They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy , helpfulness , and unerring skill as a guide . He put it in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion ; they had endured so many dangers together . He led them at high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance Bank of Simla , where they wished to establish their identity . Thence he vanished like a dawn-cloud on Jakko . Behold him , too fine-drawn to sweat , too pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brass-bound box , ascending Shamlegh slope , a just man made perfect . Watch him , all Babudom laid aside , smoking at noon on a cot , while a woman with turquoise-studded headgear points south-easterly across the bare grass . Litters , she says , do not travel as fast as single men , but his birds should now be in the Plains . The holy man would not stay though Lispeth pressed him . The Babu groans heavily , girds up his huge loins , and is off again . He does not care to travel after dusk ; but his days ' marches -- there is none to enter them in a book -- would astonish folk who mock at his race . Kindly villagers , remembering the Dacca drug-vendor of two months ago , give him shelter against evil spirits of the wood . He dreams of Bengali Gods , University text-books of education , and the Royal Society , London , England . Next dawn the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes forward . On the edge of the Doon , Mussoorie well behind them and the Plains spread out in golden dust before , rests a worn litter in which -- all the Hills know it -- lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing . Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it , for not only has the lama given them blessings , but his disciple good money -- full one-third Sahibs ' prices . Twelve miles a day has the dooli travelled , as the greasy , rubbed pole-ends show , and by roads that few Sahibs use . Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust filled every fold of the impassive lama 's drapery ; between the black horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of the wild goats through the clouds ; pitching and strained on the shale below ; hard-held between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati ; swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the descent into the Valley of the Waters ; pressed along the steamy levels of that locked valley ; up , up and out again , to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath ; set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly oak-forests ; passed from village to village in dawn-chill , when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men ; or by torchlight , when the least fearful think of ghosts -- the dooli has reached her last stage . The little hill-folk sweat in the modified heat of the lower Siwaliks , and gather round the priests for their blessing and their wage . ` Ye have acquired merit , ' says the lama . ` Merit greater than your knowing .
And ye will return to the XXXXX , ' he sighs .
Hills Sahibs cot day drug-vendor drugs lama mid-days snow-dust text-books