Books: Kim

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'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 Road.'

'Tadoo? [magic],'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 dish-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 bazars 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.

'Allah! 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 snortings.

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 her.

Hurree Babu returned to his note-book, balanced on the window-sill,
but his hand shook. Huneefa, in some sort of drugged ecstasy,
wrenched herself to and fro as she sat cross-legged 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
besides Himself He knoweth that which is in the dry land and in the
sea!' Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses.

'I - I 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, dematerialized 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 investigate -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 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 curious
spectacle.'

About third cockcrow, 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, recognizing Hurree Babu, who smiled ingratiatingly.

'And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present
costume. I 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 releegion, but
rather sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected notes To
Whom It May Concern: Asiatic Quarterly Review on these subjects. Now
it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of
releegiosity. 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 tooth-cleaning and such things among
decently bred Bengalis. Then he recited in English an Arya-Somaj
prayer of a theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with pan and
betel.

'Oah yes. I have met him several times at Benares, and also at Buddh
Gaya, to interrogate him on releegious 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 lamp-black, 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 Eye - that sorceress,' the Babu
replied.

'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 all 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. Belly-speak - eh?'

Kim snapped his fingers mechanically 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 effeecient 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 heart-lifter],' 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. Thatt is Huneefa's look-out, you see?
Huneefa makes them onlee 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 unoffeecial of course, but
convenient for 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. I am 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 Son of the Charm." Verree good.'

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

'That is all raight. I am only Babu showing off my English to you.
All we Babus talk English to show off;' said Hurree, flinging his
shoulder-cloth 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 it is still extant. You
see, it is all my invention. Verree good. Sat Bhai has many members,
and perhaps before they jolly-well-cut-your-throat they may give you
just a chance of 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 speecific
organization. You see? You say then when you are in 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:
"It was cooked by a woman, and perhaps it 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 words, "to - look". That
is thee 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 man 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. You 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~Englishized, you see? The lama
he expects you, because I have demi-offeecially informed him you
have passed all your examinations, and will soon obtain Government
appointment. Oh ho! You 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; begging-gourd, rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr Lurgan had
forgotten nothing) were all to hand, with medicine, paint-box, and
compass, and in a worn old purse-belt 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.

Chapter ll

Give the man who is not made
To his trade
Swords to fling and catch again,
Coins to ring and snatch again,
Men to harm and cure again,
Snakes to charm and lure again -
He'll be hurt by his own blade,
By his serpents disobeyed,
By his clumsiness bewrayed,'
By the people mocked to scorn -
So 'tis not with juggler born!
Pinch of dust or withered flower,
Chance-flung fruit or borrowed staff,
Serve his need and shore his power,
Bind the spell, or loose the laugh!
But a man who, etc.

The Juggler's Song, op. 15

Followed a sudden natural reaction.

'Now am I alone all alone,' he thought. 'In all India is no one so
alone as I! If I die today, who shall bring the news -and to whom?
If I live and God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for I
am a Son of the Charm - I, Kim.'

A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves
into a mazement as it were by repeating their own names over and
over again to themselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation
as to what is called personal identity. When one grows older, the
power, usually, departs, but while it lasts it may descend upon a man
at any moment.

'Who is Kim - Kim - Kim?'

He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from all
other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted to pin-
points. In a minute - in another half-second - he felt he would
arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always
happens, his mind dropped away from those heights with a rush of a
wounded bird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his
head.

A long-haired Hindu bairagi [holy man], who had just bought a
ticket, halted before him at that moment and stared intently.

'I also have lost it,' he said sadly. 'It is one of the Gates to the
Way, but for me it has been shut many years.'

'What is the talk?' said Kim, abashed.

'Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing thy
soul might be. The seizure came of a sudden. I know. Who should know
but I? Whither goest thou?'

'Toward Kashi [Benares].'

'There are no Gods there. I have proved them. I go to Prayag
[Allahabad] for the fifth time - seeking the Road to Enlightenment.
Of what faith art thou?'

'I too am a Seeker,' said Kim, using one of the lama's pet words.
'Though'- he forgot his Northern dress for the moment - 'though
Allah alone knoweth what I seek.'

The old fellow slipped the bairagi's crutch under his armpit and sat
down on a patch of ruddy leopard's skin as Kim rose at the call for
the Benares train.

'Go in hope, little brother,' he said. 'It is a long road to the
feet of the One; but thither do we all travel.'

Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and ere he had sat out twenty
miles in the crowded compartment, was cheering his neighbours with a
string of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master's
magical gifts.

Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city, though it was
pleasant to find how his cloth was respected. At least one-third of
the population prays eternally to some group or other of the many
million deities, and so reveres every sort of holy man. Kim was
guided to the Temple of the Tirthankars, about a mile outside the
city, near Sarnath, by a chance-met Punjabi farmer - a Kamboh from
Jullundur-way who had appealed in vain to every God of his homestead
to cure his small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort.

'Thou art from the North?' he asked, shouldering through the press
of the narrow, stinking streets much like his own pet bull at home.

'Ay, I know the Punjab. My mother was a pahareen, but my father came
from Amritzar - by Jandiala,' said Kim, oiling his ready tongue for
the needs of the Road.

'Jandiala - Jullundur? Oho! Then we be neighbours in some sort, as
it were.' He nodded tenderly to the wailing child in his arms. 'Whom
dost thou serve?'

'A most holy man at the Temple of the Tirthankers.'

'They are all most holy and - most greedy,' said the Jat with
bitterness. 'I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till
my feet are flayed, and the child is no whit better. And the mother
being sick too ... Hush, then, little one ... We changed his name
when the fever came. We put him into girl's clothes. There was
nothing we did not do, except - I said to his mother when she
bundled me off to Benares -she should have come with me - I said
Sakhi Sarwar Sultan would serve us best. We know His generosity, but
these down-country Gods are strangers.'

The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked
at Kim through heavy eyelids.

'And was it all worthless?' Kim asked, with easy interest.

'All worthless - all worthless,' said the child, lips cracking with
fever.

'The Gods have given him a good mind, at least' said the father
proudly. 'To think he should have listened so cleverly. Yonder is
thy Temple. Now I am a poor man - many priests have dealt with me -
but my son is my son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him - I
am at my very wits' end.'

Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride. Three years ago he
would have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way
without a thought; but now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved
that he was a man. Moreover, he had tasted fever once or twice
already, and knew enough to recognize starvation when he saw it.

'Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke, so that
the child is cured.'

Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple. A white-clad
Oswal banker from Ajmir, his sins of usury new wiped out, asked
him what he did.

'I am chela to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from Bhotiyal -within there.
He bade me come. I wait. Tell him.'

'Do not forget the child,' cried the importunate Jat over his
shoulder, and then bellowed in Punjabi; 'O Holy One - O disciple of
the Holy One - O Gods above all the Worlds -behold affliction
sitting at the gate!' That cry is so common in Benares that the
passers never turned their heads.

The Oswal, at peace with mankind, carried the message into the
darkness behind him, and the easy, uncounted Eastern minutes slid
by; for the lama was asleep in his cell, and no priest would wake
him. When the click of his rosary again broke the hush of the inner
court where the calm images of the Arhats stand, a novice whispered,
'Thy chela is here,' and the old man strode forth, forgetting the
end of that prayer.

Hardly had the tall figure shown in the doorway than the Jat ran
before him, and, lifting up the child, cried: 'Look upon this, Holy
One; and if the Gods will, he lives - he lives!'

He fumbled in his waist-belt and drew out a small silver coin.

'What is now?' The lama's eyes turned to Kim. It was noticeable he
spoke far clearer Urdu than long ago, under ZamZammah; but
father would allow no private talk.

'It is no more than a fever,' said Kim. 'The child is not well fed.'

'He sickens at everything, and his mother is not here.'

'If it be permitted, I may cure, Holy One.'

'What! Have they made thee a healer? Wait here,' said the lama, and
he sat down by the Jat upon the lowest step of the temple, while
Kim, looking out of the corner of his eyes, slowly opened the little
betel-box. He had dreamed dreams at school of returning to the lama
as a Sahib - of chaffing the old man before he revealed himself -
boy's dreams all. There was more drama in this abstracted, brow-
puckered search through the tabloid-bottles, with a pause here and
there for thought and a muttered invocation between whiles. Quinine
he had in tablets, and dark brown meat-lozenges - beef most
probably, but that was not his business. The little thing would not
eat, but it sucked at a lozenge greedily, and said it liked the salt
taste.

'Take then these six.' Kim handed them to the man. 'Praise the Gods,
and boil three in milk; other three in water. After he has drunk the
milk give him this' (it was the half of a quinine pill), 'and wrap
him warm. Give him the water of the other three, and the other half
of this white pill when he wakes. Meantime, here is another brown
medicine that he may suck at on the way home.'

'Gods, what wisdom!' said the Kamboh, snatching.

It was as much as Kim could remember of his own treatment in a bout
of autumn malaria - if you except the patter that he added to
impress the lama.

'Now go! Come again in the morning.'

'But the price - the price,' said the Jat, and threw back his sturdy
shoulders. 'My son is my son. Now that he will be whole again, how
shall I go back to his mother and say I took help by the wayside and
did not even give a bowl of curds in return?'

'They are alike, these Jats,' said Kim softly. 'The Jat stood on his
dunghill and the King's elephants went by. "O driver," said he,
"what will you sell those little donkeys for?"'

The Jat burst into a roar of laughter, stifled with apologies to the
lama. 'It is the saying of my own country the very talk of it. So
are we Jats all. I will come tomorrow with the child; and the
blessing of the Gods of the Homesteads - who are good little Gods -
be on you both ... Now, son, we grow strong again. Do not spit it
out, little Princeling! King of my Heart, do not spit it out, and we
shall be strong men, wrestlers and club-wielders, by morning.'

He moved away, crooning and mumbling. The lama turned to Kim, and
all the loving old soul of him looked out through his narrow eyes.

'To heal the sick is to acquire merit; but first one gets knowledge.
That was wisely done, O Friend of all the World.'

'I was made wise by thee, Holy One,' said Kim, forgetting the little
play just ended; forgetting St Xavier's; forgetting his white blood;
forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan-fashion, to
touch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain temple. 'My teaching
I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. My time is
finished. I am loosed from the schools. I come to thee.'

'Herein is my reward. Enter! Enter! And is all well?' They passed to
the inner court, where the afternoon sun sloped golden across.
'Stand that I may see. So!' He peered critically. 'It is no longer a
child, but a man, ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician. I did
well - I did well when I gave thee up to the armed men on that black
night. Dost thou remember our first day under Zam-Zammah?'

'Ay,' said Kim. 'Dost thou remember when I leapt off the carriage
the first day I went to -'

'The Gates of Learning? Truly. And the day that we ate the cakes
together at the back of the river by Nucklao. Aha! Many times hast
thou begged for me, but that day I begged for thee.'

'Good reason,' quoth Kim. 'I was then a scholar in the Gates of
Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One,' he went
on playfully. 'I am still a Sahib - by thy favour.'

'True. And a Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, chela.'

'How is that known to thee?'

The lama smiled. 'First by means of letters from the kindly priest
whom we met in the camp of armed men; but he is now gone to his own
country, and I sent the money to his brother.' Colonel Creighton,
who had succeeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor went to
England with the Mavericks, was hardly the Chaplain's brother. 'But
I do not well understand Sahibs' letters. They must be interpreted
to me. I chose a surer way. Many times when I returned from my
Search to this Temple, which has always been a nest to me, there
came one seeking Enlightenment - a man from Leh - that had been, he
said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods.' The lama pointed to
the Arhats.

'A fat man?' said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.

'Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given up
to useless things - such as devils and charms and the form and
fashion of our tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we
initiated the novices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a
friend of thine, chela. He told me that thou wast on the road to
much honour as a scribe. And I see thou art a physician.'

'Yes, that am I - a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside
when I come as thy disciple. I have accomplished the years appointed
for a Sahib.'

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