Kim

As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and again from his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and Abdullah the sweetmeat-seller’s son, to make a rude remark to the native policeman on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door. The big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So did the water-carrier, sluicing water on the dry road from his goatskin bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Museum carpenter, bent over new packing-cases. So did everybody in sight except the peasants from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder House to view the things that men made in their own province and elsewhere. The Museum was given up to Indian arts and manufactures, and anybody who sought wisdom could ask the Curator to explain.

“Off! Off! Let me up!” cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah’s wheel.

“Thy father was a pastrycook, Thy mother stole the ghi,” sang Kim. “All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!”

“Let me up!” shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but India is the only democratic land in the world.

“The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them off. Thy father was a pastrycook⁠—”

He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring Motee Bazaar, such a man as Kim, who thought he knew all castes, had never seen. He was nearly six feet high, dressed in fold upon fold of dingy stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it could Kim refer to any known trade or profession.

The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun with lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed clerks and subordinates from the Government offices. He stared dizzily in all directions, but none looked at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty turban and Isabella-coloured clothes. Suddenly he bowed his head on his knees and wailed.

“What is this?” said the boy, standing before him. “Hast thou been robbed?”

“It is my new chela that is gone away from me, and I know not where he is.”

“And what like of man was thy disciple?”

“It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there.” He pointed towards the Museum. “He came upon me to show me a road which I had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by his talk emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was cheered and made strong. And when I was faint with hunger he begged for me, as would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent. Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have taught him the Law upon the road to Benares.”

Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.

“But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I know that I shall find a certain River for which I seek.”

“The River of the Arrow?” said Kim, with a superior smile.

“Look! Look!” Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still⁠—a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes.

“I have no stick⁠—I have no stick,” said Kim. “I will get me one and break his back.”

“Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are⁠—a life ascending or descending⁠—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.”

“I hate all snakes,” said Kim. No native training can quench the white man’s horror of the Serpent.

“Let him live out his life.” The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. “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. It flattened 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 droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.

“O Holy One!” he gasped. “My horoscope! The drawing in the dust by the priest at Umballa! Remember what he said. First come two⁠—ferashes⁠—to make all things ready⁠—in a dark place, as it is always at the beginning of a vision.”

“But this is not vision,” said the lama. “It is the world’s Illusion, and no more.”

“And after them comes the Bull⁠—the Red Bull on the green field. Look! It is he!”

He pointed to the flag that was snap snapping in the evening breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an ordinary camp marking-flag; but the regiment, always punctilious in matters of millinery, had charged it with the regimental device, the Red Bull, which is the crest of the Mavericks⁠—the great Red Bull on a background of Irish green.

“I see, and now I remember,” said the lama. “Certainly it is thy Bull. Certainly, also, the two men came to make all ready.”

“They are soldiers⁠—white soldiers. What said the priest? ‘The sign over against the Bull is the sign of War and armed men.’ Holy One, this thing touches my Search.”

“True. It is true.” The lama stared fixedly at the device that flamed like a ruby in the dusk. “The priest at Umballa said that thine was the sign of War.”

The thoughts came more slowly and disconnectedly. He was plunging into a beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a whisper, thin and sharp, above the monotonous babble round the fire. It came from behind 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 a frog-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 no evidence.”

“Except the woman. It must be more certain; and remember the price upon his head.”

“Ay, but the police have a long arm, and we are far from the Border. If it were in Peshawur, now!”

“Yes⁠—in Peshawur,” the second voice sneered. “Peshawur, full of his blood-kin⁠—full of bolt-holes and women behind whose clothes he will hide. 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 lie down, and then one sure shot. The trucks are between us and pursuit. We have but to run back over the lines and go our way. They will not see whence the shot came. Wait here at least till the dawn. What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver at a little watching?”