Books: Kim

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Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the
cramped little plain, where none could come near unseen.

'"The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World-"'

'What is this?'

'A name we give him in Lahore city. "The Friend of all the World
takes leave to go to his own places. He will come back upon the
appointed day. Let the box and the bedding-roll be sent for; and if
there has been a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the
Whip of Calamity." There is yet a little more, but-'

'No matter, read.'

'"Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks. It is
better to eat with both hands for a while. Speak soft words to
those who do not understand this that the return may be
propitious." Now the manner in which that was cast is, of course,
the work of the letter-writer, but see how wisely the boy has
devised the matter of it so that no hint is given except to those
who know!'

'Is this the Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity?'
laughed the Colonel.

'See how wise is the boy. He would go back to the Road again, as I
said. Not knowing yet thy trade -'

'I am not at all sure of that,' the Colonel muttered.

'He turns to me to make a peace between you. Is he not wise? He
says he will return. He is but perfecting his knowledge. Think,
Sahib! He has been three months at the school. And he is not
mouthed to that bit. For my part, I rejoice. The pony learns the
game.'

'Ay, but another time he must not go alone.'

'Why? He went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahib's
protection. When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone -
alone, and at peril of his head. Then, if he spits, or sneezes, or
sits down other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be
slain. Why hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The
jackal that lives in the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by
the hounds of Mazanderan.'

'True. It is true, Mahbub Ali. And if he comes to no harm, I do not
desire anything better. But it is great insolence on his part.'

'He does not tell me, even, whither he goes,' said Mahbub. 'He is
no fool. When his time is accomplished he will come to me. It is
time the healer of pearls took him in hand. He ripens too quickly -
as Sahibs reckon.'

This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month later. Mahbub had
gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh consignment of horses, and
Kim met him on the Kalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms
of him, was sworn at, and replied in English. There was nobody
within earshot to hear Mahbub's gasp of amazement.

'Oho! And where hast thou been?' 'Up and down - down and up.'

'Come under a tree, out of the wet, and tell.' 'I stayed for a
while with an old man near Umballa; anon with a household of my
acquaintance in Umballa. With one of these I went as far as Delhi
to the southward. That is a wondrous city. Then I drove a bullock
for a teli [an oilman] coming north; but I heard of a great feast
forward in Patiala, and thither went I in the company of a
firework-maker. It was a great feast' (Kim rubbed his stomach). 'I
saw Rajahs, and elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they
lit all the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men were killed, my
fire-work-maker among them, and I was blown across a tent but took
no harm. Then I came back to the rel with a Sikh horseman, to whom
I was groom for my bread; and so here.'

'Shabash!' said Mahbub Ali.

'But what does the Colonel Sahib say? I do not wish to be beaten.

'The Hand of Friendship has averted the Whip of Calamity; but
another time, when thou takest the Road it will be with me. This is
too early.'

'Late enough for me. I have learned to read and to write English a
little at the madrissah. I shall soon be altogether a Sahib.'

'Hear him!' laughed Mahbub, looking at the little drenched figure
dancing in the wet. 'Salaam - Sahib,' and he saluted ironically.
'Well, art tired of the Road, or wilt thou come on to Umballa with
me and work back with the horses?'

'I come with thee, Mahbub Ali.'

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.'

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