CHAPTER II
'For whoso will, from Pride released, Contemning neither creed nor priest, May hear the Soul of all the East About him at Kamakura.'
THEY entered the fort-like railway station, black in the end of night;the electrics sizzling over the goods yard where they handle the heavyNorthern grain-traffic.
'This is the work of devils!' said the lama, recoiling from the hollowechoing darkness, the glimmer of rails between the masonry platforms,and the maze of girders above. He stood in a gigantic stone hall paved,it seemed, with the sheeted dead--third-class passengers who had takentheir tickets overnight and were sleeping in the waiting-rooms. Allhours of the twenty-four are alike to Orientals, and their passengertraffic is regulated accordingly.
'This is where the fire-carriages come. One stands behind thathole'--Kim pointed to the ticket-office--'who will give thee a paper totake thee to Umballa.'
'But we go to Benares,' he replied petulantly.
'All one. Benares then. Quick: she comes!'
'Take thou the purse.'
The lama, not so well used to trains as he had pretended, started as the3.25 a. m. south bound roared in. The sleepers sprang to life, and thestation filled with clamour and shoutings, cries of water and sweetmeatvendors, shouts of native policemen, and shrill yells of women gatheringup their baskets, their families, and their husbands.
'It is the train--only the te-rain. It will come here. Wait!' Amazed atthe lama's immense simplicity (he had handed him a small bag full ofrupees), Kim asked and paid for a ticket to Umballa. A sleepy clerkgrunted and flung out a ticket to the next station, just six milesdistant.
'Nay,' said Kim, scanning it with a grin. 'This may serve for farmers,but I live in the city of Lahore. It was cleverly done, babu. Now givethe ticket to Umballa.'
The babu scowled and dealt the proper ticket.
'Now another to Amritzar,' said Kim, who had no notion of spendingMahbub Ali's money oh anything so crude as a paid ride to Umballa. 'Theprice is so much. The small money in return is just so much. I know theways of the te-rain. . . . Never did yogi need chela as thou dost,' hewent on merrily to the bewildered lama. 'They would have flung thee outat Mian Mir but for me. This way! Come.' He returned the money, keepingonly one anna in each rupee of the price of the Umballa ticket as hiscommission--the immemorial commission of Asia.
The lama jibbed at the open door of a crowded third-class carriage.'Were it not better to walk?' said he weakly.
A burly Sikh artisan thrust forth his bearded head. 'Is he afraid? Donot be afraid. I remember the time when I was afraid of the te-rain.Enter! This thing is the work of the Government.'
'Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to boot, butnever such a _yogi_ nor such a disciple.']
'I do not fear,' said the lama. 'Have ye room within for two?'
'There is no room even for a mouse,' shrilled the wife of a well-to-docultivator--a Hindu Jat from the rich Jullundur district. Our nighttrains are not as well looked after as the day ones, where the sexes arevery strictly kept to separate carriages.
'Oh, mother of my son, we can make space,' said the blue-turbanedhusband. 'Pick up the child. It is a holy man, see'st thou?'
'And my lap full of seventy times seven bundles! Why not bid him sit onmy knee, Shameless? But men are ever thus!' She looked round forapproval. An Amritzar courtesan near the window sniffed behind her headdrapery.
'Enter! Enter!' cried a fat Hindu money-lender, his folded account-bookin a cloth under his arm. With an oily smirk: 'It is well to be kind tothe poor.'
'Ay, at seven per cent a month with a mortgage on the unborn calf,' saida young Dogra soldier going south on leave; and they all laughed.
'Will it travel to Benares?' said the lama.
'Assuredly. Else why should we come? Enter, or we are left,' cried Kim.
'See!' shrilled the Amritzar girl. 'He has never entered a train. Ohsee!'
'Nay, help,' said the cultivator, putting out a large brown hand andhauling him in. 'Thus is it done, father.'
'But--but--I sit on the floor. It is against the Rule to sit on abench,' said the lama. 'Moreover, it cramps me.'
'I say,' began the money-lender, pursing his lips, 'that there is notone rule of right living which these te-rains do not cause us to break.We sit, for example, side by side with all castes and peoples.'
'Yea, and with most outrageously shameless ones,' said the wife,scowling at the Amritzar girl making eyes at the young sepoy.
'I said we might have gone by cart along the road,' said the husband,'and thus have saved some money.'
'Yes--and spent twice over what we saved on food by the way. That wastalked out ten thousand times.'
'Ay, by ten thousand tongues,' grunted he.
'The Gods help us poor women if we may not speak. Oho! He is of thatsort which may not look at or reply to a woman.' For the lama,constrained by his Rule, took not the faintest notice of her. 'And hisdisciple is like him?'
'Nay, mother,' said Kim most promptly. 'Not when the woman iswell-looking and above all charitable to the hungry.'
'A beggar's answer,' said the Sikh, laughing. 'Thou hast brought it onthyself, sister!' Kim's hands were crooked in supplication.
'And whither goest thou?' said the woman, handing him the half of a cakefrom a greasy package.
'Even to Benares.'
'Jugglers belike?' the young soldier suggested. 'Have ye any tricks topass the time? Why does not that yellow man answer?'
'Because,' said Kim stoutly, 'he is holy, and thinks upon matters hiddenfrom thee.'
'That may be well. We of the Loodhiana Sikhs,' he rolled it outsonorously, 'do not trouble our heads with doctrine. We fight.'
'My sister's brother's son is naik (corporal) in that regiment,' saidthe Sikh craftsman quietly. 'There are also some Dogra companies there.'The soldier glared, for a Dogra is of other caste than a Sikh, and thebanker tittered.
'They are all one to me,' said the Amritzar girl.
'That we believe,' snorted the cultivator's wife malignantly.
'Nay, but all who serve the Sirkar with weapons in their hands are, asit were, one brotherhood. There is one brotherhood of the caste, butbeyond that again'--she looked round timidly--'the bond of thePulton--the Regiment--eh?'
'My brother is in a Jat regiment,' said the cultivator. 'Dogras be goodmen.'
'Thy Sikhs at least were of that opinion,' said the soldier, with ascowl at the placid old man in the corner. 'Thy Sikhs thought so whenour two companies came to help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the face ofeight Afreedee standards on the ridge not three months gone.'
He told the story of a border action in which the Dogra companies of theLoodhiana Sikhs had acquitted themselves well. The Amritzar girl smiled;for she knew the tale was to win her approval.
'Alas!' said the cultivator's wife at the end. 'So their villages wereburnt and their little children made homeless?'
'They had marked our dead. They paid a great payment after we of theSikhs had schooled them. So it was. Is this Amritzar?'
'Ay, and here they cut our tickets,' said the banker, fumbling at hisbelt.
The lamps were paling in the dawn when the half-caste guard came round.Ticket-collecting is a slow business in the East, where people secretetheir tickets in all sorts of curious places. Kim produced his and wastold to get out.
'But I go to Umballa,' he protested. 'I go with this holy man.'
'Thou canst go to Jehannum for aught I care. This ticket is only toAmritzar. Out!'
Kim burst into a flood of tears, protesting that the lama was his fatherand his mother, that he was the prop of the lama's declining years, andthat the lama would die without his care. All the carriage bade theguard be merciful,--the banker was specially eloquent here,--but theguard hauled Kim on to the platform. The lama blinked, he could notovertake the situation, and Kim lifted up his voice and wept outside thecarriage window.
'I am very poor. My father is dead--m
y mother is dead. Oh, charitableones, if I am left here, who shall tend that old man?'
'What--what is this?' the lama repeated. 'He must go to Benares. He mustcome with me. He is my chela. If there is money to be paid--'
'Oh, be silent,' whispered Kim; 'are we Rajahs to throw away good silverwhen the world is so charitable?'
The Amritzar girl stepped out with her bundles, and it was on her thatKim kept his watchful eye. Ladies of that persuasion, he knew, weregenerous.
'A ticket--a little tikkut to Umballa--O Breaker of Hearts!' Shelaughed. 'Hast thou no charity?'
'Does the holy man come from the North?'
'From far and far in the North he comes,' cried Kim. 'From among thehills.'
'There is snow among the pine trees in the North--in the hills there issnow. My mother was from Kulu. Get thee a ticket. Ask him for ablessing.'
'Ten thousand blessings,' shrilled Kim. 'O Holy One, a woman has givenus in charity so that I can come with thee--a woman with a golden heart.I run for the tikkut.'
The girl looked up at the lama, who had mechanically followed Kim to theplatform. He bowed his head that he might not see her, and muttered inTibetan as she passed on with the crowd.
'Light come--light go,' said the cultivator's wife viciously.
'She has acquired merit,' returned the lama. 'Beyond doubt it was anun.'
'There be ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar alone. Return, old man, orthe train may depart without thee,' cried the banker.
'Not only was it sufficient for the ticket, but for a little food also,'said Kim, leaping to his place. 'Now eat, Holy One. Look. Day comes!'
Golden, rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists smoked away acrossthe flat green levels. All the rich Punjab lay out in the splendour ofthe keen sun. The lama flinched a little as the telegraph-posts swungby.
'Great is the speed of the train,' said the banker, with a patronisinggrin. 'We have gone farther since Lahore than thou couldst walk in twodays: at even, we shall enter Umballa.'
'And that is still far from Benares,' said the lama wearily, mumblingover the cakes that Kim offered. They all unloosed their bundles andmade their morning meal. Then the banker, the cultivator, and thesoldier prepared their pipes and wrapped the compartment in choking,acrid smoke, spitting and coughing and enjoying themselves. The Sikh andthe cultivator's wife chewed pan; the lama took snuff and told hisbeads, while Kim, cross-legged, smiled over the comfort of a fullstomach.
'What rivers have ye by Benares?' said the lama of a sudden to thecarriage at large.
'We have Gunga,' returned the banker, when the little titter hadsubsided.
'What others?'
'What other than Gunga?'
'Nay, but in my mind was the thought of a certain River of healing.'
'That is Gunga. Who bathes in her is made clean and goes to the gods.Thrice have I made pilgrimage to Gunga.' He looked round proudly.
'There was need,' said the young sepoy drily, and the travellers' laughturned against the banker.
'Clean--to return again to the Gods,' the lama muttered. 'And to goforth on the round of lives anew--still tied to the Wheel.' He shook hishead testily. 'But maybe there is a mistake. Who, then, made Gunga inthe beginning?'
'The Gods. Of what known faith art thou?' the banker said, appalled.
'I follow the Law--the Most Excellent Law. So it was the Gods that madeGunga. What like of Gods were they?'
The carriage looked at him in amazement. It was inconceivable that anyone should be ignorant of Gunga.
'What--what is thy God?' said the money-lender at last.
'Hear!' said the lama, shifting the rosary to his hand. 'Hear: for Ispeak of Him now! O people of Hind, listen!'
He began in Urdu the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his ownthoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned texts from a Chinese book ofthe Buddha's life. The gentle, tolerant folk looked on reverently. AllIndia is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shakenand consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, andvisionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to theend.
'Um!' said the soldier of the Loodhiana Sikhs. 'There was a Mohammedanregiment lay next to us at the Pirzai Kotal, and a priest of theirs,--hewas, as I remember, a naik,--when the fit was on him, spake prophecies.But the mad all are in God's keeping. His officers overlooked much inthat man.'
The lama fell back on Urdu, remembering that he was in a strange land.'Hear the tale of the Arrow which our Lord loosed from the bow,' hesaid.
This was much more to their taste, and they listened curiously while hetold it. 'Now, O people of Hind, I go to seek that River. Know ye aughtthat may guide me, for we be all men and women in evil case.'
'There is Gunga--and Gunga alone--who washes away sin,' ran the murmurround the carriage.
'Though past question we have good Gods Jullundur-way,' said thecultivator's wife, looking out of window. 'See how they have blessed thecrops.'
'To search every river in the Punjab is no small matter,' said herhusband. 'For me, a stream that leaves good silt on my land suffices,and I thank Bhumia, the God of the Homestead.' He shrugged one knotted,bronzed shoulder.
Think you our Lord came so far north?' said the lama, turning to Kim.
'It may be,' Kim replied soothingly, as he spat red pan-juice on thefloor.
'The last of the Great Ones,' said the Sikh with authority, 'wasSikander Julkarn (Alexander the Great). He paved the streets ofJullundur and built a great tank near Umballa. That pavement holds tothis day; and the tank is there also. I never heard of thy God.'
'Let thy hair grow long and talk Punjabi,' said the young soldierjestingly to Kim, quoting a Northern proverb. 'That is all that makes aSikh.' But he did not say this very loud.
The lama sighed and shrank into himself, a dingy, shapeless mass. In thepauses of their talk they could hear, the low droning--'Om mane pudmehum! Om mane pudme hum!'--and the thick click of the wooden rosarybeads.
'It irks me,' he said at last. 'The speed and the clatter irk me.Moreover, my chela, I think that may be we have overpassed that River.'
'Peace, peace,' said Kim. 'Was not the River near Benares? We are yetfar from the place.'
'But--if our Lord came north, it may be any one of these little onesthat we have run across.'
'I do not know.'
'But thou wast sent to me--wast thou sent to me?--for the merit I hadacquired over yonder at Suchzen. From beside the cannon didst thoucome--bearing two faces--and two garbs.'
'Peace. One must not speak of these things here,' whispered Kim. 'Therewas but one of me. Think again and thou wilt remember. A boy--a Hinduboy--by the great green cannon.'
'But was there not also an Englishman with a white beard--holy--amongimages--who himself made more sure my assurance of the River of theArrow?'
'He--we--went to the Ajaib-Gher in Lahore to pray before the godsthere,' Kim explained to the openly listening company. 'And the Sahib ofthe Wonder House talked to him--yes, this is truth--as a brother. He isa Very holy man, from far beyond the hills. Rest thou. In time we cometo Umballa.'
'But my River--the River of my healing?'
'And then, if it please thee, we will go hunting for that River on foot.So that we miss nothing--not even a little rivulet in a field-side.'
'But thou hast a Search of thine own?' The lama--very pleased that heremembered so well--sat bolt upright.
'Ay,' said Kim, humouring him. The boy was entirely happy to be outchewing pan and seeing new people in the great good-tempered world.
'It was a Bull--a Red Bull that shall come and help thee--and carrythee--whither? I have forgotten. A Red Bull on a green field, was itnot?'
'Nay, it will carry me nowhere,' said Kim. 'It is but a tale I toldthee.'
'What is this?' the cultivator's wife leaned forward, her braceletsclinking on her arm. 'Do ye both dream dreams? A Red Bull on a greenfield, that shall carry thee to the Heavens--or what? Was it a vision?Did one make a prop
hecy? We have a Red Bull in our village behindJullundur city, and he grazes by choice in the very greenest of ourfields!'
'Give a woman an old wife's tale and a weaver-bird a leaf and a thread,they will weave wonderful things,' said the Sikh. 'All holy men dreamdreams, and by following holy men their disciples attain that power.'
'A Red Bull on a green field, was it?' the lama repeated. 'In a formerlife it may be thou hast acquired merit, and the Bull will come toreward thee.'
'Nay--nay--it was but a tale one told to me--for a jest belike. But Iwill seek the Bull about Umballa, and thou canst look for thy River andrest from the clatter of the train.'
'It may be that the Bull knows--that he is sent to guide us both,' saidthe lama, hopefully as a child. Then to the company, indicating Kim:'This one was sent to me but yesterday. He is not, I think, of thisworld.'
'Beggars a plenty have I met, and holy men to boot, but never such ayogi nor such a disciple,' said the woman.
Her husband touched his forehead lightly with one finger and smiled. Butthe next time the lama would eat they took care to give him their best.
And at last--tired, sleepy, and dusty--they reached Umballa CityStation.
'We abide here upon a law-suit,' said the cultivator's wife to Kim. 'Welodge with my man's cousin's younger brother. There is room also in thecourtyard for thy yogi and for thee. Will--will he give me a blessing?'
'O holy man! A woman with a heart of gold gives us lodging for thenight. It is a kindly land, this land of the South. See how we have beenhelped since the dawn!'
The lama bowed his head in benediction.
'To fill my cousin's younger brother's house with wastrels--' thehusband began, as he shouldered his heavy bamboo staff.
'Thy cousin's younger brother owes my father's cousin something yet onhis daughter's marriage-feast,' said the woman crisply. 'Let him puttheir food to that account. The yogi will beg, I doubt not.'
'Ay, I beg for him,' said Kim, anxious only to get the lama undershelter for the night, that he might seek Mahbub Ali's Englishman anddeliver himself of the white stallion's pedigree.
'Now,' said he, when the lama had come to an anchor in the innercourtyard of a decent Hindu house behind the cantonments, 'I go away fora while--to--to buy us victual in the bazar. Do not stray abroad till Ireturn.'
'Thou wilt return? Thou wilt surely return?' The old man caught at hiswrist. 'And thou wilt return in this very same shape? Is it too late tolook to-night for the River?'
'Too late and too dark. Be comforted. Think how far thou art on theroad--an hundred kos from Lahore already.'
'Yea--and farther from my monastery. Alas! It is a great and terribleworld.'
Kim stole out and away, as unremarkable a figure as ever carried his ownand a few score thousand other folk's fate slung round his neck. MahbubAli's directions left him little doubt of the house in which hisEnglishman lived; and a groom, bringing a dog-cart home from the Club,made him quite sure. It remained only to identify his man, and Kimslipped through the garden hedge and hid in a clump of plumed grassclose to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants movedabout tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forthcame an Englishman, dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It wastoo dark to see his face, so Kim, beggar-wise, tried an old experiment.
'Protector of the Poor!'
The man backed towards the voice.
'Mahbub Ali says--'
'Hah! What says Mahbub Ali?' He made no attempt to look for the speaker,and that showed Kim that he knew.
'The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established.'
'What proof is there?' The Englishman switched at the rose-hedge in theside of the drive.
'Mahbub Ali has given me this proof.' Kim flipped the wad of foldedpaper into the air, and it fell on the path beside the man, who put hisfoot on it as a gardener came round the corner. When the servant passedhe picked it up, dropped a rupee,--Kim could hear the clink,--and strodeinto the house, never turning round. Swiftly Kim took up the money; but,for all his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver theleast part of any game. What he desired was the visible effect ofaction; so, instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass andwormed nearer to the house.
He saw--Indian bungalows are open through and through--the Englishmanreturn to a small dressing-room, in a corner of the veranda, that washalf-office, littered with papers and despatch-boxes, and sit down tostudy Mahbub Ali's message. His face, by the full ray of the kerosenelamp, changed and darkened, and Kim, used as every beggar must be towatching countenances, took good note.
'Will! Will, dear!' called a woman's voice. 'You ought to be in thedrawing-room. They'll be here in a minute.'
The man still read intently.
'Will!' said the voice, five minutes later. 'He's come. I can hear thetroopers in the drive.'
The man dashed out bareheaded as a big landau with four native troopersbehind it halted at the veranda, and a tall, black-haired man, erect asan arrow, swung out, preceded by a young officer who laughed pleasantly.
Flat on his belly lay Kim, almost touching the high wheels. His man andthe black stranger exchanged two sentences.
'Certainly, sir,' said the young officer promptly. 'Everything waitswhile a horse is concerned.'
'We shan't be more than twenty minutes,' said Kim's man. 'You can do thehonours--keep 'em amused, and all that.'
'Tell one of the troopers to wait,' said the tall man, and they bothpassed into the dressing-room together as the landau rolled away. Kimsaw their heads bent over Mahbub Ali's message, and heard thevoices--one low and deferential, the other sharp and decisive.
'It isn't a question of weeks. It is a question of days--hours almost,'said the elder. 'I'd been expecting it for some time, but this'--hetapped Mahbub Ali's paper--'clenches it. Grogan's dining here to-night,isn't he?'
'Yes, sir, and Macklin too.'
'Very good. I'll speak to them myself. That matter will be referred tothe Council, of course, but this is a case where one is justified inassuming that we take action at once. Warn the Pindi and Peshawurbrigades. It will disorganise all the summer reliefs, but we can't helpthat. This comes of not smashing them thoroughly the first time. Eightthousand should be enough.'
'What about artillery, sir?'
'I must consult Macklin.'
'Then it means war?'
'No. Punishment. When a man is bound by the action of his predecessor--'
'But C.25 may have lied.'
'He bears out the other's information. Practically, they showed theirhand six months back. But Devenish would have it there was a chance ofpeace. Of course they used it to make themselves stronger. Send offthose telegrams at once,--the new code, not the old,--mine andWharton's. I don't think we need keep the ladies waiting any longer. Wecan settle the rest over the cigars. I thought it was coming. It'spunishment--not war.'
As the trooper cantered off Kim crawled round to the back of the house,where, going on his Lahore experiences, he judged there would befood--and information. The kitchen was crowded with excited scullions,one of whom kicked him.
'Aie,' said Kim, feigning tears. 'I came only to wash dishes in returnfor a bellyful.'
'All Umballa is on the same errand. Get hence. They go in now with thesoup. Think you that we who serve Creighton Sahib need strange scullionsto help us through a big dinner?'
'It is a very big dinner;' said Kim, looking at the plates.
'Small wonder. The guest of honour is none other than the Jang-i-LatSahib' (the Commander-in-Chief).
'Ho!' said Kim, with the correct guttural note of wonder. He had learnedwhat he wanted, and when the scullion turned he was gone.
'And all that trouble,' said he to himself, thinking as usual inHindustanee, 'for a horse's pedigree! Mahbub Ali should have come to meto learn a little lying. Every time before that I have borne a messageit concerned a woman. Now it is men. Better. The tall man said that theywill loose a great army to punish some one--s
omewhere--the news goes toPindi and Peshawur. There are also guns. Would I had crept nearer. It isbig news!'
He returned to find the cultivator's cousin's younger brother discussingthe family law-suit in all its bearings with the cultivator and his wifeand a few friends, while the lama dozed. After the evening meal some onepassed him a water-pipe; and Kim felt very much of a man as he pulled atthe smooth cocoanut-shell, his legs spread abroad in the moonlight, histongue clicking in remarks from time to time. His hosts were mostpolite; for the cultivator's wife had told them of his vision of the RedBull, and of his probable descent from another world. Moreover, the lamawas a great and venerable curiosity. The family priest, an old, tolerantSarsut Brahmin, dropped in later, and naturally started a theologicalargument to impress the family. By creed, of course, they were all ontheir priest's side, but the lama was the guest and the novelty. Hisgentle kindliness, and his impressive Chinese quotations, that soundedlike spells, delighted them hugely; and in this sympathetic, simple airhe expanded like the Bodhisat's own lotus, speaking of his life in thegreat hills of Suchzen, before, as he said, 'I rose up to seekenlightenment.'
Then it came out that in those worldly days he had been a master-hand atcasting horoscopes and nativities; and the family priest led him on todescribe his methods; each giving the planets names that the other couldnot understand, and pointing upwards as the big stars sailed across thedark. The children of the house tugged unrebuked at his rosary; and heclean forgot the Rule which forbids looking at women as he talked ofenduring snows, landslips, blocked passes, the remote cliffs where menfind sapphires and turquoise, and that wonderful upland road that leadsat last into Great China itself.
'How thinkest thou of this one?' said the cultivator aside to thepriest.
'A holy man--a holy man indeed. His Gods are not the Gods, but his feetare upon the Way,' was the answer. 'And his methods of nativities,though that is beyond thee, are wise and sure.'
'Tell me,' said Kim lazily, 'whether I find my Red Bull on a greenfield, as was promised me.'
'What knowledge hast thou of thy birth-hour?' the priest asked, swellingwith importance.
'Between first and second cockcrow of the first night in May.'
'Of what year?'
'I do not know; but upon the hour that I cried first fell the greatearthquake in Srinagur which is in Kashmir.' This Kim had from the womanwho took care of him, and she again from Kimball O'Hara. The earthquakehad been felt in India, and for long stood a leading date in the Punjab.
'Ai!' said a woman excitedly. This seemed to make Kim's supernaturalorigin more certain. 'Was not such an one's daughter born then--'
'And her mother bore her husband four sons in four years--all likelyboys,' cried the cultivator's wife, sitting outside the circle in theshadow.
'None reared in the knowledge,' said the family priest, 'forget how theplanets stood in their Houses upon that night.' He began to draw in thedust of the courtyard. 'At least thou hast good claim to a half of theHouse of the Bull. How runs thy prophecy?'
'Upon a day,' said Kim, delighted at the sensation he was creating, 'Ishall be made great by means of a Red Bull on a green field, but firstthere will enter two men making all things ready.'
'Yes: thus ever at the opening of a vision. A thick darkness that clearsslowly; anon one enters with a broom making ready the place. Then beginsthe Sight. Two men--thou sayest? Ay, ay. The Sun, leaving the House ofthe Bull, enters that of the Twins. Hence the two men of the prophecy.Let us now consider. Fetch me a twig, little one.'
He knitted his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and scratched again inthe dust mysterious signs--to the wonder of all save the lama, who, withfine instinct, forbore to interfere.
At the end of half an hour he tossed the twig from him with a grunt.
'Hm. Thus say the stars. Within three days come the two men to make allthings ready. After them follows the Bull; but the sign over against himis the sign of War and armed men.'
'There was indeed a man of the Loodhiana Sikhs in the carriage fromLahore,' said the cultivator's wife hopefully.
'Tck! Armed men--many hundreds. What concern hast thou with war?' saidthe priest to Kim. 'Thine is a red and an angry sign of War to be loosedvery soon.'
'None--none,' said the lama earnestly. 'We seek only peace and ourRiver.'
Kim smiled, remembering what he had overheard in the dressing-room.Decidedly he was a favourite of the stars.
The priest brushed his foot over the rude horoscope. 'More than this Icannot see. In three days comes the Bull to thee, boy.'
'And my River, my River,' pleaded the lama. 'I had hoped his Bull wouldlead us both to the River.'
'Alas, for that wondrous River, my brother,' the priest replied. 'Suchthings are not common.'
Next morning, though they were pressed to stay, the lama insisted ondeparture. They gave Kim a large bundle of good food and nearly threeannas in copper money for the needs of the road, and with many blessingswatched the two go southward in the dawn.
'Pity it is that these and such as these could not be freed from theWheel of Things,' said the lama.
'Nay, then would only evil people be left on the earth, and who wouldgive us meat and shelter?' quoth Kim, stepping merrily under his burden.
'Yonder is a small stream. Let us look,' said the lama, and he led fromthe white road across the fields; walking into a very hornets'-nest ofpariah dogs.
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