soul; but a demon in Kim woke up and sang with joy as he puton the changing dresses, and changed speech and gesture therewith.
Carried away by enthusiasm, he volunteered to show Lurgan Sahib oneevening how the disciples of a certain caste of faquir, old Lahoreacquaintances, begged doles by the roadside; and what sort of languagehe would use to an Englishman, to a Punjabi farmer going to a fair, andto a woman without a veil. Lurgan Sahib laughed immensely, and beggedKim to stay as he was, immobile for half an hour--cross-legged,ash-smeared, and wild-eyed, in the back room. At the end of that timeentered a hulking, obese Babu whose stockinged legs shook with fat, andKim opened on him with a shower of wayside chaff. Lurgan Sahib--thisannoyed Kim--watched the Babu and not the play.
'I think,' said the Babu heavily, lighting a cigarette, 'I am ofopeenion that it is most extraordinary and effeecient performance.Except that you had told me I should have opined that--that--that youwere pulling my legs. How soon can he become approximately effeecientchain-man? Because then I shall indent for him.'
'That is what he must learn at Lucknow.'
'Then order him to be jolly dam-quick. Good-night, Lurgan.' The Babuswung out with the gait of a bogged cow.
When they were telling over the day's list of visitors, Lurgan Sahibasked Kim who he thought the man might be.
'God knows!' said Kim cheerily. The tone might almost have deceivedMahbub Ali, but it failed entirely with the healer of sick pearls.
'That is true. God, He knows; but I wish to know what you think.'
Kim glanced sideways at his companion, whose eye had a way of compellingtruth.
'I--I think he will want me when I come from the school,but'--confidentially, as Lurgan Sahib nodded approval--'I do notunderstand how he can wear many dresses and talk many tongues.'
'Thou wilt understand many things lat
er. He is a writer of tales for acertain Colonel. His honour is great only in Simla, and it is noticeablethat he has no name, but only a number and a letter--that is a customamong us.'
'And is there a price upon his head too--as upon Mah--all the others?'
'Not yet; but if a boy rose up who is now sitting here and went--look,the door is open!--as far as a certain house with a red-painted veranda,behind that which was the old theatre in the Lower Bazar, and whisperedthrough the shutters: "Hurree Chunder Mookerjee bore the bad news oflast month," that boy might take away a belt full of rupees.'
'How many?' said Kim promptly.
'Five hundred--a thousand--as many as he might ask for.'
'Good. And how long might such a boy live after the news was told?' Hesmiled merrily at Lurgan Sahib's very beard.
'Ah! That is to be well thought of. Perhaps if he were very clever, hemight live out the day--but not the night. By no means the night.'
'Then what is the Babu's pay if so much is put upon his head?'
'Eighty--perhaps a hundred--perhaps a hundred and fifty rupees; but thepay is the least part of the work. From time to time, God causes men tobe born--and thou art one of them--who have a lust to go abroad at therisk of their lives and discover news--to-day it may be of far-offthings, to-morrow of some hidden mountain, and the next day of somenear-by men who have done a foolishness against the State. These soulsare very few; and of these few, not more than ten are of the best. Amongthese ten I count the Babu, and that is curious. How great therefore anddesirable must be a business that brazens the heart of a Bengali!'
'True. But the days go slowly for me. I am yet a boy, and it is onlywithin two months I learned to write Angrezi. Even now I cannot read itwell. And there are yet years and years and long years before I can beeven a chain-man.'
'Have patience, Friend of all the World'--Kim started at the title.'Would I had a few of the years that so irk thee. I have proved thee inseveral small ways. This will not be forgotten when I make my report tothe Colonel Sahib.' Then, changing suddenly into English with a deeplaugh:--
'By Jove! O'Hara, I think there is a great deal in you; but you must notbecome proud and you must not talk. You must go back to Lucknow and be agood little boy and mind your book, as the English say, and perhaps,next holidays if you care, you can come back to me!' Kim's face fell.'Oh, I mean if you like. I know where you want to go.'
Four days later a seat was booked for Kim and his small trunk at therear of a Kalka tonga. His companion was the whale-like Babu, who, witha fringed shawl wrapped round his head, and his fat openwork-stockingedleft leg tucked under him, shivered and grunted in the morning chill.
'How comes it that this man is one of us?' thought Kim, considering thejelly-back as they jolted down the road; and the reflection threw himinto most pleasant day-dreams. Lurgan Sahib had given him five rupees--asplendid sum--as well as the assurance of his protection if he worked.Unlike Mahbub, Lurgan Sahib had spoken most explicitly of the rewardthat would follow obedience, and Kim was content. If only, like theBabu, he could enjoy the dignity of a letter and a number--and a priceupon his head! Some day he would be all that and more. Some day he mightbe almost as great as Mahbub Ali! The housetops of his search should behalf India; he would follow Kings and ministers, as in the old days hehad followed vakils and lawyers' touts across Lahore city for MahbubAli's sake. Meantime, there was the present, and not at all unpleasant,fact of St. Xavier's immediately before him. There would be new boys tocondescend to, and there would be tales of holiday adventures to hear.Young Martin, son of the tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that hewould go to war, with a rifle, against the head-hunters. That might be,but it was certain young Martin had not been blown half across theforecourt of a Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks; nor hadhe. . . . Kim fell to telling himself the story of his own adventuresthrough the last three months. He could paralyse St. Xavier's--even thebiggest boys who shaved--with the recital, were that permitted. But itwas, of course, out of the question. There would be a price upon hishead in good time, as Lurgan Sahib had assured him; and if he talkedfoolishly now, not only would that price never be set, but ColonelCreighton would cast him off--and he would be left to the wrath ofLurgan Sahib and Mahbub Ali--for the short space of life that wouldremain to him.
'So I should lose Delhi for the sake of a fish,' was his proverbialphilosophy. It behoved him to forget his holidays (there would alwaysremain the fun of inventing imaginary adventures) and, as Lurgan Sahibhad said, to work.
Of all the boys hurrying back to St. Xavier's, from Sukkur in the sandsto Galle beneath the palms, none was so filled with virtue as KimballO'Hara, jiggeting down to Umballa behind Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, whosename on the books of one section of the Ethnological Survey was R.17.
And if additional spur were needed, the Babu supplied it. After a hugemeal at Kalka, he spoke uninterruptedly. Was Kim going to school? Thenhe, an M. A. of Calcutta University, would explain the advantages ofeducation. There were marks to be gained by due attention to Latin andWordsworth's 'Excursion' (all this was Greek to Kim). French, too, wasvital, and the best was to be picked up in Chandernagore, a few milesfrom Calcutta. Also a man might go far, as he himself had done, bystrict attention to plays called 'Lear' and 'Julius Caesar,' both muchin demand by examiners. 'Lear' was not so full of historical allusionsas 'Julius Caesar'; the book cost four annas, but could be boughtsecond-hand in Bow Bazar for two. Still more important than Wordsworth,or the eminent authors, Burke and Hare, was the art and science ofmensuration. A boy who had passed his examination in thesebranches--for which, by the way, there were no cram-books--could, bymerely marching over a country with a compass and a level and a straighteye, carry away a picture of that country which might be sold for largesums in coined silver. But as it was occasionally inexpedient to carryabout measuring-chains, a boy would do well to know the precise lengthof his own foot-pace, so that when he was deprived of what HurreeChunder called 'adventitious aids' he might still tread his distances.To keep count of thousands of paces, Hurree Chunder's experience hadshown him nothing more valuable than a rosary of eighty-one or a hundredand eight beads, for 'it was divisible and sub-divisible into manymultiples and sub-multiples.' Through the volleying drifts of English,Kim caught the general trend of the talk, and it interested him verymuch. Here was a new craft that a man could tuck away in his head; andby the look of the large wide world unfolding itself before him, itseemed that the more a man knew the better for him.
'I am the woman of Shamlegh.']
Said the Babu when he had talked for an hour and a half, 'I hope someday to enjoy your offeecial acquaintance. Ad interim, if I may bepardoned that expression, I shall give you this betel-box which ishighly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago.' Itwas a cheap, heart-shaped brass thing with three compartments forcarrying the eternal betel-nut, lime and pan-leaf; but it was filledwith little tabloid-bottles. 'That is reward of merit for yourperformance in character of that holy man. You see, you are so young youthink you will last for ever and not take care of your body. It is greatnuisance to go sick in the middle of business. I am fond of drugsmyself, and they are handy to cure poor people too. These are gooddepartmental drugs--quinine and so on. I give it you for souvenir. Nowgood-bye. I have urgent private business here by the roadside.'
He slipped out noiselessly as a cat, on the Umballa road, hailed apassing ekka and jingled away, while Kim, tongue-tied, twiddled thebrass betel-box in his hands.
* * * * *
The record of a boy's education interests few save his parents, and, asyou know, Kim was an orphan. It is written in the books of St. Xavier inPartibus that a report of Kim's progress was forwarded at the end ofeach term to Colonel Creighton and to Father Victor, from whose handsduly came the money for his schooling. It is further recorded in thesame books that he showed a great aptitude for mathematical studies aswell as map-making, and carried away a prize ('The Life of LordLawrence,' tree-calf, two vols
., nine rupees, eight annas) forproficiency therein; and the same term played in St. Xavier's elevenagainst the Allyghur Mohammedan College, his age being fourteen yearsand ten months. He was also re-vaccinated (from which we may assume thatthere had been another epidemic of small-pox at Lucknow) about the sametime. Pencil notes on the edge of an old muster-roll record that he waspunished several times for 'conversing with improper persons,' and itseems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for 'absenting himselffor a day in the company of a street beggar.' That was when he got overthe gate and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down the banks ofthe Goomtee to accompany him on the Road next holidays--for onemonth--for a little week; and the lama set his face as a flint againstit, averring that the time had not yet come. Kim's business, said theold man as they ate cakes together, was to get all the wisdom of theSahibs and then he would see. The hand of friendship must in some wayhave averted the whip of calamity, for six weeks later Kim seems to havepassed an examination in elementary surveying 'with great credit,' hisage being fifteen years and eight months. From this date the record issilent. His name does not appear in the year's batch of those whoentered for the subordinate Survey of India, but against it stand thewords 'removed on appointment.'
Several times in those three years, cast up at the Temple of theTirthankers in Benares the lama, a little thinner and a shade yellower,if that were possible, but gentle and untainted as ever. Sometimes itwas from the South that he came--from south of Tuticorin, whence thewonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon where are priests who know Pali;sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand cotton-factorychimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North, where he had doubledback eight hundred miles to talk a day with the Keeper of the Images inthe Wonder House. He would stride to his cell in the cool, cutmarble--the priests of the temple were good to the old man--wash off thedust of travel, make prayer, and depart for Lucknow, well accustomed nowto the ways of the rail, in a third-class carriage. Returning, it wasnoticeable, as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the head-priest,that he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River, or to drawwondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life, but preferred to talk of thebeauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of thetemple had ever seen. Yes, he had followed the traces of the BlessedFeet throughout all India. (The curator has still in his possession amost marvellous account of his wanderings and meditations.) Thereremained nothing more in life but to find the River of the Arrow. Yet itwas shown to him in dreams that it was a matter not to be undertakenwith any hope of success unless that seeker had with him the one chelaappointed to bring the event to a happy issue, and versed in greatwisdom---such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of Images possess. Forexample (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain priests madehaste to be silent):--
'Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares--let all listento the "Jataka"!--an elephant was captured for a time by the king'shunters and, ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous leg-iron. Thishe strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying upand down the forests, besought his brother-elephants to wrench itasunder. One by one, with their strong trunks, they tried and failed. Atthe last they gave it as their opinion that the ring was not to bebroken by any bestial power. And in a thicket, new-born, wet with themoisture of birth, lay a day-old calf of the herd whose mother had died.The fettered elephant, forgetting his own agony, said: "If I do not helpthis suckling it will perish under our feet." So he stood above theyoung thing, making his legs buttresses against the uneasily movingherd; and he begged milk of a virtuous cow, and the calf throve, and theringed elephant was the calf's guide and defence. Now the days of anelephant--let all listen to the "Jataka"!--are thirty-five years to hisfull strength, and through thirty-five Rains the ringed elephantbefriended the younger, and all the while the fetter ate into the flesh.
'Then one day the young elephant saw the half-buried iron, and turningto the elder said: "What is this?" "It is even my sorrow," said he whohad befriended him. Then that other put out his trunk and in thetwinkling of an eyelash abolished the ring, saying: "The appointed timehas come." So the virtuous elephant who had waited temperately and donekind acts was relieved, at the appointed time, by the very calf whom hehad turned aside to cherish--let all listen to the "Jataka"!--for theElephant was Ananda, and the Calf that broke the ring was none otherthan The Lord Himself. . . .'
Then he would shake his head benignly, and over the ever-clicking rosarypoint out how free that elephant calf was from the sin of pride. He wasas humble as a chela who, seeing his master sitting in the dust outsidethe Gates of Learning, overleapt the gates (though they were locked) andtook his master to his heart in the presence of the proud-stomachedcity. Rich would be the reward of such a master and such a chela whenthe time came for them to seek freedom together!
So did the lama speak, coming and going across India as softly as a bat.A sharp-tongued old woman in a house among the fruit-trees behindSaharunpore honoured him as the woman honoured the prophet, but hischamber was by no means upon the wall. In an apartment of the forecourtoverlooked by cooing doves he would sit, while she laid aside heruseless veil and chattered of spirits and fiends of Kulu, ofgrandchildren unborn, and of the free-tongued brat who had talked to herin the resting-place. Once, too, he strayed alone from the Grand TrunkRoad below Umballa to the very village whose priest had tried to drughim; but the kind heaven that guards lamas sent him at twilight throughthe crops, absorbed and unsuspicious, to the ressaldar's door. Here waslike to have been a grave misunderstanding, for the old soldier askedhim why the Friend of the Stars had gone that way only six days before.
'That may not be,' said the lama. 'He has gone back to his own people.'
'He sat in that corner telling a hundred merry tales five nights ago,'his host insisted. 'True, he vanished somewhat suddenly in the dawnafter foolish talk with my grand-daughter. He grows apace, but he is thesame Friend of the Stars as brought me true word of the war. Have yeparted?'
'Yes--and No,' the lama replied. 'We--we have not altogether parted, butthe time is not ripe that we should take the Road together. He acquireswisdom in another place. We must wait.'
'All one--but if it were not the boy how did he come to speak socontinually of thee?'
'And what said he?' asked the lama eagerly.
'Sweet words--an hundred thousand--that thou art his father and motherand such all. Pity that he does not take the Queen's service. He isfearless.'
This news amazed the lama, who did not then know how religiously Kimkept to the contract made with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified byColonel Creighton. . . .
'There is no holding the young pony from the game,' said thehorse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India inholiday time was absurd. 'If permission be refused to go and come as hechooses, he will make light of the refusal. Then who is to catch him?Colonel Sahib, only once in a thousand years is a horse born so wellfitted for the game as this our colt. And we need men.'