Kim
_Kismet. Kismet, mallum?_ (Do you understand?)”
He turned towards the lama, to whom he might as well have talked of
Mesopotamia.
“They say,”—the old man’s eye lighted at Kim’s speech “they say that
the meaning of my horoscope is now accomplished, and that being led
back—though as thou knowest I went out of curiosity—to these people and
their Red Bull I must needs go to a _madrissah_ and be turned into a
Sahib. Now I make pretence of agreement, for at the worst it will be
but a few meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away and follow
down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore, Holy One, keep with that Kulu
woman—on no account stray far from her cart till I come again. Past
question, my sign is of War and of armed men. See how they have given
me wine to drink and set me upon a bed of honour! My father must have
been some great person. So if they raise me to honour among them, good.
If not, good again. However it goes, I will run back to thee when I am
tired. But stay with the Rajputni, or I shall miss thy feet ... Oah
yess,” said the boy, “I have told him everything you tell me to say.”
“And I cannot see any need why he should wait,” said Bennett, feeling
in his trouser-pocket. “We can investigate the details later—and I will
give him a ru—”
“Give him time. Maybe he’s fond of the lad,” said Father Victor, half
arresting the clergyman’s motion.
The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hat-brim over his
eyes.
“What can he want now?”
“He says”—Kim put up one hand. “He says: ‘Be quiet.’ He wants to speak
to me by himself. You see, you do not know one little word of what he
says, and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very bad curses.
When he takes those beads like that, you see, he always wants to be
quiet.”
The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in Bennett’s
eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed to the
religious arm.
“A Sahib and the son of a Sahib—” The lama’s voice was harsh with pain.
“But no white man knows the land and the customs of the land as thou
knowest. How comes it this is true?”
“What matter, Holy One?—but remember it is only for a night or two.
Remember, I can change swiftly. It will all be as it was when I first
spoke to thee under Zam-Zammah the great gun—”
“As a boy in the dress of white men—when I first went to the Wonder
House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu. What shall the third
incarnation be?” He chuckled drearily. “Ah, _chela_, thou has done a
wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee.”
“And mine to thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would bring
me to this business?”
The lama covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the rosary. Kim
squatted beside him and laid hold upon a fold of his clothing.
“Now it is understood that the boy is a Sahib?” he went on in a muffled
tone. “Such a Sahib as was he who kept the images in the Wonder House.”
The lama’s experience of white men was limited. He seemed to be
repeating a lesson. “So then it is not seemly that he should do other
than as the Sahibs do. He must go back to his own people.”
“For a day and a night and a day,” Kim pleaded.
“No, ye don’t!” Father Victor saw Kim edging towards the door, and
interposed a strong leg.
“I do not understand the customs of white men. The Priest of the Images
in the Wonder House in Lahore was more courteous than the thin one
here. This boy will be taken from me. They will make a Sahib of my
disciple? Woe to me! How shall I find my River? Have _they_ no
disciples? Ask.”
“He says he is very sorree that he cannot find the River now any more.
He says, Why have you no disciples, and stop bothering him? He wants to
be washed of his sins.”
Neither Bennett nor Father Victor found any answer ready.
Said Kim in English, distressed for the lama’s agony: “I think if you
will let me go now we will walk away quietly and not steal. We will
look for that River like before I was caught. I wish I did not come
here to find the Red Bull and all that sort of thing. I do not want
it.”
“It’s the very best day’s work you ever did for yourself, young man,”
said Bennett.
“Good heavens, I don’t know how to console him,” said Father Victor,
watching the lama intently. “He can’t take the boy away with him, and
yet he’s a good man—I’m sure he’s a good man. Bennett, if you give him
that rupee he’ll curse you root and branch!”
They listened to each other’s breathing—three—five full minutes. Then
the lama raised his head, and looked forth across them into space and
emptiness.
“And I am a Follower of the Way,” he said bitterly. “The sin is mine
and the punishment is mine. I made believe to myself for now I see it
was but make-belief—that thou wast sent to me to aid in the Search. So
my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy courtesy and the
wisdom of thy little years. But those who follow the Way must permit
not the fire of any desire or attachment, for that is all Illusion. As
says ...” He quoted an old, old Chinese text, backed it with another,
and reinforced these with a third. “I stepped aside from the Way, my
_chela_. It was no fault of thine. I delighted in the sight of life,
the new people upon the roads, and in thy joy at seeing these things. I
was pleased with thee who should have considered my Search and my
Search alone. Now I am sorrowful because thou art taken away and my
River is far from me. It is the Law which I have broken!”
“Powers of Darkness below!” said Father Victor, who, wise in the
confessional, heard the pain in every sentence.
“I see now that the sign of the Red Bull was a sign for me as well as
for thee. All Desire is red—and evil. I will do penance and find my
River alone.”
“At least go back to the Kulu woman,” said Kim, “otherwise thou wilt be
lost upon the roads. She will feed thee till I run back to thee.”
The lama waved a hand to show that the matter was finally settled in
his mind.
“Now,”—his tone altered as he turned to Kim,—“what will they do with
thee? At least I may, acquiring merit, wipe out past ill.”
“Make me a Sahib—so they think. The day after tomorrow I return. Do not
grieve.”
“Of what sort? Such an one as this or that man?” He pointed to Father
Victor. “Such an one as those I saw this evening, men wearing swords
and stamping heavily?”
“Maybe.”
“That is not well. These men follow desire and come to emptiness. Thou
must not be of their sort.”
“The Umballa priest said that my Star was War,” Kim interjected. “I
will ask these fools—but there is truly no need. I will run away this
night, for all I wanted to see the new things.”
Kim put two or three questions in English to Father Victor, translating
the replies to the lama.
Then: “He says, ‘You take him from me and you cannot say what you will
make him.’ He says, ‘Tell me before I go, for it is not a small thing
to make a child.’”
“You will be sent to a school. Later on, we shall see. Kimball, I
suppose you’d like to be a soldier?”
“_Gorah-log_ (white-folk). No-ah! No-ah!” Kim shook his head violently.
There was nothing in his composition to which drill and routine
appealed. “I will not be a soldier.”
“You will be what you’re told to be,” said Bennett; “and you should be
grateful that we’re going to help you.”
Kim smiled compassionately. If these men lay under the delusion that he
would do anything that he did not fancy, so much the better.
Another long silence followed. Bennett fidgeted with impatience, and
suggested calling a sentry to evict the _faquir_.
“Do they give or sell learning among the Sahibs? Ask them,” said the
lama, and Kim interpreted.
“They say that money is paid to the teacher—but that money the Regiment
will give ... What need? It is only for a night.”
“And—the more money is paid the better learning is given?” The lama
disregarded Kim’s plans for an early flight. “It is no wrong to pay for
learning. To help the ignorant to wisdom is always a merit.” The rosary
clicked furiously as an abacus. Then he faced his oppressors.
“Ask them for how much money do they give a wise and suitable teaching?
And in what city is that teaching given?”
“Well,” said Father Victor in English, when Kim had translated, “that
depends. The Regiment would pay for you all the time you are at the
Military Orphanage; or you might go on the Punjab Masonic Orphanage’s
list (not that he or you ’ud understand what that means); but the best
schooling a boy can get in India is, of course, at St Xavier’s in
Partibus at Lucknow.” This took some time to interpret, for Bennett
wished to cut it short.
“He wants to know how much?” said Kim placidly.
“Two or three hundred rupees a year.” Father Victor was long past any
sense of amazement. Bennett, impatient, did not understand.
“He says: ‘Write that name and the money upon a paper and give it him.’
And he says you must write your name below, because he is going to
write a letter in some days to you. He says you are a good man. He says
the other man is a fool. He is going away.”
The lama rose suddenly. “I follow my Search,” he cried, and was gone.
“He’ll run slap into the sentries,” cried Father Victor, jumping up as
the lama stalked out; “but I can’t leave the boy.” Kim made swift
motion to follow, but checked himself. There was no sound of challenge
outside. The lama had disappeared.
Kim settled himself composedly on the Chaplain’s cot. At least the lama
had promised that he would stay with the Raiput woman from Kulu, and
the rest was of the smallest importance. It pleased him that the two
padres were so evidently excited. They talked long in undertones,
Father Victor urging some scheme on Mr Bennett, who seemed incredulous.
All this was very new and fascinating, but Kim felt sleepy. They called
men into the tent—one of them certainly was the Colonel, as his father
had prophesied—and they asked him an infinity of questions, chiefly
about the woman who looked after him, all of which Kim answered
truthfully. They did not seem to think the woman a good guardian.
After all, this was the newest of his experiences. Sooner or later, if
he chose, he could escape into great, grey, formless India, beyond
tents and padres and colonels. Meantime, if the Sahibs were to be
impressed, he would do his best to impress them. He too was a white
man.
After much talk that he could not comprehend, they handed him over to a
sergeant, who had strict instructions not to let him escape. The
Regiment would go on to Umballa, and Kim would be sent up, partly at
the expense of the Lodge and in part by subscription, to a place called
Sanawar.
“It’s miraculous past all whooping, Colonel,” said Father Victor, when
he had talked without a break for ten minutes. “His Buddhist friend has
levanted after taking my name and address. I can’t quite make out
whether he’ll pay for the boy’s education or whether he is preparing
some sort of witchcraft on his own account.” Then to Kim: “You’ll live
to be grateful to your friend the Red Bull yet. We’ll make a man of you
at Sanawar—even at the price o’ making you a Protestant.”
“Certainly—most certainly,” said Bennett.
“But you will not go to Sanawar,” said Kim.
“But we will go to Sanawar, little man. That’s the order of the
Commander-in-Chief, who’s a trifle more important than O’Hara’s son.”
“You will not go to Sanawar. You will go to thee War.”
There was a shout of laughter from the full tent.
“When you know your own Regiment a trifle better you won’t confuse the
line of march with line of battle, Kim. We hope to go to ‘thee War’
sometime.”
“Oah, I know all thatt.” Kim drew his bow again at a venture. If they
were not going to the war, at least they did not know what he knew of
the talk in the veranda at Umballa.