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Chapter 8
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.'
The Two-Sided Man.
'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 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 -,
'Maybe; 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 a
beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a whisper, thin and sharp,
above the monotonous babble round the fire. It came from behind the
iron-skinned horse-truck.
'He is not here, then?'
'Where should he be but roystering in the city. Who looks for a rat
in a frog-pond? Come away. He is not our man.'
'He must not go back beyond the Passes a second time. It is the
order.'
'Hire some woman to drug him. It is a few rupees only, and there is
no evidence.'
'Except the woman. It must be more certain; and remember the price
upon his head.'
'Ay, but the police have a long arm, and we are far from the
Border. If it were in Peshawur, now!'
'Yes - in Peshawur,' the second voice sneered. 'Peshawur, full of
his blood-kin - full of bolt-holes and women behind whose clothes
he will hide. Yes, Peshawur or Jehannum would suit us equally
well.'
'Then what is the plan?'
'O fool, have I not told it a hundred times? Wait till he comes to
lie down, and then one sure shot. The trucks are between us and
pursuit. We have but to run back over the lines and go our way.
They will not see whence the shot came. Wait here at least till the
dawn. What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver at a little
watching?'
'Oho!' thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes. 'Once again it is
Mahbub. Indeed a white stallion's pedigree is not a good thing to
peddle to Sahibs! Or maybe Mahbub has been selling other news. Now
what is to do, Kim? I know not where Mahbub houses, and if he comes
here before the dawn they will shoot him. That would be no profit
for thee, Kim. And this is not a matter for the police. That would
be no profit for Mahbub; and' - he giggled almost aloud - 'I do not
remember any lesson at Nucklao which will help me. Allah! Here is
Kim and yonder are they. First, then, Kim must wake and go away, so
that they shall not suspect. A bad dream wakes a man - thus -,
He threw the blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly with
the terrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by
nightmare.
'Urr-urr-urr-urr! Ya-la-la-la-la! Narain! The churel! The churel!'
A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died
in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned
backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.
Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his
feet and staggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for
waking them. Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down
again, taking care that the whisperers should hear his grunts and
groans as he recomposed himself. After a few minutes he rolled
towards the road and stole away into the thick darkness.
He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped
behind it, his chin on a level with the coping-stone. Here he could
command all the night-traffic, himself unseen.
Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughing
policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off
evil spirits. Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.
'Ah! This is more like Mahbub,' thought Kim, as the beast shied at
the little head above the culvert.
'Ohe', Mahbub Ali,' he whispered, 'have a care!'
The horse was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced
towards the culvert.
'Never again,' said Mahbub, 'will I take a shod horse for night-
work. They pick up all the bones and nails in the city.' He stooped
to lift its forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of
Kim's. Down - keep down,' he muttered. 'The night is full of
eyes.'
'Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will shoot
thee at thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head. I
heard, sleeping near the horses.'
'Didst thou see them? . .. Hold still, Sire of Devils!' This
furiously to the horse.
'No.'
'Was one dressed belike as a fakir?'
'One said to the other, "What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver
at a little watching?"'
'Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do not die tonight.'
Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished. Kim tore back down the ditch
till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped
across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled himself in the
blanket.
'At least Mahbub knows,' he thought contentedly. 'And certainly he
spoke as one expecting it. I do not think those two men will profit
by tonight's watch.'
An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake
all night, he slept deeply. Now and again a night train roared
along the metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the
Oriental's indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a
dream through his slumber.
Mahbub was anything but asleep. It annoyed him vehemently that
people outside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should
pursue him for the life. His first and natural impulse was to cross
the line lower down, work up again, and, catching his well-wishers
from behind, summarily slay them. Here, he reflected with sorrow,
another branch of the Government, totally unconnected with Colonel
Creighton, might demand explanations which would be hard to supply;
and he knew that south of the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is
made about a corpse or so. He had not been troubled in this way
since he sent Kim to Umballa with the message, and hoped that
suspicion had been finally diverted.
Then a most brilliant notion struck him.
'The English do eternally tell the truth,' he said, 'therefore we
of this country are eternally made foolish. By Allah, I will tell
the truth to an Englishman! Of what use is the Government police if
a poor Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks. This is
as bad as Peshawur! I should lay a complaint at the station. Better
still, some young Sahib on the Railway! They are zealous, and if
they catch thieves it is remembered to their honour.'
He tied up his horse outside the station, and strode on to the
platform.
'Hullo, Mahbub Ali' said a young Assistant District Traffic
Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line - a tall, tow-
haired, horsey youth in dingy white linen. 'What are you doing
here? Selling weeds - eh?'
'No; I am not troubled for my horses. I come to look for Lutuf
Ullah. I have a truck-load up the line. Could anyone take them out
without the Railway's knowledge?'
'Shouldn't think so, Mahbub. You can claim against us if they do.'
'I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the
trucks nearly all night. Fakirs do not steal horses, so I gave them
no more thought. I would find Lutuf Ullah, my partner.'
'The deuce you did? And you didn't bother your head about it? 'Pon
my word, it's just almost as well that I met you. What were they
like, eh?'
'They were only fakirs. They will no more than take a little grain,
perhaps, from one of the trucks. There are many up the line. The
State will never miss the dole. I came here seeking for my partner,
Lutuf Ullah
'Never mind your partner. Where are your horse-trucks?'
'A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps
for the trains.'
'The signal-box! Yes.'
'And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand side -
looking up the line thus. But as regards Lutuf Ullah - a tall man
with a broken nose, and a Persian greyhound Aie!'
The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic
policeman; for, as he said, the Railway had suffered much from
depredations in the goods-yard. Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed
beard.
'They will walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they will
wonder why there are no fakirs. They are very clever boys--Barton
Sahib and Young Sahib.'
He waited idly for a few minutes, expecting to see them hurry up
the line girt for action. A light engine slid through the station,
and he caught a glimpse of young.Barton in the cab.
'I did that child an injustice. He is not altogether a fool,' said
Mahbub Ali. 'To take a fire-carriage for a thief is a new game!'
When Mahbub Ali came to his camp in the dawn, no one thought it
worth while to tell him any news of the night. No one, at least,
but one small horseboy, newly advanced to the great man's service,
whom Mahbub called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing.
'It is all known to me,' whispered Kim, bending above saddlebags.
'Two Sahibs came up on a te-train. I was running to and fro in the
dark on this side of the trucks as the te-train moved up and down
slowly. They fell upon two men sitting under this truck - Hajji,
what shall I do with this lump of tobacco? Wrap it in paper and put
it under the salt-bag? Yes - and struck them down. But one man
struck at a Sahib with a fakir's buck's horn' (Kim meant the
conjoined black-buck horns, which are a fakir's sole temporal
weapon) - 'the blood came. So the other Sahib, first smiting his
own man senseless, smote the stabber with a short gun which had
rolled from the first man's hand. They all raged as though mad
together.'
Mahbub smiled with heavenly resignation. 'No! That is not so much
dewanee [madness, or a case for the civil court - the word can be
punned upon both ways] as nizamut [a criminal case]. A gun, sayest
thou? Ten good years in jail.'
'Then they both lay still, but I think they were nearly dead when
they were put on the te-train. Their heads moved thus. And there is
much blood on the line. Come and see?'
'I have seen blood before. Jail is the sure place - and assuredly
they will give false names, and assuredly no man will find them for
a long time. They were unfriends of mine. Thy fate and mine seem on
one string. What a tale for the healer of pearls! Now swiftly with
the saddle-bags and the cooking-platter. We will take out the
horses and away to Simla.'
Swiftly - as Orientals understand speed - with long explanations,
with abuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a hundred checks for
little things forgotten, the untidy camp broke up and led the half-
dozen stiff and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of
the rain-swept dawn. Kim, regarded as Mahbub Ali's favourite by all
who wished to stand well with the Pathan, was not called upon to
work. They strolled on by the easiest of stages, halting every few
hours at a wayside shelter. Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka
road; and, as Mahbub Ali says, every young Sahib must needs esteem
himself a judge of a horse, and, though he be over head in debt to
the money-lender, must make as if to buy. That was the reason that
Sahib after Sahib, rolling along in a stage-carriage, would stop
and open talk. Some would even descend from their vehicles and feel
the horses' legs; asking inane questions, or, through sheer
ignorance of the vernacular, grossly insulting the imperturbable
trader.
'When first I dealt with Sahibs, and that was when Colonel Soady
Sahib was Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the Commissioner's
camping-ground for spite,' Mahbub confided to Kim as the boy filled
his pipe under a tree, 'I did not know how greatly they were fools,
and this made me wroth. As thus -, and he told Kim a tale of an
expression, misused in all innocence, that doubled Kim up with
mirth. 'Now I see, however,' - he exhaled smoke slowly - 'that it
is with them as with all men - in certain matters they are wise,
and in others most foolish. Very foolish it is to use the wrong
word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence,
how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth
with a dagger.'
'True. True talk,' said Kim solemnly. 'Fools speak of a cat when a
woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them.'
'Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves
thee to remember this with both kinds of faces. Among Sahibs, never
forgetting thou art a Sahib; among the folk of Hind, always
remembering thou art -' 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 evanished 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
mehteranees - 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 fakir, 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.'
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