Kim
He paused, with a puzzled smile.
“What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard knot.”
“Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be
damned. So says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little
Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart. This matter
of creeds is like horseflesh. The wise man knows horses are good—that
there is a profit to be made from all; and for myself—but that I am a
good Sunni and hate the men of Tirah—I could believe the same of all
the Faiths. Now manifestly a Kathiawar mare taken from the sands of her
birthplace and removed to the west of Bengal founders—nor is even a
Balkh stallion (and there are no better horses than those of Balkh,
were they not so heavy in the shoulder) of any account in the great
Northern deserts beside the snow-camels I have seen. Therefore I say in
my heart the Faiths are like the horses. Each has merit in its own
country.”
“But my lama said altogether a different thing.”
“Oh, he is an old dreamer of dreams from Bhotiyal. My heart is a little
angry, Friend of all the World, that thou shouldst see such worth in a
man so little known.”
“It is true, Hajji; but that worth do I see, and to him my heart is
drawn.”
“And his to thine, I hear. Hearts are like horses. They come and they
go against bit or spur. Shout Gul Sher Khan yonder to drive in that bay
stallion’s pickets more firmly. We do not want a horse-fight at every
resting-stage, and the dun and the black will be locked in a little ...
Now hear me. Is it necessary to the comfort of thy heart to see that
lama?”
“It is one part of my bond,” said Kim. “If I do not see him, and if he
is taken from me, I will go out of that _madrissah_ in Nucklao and,
and—once gone, who is to find me again?”
“It is true. Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than thou.”
Mahbub nodded his head.
“Do not be afraid.” Kim spoke as though he could have vanished on the
moment. “My lama has said that he will come to see me at the
_madrissah_—”
“A beggar and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa—”
“Not all!” Kim cut in with a snort. “Their eyes are blued and their
nails are blackened with low-caste blood, many of them. Sons of
_mehteeranees_—brothers-in-law to the _bhungi_ (sweeper).”
We need not follow the rest of the pedigree; but Kim made his little
point clearly and without heat, chewing a piece of sugar-cane the
while.
“Friend of all the World,” said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe for the
boy to clean, “I have met many men, women, and boys, and not a few
Sahibs. I have never in all my days met such an imp as thou art.”
“And why? When I always tell thee the truth.”
“Perhaps the very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest men.”
Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground, girt in his belt, and went
over to the horses.
“Or sell it?”
There was that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn. “What new
devilry?”
“Eight annas, and I will tell,” said Kim, grinning. “It touches thy
peace.”
“O Shaitan!” Mahbub gave the money.
“Rememberest thou the little business of the thieves in the dark, down
yonder at Umballa?”
“Seeing they sought my life, I have not altogether forgotten. Why?”
“Rememberest thou the Kashmir Serai?”
“I will twist thy ears in a moment—Sahib.”
“No need—Pathan. Only, the second _faquir_, whom the Sahibs beat
senseless, was the man who came to search thy bulkhead at Lahore. I saw
his face as they helped him on the engine. The very same man.”
“Why didst thou not tell before?”
“Oh, he will go to jail, and be safe for some years. There is no need
to tell more than is necessary at any one time. Besides, I did not then
need money for sweetmeats.”
“Allah kerim!” said Mahbub Ah. “Wilt thou some day sell my head for a
few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee?”
Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from Umballa,
through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by, up to Simla. A sudden
spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse (the most valuable, be
sure), and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders. Farther up
the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant, and being
in high condition of grass food, it cost a day and a half to get them
together again. Then they met Sikandar Khan coming down with a few
unsaleable screws—remnants of his string—and Mahbub, who has more of
horse-coping in his little fingernail than Sikandar Khan in all his
tents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that meant eight hours’
laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco. But it was all pure delight—the
wandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the growing
spurs; the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows; the
branched cacti, tier upon tier on the stony hillsides; the voices of a
thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys; the solemn
deodars, climbing one after another with down-drooped branches; the
vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging
of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga
swung round a curve; the halts for prayers (Mahbub was very religious
in dry-washings and bellowings when time did not press); the evening
conferences by the halting-places, when camels and bullocks chewed
solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the news of the Road—all
these things lifted Kim’s heart to song within him.
“But, when the singing and dancing is done,” said Mahbub Ali, “comes
the Colonel Sahib’s, and that is not so sweet.”
“A fair land—a most beautiful land is this of Hind—and the land of the
Five Rivers is fairer than all,” Kim half chanted. “Into it I will go
again if Mahbub Ali or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me. Once
gone, who shall find me? Look, Hajji, is yonder the city of Simla?
Allah, what a city!”
“My father’s brother, and he was an old man when Mackerson Sahib’s well
was new at Peshawur, could recall when there were but two houses in
it.”
He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar—the
crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the Town Hall
at an angle of forty-five. A man who knows his way there can defy all
the police of India’s summer capital, so cunningly does veranda
communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with
bolt-hole. Here live those who minister to the wants of the glad
city—jhampanis who pull the pretty ladies’ “rickshaws by night and
gamble till the dawn; grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors,
firewood-dealers, priests, pickpockets, and native employees of the
Government. Here are discussed by courtesans the things which are
supposed to be profoundest secrets of the India Council; and here
gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the Native States. Here, too,
Mahbub Ali rented a room, much more securely locked than his bulkhead
at Lahore, in the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer. It was a place
of miracles, too, for there went in at twilight a Mohammedan horseboy,
and there came out an hour later a Eurasian lad—the Lucknow girl’s dye
was of the best—in badly-fitting shop-clothes.
“I have spoken with Creighton Sahib,” quoth Mahbub Ali, “and a second
time has the Hand of Friendship averted the Whip of Calamity. He says
that thou hast altogether wasted sixty days upon the Road, and it is
too late, therefore, to send thee to any Hill-school.”
“I have said that my holidays are my own. I do not go to school twice
over. That is one part of my bond.”
“The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of that contract. Thou art to lodge
in Lurgan Sahib’s house till it is time to go again to Nucklao.”
“I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub.”
“Thou dost not know the honour. Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee.
Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou must
forget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub
Ali, who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not know.
Remember this order.”
Kim nodded. “Good,” said he, “and who is Lurgan Sahib? Nay”—he caught
Mahbub’s sword-keen glance—“indeed I have never heard his name. Is he
by chance—he lowered his voice—“one of us?”
“What talk is this of _us_, Sahib?” Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone he
used towards Europeans. “I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the son of
a Sahib. Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops. All Simla
knows it. Ask there ... and, Friend of all the World, he is one to be
obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes. Men say he does magic, but
that should not touch thee. Go up the hill and ask. Here begins the
Great Game.”
CHAPTER IX
S’ doaks was son of Yelth the wise—
Chief of the Raven clan.
Itswoot the Bear had him in care
To make him a medicine-man.
He was quick and quicker to learn—
Bold and bolder to dare:
He danced the dread Kloo-Kwallie Dance
To tickle Itswoot the Bear!
_Oregon Legend._
Kim flung himself whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel. He
would be a Sahib again for a while. In that idea, so soon as he had
reached the broad road under Simla Town Hall, he cast about for one to
impress. A Hindu child, some ten years old, squatted under a lamp-post.
“Where is Mr Lurgan’s house?” demanded Kim.
“I do not understand English,” was the answer, and Kim shifted his
speech accordingly.
“I will show.”
Together they set off through the mysterious dusk, full of the noises
of a city below the hillside, and the breath of a cool wind in
deodar-crowned Jakko, shouldering the stars. The house-lights,
scattered on every level, made, as it were, a double firmament. Some
were fixed, others belonged to the “rickshaws of the careless,
open-spoken English folk, going out to dinner.
“It is here,” said Kim’s guide, and halted in a veranda flush with the
main road. No door stayed them, but a curtain of beaded reeds that
split up the lamplight beyond.
“He is come,” said the boy, in a voice little louder than a sigh, and
vanished. Kim felt sure that the boy had been posted to guide him from
the first, but, putting a bold face on it, parted the curtain. A
black-bearded man, with a green shade over his eyes, sat at a table,
and, one by one, with short, white hands, picked up globules of light
from a tray before him, threaded them on a glancing silken string, and
hummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious that beyond the circle
of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of
all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandal-wood, and a breath of
sickly jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.
“I am here,” said Kim at last, speaking in the vernacular: the smells
made him forget that he was to be a Sahib.
“Seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one,” the man counted to himself,
stringing pearl after pearl so quickly that Kim could scarcely follow
his fingers. He slid off the green shade and looked fixedly at Kim for
a full half-minute. The pupils of the eye dilated and closed to
pin-pricks, as if at will. There was a _faquir_ by the Taksali Gate who
had just this gift and made money by it, especially when cursing silly
women. Kim stared with interest. His disreputable friend could further
twitch his ears, almost like a goat, and Kim was disappointed that this
new man could not imitate him.
“Do not be afraid,” said Lurgan Sahib suddenly.
“Why should I fear?”
“Thou wilt sleep here tonight, and stay with me till it is time to go
again to Nucklao. It is an order.”
“It is an order,” Kim repeated. “But where shall I sleep?”
“Here, in this room.” Lurgan Sahib waved his hand towards the darkness
behind him.
“So be it,” said Kim composedly. “Now?”
He nodded and held the lamp above his head. As the light swept them,
there leaped out from the walls a collection of Tibetan devil-dance