‘Can buts eat?’ said Kim, with a twinkle. ‘For I am hungry.’
‘It is no jest,’ cried the lama. ‘A certain astrologer of that city whose name I have forgotten — ’
‘That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night,’ Kim whispered to the priest.
‘Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my chela should find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?’
Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village graybeards.
‘The meaning of my Star is War,’ he replied pompously.
Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have lain down, Kim’s white blood set him upon his feet.
‘Ay, War,’ he answered.
‘That is a sure prophecy,’ rumbled a deep voice. ‘For there is always war along the Border — as I know.’
It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and though the demands of his sons, now gray-bearded officers on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence. English officials — Deputy Commissioners even — turned aside from the main road to visit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.
‘But this shall be a great war — a war of eight thousand,’ Kim’s voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.
‘Redcoats or our own regiments?’ the old man snapped, as though he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.
‘Redcoats,’ said Kim at a venture. ‘Redcoats and guns.’
‘But — but the astrologer said no word of this,’ cried the lama, snuffing prodigiously in his excitement.
‘But I know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One’s disciple. There will rise a war — a war of eight thousand redcoats. From Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is sure.’
‘The boy has heard bazar-talk,’ said the priest.
‘But he was always by my side,’ said the lama. ‘How should he know? I did not know.’
‘He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,’ muttered the priest to the headman. ‘What new trick is this?’
‘A sign. Give me a sign,’ thundered the old soldier suddenly. ‘If there were war my sons would have told me.’
‘When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie.’ Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things — the sheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath and went on.
‘Old man, give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight thousand redcoats — with guns?’
‘No.’ Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.
‘Dost thou know who He is then that gives the order?’
‘I have seen Him.’
‘To know again?’
‘I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana’ (the Artillery).
‘A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?’ Kim took a few paces in a stiff, wooden style.
‘Ay. But that any one may have seen.’ The crowd were breathless-still through all this talk.
‘That is true,’ said Kim. ‘But I will say more. Look now. First the great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus. (Kim drew a forefinger over his forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the angle of the jaw.) Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He thrusts his hat under his left armpit.’ Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.
The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd shivered.
‘So — so — so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?’
‘He rubs the skin at the back of his neck — thus. Then falls one finger on the table and he makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then He speaks, saying: “Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such guns.”‘
The old man rose stiffly and saluted.
‘“For”‘ — Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa — ’“For,” says He, “we should have done this long ago. It is not war — it is a chastisement. Snff!”‘
‘Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen and heard. It is He!’
‘I saw no smoke’ — Kim’s voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the wayside fortune-teller. ‘I saw this in darkness. First came a man to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He, standing in a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken truth?’
‘It is He. Past all doubt it is He.’
The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.
‘Said I not — said I not he was from the other world?’ cried the lama proudly. ‘He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the Stars!’
‘At least it does not concern us,’ a man cried. ‘O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know — ’
‘Or I care,’ said Kim. ‘My Stars do not concern themselves with thy cattle.’
‘Nay, but she is very sick,’ a woman struck in. ‘My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?’
Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the faquirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.
The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly — a dry and blighting smile.
‘Is there no priest then in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,’ cried Kim.
‘Ay — but — ’ the woman began.
‘But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks.’ The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the village. ‘It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calf to thy own priest, and, unless thy gods are angry past recall, she will give milk within a month.’
‘A master-beggar art thou,’ purred the priest approvingly. ‘Not the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man rich?’
‘A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,’ Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious — ’does one grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn the road at least.’
He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples.
‘Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be treasure.’
‘He is mad — many times mad. There is nothing else.’
Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the temple — at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.
‘Where is the money?’ he whispered, beckoning the old man off into the darkness.
‘In my bosom. Where else?’
‘Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me.’
‘But why? Here is no ticket to buy.’
‘Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet about the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it.’ He slipped his hand above the lama’s girdle and brought away the purse.
‘Be it so — be it so.’ The old man nodded his head
. ‘This is a great and terrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in it.’
Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep.
‘Certainly the air of this country is good,’ said the lama. ‘I sleep lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broad day. Even now I am heavy.’
‘Drink a draught of hot milk,’ said Kim, who had carried not a few such remedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. ‘It is time to take the road again.’
‘The long road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,’ said the lama gaily. ‘Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense these people, and especially the priest, for their great kindness? Truly they are but-parast, but in other lives, may be, they will receive enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is no more than stone and red paint, but the heart of man we must acknowledge when and where it is good.’
‘Holy One, hast thou ever taken the road alone?’ Kim looked up sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the fields.
‘Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot — from Kulu, where my first chela died. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men were well-disposed throughout all the Hills.’
‘It is otherwise in Hind,’ said Kim drily. ‘Their gods are many-armed and malignant. Let them alone.’
‘I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the World — thou and thy yellow man.’ The old soldier ambled up the village street, all shadowy in the dawn, on a gaunt, scissor-hocked pony. ‘Last night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in the air. I smell it. See! I have brought my sword.’
He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at his side, — hand dropped on the pommel, — staring fiercely over the flat lands towards the north. ‘Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come up and sit behind me. The beast will carry two.’
‘I am this Holy One’s disciple,’ said Kim, as they cleared the village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, but the priest’s farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium on a man who carried no money.
‘That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is always good. There is no respect in these days — not even when a Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star leads him to war follow a holy man?’
‘But he is a holy man,’ said Kim earnestly. ‘In truth, and in talk and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.’
‘Thou art not, that I can see; but I do not know that other. He marches well, though.’
The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long, easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically clicking his rosary.
They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the snow-capped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work in the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmen behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on the stirrup-leather.
‘It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,’ said the lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.
The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first time was aware of him.
‘Seekest thou the River also?’ said he, turning.
‘The day is new,’ was the reply. ‘What need of a river save to water at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.’
‘That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will; but why the sword?’
The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game of make-believe.
‘The sword,’ he said, fumbling it. ‘Oh, that was a fancy of mine — an old man’s fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear weapons throughout Hind, but’ — he cheered up and slapped the hilt — ’all the constabeels hereabout know me.’
‘It is not a good fancy,’ said the lama. ‘What profit to kill men?’
‘Very little — as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with blood.’
‘What madness was that, then?’
‘The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was the first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But they chose to kill the Sahibs’ wives and children. Then came the Sahibs from over the sea and called them to most strict account.’
‘Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They called it the Black Year, as I remember.’
‘What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumour indeed! All earth knew, and trembled.’
‘Our earth never shook but once — upon the day that the Excellent One received Enlightenment.’
‘Umph! I saw Delhi shake at least; and Delhi is the navel of the world.’
‘So they turned against women and children? That was a bad deed, for which the punishment cannot be avoided.’
‘Many strove to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in a regiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and eighty sabres stood fast to their salt — how many think you? Three. Of whom I was one.’
He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at his side — hand dropped on the pommel — staring fiercely ever the flat Lands. . .
‘The greater merit.’
‘Merit! We did not consider it merit in those days. My people, my friends, my brothers fell from me. They said: “The time of the English is accomplished. Let each strike out a little holding for himself.” But I had talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chillianwallah, of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: “Abide a little and the wind turns. There is no blessing in this work.” In those days I rode seventy miles with an English memsahib and her babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow! That was a horse fit for a man!) I placed them in safety, and back came I to my officer — the one that was not killed of our five. “Give me work,” said I, “for I am an outcast among my own kin, and my cousin’s blood is wet on my sabre.” “Be content,” said he. “There is great work forward. When this madness is over there is a recompense.”‘
‘Ay, there is a recompense when the madness is over, surely?’ the lama muttered half to himself.
‘They did not hang medals in those days on all who by accident had heard a gun fired. No! In nineteen pitched battles was I; in six-and-forty skirmishes of horse; and in small affairs without number. Nine wounds I bear; a medal and four clasps and the medal of an Order, for my captains who are now generals, remembered me when the Kaiser-i-Hind had accomplished fifty years of her reign, and all the land rejoiced. They said: “Give him the order of Berittish India.” I carry it upon my neck now. I have also my jaghir (holding) from the hands of the State — a free gift to me and mine. The men of the old days — they are now Commissioners — come riding to me through the crops, — high upon horses so that all the village sees, — and we talk out the old skirmishes, one dead man’s name leading to another.’
‘And after?’ said the lama.
‘Oh, afterwards they go away, but not before my village has seen.’
‘And at the last what wilt thou do?’
‘At the last I shall die.’
‘And after?’
‘Let the Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with prayers: I do not think they will pester me. Look you, I have noticed in my long life that those who eternall
y break in upon Those Above with complaints and reports and bellowings and weepings are presently sent for in haste, as our colonel used to send for slack-jawed down-country men who talked too much. No, I have never wearied the Gods. They will remember this, and give me a quiet place where I can drive my lance in the shade, and wait to welcome my sons: I have no less than three — ressaldar-majors all — in the regiments.’
‘And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life to life — from despair to despair,’ said the lama below his breath, ‘hot, uneasy, snatching.’
‘Ay,’ the old soldier chuckled. ‘Three ressaldar-majors in three regiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I. They must be well mounted; and one cannot take the horses as in the old days one took women. Well, well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask save at the lance’s point. Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and they feign penitence, but behind my back I know they call me a toothless old ape.’
‘Hast thou never desired any other thing?’
Yes — yes — a thousand times! A straight back and a close-clinging knee once more; a quick wrist and a keen eye; and the marrow that makes a man. Oh, the old days — the good days of my strength!’
‘That strength is weakness.’
‘It has turned so; but fifty years since I could have proved it otherwise,’ the old soldier retorted, driving his stirrup-edge into the pony’s lean flank.
‘But I know a River of great healing.’
‘I have drunk Gunga-water to the edge of dropsy. All she gave me was a flux, and no sort of strength.’
‘It is not Gunga. The River that I know washes from all taint of sin. Ascending the far bank one is assured of Freedom. I do not know thy life, but thy face is the face of the honourable and courteous. Thou hast clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was hard to give, in that Black Year of which I now remember other tales. Enter now upon the Middle Way, which is the path to Freedom. Hear the Most Excellent Law, and do not follow dreams.’
‘Speak then, old man,’ the soldier smiled, half saluting. ‘We be all babblers at our age.’
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 70