The Lahore Museum was larger , but here were more wonders -- ghost-daggers and prayer-wheels from Tibet ; turquoise and raw amber necklaces ; green jade bangles ; curiously packed incense-sticks in jars crusted over with raw garnets ; the devil-masks of overnight and a wall full of peacock-blue draperies ; gilt figures of Buddha , and little portable lacquer altars ; Russian samovars with turquoises on the lid ; egg-shell china sets in quaint octagonal cane boxes ; yellow ivory crucifixes -- from Japan of all places in the world , so Lurgan Sahib said ; carpets in dusty bales , smelling atrociously , pushed back behind torn and rotten screens of geometrical work ; Persian water-jugs for the hands after meals ; dull copper incense-burners neither Chinese nor Persian , with friezes of fantastic devils running round them ; tarnished silver belts that knotted like raw hide ; hairpins of jade , ivory , and plasma ; arms of all sorts and kinds , and a thousand other oddments were cased , or piled , or merely thrown into the room , leaving a clear space only round the rickety deal table , where Lurgan Sahib worked . ` Those things are nothing , ' said his host , following Kim 's glance . ' I buy them because they are pretty , and sometimes I sell -- if I like the buyer 's look . My work is on the table -- some of it . ' It blazed in the morning light -- all red and blue and green flashes , picked out with the vicious blue-white spurt of a diamond here and there . Kim opened his eyes . ` Oh , they are quite well , those stones . It will not hurt them to take the sun . Besides , they are cheap . But with sick stones it is very different . ' He piled Kim 's plate anew . ` There is no one but me can doctor a sick pearl and re-blue turquoises . I grant you opals -- any fool can cure an opal -- but for a sick pearl there is only me . Suppose I were to die ! Then there would be no one ... Oh no ! You can not do anything with jewels . It will be quite enough if you understand a little about the Turquoise -- some day . ' He moved to the end of the veranda to refill the heavy , porous clay water-jug from the filter . ` Do you want drink ? ' Kim nodded .
Lurgan XXXXX , fifteen feet off , laid one hand on the jar .
Buddha Sahib altars crucifixes ghost-daggers incense-burners opal opals overnight water-jugs