KIM.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue II, 13 July 1901, Page 50

KIM.

“COPYRIGHT, 1901, IN THE U.S.A. BY RUDYARD KIPLING. ALL RIGHTS STRICTLY RESERVED.”

By

RUDYARD KIPLING.

CHAPTER IX. —Continued

Four days later a seat was booked for Kim and his small trunk at the rear of a Kalka tonga. His companion was the whale-like Babu, who, with a fringed shawl wrapped round his head, and his fat open-work-stockinged left leg tucked under him, shivered and grunted in the morning chill. -How comes it that this man is one of us?" thought Kim, considering the jelly-back as they jolted down the road; and the reflection threw him into most pleasant day-dreams. Lurgan Sahib had given him five rupees—• a splendid sum—as well as the assurance of his protection if he worked. I alike Mahbub. Lurgan Sahib had spoken most explicitly of the reward that would follow obedience, and Kim was content. If only, like the Babu, he could enjoy the dignity of a letter and a number—and a price upon his head! Some day he would be all that ami more. Some day he might be almost as great as Mahbub Ali! The housetops of his search should be half India: he would follow Kings and ministers. as in the old days he had followed vakils and lawyers’ touts across Lahore city for Mahbub Ali’s sake. Meantime, there was the present, and not at all unpleasant, fact of St. Xavier's immediately before him. There would be new boys to condescend to, ami there would be tales of holiday adventures to hear. Young- Martin, son of the tea-planter at Manipur, had boasted that he would go to war. with a rifle, against the head-hunters. That might be. but it was certain young Martin had not been blown half across the forecourt of a Patiala palace by an explosion of fireworks nor had he. . . Kim fell to telling himself the story of his own adventures through the last three months. He could paralyse St. Xavier’s—even the biggest boys who shaved—with the recital, were that permitted. But it was. of course, out of the question. There would be a price upon his head in good time, as I.organ Sahi had assured him: and if he talked foolishly now, not only would that price never he set. but Colonel Creighton would east him off — and he would be left to the wrath of Lurgan Sahib and Mahbub Ali—for the short space of life that would remain to him. "So I should lose Delhi for the sake of a fish,*' was his proverbial philosophy. It behoved him to forget his holidays (there would always remain the fun of inventing imaginaryadventures), and, as Lurgan Sahib had said, to work.

Of all the boys hurrying back to St. Xavier's, from Sukkur in the sands to Galle beneath the palms, none was so filled with virtue as Kimball O'Hara, jiggetting down to Umballa behind Hurree (hinder Mookerjee, whose name on the books of one section of the Ethnological Survey was R. 17. And if additional spur were needed, the Babu supplied it. After a huge meal at Kalka. he spoke uninterruptedly. Was Kim going to school? Then he, an M.A. of Calcutta University, would explain the advantages of education. There were marks to be gained by due attention to Latin and Wordsworth’s "Excursion’’ (all this was Greek to Kim). French, too, was vital, and the best was to be picked up in Chandernagore. a few males front ( alcutta.. Also a man might go far. as lie himself had done, by strict attention to plays called "Lear” and “Julius Caesar." both

much in demand by exam'ners. “Lear’’ was rot so full of historical allusions as "Julius Caesar”; the book cost four annas, hut could be brought second hand in Bow Bazaar for two. Still more important than Wordsworth. or the entinent authors. Burke and Hare, was the art and science of mensuration. A boy who

had passed his examination in these branches—for which, by the way, there were no cram books—could, by merely marching over a country with a compass and a level and a straight eye, carry away a picture of that country which might be sold for large sums in coined silver. But as it was occasionally inexpedient to carry about measuring chains, a boy would do well to know the precise length of his own foot pace, so that when he was deprived of what Hurree Chunder called “adventitious aids,” he might still tread his distances. To keep count of thousands of paces, Hurree Chunder’s experience had shown him nothing more valuable than a rosary of eighty one or a hundred and eight beads, for “it was divisible and sub-divisible into many multiplies and sub - multiples. Through the volleying drifts of English, Kim eaught the general trend of the talk, and it interested him very much. Here was a new craft that a man could tuck away in his head, and by the look of the large wide world unfolding itself before him, it seemed that the more a man knew the better for him.

Said the Babu when he had talked fo" an hour and a half, “I hope some day to enjoy your offeeeial acquaintance. Ad interim, if I may be pardoned that expression, I shall give you this betel box, which is highly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago.” It was a cheap, heart-shaped brass thing with three compartments for carrying the eternal betel nut. lime and pan leaf: but it was filled with little tabloid bottles. “That is reward of merit for your performance in character of that holy man. A'ou see. you are so young you think you will last for ever and not take care of your body. It is great nuisance to go sick in the middle of business. I am fond of drugs myself, and they are handy to cure poor people too. These are good departmental drugs—quinine and so on. I give it you for souvenir. Now goodbye. I have urgent private business here bv the roadside.”

He slipped out noiselessly as a cat. on the Umballa Road, hailed a passing ekka and jingled away, while Kim. tongue-tied, twiddled the brass betelbox in his hands. The record of a boy’s education interests few save his parents, and. as you know. Kim was an orphan. It is written in the books of St. Xavier in Partibus that a report of Kim's progress was forwarded at the end of each term to Colonel Creig'hton and to Father Victor, from whose hands duly came the money for his schooling. It is further recorded in the same books that he showed a great aptitude for mathematical studies as well as mapmaking, and carried away a prize ("The Life of Lord Lawrence,” treecalf. two vols., nine rupees, eight annas) for proficiency therein; and the same term played in St. Xavier’s eleven against the Allyghur Mohammedan College, his age being fourteen years and ten months. He was also re-vaccinated (from which we may assume that there had been another epidemic of small-pox at Lucknow) about the same time. Pencil notes on the edge of an old muster-roll record that he was punished several times for “conversing with improper persons.” and it seems that he was once sentenced to heavy pains for “absenting himself for a day in the company of a street beggar.” That was when he got over the gate and pleaded with the lama through a whole day down the banks of the Goomtee to accompany him on the road next holidays—for one month- for a little week; and the lamn set his face as a flint against it. averring that the time hail not yet come. Kim's business, said the old man as they ate cakes together, was to get all the wisdom of the Sahibs

and then he would see. The hand of friendship must in some way have averted the whip of calamity, for six weeks later Kim seems to have passed an examination in elementary surveying “with great credit,” his age being fifteen years and eight months. From this date the record is silent. His name does not appear in the year's batch of those who entered for the subordinate Survey of India, but against it stand the words, “removed on appointment.”

Several times in those three years, cast up at the Temple of the Tirthankers in Benares the lama, a little thinner and a shade yellower, if that were possible, but gentle and untainted as ever. Sometimes it was from the South that he came—from south of Tuticorin whence the wonderful fireboats go to Ceylon where are priests who know Pali; sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand cotton-factory chimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North, where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk a day with the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House. He would stride to his cell in the cool cut marble—the priests of the Temple were good to the old man—wash off the dust of travel, make prayer, and depart for Lucknow, well accustomed now to the ways of the rail, in a third-class carriage. Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the head priest, that he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River, or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life, but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the temple had ever seen. Yes. he had followed the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all India. (The curator has still in his possession a most marvellous account of his wanderings and meditations). There remained nothingmore in life but to find the River of The Arrow. Yet it was shown to him in dreams that it was a matter not to be undertaken with any hope of success unless that seeker had with him the one chela appointed to bring the event to a happy issue, and versed in great wisdom—such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of Images possess. For example (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain priests made haste to be silent): — “Long and long ago. when Devadatta was King of Benares —let all listen to the Jataka! — an elephant was captured for a time by the king’s hunters and, ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous leg-iron. This he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying up and down the forests, besought his brother elephants to wrench it asunder. One by one, with their strong trunks, they tried and failed. At the last they gave it as their opinion that the ring was not to be broken by any bestial power. And in a thicket, new-born, wet with the moisture of birth, lay a day-old calf of the herd whose mother had died. The fettered elephant, forgetting his own agony, said: “If I do not help this suckling it will perish under our feet.” So he stood above the young thing, making his legs buttresses against the uneasily moving herd;

and he begged milk of a virtuous cow, and the calf throve, and the ringed elephant was the calf's guide and defence. Now the days of an elephant—let all listen to the-Jataka! —are thirty-five years to his full strength, and through thirty-five Rains the ringed elephant befriended the younger, and all the while the fetter ate into the flesh.

“Then one day the young elephant saw the half-buried iron, and turning to the elder said: ‘What is this?’ ‘lt is even my sorrow,’ said he who had befriended him. Then that other put out his trunk and in the twinkling of an eye-lash abolished the ring, saying: ‘The appointed time has come.’ So the virtuous elephant who had waited temperately and done kind acts was relieved, at the appointed time, by the very calf whom he had turned aside to cherish—let all listen to the Jataka! —for the Elephant was Ananda, and the Calf that broke the ring was none other than The Lord Himself. Then he would shake his head benignly, and over the ever-clicking rosary point out how free that elephant calf was from the sin of pride. He was as humble as a chela who, seeing his master sitting- in the dust outside the Gates of Learning overleapt the gates (though they were locked) and took his master to his heart in the presence of the proud-stomached city. Rich would be the reward of such a master and such a chela when the time came for them to seek freedom together! So did the lama speak, coming and going across India as softly as a bat. A sharp tongued old woman in a house among the fruit trees behind Saharunpore honoured him as the woman honoured the prophet, but his chamber was by no means upon the wall Tn an apartment of the forecourt overlooked by cooing doves he would sit, while she laid aside her useless veil and chattered of spirits and fiends of Kulu. of grandchildren unborn, and of the free-tongued brat who had talked to her in the resting place. Once, too. he strayed alone from the Grand Trunk Road below Umballa to the very village whose priest had tried to drug him; but the kind heaven that guards lamas sent him at twilight through the crops, absorbed and unsuspicious, to the ressaldar’s door. Here was like to have been a grave misunderstanding, for the old soldier asked him why the Friend of the Stars had gone that way only six days before. “That may not be,” said the lama. “He has gone back to his own people.” “He sat in that corner telling a hundred merry tales five nights ago.” his host insisted. “True, he vanished somewhat suddenly in the dawn after foolish talk with my grand-daughter. He grows apace, but he is the same Friend of the Stars as brought me true word of the war. Have ve parted ?”

"Yes—and No,” the lama replied. “We—we have not altogether parted, but the time is not ripe that we should take the Road together. He acquires wisdom in another place. We must wait.”

“All one—but if it were not the boy how did he come to speak so continually of thee?” “And what said he?” asked the lama, eagerly.

“Sweet words—an hundred thousand—that thou art his father and mother, and such all. Pity that he does not take the Queen’s service. He is fearless.”

This news amazed the lama, who did not then know how religiously Kim kept to the contract made with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by Colonel Creighton. “There is no 'holding the young pony from the game.” said the horse dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India in holiday time was absurd. “If permission

be refused to go and come as he chooses he will make, light of the refusal. Then who is to catch him? Colonel Sahib, once in a thousand vears is a horse born as we.l fitted for the game as this colt. And we need men.”

CHAPTER X. Your tiercel’s too long at hack, Sire. He's no eyass But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him. Dangerously free o’ the air. Faith, were he mine , . , . (As mine s the glove he binds to for his with a make-hawk. He’s tn Plumed to the very point—so manned so weathered .... Give him the firmament God made him for. _ . . o And who shall take the air of him? — Old nay .

‘"Lurgan Sahib did not use as direct speech, but his advice tallied with Mahbub’s, and the upshot was good for Kim. He knew better now than to leave Lucknow city in native garb, and if Mahbub weie anywhere within rtjach of a letter, it was to Mahbub’s eamp he headed, and made his change under the Pathan’s wary eye. Could this little Survey paint box that he used for map tinting in term time have found a tongue to tell of holiday doings, he might have been expelled. Once Mahbub and he went together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay. with three truck loads of tram horses, and Mahbub nearly melted when Kim proposed a sail in a dhow across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs, which he understood from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul Rahman. fetched better prices than mere Kabulis.

He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when Mahbub and a few co-religionists were invited to a big Haj dinner. They came back by way of Karachi by sea. when Kim took his first experience of sea sickness. sitting on the fore hatch of a coasting steamer, well persuaded he had been poisoned. The Babu’s famous drug box proved useless, though Kim had restocked it at Bombay. Mahbub had business at Quetta, and there Kim. as Mahbub admitted, earned his keep, and perhaps a little over, by spending four curious dtiys as scullion in the house of a fat Commissariat sergeant, from whose office box. in an auspicious moment, he removed a little vellum ledger which he copied out —it seemed to deal entirely with cattle and camel sales—by moonlight. lying behind an outhouse, all through one hot night. Then he returned the ledger to its place, and at Mahbub’s word left that service unpaid. rejoining him six miles down the road, the clean copy in his bosom. “That soldier is a small fish.” Mahbub Ali explained, “but in time we shall catch the larger one. He only sells oxen at two prices—one for himself and one for the Government—which I do not think is a sin.” “Why could not I take away the little book and be done with it?”

“Then he would have been frightened, and he would have told his master. Then we should miss, perhaps, a great number of new rifles which seek their way up from Quetta to the North. The Game is so large that one sees but a little at a time.”

“Oho!” said Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon holidays, after he had taken the prize for mathematics. The Christmas holidays he spent—deducting ten days for private amusements—with Lurgan Sahib, where he sat for the most part in front of a roaring wood fire—Jakko Road was four feet deen in snow that year—and—the small Hindu had gone away to be married—helped Lurgan to thread pearls. He made Kim learn whole chapters of the Koran by heart, till he could deliver them with the very roll and cadence of a mullah. Moreover, he told Kim the names and properties of many native drugs, as well as the runes proper to recite when yon administered them. And in the evenings he wrote charms on parchmentelaborate pentagrams crowned with the names of devils—Murra. and Awan the Companion of Kings—all fantastically written in the corners. More to the point, he advised Kim as to the care of his own body, the cure of fever fits, and simple remedies of the Rond. A week before it was time to go down. Colonel Creighton Sahib

—this was unfair—sent Kim a written examination paper that concerned itself solely with rods and chains and links and angles.

Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the way. he nearly died of thirst, plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikaneer, where the wells are four hundred feet deep, and lined throughout with camel bone. It was not an amusing trip from Kim's point of view, because —in defiance of the contract —the Colonel ordered him to make a map of that wild, walled city; and since Mahommedan horse boys and pipe tenders are not expected to drag surveying chains round the capital of an independent native state. Kim was forced to pace all his distances by means of a bead rosary. He used the compass for bearings as occasion served—after dark chiefly, when the camels had been fed—and by the help of his little Survey paint box of six colour cakes and three brushes, he achieved something not remotely unlike the city of Jeysalmir. Mahbub laughed a great deal, and advised him to make up a written report as well: and in the back of the big account book that lay under the flap of Mahbub’s pet saddle Kim fell to work.

“It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched Or considered. Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib himself had come by stealth with a vast army outsetting to war.” “How great an army?" “Oh. half a lakh of men.” '“Folly! Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand. Not a thousand thirsty men could come near by here.”

“Then write that down —also all the old breaches in the walls—and whence the firewood is cut —and what is the temper and disposition of the King. I stay here till all my horses are sold. I will hire a room by the gateway, and thou shalt be my accountant. There is a good lock to the door." The report in its unmistakable St. Xavier’s running script. and the brown, yellow, and lake-daubed map. was on hand a few years ago (a careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E.23’s second Seistan survey), but by now the pencil characters must be almost illegible. Kim translated it. sweating' under the light of an oillamp. to Mahbub, the second day of their return journey. The Pathan rose and stooped over his dappled saddlebags. “I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour, and so I made one ready." he said smiling. “Were I Amir of Afghanistan (and some day we may see him). I would fill thy mouth with gold.” He laid the garments formally at Kim’s feet. There was a gold-em-broidered Pe-shawur turban-cap. rising to a cone, and a big turban-cloth ending in a broad fringe of gold. There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milky white shirt, fastening' to the right, ample and flowing': green pyjamas with twisted silk waiststring: and that nothing might be lacking. Russia-leather slippers, smelling divinely, with arrogantly curled tips. “Upon a Wednesday, and in the morning, to put on new clothes is auspicious,” said Mahbub solemnly. “But we must not forget the wicked folk in the world. So!” He capped all the splendour, that was taking Kim’s delighted breath away, with a mother-of-pearl, nickelplated, self-extracting .450 revolver. “I had thought of a smaller bore, but refleeted that this takes Government bullets. A man can always come by those—especially across the Border. Stand up and let me look.” He clapped Kim on the shoulder. “May you never be tired. Pathan! Oh, the hearts to be broken! Oh. the eyes under the eyelashes, looking sideways!” Kim turned about, pointed his toes, stretched and felt mechanically for the moustache that was just beginning. Then he stooped towards Mahbub’s feet to make proper acknowledgment with fluttering, quick-patting hands: his heart too full for words. Mahbub forestalled and embraced him. “My son.” said he. “what need of words between us? But is not the little gun a delight? All six cartridges come out at one twist. It is borne in the bosom next the skin, which, as it were, keeps it oiled. Newer put it

elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt some day kill a man with it.” “Hai mai!” said Kim ruefully. “If a Sahib kills a man he is hung in the gaol.” “True; but one pace beyond the Border, men are wiser. Put it away: but till it first. Of what use is a gun unfed?” “When I go bark to the inadrissah I must return it. They do not allow little guns. Thou wilt keep it for me?” “Son, 1 am wearied of that inadrissah, where they take the best years of a man to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road. The folly of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom. No matter. Maybe thy written report shall save thee further bondage; and God He knows we need men more and more in the Game.” They marched, jaw - boned against blowing sand, across the salt desert to Jodhpore. where Mahbub and his handsome nephew Habib - I’llah did much trading; and then sorrowfully, in European clothes, which he was fast outgrowing, Kim went secondclass to St. Xavier's. Three weeks later. Colonel Creighton, pricing Tibetan ghost-daggers at Lurgan's shop, faced Mahbub Ali openly mutinous. Lurgan Sahib operated as support in reserve. “The pony is made—finished—mouthed, and paced. Sahib! From now on. day by day. he will lose his manners if he is kept at tricks. Drop the rein on his back and let go.” said The horse-dealer. “We ,need hihu.” “But he is so young, Mahbub—not more than sixteen—is he?” “When T was fifteen. I had shot my man and begot my man. Sahib.” “You impenitent old heathen.” Creighton turned to Lurgan. The black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghan’s dyed scarlet. “1 should have used him long ago.” said Lurgan. “The younger the better. That is why I always have my really valuable jewels watched by a child. You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every way: he is the only boy I could not make to see things.” “Tn the crystal—in the ink-pool?” demanded Mahbub. “No. Under my hand, as I told you. That has never happened before. It means that he is strong enough—but you think it skittles. Colonel Creighton —to make any one do anything he wants. And that is three years ago. T have taught him a good deal since, Colonel Creighton. I think you waste him now.” “Hmm! Maybe you’re right. But. as you know, there is no Survey work for him at present.” “Let him out—let him go.” Mahbub interrupted. “Who expects any colt to carry heavy weight at first? Let

him run with the caravans like our white camel colts—for luck. 1 won hl take him myself, but ” “I here is a little business where he would be most useful—in the South.” saitl Lurgan. with peculiar suavity, dropping his heavy blued eyelids. “E. 23 has that in hand.” said Creighton quickly. “He must not go down there. Besides, he knows no Turki.” “Only tell him the shape and the smell of the letters we want and he will bring them back.” Lurgan insisted. “No. That is a man’s job.” said Creighton. It was a wry-necked matter of unauthorised and incendiary correspondence between a person who claimed to ‘be the ultimate authority in all matters of the Mohammedan religion throughout the world, and a younger member of a royal house who had been brought to book for kidnapping women within British territory. The Moslem Archbishop had been emphatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was no need he should continue a correspondence which might some day' compromise him. One letter indeed had been procured, but the tinder was later found dead by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader, as E. 23, taking up the w’ork. duly’ reported. These facts, and a few’ others not to be published, made both Mahbub and Creighton shake their heads. “Let him go out with his Red Lama.” said the horse dealer, with visible effort. “He is fond of the old man. He can learn his paces by the rosary at least.” “I have had some dealings with the old man—by letter,” -aid Colonel Creighton. smiling to himself. “Whither goes he?” “Ip and d .wn the I:.nd. as he has these three years. He seeks a River of healing. God’s curse upon all--” Mnhbun checked himself. “He beds down at the Temple of the Tirthankers or at Buddh Gaya when hr is in from the Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the inadrissah, as we know, for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice. He is quite mad. but a peaceful man. I have met him. The Babu als > bas had dealings with him. We have watched him for three years. Re 1 Lamas are not so common in Huh. that one loses track.” “Babus are very curious,” said Lurgan. meditatively. “Do you know what Hurree Babu really wants? He wants tc- be made a member of the .Royal Society for taking ethnological notes. I lell you. T tell him about the lama everything that Mahbub and the boy have told me. Hurree Babu goes down to Benares—at h’s own expense 1 think.”

"1 don’t,” said Creighton, briefly, lie ban paid Hurree’s travelling exj.enses out of a most lively curiosity to learn what the lama might be. "An he applies to the lama for information on lamaism, and devil dances, and spells and charms, several times in these few years. Holy Virgin! 1 could have told him all that yee-ars ago. 1 think Hurree Babu is getting too old for the Hoad. He likes better to collect manners and customs information. Yes, he wants to be an F.R.S.” "Hurree thinks well of the boy, doesn't he?” "Oh, very, indeed —we have had some pleasant evenings at my little place—but I think it would be waste to throw him away with Hurree on the Ethnological side.” "Not for a. first experience. How does that strike you, Mahbub? Let the boy run with the lama for six months. After that we can see. He will get experience.” "He has it already, Sahib—as a fish controls the water he swims in; but for every reason it will be well to loose him from the school.” "Very good then,” said Creighton, half to himself. “He can go with the lama, and if Hurree Babu cares to keep an eye on them so much the better. He won’t lead the boy into any danger as Mahbub would. Curious—his wish to be an F.K.S. Very human, too. He is best on the Ethnological side —HurNo money and no preferment would have drawn Creighton from his work on the Indian Survey, but deep in his heart also lay the ambition to write “F.K.S.” after his name. Honours of a sort he knew could be obtained by ingenuity and the help of friends, but. to the best of his belief, nothing save work—papers representing a life of it took a man into the Society which he had bombarded for years with monographs on strange Asiatic cults and unknown customs. Nine men out of ten would flee from a Koval Society soiree in extremity of boredom: but Creighton was the tenth, and at times his soul yearned for the crowded rooms in easy London where silver-haired, bald-headed gentlemen who know nothing of the Army move among spectroscopic experiments, the lesser plants of the frozen tundras, electric flightmeasuring machines, and apparatus for slicing into fractional milimetres the left eye of a female mosquito. By all right and reason, it was the Royal Geographical that should have appealed to him, but men are as chancy as children in their choice of playthings. So Creighton smiled, and thought the better of Hurree Babu, moved by like desire. He dropped the ghost dagger and looked up at Mahbub. "How soon can we get the colt from the stable?” said the horse dealer, reading his eyes. "Hmm. If I withdraw him by order now—what will he do. think von? I have never before assisted at the teaching of such an one.” "He will come to me." said Mahbub promptly. "Lurgan Sahib and I will prepare him for the Hoad.” "So be it. then. For six months he shall run at his choice: but who will be his sponsor?” I.organ slightly inclined his head. "He will not tell anything, if that is what you are afraid of. Colonel Creighton.” "It’s only a boy, after all." "Ye-es; but first, he has nothing to tell: and secondly, he knows what would happen. Also, he is a very fond of Mahbub, and of me a little.” "Will he draw pay?" demanded the practical horse dealer. "Food and water allowance only. Twenty rupees a month.’ (hie advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no worrying audit. The service is ludicrously starved, of course, but the funds are administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or present itemised accounts. Mahbub’s eyes lighted with almost a Sikh's love for money. Even 1. organ’s impassive face changed. He considered the years to come when Kim would have been entered and made to the Great Game that never eeases day and night, throughout India. He foresaw honour and credit in the mouths of a chosen few. coming to him from his pupil. Lurgan Sahib hud made E. 2.3 what F.. 23 was. out of a bewildered, impertinent.

lying, little North-West Province man. But the joy of these masters was pale ami smoky beside the joy of Kim when St. Xavier’s Head called him us, tie, with word that Colonel Creighton had sent for him. "1 understand, O’Hara, that he has found you a place as an assistant chain man in the Canal Department: ttiai comes of taking up mathematics. it is great luck for you, lor you are only seventeen; but of course you understand that you do not become ‘pukka’ (permanent) till you have passed the autumn examination. So you must not think that you are goingout into the world to enjoy yourself, or that your fortune is made. There is a great deal of hard work before you. Only, if you succeed in becoming ‘pukka,’ you can rise, you know, to four hundred and fifty a month.” Whereat the Principal gave him much good advice as to his conduct, and his manners, and his morals; and others, his elders, who had not been wafted into billets, talked, as only Anglo-Indian lads can, of favouritism and corruption. Indeed, young Cazalet, whose father was a pensioner at Chunar, hinted very broadly that Colonel Creighton’s interest in Kim was directly paternal; and Kim, instead of retaliating did not even use language. He was thinking of the immense fun to come of Mahbub’s letter of the day before, all neatly written in English. making appointment for that afternoon in a house the very name of which would have crisped the Principal’s hair with horror. . . . Said Kim to Mahbub in Lucknow railway station that evening, above the luggage scales, “I feared lest, at the last. the roof would fall upon me and cheat me. Is it indeed all finished, O my father?” Mahbub snapped his fingers to show the utterness of that end, and his eyes blazed like red coals. “Then where is the pistol that I may wear it?” “Softly! A half-year, to run without heel-ropes. I begged that much from Colonel Creighton Sahib. At twenty rupees a month. Old Red Hat knows that thou art coming.” “I will pay thee ‘dustoorie (commission) on my pay for three months,” said Kim gravely. “Yea, two rupees a month. But first we must get rid of these.” He plucked his thin linen trousers and dragged at his collar. “I have brought with me all that I need on the Road. My trunk has gone up to Lurgan Sahib’s.” “Who sends his salaams to thee— Sahib.” “Lurgan Sahib is a very clever man. But what dost thou do?” “I go North again, upon the Great Game. What else? Is thy mind still set on following old Red Hat?” “Do not forget he made me that I am —though he did not know it. A ear by year, he sent the money that taught “I would have done as much —had it struck mv thick head,” Afahbtib growled. “Come away. The lamps are lit now, and none will mark thee in the bazaar. We go to Huneefa’s house.”

On the. way thither, Mahbub gave him much the same sort of advice as his mother gave to Lemuel, and, curiously enough. Mahbub was exact to point out how Huneefa. and her likes destroyed kings. “And I remember.” be quoted maliciously. “one who said. ‘Trust a snake before a harlot, and a harlot before a Pathan. Mahbub AIL’ Now. excepting as to Pathans, of whom I am one. all that is true. Most true is it in the Great Game, for it is by means of women that all plans come to ruin. and we lie out in dawning with our throats cut. So it happened to such a one.” he gave the reddest particulars. “Then why ?” Kim paused before a filthy'staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an upper chamber, in the ward that is behind Azim Ullah’s tobacco shop. Those who know it call it The Bird-cage—-it so full of whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings. The room, with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs, smelt abominably of stale tobacco. Tn one corner lay a huge and shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes, and

decked, brow, nose, ear, neck, wrist, arm, waist, and ankle with heavy native jewellery. When she turned it was like the clashing of copper pots. A lean cat in the balcony outside the window mewed hungrily. Kim cheeked, bewildered, at the door curtain. “Is that the new stuff, Mahbub?” said Huneefa lazily, not troubling to remove the mouthpiece from her lips. "O Buktanoos!”—like most of her kind, she swore by the Djinns—- "(> Buktanoos! He Is very good to look upon.” "That is part of the selling of the horse,” Mahbub explained to Kim, who laughed. "I have heard that talk since my Sixth Day,” he replied, squatting by the light. “Whither does it lead?” "To protection. To-night we change thy colour. This sleeping under roofs has blanched thee like an almond. But Huneefa has the secret of a colour that catches. No painting of a day or two. Also, we fortify thee against the chances of the Road. That is my gift to thee, my son. Take out all metals on thee and lay them here. Make ready, Huneefa.” Kim dragged forth his compass, snug paint box, and the new-filled medicine box. They had all accompanied his travels, and boy-like he valued them immensely. The woman rose slowly and moved with her hands a little spread before her. Then Kim saw that she was blind. “No, no,” she muttered, “the Pathan speaks truth—my colour does not go in a week or a month, and those whom I protect are under strong guard.” "When one is far off and alone, it would not be well to grow blotched and leprous of a sudden,” said Mahbub. "When thou wast with me I could oversee the matter. Besides, a Pathan is a fair skin. Strip to the waist now and look how thou art whitened.” Huneefa felt her way back from an inner room. “It is no matter, she cannot see.” He took a pewter bowl from her ringed hand. The dye-stuff showed blue and gummy. Kim experimented on the back of his wrist, with a dab of cotton wool; but Huneefa heard him. “No, no,” she cried, “the thing is not done thus, but with the proper ceremonies. The colouring is the least part. I give thee the full protection of the Hoad.” “Jadoo?” (ttiagic), said Kim, with a half start. He did not like the white, sightless eyes. Mahbub’s hand on his neck bowed him to the floor, nose within an inch of the boards. “Be still. No harm comes to thee, my son. I am thy sacrifice!” He could not see what the woman was about, but heard the clish-clash of her jewellery for many minutes. A match lit up the darkness; he caught the well - known purr and fizzle of grains of incense. Then the room filled with smoke —heavy, aromatic, and stupefying. Through growing drowse he heard the names of devils —of Zulbazan, Son of Eblis, who lives in

bazaars and paraos, making all the sudden lewd wickedness of wayside halts; of Dulhan, invisible about mosques, the dweller among the slippers of the Faithful, who hinders folk from their prayers; and Musboot, Lord of lies and panic. Huneefa, now whispering in his ear, now talking as from an, immense distance, touched him with horrible soft fingers, but Mahbub’s grip never shifted from his neck till, relaxing with a sigh, the boy lost his senses.

“Al|laih! How he fought! We should never have done it but for the drugs. That was his White blood, I take it,” said Mahbub testily. “Go on with the dawut (invocation). Give him full Protection.” "O Hearer! Thou that hearest with ears, be present. Listen, O Hearer!” Huneefa moaned, her dead eyes turned to the west. The dark room filled with moanings and snortmgs.

From the outer balcony, a ponderous figure raised a round bullet head and coughed nervously. “Do not interrupt this ventriloquial necromanciss, my friend,” it said in English. “I opine that it is very disturbing to you, but no enlightened observer is jolly well upset.” “. . . I will lay a plot for their ruin! O Prophet, bear with the unbelievers. Let them alone awhile!” Huneefa’s face, turned to the northward, worked horribly, and it was as though voices from the ceiling answered

Hurree Babu returned to his notebook, balanced on the window-sill, but his hand shook. Huneefa, in some sort of drugged ecstacy, wrenched herself to and fro as she sat crosslegged by Kim’s still head, and called upon devil after devil, in the ancient order of the ritual, binding them to avoid the boy’s every action.

"With Him are the keys of the Secret Things, None knoweth them beside Himself. He knoweth that which is in the dry land and in the sea!” Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses.

“I—l apprehend it is not at all malignant in its operation?” said the Babu, watching the throat muscles quiver and jerk as Huneefa spoke with tongues. “It—it is not likely that she has killed the boy? If so, I decline to be witness at the trial.... What was the last hypothetical devil mentioned?” “Babuji,” said Mahbub in the vernacular. “I have no regard for the devils of Hind, but the Sons of Eblis are far otherwise, and whether they be jumalee (well-affected) or jullalee (terrible) they love not Kafirs.” “Then you think I had better go?” said Hurree Babu, half-rising. “They are, of course, dematerialised phenomena. Spencer says ”

Huneefa’s crisis passed, as these things must, in a paroxysm of howling, with a touch of froth at the lips. She lay spent and motionless beside Kim. and the crazy voices ceased. “Wah! That work is done. May the boy be better for it; and Huneefa is surely a mistress of dawut.

Help haul her aside, Babu. Do not be afraid.”

“How am I to fear the absolutely non-existent?” said Hurree Babu, talking English to reassure himself. It is an awful thing still to dread the magic that you contemptuously in-vestigate—-to collect folk-lore for the Royal Society with a lively belief in all Powers of Darkness. Mahbub chuckled. He had been out with Hurree on the Road ere now. “Let us finish the colouring,” said he. “The boy is well protected if—if the Lords of the Air have ears to hear. I am a sufi (free-thinker), but when one can get the blind-sides of a woman, a stallion, or a devil, why go round to invite a kick? Set him upon the way, Babu. and see that old Red Hat does not lead him beyond our reach. I must get back to my horses.”

“All raight,” said Hurree Babu. “He is at present a curious spectacle.”

About third cock-crow, Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of years. Huneefa, in her corner, snored heavily, but Mahbub was gone. “I hope you were not frightened,” said an oily voice at his elbow. “I superintended entire operation, which was most interesting from ethnological point of view. It was high-class dawut.” “Huh!” said Kim. recognising Huree Babu. who smiled ingratiatingly. “And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present costume. T am not in the habit offeecially of carrying such gauds to subordinates. but”—he giggled—“your case is noted as exceptional on the books. I hope Mr. Lurgan will note my action.”

Kim yawned and stretched himself. It was good to turn and twist within loose clothes once again.

“What is this?” He looked curiously at the heavy duffle-stuff loaded with the scents of the far North. “Oho! That is inconspicuous dress of chela attached to service of lamaistic lama. Complete in every particular,” said Hurree Babu, rolling into the balcony to clean his teeth at a goglet. “I am of opeenion it is not your old gentleman’s precise religion, but rather sub-variant of same. 1 have contributed rejected notes to “Asiatic Quarterly Review” on these subjects. Now it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of religiosity. He is not a dam particular.” “Do you know him?” Hurree Babu held up his hand to show he was engaged in the prescribed rites that accompany toothcleaning and such things among de-centlv-bred Bengalis. Then he recited'in English an Arya-Somaj prayof a theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with pan and betel. “Oah, yes. 1 have met him several times at Benares, and also at Buddh Gaya, to interrogate him on religious points and devil-worship. He is pure agnostic —same as me.” Huneefa stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu jumped nervously to the copper incense-burner, all black and discoloured in morning-light, rubbed a finger in the accumulated lampblack, and drew it diagonally across his face. “Who has died in thy house? asked Kim in the vernacular. “None. But she may have the Evil Eve —that sorceress,” the Babu re-

plied. “What dost thou do now, then?” “I will set thee on thy way to Benares, if thou goest thither, and tell thee what must be known by us.” “I go. At what hour runs the te-rain?” He rose 'to his feet, looked round the desolate chamber and at the yellow-wax face of Huneefa as the low sun stole across the floor. “Is there money to be paid that witch?”

“No. She has charmed thee against ali devils and all dangers—in the name of her devils. It was Mahbub’s desire.” In English: “He is highly obsolete. I think, to indulge in such supersteetion. Why, it is all ventriloquy. Bellj'-speak—eh?” Kim snapped his fingers mechanical Iv to avert whatever evil—Mahbub, he knew, meditated none—might have crept in through Huneefa’s ministrations; and Hurree giggled once more. But as he crossed the room he was careful not to step in Huneefa’s

blotched, squat shadow on the boards. Witches —when their time is on -them — can lay hold of the heels of a man’s soul if he does that.

“Now you must well listen,” said the Babu when they were in the fresh air. “Part of these ceremonies which we Witnessed they include supply of effeeeient amulet to those of our Department. If you feel in your neck you will find one small silver amulet, verree cheap. That is ours. Do you understand ?”

“Oah yes, hawa-dilli” (a- heartlifter), said Kim, feeling at his neck.

“Huneefa she makes them for two rupees twelve annas with—oh, all sorts of exorcisms. They are quite common, except they are partially black enamel, and there is a paper inside each one full of names of local saints and such things. That is Huneefa’s look-out, you see? Huneefa makes them onlce for us, but in case she does not, when we get them we put in, before issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr Lurgan, he gives them. There is no other source of supply: but it was me invented all this. It is strictly unolfeecial of course, but convenient forf subordinates. Colonel Creighton he does not know. He is European. The turquoise is wrapped in the paper. . . . Yes, that is road to railway station. . . . Now suppose you go with the lama, or with me, I hope, some day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a dam-tight place. lam a fearful man—most fearful—but I tell you I have been in dam-tight places more than hairs on my head. You say: “I am the Son of the Charm.” Yeree good.”

“I do not understand quite. We must not be heard talking English here.”

“That is all raight. lam only Babu showing off my English to you. All we Babus talk English to show off,” said Hurree. flinging his shouldercloth jauntily. “As I was about to say, ‘Son of the Charm’ means that you may be member of the Sat Bhai—the Seven Brothers, which is Hindi and Tantric. It is popularly supposed to be extinct society, but I have written notes to show that it is still extant. You see it is all my invention. Verree good. Sat Bhai has many members, and iperhaps before they jolly-well-cut-your-throat they may give you just a chance for life. That is useful, anyhow. And, moreover, these foolish natives—if they are not too excited—they always stop to think before they kill a man who says he belongs to any specific organisation. You see? You say then when von are in a tight place. “I am Son of the Charm,” and you get—perhaps—ah—your second wind. That is only in extreme instances, or to open negotiations with a stranger. Can you quite see? Verree good. But suppose now, I, or any one of the Department. come to you dressed quite different. You would not know me at all unless I choose. I bet you. Some day I will prove it. I come as Ladakhi trader—oh, anything—and I say to you: ‘ You want to buy precious stones?' You say: ‘Do I look like a man who buys precious stones?’ Then I say: ‘Even verree poor man can buy a turquoise or tarkeean.’” “That is kichree—vegetable curry,” said Kim.

“Of course it is. You say: ‘Let me see the tarkeean.’ Then I say: ‘lt was cooked by a woman, and perhaps if is bad for your caste.’ Then you say: ‘There is no caste when men go to —look for tarkeean.’ You stop a little between those word, ‘to—look.’ That is the whole secret. The little stop before the words.”

Kim repeated the test sentence. “That is all right. Then I will show you my turquoise if there is time, and then you know who I am, and then we exchange views and documents and those all things. And so it is with any other mnn of us. We talk sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about tarkeean, but always with that little stop in the words. It is verree easy. First. “Son of the Charm,” if you are in a tight place. Perhaps that may help you—perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the tarkeean, if you want to transact offeecial business with a strange man. Of course, at present, you have no offeecial business. Yon are—ah. ha!—supernumerary on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were Asiatic of birth you might be employed right off; but this half year of leave is to make you de Eng-

lishised, you see? The lama, he expects you, because I have demi-offeeci-ally informed him you have passed all your examinations, and will soon obtain Government appointment. Oh, ho! We are on acting allowance, you see; so if you are called upon to help Sons of the Charm mind you jolly well try. Now I shall say good-bye, my dear fellow, and I hope you—ah—will come out top-side all raight.” Hurree Babu stepped back a pace or two into the crowd at the entrance of Lucknow station and—was gone. Kim drew a deep breath and hugged himself all over. The nickel plated revolver he could feel in the bosom of his sad coloured robe, the amulet was on his neck; begginggourd, rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr Lurgan had forgotten nothing) were all to hand, with medicine, paint-box, and compass, and in a worn old pursebelt embroidered with porcupine quill patterns lay a month’s pay. Kings could be no richer. He bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a Hindu trader, and ate them with glad rapture till a policeman ordered him off the steps.

(To be continued.)