Kim
“Milk and a meal.” the man stammered, as he looked at the strange tall
figure. “I—I would not draw evil upon myself—or my crops. But beggars
are so many in these hard days.”
“Take notice.” The lama turned to Kim. “He was led to speak harshly by
the Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he becomes
courteous and of an affable heart. May his fields be blessed! Beware
not to judge men too hastily, O farmer.”
“I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone to
byre,” said Kim to the abashed man. “Is he not wise and holy? I am his
disciple.”
He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the narrow
field-borders with great dignity.
“There is no pride,” said the lama, after a pause, “there is no pride
among such as follow the Middle Way.”
“But thou hast said he was low-caste and discourteous.”
“Low-caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwards
he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is
as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the
way of deliverance.” He halted at a little runlet among the fields, and
considered the hoof-pitted bank.
“Now, how wilt thou know thy River?” said Kim, squatting in the shade
of some tall sugar-cane.
“When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I feel,
is not the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou couldst
tell me where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the fields
bear!”
“Look! Look!” Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A
yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the
bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still—a big cobra
with fixed, lidless eyes.
“I have no stick—I have no stick,” said Kim. “I will get me one and
break his back.”
“Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or
descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have
done that is cast into this shape.”
“I hate all snakes,” said Kim. No native training can quench the white
man’s horror of the Serpent.
“Let him live out his life.” The coiled thing hissed and half opened
its hood. “May thy release come soon, brother!” the lama continued
placidly. “Hast _thou_ knowledge, by chance, of my River?”
“Never have I seen such a man as thou art,” Kim whispered, overwhelmed.
“Do the very snakes understand thy talk?”
“Who knows?” He passed within a foot of the cobra’s poised head. It
flattened itself among the dusty coils.
“Come, thou!” he called over his shoulder.
“Not I,” said Kim”. “I go round.”
“Come. He does no hurt.”
Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned
Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded
across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.
“Never have I seen such a man.” Kim wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“And now, whither go we?”
“That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger—far from my own
place. But that the _rêl_-carriage fills my head with noises of
devil-drums I would go in it to Benares now ... Yet by so going we may
miss the River. Let us find another river.”
Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a year
through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, and
nol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse
of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; the
lama replying to the volleyed questions with an unswerving simplicity.
They sought a River: a River of miraculous healing. Had any one
knowledge of such a stream?
Sometimes men laughed, but more often heard the story out to the end
and offered them a place in the shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The
women were always kind, and the little children as children are the
world over, alternately shy and venturesome.
Evening found them at rest under the village tree of a mud-walled,
mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the headman as the cattle came in from
the grazing-grounds and the women prepared the day’s last meal. They
had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and
were among the mile-wide green of the staple crops.
He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertaining
strangers. He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warm
cooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening
ceremonies being finished in the village temple, sent for the village
priest.
Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of Lahore, of
railway travel, and such-like city things, while the men talked, slowly
as their cattle chew the cud.
“I cannot fathom it,” said the headman at last to the priest. “How
readest thou this talk?” The lama, his tale told, was silently telling
his beads.
“He is a Seeker.” the priest answered. “The land is full of such.
Remember him who came only last, month—the _faquir_ with the tortoise?”
“Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared in
a vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he
journeyed to Prayag. This man seeks no God who is within my knowledge.”
“Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,” the
smooth-shaven priest replied. “Hear me.” He turned to the lama. “Three
_kos_ (six miles) to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta.”
“But I would go to Benares—to Benares.”
“And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of Hind. Now
my word to thee, Holy One, is rest here till tomorrow. Then take the
road” (it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant) “and test each stream that
it overpasses; for, as I understand, the virtue of thy River lies
neither in one pool nor place, but throughout its length. Then, if thy
Gods will, be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom.”
“That is well said.” The lama was much impressed by the plan. “We will
begin tomorrow, and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such a near
road.” A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the sentence. Even
the priest was impressed, and the headman feared an evil spell: but
none could look at the lama’s simple, eager face and doubt him long.
“Seest thou my _chela?_” he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with an
important sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy.
“I see—and hear.” The headman rolled his eye where Kim was chatting to
a girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a fire.
“He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a Red Bull
on a green field will some day raise him to honour. He is, I think, not
altogether of this world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me in this
search, and his name is Friend of all the World.”
The priest smiled. “Ho, there, Friend of all the World,” he cried
across the sharp-smelling smoke, “what art thou?”
“This Holy One’s disciple,” said Kim.
“He says thou are a _būt_ (a spirit).”
“Can _būts_ eat?” said Kim, with a twinkle. “For I am hungry.”
“It is no jest,” cried the lama. “A certain astrologer of that city
whose name I have forgotten—”
“That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night,”
Kim whispered to the priest.
“Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my _chela_
should find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaning
of the stars, Friend of all the World?”
Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village greybeards.
“The meaning of my Star is War,” he replied pompously.
Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the
brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have lain
down, Kim’s white blood set him upon his feet.
“Ay, War,” he answered.
“That is a sure prophecy,” rumbled a deep voice. “For there is always
war along the Border—as I know.”
It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days
of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment.
The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and though
the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded officers on their own
account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence.
English officials—Deputy Commissioners even—turned aside from the main
road to visit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the
uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.
“But this shall be a great war—a war of eight thousand.” Kim’s voice
shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.
“Redcoats or our own regiments?” the old man snapped, as though he were
asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.
“Redcoats,” said Kim at a venture. “Redcoats and guns.”
“But—but the astrologer said no word of this,” cried the lama, snuffing
prodigiously in his excitement.
“But _I_ know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One’s
disciple. There will rise a war—a war of eight thousand redcoats. From
Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is sure.”
“The boy has heard bazar-talk,” said the priest.
“But he was always by my side,” said the lama. “How should he know? I
did not know.”
“He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,” muttered the
priest to the headman. “What new trick is this?”
“A sign. Give me a sign,” thundered the old soldier suddenly. “If there
were war my sons would have told me.”
“When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a long
road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie.” Kim
warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the
letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended to
know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things—the
sheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath and went
on.
“Old man, give _me_ a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight
thousand redcoats—with guns?”
“No.” Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.
“Dost thou know who He is, then, that gives the order?”
“I have seen Him.”
“To know again?”
“I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the _top-khana_ (the
Artillery).”
“A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?” Kim took a few
paces in a stiff, wooden style.
“Ay. But that anyone may have seen.” The crowd were breathless—still
through all this talk.
“That is true,” said Kim. “But I will say more. Look now. First the
great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus.” (Kim drew a forefinger over
his forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the angle of the
jaw.) “Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He thrusts his hat under
his left armpit.” Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.
The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd
shivered.
“So—so—so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?”
“He rubs the skin at the back of his neck—thus. Then falls one finger
on the table and He makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then
He speaks, saying: ‘Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such
guns.’”
The old man rose stiffly and saluted.
“‘For’”—Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he
had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa—“‘For,’ says He, ‘we should
have done this long ago. It is not war—it is a chastisement. Snff!’”
“Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen
and heard. It is He!”
“I saw no smoke”—Kim’s voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the
wayside fortune-teller. “I saw this in darkness. First came a man to
make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He standing in a ring
of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken
truth?”
“It is He. Past all doubt it is He.”
The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old
man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.