Kim
“Never make friends with the Devil, a Monkey, or a Boy. No man knows
what they will do next,” said his fellow.
Kim turned a scornful back—he did not want to hear the old story how
the Devil played with the boys and repented of it and walked idly
across country.
The lama strode after him. All that day, whenever they passed a stream,
he had turned aside to look at it, but in no case had he received any
warning that he had found his River. Insensibly, too, the comfort of
speaking to someone in a reasonable tongue, and of being properly
considered and respected as her spiritual adviser by a well-born woman,
had weaned his thoughts a little from the Search. And further, he was
prepared to spend serene years in his quest; having nothing of the
white man’s impatience, but a great faith.
“Where goest thou?” he called after Kim.
“Nowhither—it was a small march, and all this”—Kim waved his hands
abroad—“is new to me.”
“She is beyond question a wise and a discerning woman. But it is hard
to meditate when—”
“All women are thus.” Kim spoke as might have Solomon.
“Before the lamassery was a broad platform,” the lama muttered, looping
up the well-worn rosary, “of stone. On that I have left the marks of my
feet—pacing to and fro with these.”
He clicked the beads, and began the “_Om mane pudme hum_” of his
devotion; grateful for the cool, the quiet, and the absence of dust.
One thing after another drew Kim’s idle eye across the plain. There was
no purpose in his wanderings, except that the build of the huts near by
seemed new, and he wished to investigate.
They came out on a broad tract of grazing-ground, brown and purple in
the afternoon light, with a heavy clump of mangoes in the centre. It
struck Kim as curious that no shrine stood in so eligible a spot: the
boy was observing as any priest for these things. Far across the plain
walked side by side four men, made small by the distance. He looked
intently under his curved palms and caught the sheen of brass.
“Soldiers. White soldiers!” said he. “Let us see.”
“It is always soldiers when thou and I go out alone together. But I
have never seen the white soldiers.”
“They do no harm except when they are drunk. Keep behind this tree.”
They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the
mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two came forward
uncertainly. They were the advance-party of a regiment on the march,
sent out, as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot sticks with
fluttering flags, and called to each other as they spread over the flat
earth.
At last they entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.
“It’s here or hereabouts—officers’ tents under the trees, I take it,
an’ the rest of us can stay outside. Have they marked out for the
baggage-wagons behind?”
They cried again to their comrades in the distance, and the rough
answer came back faint and mellowed.
“Shove the flag in here, then,” said one.
“What do they prepare?” said the lama, wonderstruck. “This is a great
and terrible world. What is the device on the flag?”
A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted
discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion, who
looked up and down the shaded cave of greenery, and returned it.
Kim stared with all his eyes, his breath coming short and sharp between
his teeth. The soldiers stamped off into the sunshine.
“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.”
“What is to do now?”
“Wait. Let us wait.”
“Even now the darkness clears,” said Kim. It was only natural that the
descending sun should at last strike through the tree-trunks, across
the grove, filling it with mealy gold light for a few minutes; but to
Kim it was the crown of the Umballa Brahmin’s prophecy.
“Hark!” said the lama. “One beats a drum—far off!”
At first the sound, carrying diluted through the still air, resembled
the beating of an artery in the head. Soon a sharpness was added.
“Ah! The music,” Kim explained. He knew the sound of a regimental band,
but it amazed the lama.
At the far end of the plain a heavy, dusty column crawled in sight.
Then the wind brought the tune:
We crave your condescension
To tell you what we know
Of marching in the Mulligan Guards
To Sligo Port below!
Here broke in the shrill-tongued fifes:
We shouldered arms,
We marched—we marched away.
From Phœnix Park
We marched to Dublin Bay.
The drums and the fifes,
Oh, sweetly they did play,
As we marched—marched—marched—with the
Mulligan Guards!
It was the band of the Mavericks playing the regiment to camp; for the
men were route-marching with their baggage. The rippling column swung
into the level—carts behind it divided left and right, ran about like
an ant-hill, and ...
“But this is sorcery!” said the lama.
The plain dotted itself with tents that seemed to rise, all spread,
from the carts. Another rush of men invaded the grove, pitched a huge
tent in silence, ran up yet eight or nine more by the side of it,
unearthed cooking-pots, pans, and bundles, which were taken possession
of by a crowd of native servants; and behold the mango-tope turned into
an orderly town as they watched!
“Let us go,” said the lama, sinking back afraid, as the fires twinkled
and white officers with jingling swords stalked into the Mess-tent.
“Stand back in the shadow. No one can see beyond the light of a fire,”
said Kim, his eyes still on the flag. He had never before watched the
routine of a seasoned regiment pitching camp in thirty minutes.
“Look! look! look!” clucked the lama. “Yonder comes a priest.” It was
Bennett, the Church of England Chaplain of the regiment, limping in
dusty black. One of his flock had made some rude remarks about the
Chaplain’s mettle; and to abash him Bennett had marched step by step
with the men that day. The black dress, gold cross on the watch-chain,
the hairless face, and the soft, black wideawake hat would have marked
him as a holy man anywhere in all India. He dropped into a camp-chair
by the door of the Mess-tent and slid off his boots. Three or four
officers gathered round him, laughing and joking over his exploit.
“The talk of white men is wholly lacking in dignity,” said the lama,
who judged only by tone. “But I considered the countenance of that
priest and I think he is learned. Is it likely that he will understand
our talk? I would talk to him of my Search.”
“Never speak to a white man till he is fed,” said Kim, quoting a
well-known proverb. “They will eat now, and—and I do not think they are
good to beg from. Let us go back to the resting-place. After we have
eaten we will come again. It certainly was a Red Bull—_my_ Red Bull.”
They were both noticeably absent-minded when the old lady’s retinue set
their meal before them; so none broke their reserve, for it is not
lucky to annoy guests.
“Now,” said Kim, picking his teeth, “we will return to that place; but
thou, O Holy One, must wait a little way off, because thy feet are
heavier than mine and I am anxious to see more of that Red Bull.”
“But how canst thou understand the talk? Walk slowly. The road is
dark,” the lama replied uneasily.
Kim put the question aside. “I marked a place near to the trees,” said
he, “where thou canst sit till I call. Nay,” as the lama made some sort
of protest, “remember this is _my_ Search—the Search for my Red Bull.
The sign in the Stars was not for thee. I know a little of the customs
of white soldiers, and I always desire to see some new things.”
“What dost thou not know of this world?” The lama squatted obediently
in a little hollow of the ground not a hundred yards from the hump of
the mango-trees dark against the star-powdered sky.
“Stay till I call.” Kim flitted into the dusk. He knew that in all
probability there would be sentries round the camp, and smiled to
himself as he heard the thick boots of one. A boy who can dodge over
the roofs of Lahore city on a moonlight night, using every little patch
and corner of darkness to discomfit his pursuer, is not likely to be
checked by a line of well-trained soldiers. He paid them the compliment
of crawling between a couple, and, running and halting, crouching and
dropping flat, worked his way toward the lighted Mess-tent where, close
pressed behind the mango-tree, he waited till some chance word should
give him a returnable lead.
The one thing now in his mind was further information as to the Red
Bull. For aught he knew, and Kim’s limitations were as curious and
sudden as his expansions, the men, the nine hundred thorough devils of
his father’s prophecy, might pray to the beast after dark, as Hindus
pray to the Holy Cow. That at least would be entirely right and
logical, and the padre with the gold cross would be therefore the man
to consult in the matter. On the other hand, remembering sober-faced
padres whom he had avoided in Lahore city, the priest might be an
inquisitive nuisance who would bid him learn. But had it not been
proven at Umballa that his sign in the high heavens portended War and
armed men? Was he not the Friend of the Stars as well as of all the
World, crammed to the teeth with dreadful secrets? Lastly—and firstly
as the undercurrent of all his quick thoughts—this adventure, though he
did not know the English word, was a stupendous lark—a delightful
continuation of his old flights across the housetops, as well as the
fulfilment of sublime prophecy. He lay belly-flat and wriggled towards
the Mess-tent door, a hand on the amulet round his neck.
It was as he suspected. The Sahibs prayed to their God; for in the
centre of the Mess-table—its sole ornament when they were on the line
of march—stood a golden bull fashioned from old-time loot of the Summer
Palace at Pekin—a red-gold bull with lowered head, ramping upon a field
of Irish green. To him the Sahibs held out their glasses and cried
aloud confusedly.
Now the Reverend Arthur Bennett always left Mess after that toast, and
being rather tired by his march his movements were more abrupt than
usual. Kim, with slightly raised head, was still staring at his totem
on the table, when the Chaplain stepped on his right shoulder-blade.
Kim flinched under the leather, and, rolling sideways, brought down the
Chaplain, who, ever a man of action, caught him by the throat and
nearly choked the life out of him. Kim then kicked him desperately in
the stomach. Mr Bennett gasped and doubled up, but without relaxing his
grip, rolled over again, and silently hauled Kim to his own tent. The
Mavericks were incurable practical jokers; and it occurred to the
Englishman that silence was best till he had made complete inquiry.