Kim

The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.

'God's curse on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub. 'I do not give to a

lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels. They

may value your blessings. Oh, horseboys, here is a countryman of

yours. See if he be hungry.'

A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and who

was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest,

and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the horseboys'

fire.

'Go!' said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away, leaving

Kim at the edge of the cloister.

'Go!' said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. 'Little Hindu, run

away. God's curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my tail who

are of thy faith.'

'Maharaj,' whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and thoroughly

enjoying the situation; 'my father is dead--my mother is dead--my

stomach is empty.'

'Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There must be some Hindus in

my tail.'

'Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am I a Hindu?' said Kim in English.

The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy

eyebrows.

'Little Friend of all the World,' said he, 'what is this?'

'Nothing. I am now that holy man's disciple; and we go a pilgrimage

together--to Benares, he says. He is quite mad, and I am tired of

Lahore city. I wish new air and water.'

'But for whom dost thou work? Why come to me?' The voice was harsh

with suspicion.

'To whom else should I come? I have no money. It is not good to go

about without money. Thou wilt sell many horses to the officers. They

are very fine horses, these new ones: I have seen them. Give me a

rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give thee a bond

and pay.'

'Um!' said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. 'Thou hast never before lied

to me. Call that lama--stand back in the dark.'

'Oh, our tales will agree,' said Kim, laughing.

'We go to Benares,' said the lama, as soon as he understood the drift

of Mahbub Ali's questions. 'The boy and I, I go to seek for a certain

River.'

'Maybe--but the boy?'

'He is my disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River.

Sitting under a gun was I when he came suddenly. Such things have

befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remember

now, he said he was of this world--a Hindu.'

'And his name?'

'That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?'

'His country--his race--his village? Mussalman--Sikh Hindu--Jain--low

caste or high?'

'Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle Way.

If he is my chela--does--will--can anyone take him from me? for, look

you, without him I shall not find my River.' He wagged his head

solemnly.

'None shall take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis,' said Mahbub

Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.

'Is he not quite mad?' said Kim, coming forward to the light again.

'Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?'

Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost whispering:

'Umballa is on the road to Benares--if indeed ye two go there.'

'Tck! Tck! I tell thee he does not know how to lie--as we two know.'

'And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I will give

thee money. It concerns a horse--a white stallion which I have sold to

an officer upon the last time I returned from the Passes. But

then--stand nearer and hold up hands as begging--the pedigree of the

white stallion was not fully established, and that officer, who is now

at Umballa, bade me make it clear.' (Mahbub here described the horse

and the appearance of the officer.) 'So the message to that officer

will be: "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established."

By this will he know that thou comest from me. He will then say "What

proof hast thou?" and thou wilt answer: "Mahbub Ali has given me the

proof."'

'And all for the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a giggle,

his eyes aflame.

'That pedigree I will give thee now--in my own fashion and some hard

words as well.' A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel.

Mahbub Ali raised his voice.

'Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead. Thy

father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well--'

He turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft,

greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. 'Go and lie down among my horseboys

for tonight--thou and the lama. Tomorrow I may give thee service.'

Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he found a

small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with three silver

rupees--enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust money and paper into

his leather amulet-case. The lama, sumptuously fed by Mahbub's Baltis,

was already asleep in a corner of one of the stalls. Kim lay down

beside him and laughed. He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub

Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe the tale of the

stallion's pedigree.

But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best

horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose

caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered

in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C25 IB.

Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story, baldly told

but most interesting, and generally--it was checked by the statements

of R17 and M4--quite true. It concerned all manner of out-of-the-way

mountain principalities, explorers of nationalities other than English,

and the guntrade--was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of

'information received' on which the Indian Government acts. But,

recently, five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate,

had been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage

of news from their territories into British India. So those Kings'

Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps, after the

Oriental fashion. They suspected, among many others, the bullying,

red-bearded horsedealer whose caravans ploughed through their

fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At least, his caravan that season had

been ambushed and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub's men

accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or might not, have been

hired for the job. Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the

insalubrious city of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to

Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious

developments.

And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an hour

longer than was necessary--a wad of closely folded tissue-paper,

wrapped in oilskin--an impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five

microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most scandalously betrayed

the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu

banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an important,

semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the south. This last was R17's

work, which Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying

in for R17, who, owing to circumstances over which he had no control,

could not leave his post of observation. Dynamite was milky and

innocuous beside that report of C25; and even an Oriental, with an

Oriental's views of the value of time, could see that the sooner it was

in the proper hands the better. Mahbub had no particular desire to die

by violence, because two or three family blood-feuds across the Border