Kim
turquoises say to this? Now, slowly, let us hear what befell
afterwards—step by step, omitting nothing.”
Step by step then, Kim told his adventures between coughs as the
full-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs.
“I said,” growled Mahbub Ali to himself, “I _said_ it was the pony
breaking out to play polo. The fruit is ripe already—except that he
must learn his distances and his pacings, and his rods and his
compasses. Listen now. I have turned aside the Colonel’s whip from thy
skin, and that is no small service.”
“True.” Kim pulled serenely. “That is true.”
“But it is not to be thought that this running out and in is any way
good.”
“It was my holiday, Hajji. I was a slave for many weeks. Why should I
not run away when the school was shut? Look, too, how I, living upon my
friends or working for my bread, as I did with the Sikh, have saved the
Colonel Sahib a great expense.”
Mahbub’s lips twitched under his well-pruned Mohammedan moustache.
“What are a few rupees”—the Pathan threw out his open hand
carelessly—“to the Colonel Sahib? He spends them for a purpose, not in
any way for love of thee.”
“That,” said Kim slowly, “I knew a very long time ago.”
“Who told?”
“The Colonel Sahib himself. Not in those many words, but plainly enough
for one who is not altogether a mud-head. Yea, he told me in the
_te-rain_ when we went down to Lucknow.”
“Be it so. Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World, though
in the telling I lend thee my head.”
“It was forfeit to me,” said Kim, with deep relish, “in Umballa, when
thou didst pick me up on the horse after the drummer-boy beat me.”
“Speak a little plainer. All the world may tell lies save thou and I.
For equally is thy life forfeit to me if I chose to raise my finger
here.”
“And this is known to me also,” said Kim, readjusting the live
charcoal-ball on the weed. “It is a very sure tie between us. Indeed,
thy hold is surer even than mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to
death, or, it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Most people
here and in Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would, on the
other hand, say: ‘What has come to Mahbub Ali?’ if he were found dead
among his horses. Surely, too, the Colonel Sahib would make inquiries.
But again,”—Kim’s face puckered with cunning,—“he would not make
overlong inquiry, lest people should ask: ‘What has this Colonel Sahib
to do with that horse-dealer?’ But I—if I lived—”
“As thou wouldst surely die—”
“It may be; but I say, _if_ I lived, I, and I alone, would know that
one had come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to Mahbub Ali’s
bulkhead in the serai, and there had slain him, either before or after
that thief had made a full search into his saddlebags and between the
soles of his slippers. Is that news to tell to the Colonel, or would he
say to me—(I have not forgotten when he sent me back for a cigar-case
that he had _not_ left behind him)—‘What is Mahbub Ali to me?’?”
Up went a gout of heavy smoke. There was a long pause: then Mahbub Ali
spoke in admiration: “And with these things on thy mind, dost thou lie
down and rise again among all the Sahibs’ little sons at the
_madrissah_ and meekly take instruction from thy teachers?”
“It is an order,” said Kim blandly. “Who am I to dispute an order?”
“A most finished Son of Eblis,” said Mahbub Ali. “But what is this tale
of the thief and the search?”
“That which I saw,” said Kim, “the night that my lama and I lay next
thy place in the Kashmir Seral. The door was left unlocked, which I
think is not thy custom, Mahbub. He came in as one assured that thou
wouldst not soon return. My eye was against a knot-hole in the plank.
He searched as it were for something—not a rug, not stirrups, nor a
bridle, nor brass pots—something little and most carefully hid. Else
why did he prick with an iron between the soles of thy slippers?”
“Ha!” Mahbub Ali smiled gently. “And seeing these things, what tale
didst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the Truth?”
“None. I put my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my skin,
and, remembering the pedigree of a white stallion that I had bitten out
of a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa perceiving that
a heavy trust was laid upon me. At that hour, had I chosen, thy head
was forfeit. It needed only to say to that man, ‘I have here a paper
concerning a horse which I cannot read.’ And then?” Kim peered at
Mahbub under his eyebrows.
“Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice—perhaps thrice, afterwards. I
do not think more than thrice,” said Mahbub simply.
“It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I
loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but
(and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see what
Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion’s
pedigree.”
“And what did he?” for Kim had bitten off the conversation.
“Dost _thou_ give news for love, or dost thou sell it?” Kim asked.
“I sell and—I buy.” Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and
held it up.
“Eight!” said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the
East.
Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. “It is too easy to deal in that
market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in
each other’s hand.”
“Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief] come to
a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib’s office. I saw the two read
the white stallion’s pedigree. I heard the very orders given for the
opening of a great war.”
“Hah!” Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. “The game is well played.
That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the
flower—thanks to me—and thee. What didst thou later?”
“I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among
the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I bore
away the old man’s purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So next
morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the news when I fell into
the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!”
“That was foolishness.” Mahbub scowled. “News is not meant to be thrown
about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly—like _bhang_.”
“So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good. But that was
very long ago,” he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown
hand—“and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at
the _madrissah_, I have thought very greatly.”
“Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born’s thought might have
led?” said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet
beard.
“It is permitted,” said Kim, and threw back the very tone. “They say at
Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a fault.”
Mahbub’s hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a “black man”
(_kala admi_) is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed.
“Speak, Sahib. Thy black man hears.”
“But,” said Kim, “I am _not_ a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse
thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed
by a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished
to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it was well
done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service. I will
stay in the _madrissah_ till I am ripe.”
“Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of
using compasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills
above to show thee.”
“I will learn their teaching upon a condition—that my time is given to
me without question when the _madrissah_ is shut. Ask that for me of
the Colonel.”
“But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs’ tongue?”
“The Colonel is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither and
yon at a word, and must consider his own advancement. (See how much I
have already learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since
three months only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years. So! To
the _madrissah_ I will go. At the _madrissah_ I will learn. In the
_madrissah_ I will be a Sahib. But when the _madrissah_ is shut, then
must I be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!”
“And who are thy people, Friend of all the World?”
“This great and beautiful land,” said Kim, waving his paw round the
little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned heavily
through the tobacco-smoke. “And, further, I would see my lama again.
And, further, I need money.”
“That is the need of everyone,” said Mahbub ruefully. “I will give thee
eight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses’ hooves, and it
must suffice for many days. As to all the rest, I am well pleased, and
no further talk is needed. Make haste to learn, and in three years, or
it may be less, thou wilt be an aid—even to me.”
“Have I been such a hindrance till now?” said Kim, with a boy’s giggle.
“Do not give answers,” Mahbub grunted. “Thou art my new horse-boy. Go
and bed among my men. They are near the north end of the station, with
the horses.”
“They will beat me to the south end of the station if I come without
authority.”
Mahbub felt in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese ink, and
dabbed the impression on a piece of soft native paper. From Balkh to
Bombay men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar running
diagonally across it.
“That is enough to show my headman. I come in the morning.”
“By which road?” said Kim.
“By the road from the city. There is but one, and then we return to
Creighton Sahib. I have saved thee a beating.”
“Allah! What is a beating when the very head is loose on the
shoulders?”
Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house,
keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a mile
or so. Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at leisure, for he
needed time to invent a story if any of Mahbub’s retainers asked
questions.
They were camped on a piece of waste ground beside the railway, and,
being natives, had not, of course, unloaded the two trucks in which
Mahbub’s animals stood among a consignment of country-breds bought by
the Bombay tram-company. The headman, a broken-down,
consumptive-looking Mohammedan, promptly challenged Kim, but was
pacified at sight of Mahbub’s sign-manual.
“The Hajji has of his favour given me service,” said Kim testily. “If
this be doubted, wait till he comes in the morning. Meantime, a place
by the fire.”
Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must
raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the
little knot of Mahbub’s followers, almost under the wheels of a
horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among brickbats
and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded horses and
unwashed Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but Kim was
utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and surroundings were the
breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots of
St Xavier’s all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as the
repetition of the multiplication-table in English.
“I am very old,” he thought sleepily. “Every month I become a year more
old. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub’s message
to Umballa. Even when I was with that white Regiment I was very young
and small and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day, and in three
years the Colonel will take me out of the _madrissah_ and let me go
upon the Road with Mahbub hunting for horses’ pedigrees, or maybe I
shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with him.
Yes; that is best. To walk again as a _chela_ with my lama when he
comes back to Benares.”
The thoughts came more slowly and disconnectedly. He was plunging into