Kim
else—he could write. In three months he had discovered how men can
speak to each other without a third party, at the cost of half an anna
and a little knowledge. No word had come from the lama, but there
remained the Road. Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud squishing up
between the toes, as his mouth watered for mutton stewed with butter
and cabbages, for rice speckled with strong scented cardamoms, for the
saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the forbidden greasy
sweetmeats of the bazars. They would feed him raw beef on a platter at
the barrack-school, and he must smoke by stealth. But again, he was a
Sahib and was at St Xavier’s, and that pig Mahbub Ali ... No, he would
not test Mahbub’s hospitality—and yet ... He thought it out alone in
the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he had been unjust to Mahbub.
The school was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away; Colonel
Creighton’s railway pass lay in his hand, and Kim puffed himself that
he had not spent Colonel Creighton’s or Mahbub’s money in riotous
living. He was still lord of two rupees seven annas. His new
bullock-trunk, marked “K. O’H.”, and bedding-roll lay in the empty
sleeping-room.
“Sahibs are always tied to their baggage,” said Kim, nodding at them.
“You will stay here” He went out into the warm rain, smiling sinfully,
and sought a certain house whose outside he had noted down some time
before...
“Arre”! Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter? Oh,
shame!”
“Was I born yesterday?” Kim squatted native-fashion on the cushions of
that upper room. “A little dyestuff and three yards of cloth to help
out a jest. Is it much to ask?”
“Who is _she?_ Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, for this devilry.”
“Oh, she? She is the daughter of a certain schoolmaster of a regiment
in the cantonments. He has beaten me twice because I went over their
wall in these clothes. Now I would go as a gardener’s boy. Old men are
very jealous.”
“That is true. Hold thy face still while I dab on the juice.”
“Not too black, _Naikan_. I would not appear to her as a _hubshi_
(nigger).”
“Oh, love makes nought of these things. And how old is she?”
“Twelve years, I think,” said the shameless Kim. “Spread it also on the
breast. It may be her father will tear my clothes off me, and if I am
piebald—” he laughed.
The girl worked busily, dabbing a twist of cloth into a little saucer
of brown dye that holds longer than any walnut-juice.
“Now send out and get me a cloth for the turban. Woe is me, my head is
all unshaved! And he will surely knock off my turban.”
“I am not a barber, but I will make shift. Thou wast born to be a
breaker of hearts! All this disguise for one evening? Remember, the
stuff does not wash away.” She shook with laughter till her bracelets
and anklets jingled. “But who is to pay me for this? Huneefa herself
could not have given thee better stuff.”
“Trust in the Gods, my sister,” said Kim gravely, screwing his face
round as the stain dried. “Besides, hast thou ever helped to paint a
Sahib thus before?”
“Never indeed. But a jest is not money.”
“It is worth much more.”
“Child, thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan
that I have ever known to take up a poor girl’s time with this play,
and then to say: ‘Is not the jest enough?’ Thou wilt go very far in
this world.” She gave the dancing-girls’ salutation in mockery.
“All one. Make haste and rough-cut my head.” Kim shifted from foot to
foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days before
him. He gave the girl four annas, and ran down the stairs in the
likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy—perfect in every detail. A cookshop
was his next point of call, where he feasted in extravagance and greasy
luxury.
On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro, all covered
with prickly-heat, get into a second-class compartment. Kim patronized
a third, and was the life and soul of it. He explained to the company
that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with
fever, and that he would pick up his master at Umballa. As the
occupants of the carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned it
with all the shoots of a budding fancy, the more rampant for being held
off native speech so long. In all India that night was no human being
so joyful as Kim. At Umballa he got out and headed eastward, plashing
over the sodden fields to the village where the old soldier lived.
About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from Lucknow by
wire that young O’Hara had disappeared. Mahbub Ali was in town selling
horses, and to him the Colonel confided the affair one morning
cantering round Annandale racecourse.
“Oh, that is nothing,” said the horse-dealer. “Men are like horses. At
certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers
they will lick it up from the earth. He has gone back to the Road again
for a while. The _madrissah_ wearied him. I knew it would. Another
time, I will take him upon the Road myself. Do not be troubled,
Creighton Sahib. It is as though a polo-pony, breaking loose, ran out
to learn the game alone.”
“Then he is not dead, think you?”
“Fever might kill him. I do not fear for the boy otherwise. A monkey
does not fall among trees.”
Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub’s stallion ranged alongside
the Colonel.
“It is as I had thought,” said the horse-dealer. “He has come through
Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me, having
learned in the bazar that I was here.”
“Read,” said the Colonel, with a sigh of relief. It was absurd that a
man of his position should take an interest in a little country-bred
vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the train, and
often in the past few months had caught himself thinking of the queer,
silent, self-possessed boy. His evasion, of course, was the height of
insolence, but it argued some resource and nerve.
Mahbub’s eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the cramped
little plain, where none could come near unseen.
“‘_The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World_—’”
“What is this?”
“A name we give him in Lahore city. ‘_The Friend of all the World takes
leave to go to his own places. He will come back upon the appointed
day. Let the box and the bedding-roll be sent for; and if there has
been a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the Whip of
Calamity._’ There is yet a little more, but—”
“No matter, read.”
“‘_Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks. It is
better to eat with both hands for a while. Speak soft words to those
who do not understand this that the return may be propitious._’ Now the
manner in which that was cast is, of course, the work of the
letter-writer, but see how wisely the boy has devised the matter of it
so that no hint is given except to those who know!”
“Is this the Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity?” laughed
the Colonel.
“See how wise is the boy. He would go back to the Road again, as I
said. Not knowing yet thy trade—”
“I am not at all sure of that,” the Colonel muttered.
“He turns to me to make a peace between you. Is he not wise? He says he
will return. He is but perfecting his knowledge. Think, Sahib! He has
been three months at the school. And he is not mouthed to that bit. For
my part, I rejoice. The pony learns the game.”
“Ay, but another time he must not go alone.”
“Why? He went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahib’s
protection. When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone—alone, and
at peril of his head. _Then_, if he spits, or sneezes, or sits down
other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain. Why
hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The jackal that lives in
the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by the hounds of
Mazanderan.”
“True. It is true, Mahbub Ali. And if he comes to no harm, I do not
desire anything better. But it is great insolence on his part.”
“He does not tell me, even, whither he goes,” said Mahbub. “He is no
fool. When his time is accomplished he will come to me. It is time the
healer of pearls took him in hand. He ripens too quickly—as Sahibs
reckon.”
This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month later. Mahbub had
gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh consignment of horses, and Kim
met him on the Kalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms of him,
was sworn at, and replied in English. There was nobody within earshot
to hear Mahbub’s gasp of amazement.
“Oho! And where hast thou been?”
“Up and down—down and up.”
“Come under a tree, out of the wet, and tell.”
“I stayed for a while with an old man near Umballa; anon with a
household of my acquaintance in Umballa. With one of these I went as
far as Delhi to the southward. That is a wondrous city. Then I drove a
bullock for a _teli_ (an oilman) coming north; but I heard of a great
feast forward in Patiala, and thither went I in the company of a
firework-maker. It was a great feast” (Kim rubbed his stomach). “I saw
Rajahs, and elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they lit all
the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men were killed, my
fire-work-maker among them, and I was blown across a tent but took no
harm. Then I came back to the _rêl_ with a Sikh horseman, to whom I was
groom for my bread; and so here.”
“_Shabash!_” said Mahbub Ali.
“But what does the Colonel Sahib say? I do not wish to be beaten.”
“The Hand of Friendship has averted the Whip of Calamity; but another
time, when thou takest the Road it will be with me. This is too early.”
“Late enough for me. I have learned to read and to write English a
little at the _madrissah_. I shall soon be altogether a Sahib.”
“Hear him!” laughed Mahbub, looking at the little drenched figure
dancing in the wet. “Salaam—Sahib,” and he saluted ironically.
“Well, art tired of the Road, or wilt thou come on to Umballa with me
and work back with the horses?”
“I come with thee, Mahbub Ali.”
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 the
Hindu colour of Kim’s disreputable turban.
Kim countered with the old proverb, “I will change my faith and my
bedding, but _thou_ must pay for it.”
The dealer laughed till he nearly fell from his horse. At a shop on the
outskirts of the city the change was made, and Kim stood up, externally
at least, a Mohammedan.
Mahbub hired a room over against the railway station, sent for a cooked
meal of the finest with the almond-curd sweet-meats (_balushai_ we call
it) and fine-chopped Lucknow tobacco.
“This is better than some other meat that I ate with the Sikh,” said
Kim, grinning as he squatted, “and assuredly they give no such victuals
at my _madrissah_.”
“I have a desire to hear of that same _madrissah_.” Mahbub stuffed
himself with great boluses of spiced mutton fried in fat with cabbage
and golden-brown onions. “But tell me first, altogether and truthfully,
the manner of thy escape. For, O Friend of all the World,”—he loosed
his cracking belt—“I do not think it is often that a Sahib and the son
of a 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 interview
with the girl in the bazar, Mahbub Ali’s gravity went from him. He
laughed aloud and beat his hand on his thigh.
“_Shabash! Shabash!_ Oh, well done, little one! What will the healer of