The gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly French, the other Russian, but they spoke English not much inferior to the Babu’s. They begged his kind offices. Their native servants had gone sick at Leh. They had hurried on because they were anxious to bring the spoils of the chase to Simla ere the skins grew moth-eaten. They bore a general letter of introduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to all Government officials. No, they had not met any other shooting-parties en route. They did for themselves. They had plenty of supplies. They only wished to push on as soon as might be. At this he waylaid a cowering hillman among the trees, and after three minutes’ talk and a little silver (one cannot be economical upon State service, though Hurree’s heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies and the three hangerson reappeared. At least the Babu would be a witness to their oppression.
‘My royal master, he will be much annoyed, but these people are onlee common people and grossly ignorant. If your honours will kindly overlook unfortunate affair, I shall be much pleased. In a little while rain will stop and we can then proceed. You have been shooting, eh? That is fine performance!’
He skipped nimbly from one kilta328 to the next, making pretence to adjust each conical basket. The Englishman is not, as a rule, familiar with the Asiatic, but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly Babu who had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin top. On the other hand, he would not press drink upon a Babu were he never so friendly, nor would he invite him to meat. The strangers did all these things, and asked many questions,—about women mostly,—to which Hurree returned gay and unstudied answers. They gave him a glass of whitish fluid like to gin, and then more; and in a little time his gravity departed from him. He became thickly treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping indecency of a Government which had forced upon him a white man’s education and neglected to supply him with a white man’s salary. He babbled tales of oppression and wrong till the tears ran down his cheeks for the miseries of his land. Then he staggered off, singing love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a wet tree-trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product of English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon aliens.
‘They are all just of that pattern,’ said one sportsman to the other in French. ‘When we get into India proper thou wilt see. I should like to visit his Rajah. One might speak the good word there. It is possible that he has heard of us and wishes to signify his goodwill.’
‘We have not time. We must get into Simla as soon as may be,’ his companion replied. ‘For my own part, I wish our reports had been sent back from Hilás, or even Leh.’
‘The English post is better and safer. Remember we are given all facilities—and Name of God!—they gave them to us too! Is it unbelievable stupidity?’
‘It is pride—pride that deserves and will receive punishment.’
‘Yes! To fight a fellow-Continental in our game is something. There is a risk attached, but these people—bah! It is too easy.’
‘Pride—all pride, my friend.’
‘Now what the deuce is good of Chandernagore being so close to Calcutta and all,’ said Hurree, snoring open-mouthed on the sodden moss, ‘if I cannot understand their French? They talk so particularly fast! It would have been much better to cut their beastly throats.’
When he presented himself again he was racked with a headache—penitent, and volubly afraid that in his drunkenness he might have been indiscreet. He loved the British Government—it was the source of all prosperity and honour, and his master at Rampur held the very same opinion. Upon this the men began to deride him and to quote past words, till step by step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and leers of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out of his defences and forced to speak—truth. When Lurgan was told the tale later, he mourned aloud that he could not have been in the place of the stubborn, inattentive coolies, who with grass mats over their heads and the raindrops puddling in their footprints, waited on the weather. All the Sahibs of their acquaintance—rough-clad men joyously returning year after year to their chosen gullies—had servants and cooks and orderlies, very often hillmen. These Sahibs travelled without any retinue. Therefore they were poor Sahibs, and ignorant; for no Sahib in his senses would follow a Bengali’s advice. But the Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had given them money, and could make shift with their dialect. Used to comprehensive ill-treatment from their own colour, they suspected a trap somewhere, and stood by to run if occasion offered.
Then through the new-washed air, steaming with delicious earth-smells, the Babu led the way down the slopes—walking ahead of the coolies in pride; walking behind the foreigners in humility. His thoughts were many and various. The least of them would have interested his companions beyond words. But he was an agreeable guide, ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal master’s domain. He peopled the hills with anything they had a mind to slay—thar, ibex, or markhor,329 and bear by Elisha’s allowance.330 He discoursed of botany and ethnology with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of local legends—he had been a trusted agent of the State for fifteen years, remember—was inexhaustible.
‘Decidedly this fellow is an original,’ said the taller of the two foreigners. ‘He is like the nightmare of a Viennese courier.’
‘He represents in little India in transition—the monstrous hybridism of East and West,’ the Russian replied. ‘It is we who can deal with Orientals.’
‘He has lost his own country and has not acquired any other. But he has a most complete hatred of his conquerors. Listen. He confided to me last night,’ said the other.
Under the striped umbrella Hurree Babu was straining ear and brain to follow the quick-poured French, and keeping both eyes on a kilta full of maps and documents—an extra-large one with a double red oilskin cover. He did not wish to steal anything. He only desired to know what to steal, and, incidentally, how to get away when he had stolen it. He thanked all the Gods of Hindustan, and Herbert Spencer, that there remained some valuables to steal.
On the second day the road rose steeply to a grass spur above the forest; and it was here, about sunset, that they came across an aged lama—but they called him a bonze331—sitting cross-legged above a mysterious chart held down by stones, which he was explaining to a young man, evidently a neophyte, of singular, though unwashen, beauty. The striped umbrella had been sighted half a march away, and Kim had suggested a halt till it came up to them.
‘Ha!’ said Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss-in-Boots. ‘That is eminent local holy man. Probably subject of my royal master.’
‘What is he doing? It is very curious.’
‘He is expounding holy picture—all handworked.’
The two men stood bareheaded in the wash of the afternoon sunlight low across the gold-coloured grass. The sullen coolies, glad of the check, halted and slid down their loads.
‘Look!’ said the Frenchman. ‘It is like a picture for the birth of a religion—the first teacher and the first disciple. Is he a Buddhist?’
‘Of some debased kind,’ the other answered. ‘There are no true Buddhists among the Hills. But look at the folds of the drapery. Look at his eyes—how insolent! Why does this make one feel that we are so young a people?’ The speaker struck passionately at a tall weed. ‘We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere! That, do you understand, is what disquiets me.’ He scowled at the placid face, and the monumental calm of the pose.
‘Have patience. We shall make your mark together—we and you young people. Meantime, draw his picture.’
The Babu advanced loftily; his back out of all keeping with his deferential speech, or his wink towards Kim.
‘Holy One, these be Sahibs. My medicines cured one of a flux, and I go into Simla to oversee his recovery. They wish to see thy picture—’
‘To heal the sick is always good. This is the Wheel of Life,’ said the lama, ‘the same I showed thee in the hut at Ziglaur when the rain fell.’
‘And to hear thee expound it.’
The lama’s eyes lighted a
t the prospect of new listeners. ‘To expound the Most Excellent Way is good. Have they any knowledge of Hindi, such as had the Keeper of Images?’
‘A little, maybe.’
Hereat, simply as a child engrossed with a new game, the lama threw back his head and began the full-throated invocation of the Doctor of Divinity ere he opens the full doctrine. The strangers leaned on their alpenstocks and listened. Kim, squatting humbly, watched the red sunlight on their faces, and the blend and parting of their long shadows. They wore un-English leggings and curious girt-in belts that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book in St. Xavier’s library: The Adventures of a Young Naturalist in Mexico332 was its name. Yes, they looked very like the wonderful M. Sumichrast333 of that tale, and very unlike the ‘highly unscrupulous folk’ of Hurree Babu’s imagining. The coolies, earth-coloured and mute, crouched reverently some twenty or thirty yards away, and the Babu, the slack of his thin gear snapping like a marking-flag in the chill breeze, stood by with an air of happy proprietorship.
‘These are the men,’ Hurree whispered, as the ritual went on and the two whites followed the grass-blade sweeping from Hell to Heaven and back again. ‘All their books are in the large kilta with the reddish top,—books and reports and maps,—and I have seen a King’s letter that either Hilás or Bunár has written. They guard it most carefully. They have sent nothing back from Hilás or Leh. That is sure.’
‘Who is with them?’
‘Only the beegar-coolies.334 They have no servants. They are so close they cook their own food.’
‘But what am I to do?’
‘Wait and see. Only if any chance comes to me thou wilt know where to seek for the papers.’
‘This were better in Mahbub Ali’s hands than a Bengali’s,’ said Kim scornfully.
‘There are more ways of getting to a sweetheart than butting down a wall.’
‘See here the Hell appointed for avarice and greed. Flanked upon the one side by Desire and on the other by Weariness.’ The lama warmed to his work, and one of the strangers sketched him in the quick-fading light.
‘That is enough,’ the man said at last brusquely. ‘I cannot understand him, but I want that picture. He is a better artist than I. Ask him if he will sell it.’
‘He says “No, sar,” ’ the Babu replied. The lama, of course, would no more have parted with his chart to a casual wayfarer than an archbishop would pawn the holy vessels of the cathedral. All Tibet is full of cheap reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama was an artist, as well as a wealthy Abbot in his own place.
‘Perhaps in three days, or four, or ten, if I perceive that the Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding, I may myself draw him another. But this was used for the initiation of a novice. Tell him so, hakim.’
‘He wishes it now—for money.’
The lama shook his head slowly and began to fold up the Wheel. The Russian, on his side, saw no more than an unclean old man haggling over a dirty piece of paper. He drew out a handful of rupees, and snatched half-jestingly at the chart, which tore in the lama’s grip. A low murmur of horror went up from the coolies—some of whom were Spiti men and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult; his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the priest’s weapon, and the Babu danced in agony.
‘Now you see—you see why I wanted witnesses. They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh, sar! sar! You must not hit holy man!’
‘Chela! He has defiled the Written Word!’
It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck the old man full on the face. Next instant he was rolling over and over downhill with Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every unknown Irish devil in the boy’s blood, and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest. The lama dropped to his knees, half-stunned; the coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run across the level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion. A shower of cutting stones—hillmen are very straight shots—drove him away, and a coolie from Ao-chung335 snatched the lama into the stampede. All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness.
‘They have taken the baggage and all the guns,’ yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight.
‘All right, sar! All right! Don’t shoot. I go to rescue,’ and Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe’s head against a boulder.
‘Go back to the coolies,’ whispered the Babu in his ear. ‘They have the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but look through all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla [King’s letter]. Go! The other man comes!’
Kim tore uphill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side, and he cowered partridgewise.
‘If you shoot,’ shouted Hurree, ‘they will descend and annihilate us. I have rescued the gentleman, sar. This is particularly dangerous.’
‘By Jove!’ Kim was thinking hard in English. ‘This is dam’-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.’ He felt in his bosom for Mahbub’s gift, and uncertainly—save for a few practice shots in the Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun—pulled trigger.
‘What did I say, sar!’ The Babu seemed to be in tears. ‘Come down here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you.’
The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat—or a country-bred.
‘Did they wound thee, chela?’ called the lama above him.
‘No. And thou?’ He dived into a clump of stunted firs.
‘Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.’
‘But not before we have done justice,’ a voice cried. ‘I have got the Sahibs’ guns—all four. Let us go down.’
‘He struck the Holy One—we saw it! Our cattle will be barren—our wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go home.... Atop of all other oppression too!’
The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies—panic-stricken, and in their terror capable of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked the breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go downhill.
‘Wait a little, Holy One; they cannot go far. Wait till I return,’ said he.
‘It is this person who has suffered wrong,’ said the lama, his hand over his brow.
‘For that very reason,’ was the reply.
‘If this person overlooks it, your hands are clean. Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedience.’
‘Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together,’ the man insisted.
For a moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff a cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama hesitated. Then he rose to his feet, and laid a finger on the man’s shoulder.
‘Hast thou heard? I say there shall be no killing—I who was Abbot of Such-zen. Is it any lust of thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake under the eaves—a worm in the belly of the most mean beast? Is it thy wish to—’
The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the voice boomed like a Tibetan devil-gong.
‘Ai! ai!’ cried the Spiti men. ‘Do not curse us—do not curse him. It was but his zeal, Holy One! ... Put down the rifle, fool!’
‘Anger on anger! Evil on evil! There will be no killing. Let the priest-beaters go in bondage to their own acts. Just and sure is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! They will be born many times—in torment.’ His head drooped, and he leaned heavily on Kim’s shoulder.
‘I have come near to great evil, chela,’ he whispered in that dead hush under the pines. ‘I was tempted to loose the bullet; and truly, in Tibet there would have been a heavy and a slow death for them.... He struck me across the face ... upon the flesh ...’ He slid to the ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear the over-driven heart bump and
check.
‘Have they hurt him to the death?’ said the Ao-chung man, while the others stood mute.
Kim knelt over the body in deadly fear. ‘Nay,’ he cried passionately, ‘this is only a weakness.’ Then he remembered that he was a white man, with a white man’s camp-fittings at his service. ‘Open the kiltas! The Sahibs may have a medicine.’
‘Oho! Then I know it,’ said the Ao-chung man with a laugh. ‘Not for five years was I Yankling Sahib’s shikarri without knowing that medicine. I too have tasted it. Behold!’
He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap whisky—such as is sold to explorers at Leh—and cleverly forced a little between the lama’s teeth.
‘So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor. Aha! I have already looked into their baskets—but we will make fair division at Shamlegh. Give him a little more. It is good medicine. Feel! His heart goes better now. Lay his head down and rub a little on his chest. If he had waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs this would never have come. But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us here. Then it would not be wrong to shoot them with their own guns, heh?’
Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 30