Give the order . There is more than enough for us all . We go our way from Shamlegh in the dawn . ' They arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans for another hour , while Kim shivered with cold and pride . The humour of the situation tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul . Here were the emissaries of the dread Power of the North , very possibly as great in their own land as Mahbub or Colonel Creighton , suddenly smitten helpless . One of them , he privately knew , would be lame for a time . They had made promises to Kings . Tonight they lay out somewhere below him , chartless , foodless , tentless , gunless -- except for Hurree Babu , guideless . And this collapse of their Great Game -LRB- Kim wondered to whom they would report it -RRB- , this panicky bolt into the night , had come about through no craft of Hurree 's or contrivance of Kim 's , but simply , beautifully , and inevitably as the capture of Mahbub 's fakir-friends by the zealous young policeman at Umballa . ` They are there -- with nothing ; and , by Jove , it is cold ! I am here with all their things . Oh , they will be angry ! I am sorry for Hurree Babu . ' Kim might have saved his pity , for though at that moment the Bengali suffered acutely in the flesh , his soul was puffed and lofty . A mile down the hill , on the edge of the pine-forest , two half-frozen men -- one powerfully sick at intervals -- were varying mutual recriminations with the most poignant abuse of the Babu , who seemed distraught with terror . They demanded a plan of action . He explained that they were very lucky to be alive ; that their coolies , if not then stalking them , had passed beyond recall ; that the Rajah , his master , was ninety miles away , and , so far from lending them money and a retinue for the Simla journey , would surely cast them into prison if he heard that they had hit a priest . He enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they bade him change the subject . Their one hope , said he , was unostentatious flight from village to village till they reached civilization ; and , for the hundredth time dissolved in tears , he demanded of the high stars why the Sahibs ` had beaten holy man ' .
Ten steps would have taken XXXXX into the creaking gloom utterly beyond their reach -- to the shelter and food of the nearest village , where glib-tongued doctors were scarce .
Bengali Creighton Hurree Shamlegh Umballa coolies fakir-friends guideless hour pine-forest