prompt:
Chapter: Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised
  With idiot moons and stars retracing stars?
  Creep thou betweene--thy coming's all unnoised.
  Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars.
  Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fraye
  (By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);
  Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say
  Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars?

  Sir John Christie.

In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had been
'struck off the strength', which conveyed no meaning to him till he was
ordered to go away and play.  Then he ran to the bazar, and found the
young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.

'Now I pay,' said Kim royally, 'and now I need another letter to be
written.'

'Mahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily.  He was, by
virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.

'This is not to Mahbub, but to a priest.  Take thy pen and write
quickly.  To Teshoo Lama, the Holy One from Bhotiyal seeking for a
River, who is now in the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares.  Take
more ink!  In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at
Nucklao.  The name of the school is Xavier.  I do not know where that
school is, but it is at Nucklao.'

'But I know Nucklao,' the writer interrupted.  'I know the school.'

'Tell him where it is, and I give half an anna.'

The reed pen scratched busily.  'He cannot mistake.'  The man lifted
his head.  'Who watches us across the street?'

Kim looked up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creighton in tennis-flannels.

'Oh, that is some Sahib who knows the fat priest in the barracks. He is
beckoning me.'

'What dost thou?'  said the Colonel, when Kim trotted up.

'I--I am not running away.  I send a letter to my Holy One at Benares.'

'I had not thought of that.  Hast thou said that I take thee to
Lucknow?'

'Nay, I have not.  Read the letter, if there be a doubt.'

'Then why hast thou left out my name in writing to that Holy One?' The
Colonel smiled a queer smile.  Kim took his courage in both hands.

'It was said once to me that it is inexpedient to write the names of
strangers concerned in any matter, because by the naming of names many
good plans are brought to confusion.'

'Thou hast been well taught,' the Colonel replied, and Kim flushed. 'I
have left my cheroot-case in the Padre's veranda.  Bring it to my house
this even.'

'Where is the house?'  said Kim.  His quick wit told him that he was
being tested in some fashion or another, and he stood on guard.

'Ask anyone in the big bazar.'  The Colonel walked on.

'He has forgotten his cheroot-case,' said Kim, returning.  'I must
bring it to him this evening.  That is all my letter except, thrice
over, Come to me!  Come to me!  Come to me!  Now I will pay for a stamp
and put it in the post.  He rose to go, and as an afterthought asked:
'Who is that angry-faced Sahib who lost the cheroot-case?'

'Oh, he is only Creighton Sahib--a very foolish Sahib, who is a Colonel
Sahib without a regiment.'

'What is his business?'

'God knows.  He is always buying horses which he cannot ride, and
asking riddles about the works of God--such as plants and stones and
the customs of people.  The dealers call him the father of fools,
because he is so easily cheated about a horse.  Mahbub Ali says he is
madder than most other Sahibs.'

'Oh!'  said Kim, and departed.  His training had given him some small
knowledge of character, and he argued that fools are not given
information which leads to calling out eight thousand men besides guns.
The Commander-in-Chief of all India does not talk, as Kim had heard him
talk, to fools.  Nor would Mahbub Ali's tone have changed, as it did
every time he mentioned the Colonel's name, if the Colonel had been a
fool.  Consequently--and this set Kim to skipping--there was a mystery
somewhere, and Mahbub Ali probably spied for the Colonel much as Kim
had spied for Mahbub.  And, like the horse-dealer, the Colonel
evidently respected people who did not show themselves to be too clever.

He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge of the Colonel's
house; and when, on his return to barracks, he discovered that no
cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with delight.  Here was a
man after his own heart--a tortuous and indirect person playing a
hidden game.  Well, if he could be a fool, so could Kim.

He showed nothing of his mind when Father Victor, for three long
mornings, discoursed to him of an entirely new set of Gods and
Godlings--notably of a Goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was one
with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology.  He betrayed no emotion
when, after the lecture, Father Victor dragged him from shop to shop
buying articles of outfit, nor when envious drummer-boys kicked him
because he was going to a superior school did he complain, but awaited
the play of circumstances with an interested soul.  Father Victor, good
man, took him to the station, put him into an empty second-class next
to Colonel Creighton's first, and bade him farewell with genuine
feeling.

'They'll make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St Xavier's--a white man, an', I
hope, a good man.  They know all about your comin', an' the Colonel
will see that ye're not lost or mislaid anywhere on the road.  I've
given you a notion of religious matters,--at least I hope so,--and
you'll remember, when they ask you your religion, that you're a
Cath'lic.  Better say Roman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not fond of the word.'

Kim lit a rank cigarette--he had been careful to buy a stock in the
bazar--and lay down to think.  This solitary passage was very different
from that joyful down-journey in the third-class with the lama.
'Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,' he reflected.

'Hai mai!  I go from one place to another as it might be a kickball. It
is my Kismet.  No man can escape his Kismet.  But I am to pray to Bibi
Miriam, and I am a Sahib.'  He looked at his boots ruefully. 'No; I am
Kim.  This is the great world, and I am only Kim.  Who is Kim?'  He
considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till his
head swam.  He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl
of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.

Presently the Colonel sent for him, and talked for a long time.  So far
as Kim could gather, he was to be diligent and enter the Survey of
India as a chain-man.  If he were very good, and passed the proper
examinations, he would be earning thirty rupees a month at seventeen
years old, and Colonel Creighton would see that he found suitable
employment.

Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of this
talk.  Then the Colonel, seeing his mistake, turned to fluent and
picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented.  No man could be a fool who
knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and silently, and
whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.

'Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains
and rivers, to carry these pictures in thine eye till a suitable time
comes to set them upon paper.  Perhaps some day, when thou art a
chain-man, I may say to thee when we are working together:  "Go across
those hills and see what lies beyond."  Then one will say:  "There are
bad people living in those hills who will slay the chain-man if he be
seen to look like a Sahib."  What then?'

Kim thought.  Would it be safe to return the Colonel's lead?

'I would tell what that other man had said.'

'But if I answered:  "I will give thee a hundred rupees for knowledge
of what is behind those hills--for a picture of a river and a little
news of what the people say in the villages there"?'

'How can I tell?  I am only a boy.  Wait till I am a man.'  Then,
seeing the Colonel's brow clouded, he went on:  'But I think I should
in a few days earn the hundred rupees.'

'By what road?'

Kim shook his head resolutely.  'If I said how I would earn them,
another man might hear and forestall me.  It is not good to sell
knowledge for nothing.'

'Tell now.'  The Colonel held up a rupee.  Kim's hand half reached
towards it, and dropped.

'Nay, Sahib; nay.  I know the price that will be paid for the answer,
but I do not know why the question is asked.'

'Take it for a gift, then,' said Creighton, tossing it over.  'There is
a good spirit in thee.  Do not let it be blunted at St Xavier's. There
are many boys there who despise the black men.'

'Their mothers were bazar-women,' said Kim.  He knew well there is no
hatred like that of the half-caste for his brother-in-law.

'True; but thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib.  Therefore, do not
at any time be led to contemn the black men.  I have known boys newly
entered into the service of the Government who feigned not to
understand the talk or the customs of black men.  Their pay was cut for
ignorance.  There is no sin so great as ignorance.  Remember this.'

Several times in the course of the long twenty-four hours' run south
did the Colonel send for Kim, always developing this latter text.

'We be all on one lead-rope, then,' said Kim at last, 'the Colonel,
Mahbub Ali, and I--when I become a chain-man.  He will use me as Mahbub
Ali employed me, I think.  That is good, if it allows me to return to
the Road again.  This clothing grows no easier by wear.'

When they came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no sign of the
lama.  He swallowed his disappointment, while the Colonel bundled him
into a ticca-gharri with his neat belongings and despatched him alone
to St Xavier's.

'I do not say farewell, because we shall meet again,' he cried. 'Again,
and many times, if thou art one of good spirit.  But thou art not yet
tried.'

'Not when I brought thee'--Kim actually dared to use the turn of
equals--'a white stallion's pedigree that night?'

'Much is gained by forgetting, little brother,' said the Colonel, with
a look that pierced through Kim's shoulder-blades as he scuttled into
the carriage.

It took him nearly five minutes to recover.  Then he sniffed the new
air appreciatively.  'A rich city,' he said.  'Richer than Lahore. How
good the bazars must be!  Coachman, drive me a little through the
bazars here.'

'My order is to take thee to the school.'  The driver used the 'thou',
which is rudeness when applied to a white man.  In the clearest and
most fluent vernacular Kim pointed out his error, climbed on to the
box-seat, and, perfect understanding established, drove for a couple of
hours up and down, estimating, comparing, and enjoying.  There is no
city--except Bombay, the queen of all--more beautiful in her garish
style than Lucknow, whether you see her from the bridge over the river,
or from the top of the Imambara looking down on the gilt umbrellas of
the Chutter Munzil, and the trees in which the town is bedded.  Kings
have adorned her with fantastic buildings, endowed her with charities,
crammed her with pensioners, and drenched her with blood.  She is the
centre of all idleness, intrigue, and luxury, and shares with Delhi the
claim to talk the only pure Urdu.

'A fair city--a beautiful city.'  The driver, as a Lucknow man, was
pleased with the compliment, and told Kim many astounding things where
an English guide would have talked of the Mutiny.

'Now we will go to the school,' said Kim at last.  The great old school
of St Xavier's in Partibus, block on block of low white buildings,
stands in vast grounds over against the Gumti River, at some distance
from the city.

'What like of folk are they within?'  said Kim.

'Young Sahibs--all devils.  But to speak truth, and I drive many of
them to and fro from the railway station, I have never seen one that
had in him the making of a more perfect devil than thou--this young
Sahib whom I am now driving.'

Naturally, for he was never trained to consider them in any way
improper, Kim had passed the time of day with one or two frivolous
ladies at upper windows in a certain street, and naturally, in the
exchange of compliments, had acquitted himself well.  He was about to
acknowledge the driver's last insolence, when his eye--it was growing
dusk--caught a figure sitting by one of the white plaster gate-pillars
in the long sweep of wall.

'Stop!'  he cried.  'Stay here.  I do not go to the school at once.'

'But what is to pay me for this coming and re-coming?'  said the driver
petulantly.  'Is the boy mad?  Last time it was a dancing-girl. This
time it is a priest.'

Kim was in the road headlong, patting the dusty feet beneath the dirty
yellow robe.

'I have waited here a day and a half,' the lama's level voice began.
'Nay, I had a disciple with me.  He that was my friend at the Temple of
the Tirthankars gave me a guide for this journey.  I came from Benares
in the te-rain, when thy letter was given me.  Yes, I am well fed.  I
need nothing.'

'But why didst thou not stay with the Kulu woman, O Holy One?  In what
way didst thou get to Benares?  My heart has been heavy since we
parted.'

'The woman wearied me by constant flux of talk and requiring charms for
children.  I separated myself from that company, permitting her to
acquire merit by gifts.  She is at least a woman of open hands, and I
made a promise to return to her house if need arose.  Then, perceiving
myself alone in this great and terrible world, I bethought me of the
te-rain to Benares, where I knew one abode in the Tirthankars' Temple
who was a Seeker, even as I.'

'Ah!  Thy River,' said Kim.  'I had forgotten the River.'

'So soon, my chela?  I have never forgotten it.  But when I had left
thee it seemed better that I should go to the Temple and take counsel,
for, look you, India is very large, and it may be that wise men before
us, some two or three, have left a record of the place of our River.
There is debate in the Temple of the Tirthankars on this matter; some
saying one thing, and some another.  They are courteous folk.'

'So be it; but what dost thou do now?'

'I acquire merit in that I help thee, my chela, to wisdom.  The priest
of that body of men who serve the Red Bull wrote me that all should be
as I desired for thee.  I sent the money to suffice for one year, and
then I came, as thou seest me, to watch for thee going up into the
Gates of Learning.  A day and a half have I waited, not because I was
led by any affection towards thee--that is no part of the Way--but, as
they said at the Tirthankars' Temple, because, money having been paid
for learning, it was right that I should oversee the end of the matter.
They resolved my doubts most clearly.  I had a fear that, perhaps, I
came because I wished to see thee--misguided by the Red Mist of
affection.  It is not so ... Moreover, I am troubled by a dream.'

'But surely, Holy One, thou hast not forgotten the Road and all that
befell on it.  Surely it was a little to see me that thou didst come?'

'The horses are cold, and it is past their feeding-time,' whined the
driver.

'Go to Jehannum and abide there with thy reputationless aunt!'  Kim
snarled over his shoulder.  'I am all alone in this land; I know not
where I go nor what shall befall me.  My heart was in that letter I
sent thee.  Except for Mahbub Ali, and he is a Pathan, I have no friend
save thee, Holy One.  Do not altogether go away.'

'I have considered that also,' the lama replied, in a shaking voice.
'It is manifest that from time to time I shall acquire merit if before
that I have not found my River--by assuring myself that thy feet are
set on wisdom.  What they will teach thee I do not know, but the priest
wrote me that no son of a Sahib in all India will be better taught than
thou.  So from time to time, therefore, I will come again.  Maybe thou
wilt be such a Sahib as he who gave me these spectacles'--the lama
wiped them elaborately--'in the Wonder House at Lahore.  That is my
hope, for he was a Fountain of Wisdom--wiser than many abbots ....
Again, maybe thou wilt forget me and our meetings.'

'If I eat thy bread,' cried Kim passionately, 'how shall I ever forget
thee?'

'No--no.'  He put the boy aside.  'I must go back to Benares.  From
time to time, now that I know the customs of letter-writers in this
land, I will send thee a letter, and from time to time I will come and
see thee.'

'But whither shall I send my letters?'  wailed Kim, clutching at the
robe, all forgetful that he was a Sahib.

'To the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares.  That is the place I have
chosen till I find my River.  Do not weep; for, look you, all Desire is
Illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel.  Go up to the Gates of
Learning.  Let me see thee go ...  Dost thou love me?  Then go, or my
heart cracks ...  I will come again.  Surely I will come again.

The lama watched the ticca-gharri rumble into the compound, and strode
off, snuffing between each long stride.

'The Gates of Learning' shut with a clang.

The country born and bred boy has his own manners and customs, which do
not resemble those of any other land; and his teachers approach him by
roads which an English master would not understand. Therefore, you
would scarcely be interested in Kim's experiences as a St Xavier's boy
among two or three hundred precocious youths, most of whom had never
seen the sea.  He suffered the usual penalties for breaking out of
bounds when there was cholera in the city.  This was before he had
learned to write fair English, and so was obliged to find a bazar
letter-writer.  He was, of course, indicted for smoking and for the use
of abuse more full-flavoured than even St Xavier's had ever heard.  He
learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the
native-born, who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty.
He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs
in the sleeping-rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights
telling tales till the dawn; and quietly he measured himself against
his self-reliant mates.

They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway, Telegraph, and
Canal Services; of warrant-officers, sometimes retired and sometimes
acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah's army; of captains
of the Indian Marine Government pensioners, planters, Presidency
shopkeepers, and missionaries.  A few were cadets of the old Eurasian
houses that have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah--Pereiras, De
Souzas, and D'Silvas.  Their parents could well have educated them in
England, but they loved the school that had served their own youth, and
generation followed sallow-hued generation at St Xavier's.  Their homes
ranged from Howrah of the railway people to abandoned cantonments like
Monghyr and Chunar; lost tea-gardens Shillong-way; villages where their
fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan; Mission-stations
a week from the nearest railway line; seaports a thousand miles south,
facing the brazen Indian surf; and cinchona-plantations south of all.
The mere story of their adventures, which to them were no adventures,
on their road to and from school would have crisped a Western boy's
hair.  They were used to jogging off alone through a hundred miles of
jungle, where there was always the delightful chance of being delayed
by tigers; but they would no more have bathed in the English Channel in
an English August than their brothers across the world would have lain
still while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin.  There were boys of
fifteen who had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a
flooded river, taking charge, as by right, of a camp of frantic
pilgrims returning from a shrine.  There were seniors who had
requisitioned a chance-met Rajah's elephant, in the name of St Francis
Xavier, when the Rains once blotted out the cart-track that led to
their father's estate, and had all but lost the huge beast in a
quicksand.  There was a boy who, he said, and none doubted, had helped
his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush of Akas in
the days when those head-hunters were bold against lonely plantations.

And every tale was told in the even, passionless voice of the
native-born, mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed unconsciously from
native foster-mothers, and turns of speech that showed they had been
that instant translated from the vernacular.  Kim watched, listened,
and approved.  This was not insipid, single-word talk of drummer-boys.
It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood. The atmosphere
suited him, and he throve by inches.  They gave him a white drill suit
as the weather warmed, and he rejoiced in the new-found bodily comforts
as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over the tasks they set him.
His quickness would have delighted an English master; but at St
Xavier's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and
surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two
or twenty-three.

None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly.  When tales were
told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his reminiscences;
for St Xavier's looks down on boys who 'go native all-together.'  One
must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when
examinations are passed, one will command natives. Kim made a note of
this, for he began to understand where examinations led.

Then came the holidays from August to October--the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the Rains.  Kim was informed that he would go
north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father Victor
would arrange for him.

'A barrack-school?'  said Kim, who had asked many questions and thought
more.

'Yes, I suppose so,' said the master.  'It will not do you any harm to
keep you out of mischief.  You can go up with young De Castro as far as
Delhi.'

Kim considered it in every possible light.  He had been diligent, even
as the Colonel advised.  A boy's holiday was his own property--of so
much the talk of his companions had advised him,--and a barrack-school
would be torment after St Xavier's.  Moreover--this was magic worth
anything else--he could write.  In three months he had discovered how
men can speak to each other without a third party, at the cost of half
an anna and a little knowledge.  No word had come from the lama, but
there remained the Road.  Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud
squishing up between the toes, as his mouth watered for mutton stewed
with butter and cabbages, for rice speckled with strong scented
cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted rice, garlic and onions, and the
forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the bazars.  They would feed him raw
beef on a platter at the barrack-school, and he must smoke by stealth.
But again, he was a Sahib and was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub
Ali ...  No, he would not test Mahbub's hospitality--and yet ...  He
thought it out alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he
had been unjust to Mahbub.

The school was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away; Colonel
Creighton's railway pass lay in his hand, and Kim puffed himself that
he had not spent Colonel Creighton's or Mahbub's money in riotous
living.  He was still lord of two rupees seven annas.  His new
bullock-trunk, marked 'K. O'H.', and bedding-roll lay in the empty
sleeping-room.

'Sahibs are always tied to their baggage,' said Kim, nodding at them.
'You will stay here' He went out into the warm rain, smiling sinfully,
and sought a certain house whose outside he had noted down some time
before...

'Arre'!  Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter? Oh,
shame!'

'Was I born yesterday?'  Kim squatted native-fashion on the cushions of
that upper room.  'A little dyestuff and three yards of cloth to help
out a jest.  Is it much to ask?'

'Who is she?  Thou art full young, as Sahibs go, for this devilry.'

'Oh, she?  She is the daughter of a certain schoolmaster of a regiment
in the cantonments.  He has beaten me twice because I went over their
wall in these clothes.  Now I would go as a gardener's boy.  Old men
are very jealous.'

'That is true.  Hold thy face still while I dab on the juice.'

'Not too black, Naikan.  I would not appear to her as a hubshi
(nigger).'

'Oh, love makes nought of these things.  And how old is she?'

'Twelve years, I think,' said the shameless Kim.  'Spread it also on
the breast.  It may be her father will tear my clothes off me, and if I
am piebald--' he laughed.

The girl worked busily, dabbing a twist of cloth into a little saucer
of brown dye that holds longer than any walnut-juice.

'Now send out and get me a cloth for the turban.  Woe is me, my head is
all unshaved!  And he will surely knock off my turban.'

'I am not a barber, but I will make shift.  Thou wast born to be a
breaker of hearts!  All this disguise for one evening?  Remember, the
stuff does not wash away.'  She shook with laughter till her bracelets
and anklets jingled.  'But who is to pay me for this? Huneefa herself
could not have given thee better stuff.'

'Trust in the Gods, my sister,' said Kim gravely, screwing his face
round as the stain dried.  'Besides, hast thou ever helped to paint a
Sahib thus before?'

'Never indeed.  But a jest is not money.'

'It is worth much more.'

'Child, thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan
that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this play,
and then to say:  "Is not the jest enough?"  Thou wilt go very far in
this world.'  She gave the dancing-girls' salutation in mockery.

'All one.  Make haste and rough-cut my head.'  Kim shifted from foot to
foot, his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days before
him.  He gave the girl four annas, and ran down the stairs in the
likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy--perfect in every detail.  A cookshop
was his next point of call, where he feasted in extravagance and greasy
luxury.

On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro, all covered
with prickly-heat, get into a second-class compartment.  Kim patronized
a third, and was the life and soul of it.  He explained to the company
that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with
fever, and that he would pick up his master at Umballa.  As the
occupants of the carriage changed, he varied this tale, or adorned it
with all the shoots of a budding fancy, the more rampant for being held
off native speech so long.  In all India that night was no human being
so joyful as Kim.  At Umballa he got out and headed eastward, plashing
over the sodden fields to the village where the old soldier lived.

About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from Lucknow by
wire that young O'Hara had disappeared.  Mahbub Ali was in town selling
horses, and to him the Colonel confided the affair one morning
cantering round Annandale racecourse.

'Oh, that is nothing,' said the horse-dealer.  'Men are like horses. At
certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers
they will lick it up from the earth.  He has gone back to the Road
again for a while.  The madrissak wearied him.  I knew it would.
Another time, I will take him upon the Road myself.  Do not be
troubled, Creighton Sahib.  It is as though a polo-pony, breaking
loose, ran out to learn the game alone.'

'Then he is not dead, think you?'

'Fever might kill him.  I do not fear for the boy otherwise.  A monkey
does not fall among trees.'

Next morning, on the same course, Mahbub's stallion ranged alongside
the Colonel.

'It is as I had thought,' said the horse-dealer.  'He has come through
Umballa at least, and there he has written a letter to me, having
learned in the bazar that I was here.'

'Read,' said the Colonel, with a sigh of relief.  It was absurd that a
man of his position should take an interest in a little country-bred
vagabond; but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the train, and
often in the past few months had caught himself thinking of the queer,
silent, self-possessed boy.  His evasion, of course, was the height of
insolence, but it argued some resource and nerve.

Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the cramped
little plain, where none could come near unseen.

'"The Friend of the Stars, who is the Friend of all the World--"'

'What is this?'

'A name we give him in Lahore city.  "The Friend of all the World takes
leave to go to his own places.  He will come back upon the appointed
day.  Let the box and the bedding-roll be sent for; and if there has
been a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the Whip of
Calamity."  There is yet a little more, but--'

'No matter, read.'

'"Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks.  It is
better to eat with both hands for a while.  Speak soft words to those
who do not understand this that the return may be propitious."  Now the
manner in which that was cast is, of course, the work of the
letter-writer, but see how wisely the boy has devised the matter of it
so that no hint is given except to those who know!'

'Is this the Hand of Friendship to avert the Whip of Calamity?' laughed
the Colonel.

'See how wise is the boy.  He would go back to the Road again, as I
said.  Not knowing yet thy trade--'

'I am not at all sure of that,' the Colonel muttered.

'He turns to me to make a peace between you.  Is he not wise?  He says
he will return.  He is but perfecting his knowledge.  Think, Sahib!  He
has been three months at the school.  And he is not mouthed to that
bit.  For my part, I rejoice.  The pony learns the game.'

'Ay, but another time he must not go alone.'

'Why?  He went alone before he came under the Colonel Sahib's
protection.  When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone--alone,
and at peril of his head.  Then, if he spits, or sneezes, or sits down
other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain.  Why
hinder him now?  Remember how the Persians say:  The jackal that lives
in the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by the hounds of
Mazanderan.'

'True.  It is true, Mahbub Ali.  And if he comes to no harm, I do not
desire anything better.  But it is great insolence on his part.'

'He does not tell me, even, whither he goes,' said Mahbub.  'He is no
fool.  When his time is accomplished he will come to me.  It is time
the healer of pearls took him in hand.  He ripens too quickly--as
Sahibs reckon.'

This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter a month later.  Mahbub had
gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh consignment of horses, and Kim
met him on the Kalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms of him,
was sworn at, and replied in English.  There was nobody within earshot
to hear Mahbub's gasp of amazement.

'Oho!  And where hast thou been?'

'Up and down--down and up.'

'Come under a tree, out of the wet, and tell.'

'I stayed for a while with an old man near Umballa; anon with a
household of my acquaintance in Umballa.  With one of these I went as
far as Delhi to the southward.  That is a wondrous city.  Then I drove
a bullock for a teli [an oilman] coming north; but I heard of a great
feast forward in Patiala, and thither went I in the company of a
firework-maker.  It was a great feast' (Kim rubbed his stomach).  'I
saw Rajahs, and elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they lit
all the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men were killed, my
fire-work-maker among them, and I was blown across a tent but took no
harm.  Then I came back to the rel with a Sikh horseman, to whom I was
groom for my bread; and so here.'

'Shabash!'  said Mahbub Ali.

'But what does the Colonel Sahib say?  I do not wish to be beaten.'

'The Hand of Friendship has averted the Whip of Calamity; but another
time, when thou takest the Road it will be with me.  This is too early.'

'Late enough for me.  I have learned to read and to write English a
little at the madrissah.  I shall soon be altogether a Sahib.'

'Hear him!'  laughed Mahbub, looking at the little drenched figure
dancing in the wet.  'Salaam--Sahib,' and he saluted ironically.

'Well, art tired of the Road, or wilt thou come on to Umballa with me
and work back with the horses?'

'I come with thee, Mahbub Ali.'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Kim dictates another letter, this time to the lama. He tells the lama where he will be going to school in Lucknow. Colonel Creighton spots Kim talking to this letter writer at the marketplace, and he asks Kim to bring him his "cheroot-case " , which he left on a table at Father Victor's, this evening. Kim asks where Creighton's house is, and Creighton says that he can find it by asking at the market. But here's the thing: we know that Kim knows where Creighton's house is. He delivered Mahbub Ali's message there just five chapters ago. Kim is hiding what he knows because that's his habit, and Creighton approves of his secrecy. Once Kim gets to Father Victor's house, he realizes he can't find the cheroot-case anywhere. Kim is thrilled: Creighton is playing a game with him, a game of hidden knowledge. After three days, Father Victor takes Kim to the train station for the trip south to Lucknow. Kim and Creighton are sharing the same train, and they have several long conversations. Creighton advises Kim not to let St. Xavier's change him too much, and encourages Kim to keep up his sympathy and interest in local cultures, in spite of school. Once they arrive in Lucknow, Kim is sad not to see the lama. But he is excited to be in a new city. The driver of Kim's carriage takes him on a little tour of the city. As they head to Kim's new school, Kim spots a familiar figure: the lama. The lama tells Kim that he really just couldn't stand to be around the Kulu woman and her endless demands for charms for grandchildren anymore, so the lama took the train south. He is currently studying sacred manuscripts in Benares, looking for notes about the River of the Arrow. Kim wants the lama to stay and live in Lucknow, but the lama won't. The lama promises to send letters and to visit sometimes, but he is being quite cold to Kim; he doesn't want to grow too attached to worldly things--or to people--on his quest for the River. Kim is bummed out--he misses the lama, and the lama doesn't seem to feel the same way. But as Kim enters the gates of St. Xavier's, the lama promises that he will come back to Lucknow soon. Actually, Kim's school experience at St. Xavier's is pretty great. Even though they are all of European descent, most of the students have been born in India and are used to living there; thankfully they aren't as boring as the regiment's stupid drummer-boy, who kept thinking about England all the time . And then, when the summer holidays come, Kim more or less has the run of the place. Most of the kids have gone home to their families, but Kim sticks around St. Xavier's. He sneaks off to a prostitute to get her help in dressing himself up as an Indian boy, telling her a tall tale about needing the disguise to seduce a local girl without freaking out her father. In his costume as a Hindu boy, Kim travels to Umballa by train and then goes to the village where the old soldier lives. Creighton is currently in Simla , and he gets a telegram from the school saying that Kim has up and disappeared. Mahbub Ali tells Creighton not to worry--Kim is just feeling his oats. In fact, Kim has already written a letter to Mahbub Ali from Umballa promising that he'll go back to school when the fall term starts; he just wants to get away from that life for a while. Creighton continues to worry about Kim being off on his own, but Mahbub Ali promises that it will all be fine. After a month, Mahbub Ali runs into Kim begging on the road near Umballa. Kim has been having a grand old time, obviously. Still, the next time Kim feels the need to get moving, Mahbub Ali wants to go along, too--Kim is still a little young for this whole disappearing business.


prompt:
Chapter: Something I owe to the soil that grew--
  More to the life that fed--
  But most to Allah Who gave me two
  Separate sides to my head.

  I would go without shirts or shoes,
  Friends, tobacco or bread
  Sooner than for an instant lose
  Either side of my head.'

  The Two-Sided Man.

'Then in God's name take blue for red,' said Mahbub, alluding to the
Hindu colour of Kim's disreputable turban.

Kim countered with the old proverb, 'I will change my faith and my
bedding, but thou must pay for it.'

The dealer laughed till he nearly fell from his horse.  At a shop on
the outskirts of the city the change was made, and Kim stood up,
externally at least, a Mohammedan.

Mahbub hired a room over against the railway station, sent for a cooked
meal of the finest with the almond-curd sweet-meats [balushai we call
it] and fine-chopped Lucknow tobacco.

'This is better than some other meat that I ate with the Sikh,' said
Kim, grinning as he squatted, 'and assuredly they give no such victuals
at my madrissah.'

'I have a desire to hear of that same madrissah.'  Mahbub stuffed
himself with great boluses of spiced mutton fried in fat with cabbage
and golden-brown onions.  'But tell me first, altogether and
truthfully, the manner of thy escape.  For, O Friend of all the
World,'--he loosed his cracking belt--'I do not think it is often that
a Sahib and the son of a Sahib runs away from there.'

'How should they?  They do not know the land.  It was nothing,' said
Kim, and began his tale.  When he came to the disguisement and the
interview with the girl in the bazar, Mahbub Ali's gravity went from
him.  He laughed aloud and beat his hand on his thigh.

'Shabash!  Shabash!  Oh, well done, little one!  What will the healer
of turquoises say to this?  Now, slowly, let us hear what befell
afterwards--step by step, omitting nothing.'

Step by step then, Kim told his adventures between coughs as the
full-flavoured tobacco caught his lungs.

'I said,' growled Mahbub Ali to himself, 'I said it was the pony
breaking out to play polo.  The fruit is ripe already--except that he
must learn his distances and his pacings, and his rods and his
compasses.  Listen now.  I have turned aside the Colonel's whip from
thy skin, and that is no small service.'

'True.'  Kim pulled serenely.  'That is true.'

'But it is not to be thought that this running out and in is any way
good.'

'It was my holiday, Hajji.  I was a slave for many weeks.  Why should I
not run away when the school was shut?  Look, too, how I, living upon
my friends or working for my bread, as I did with the Sikh, have saved
the Colonel Sahib a great expense.'

Mahbub's lips twitched under his well-pruned Mohammedan moustache.

'What are a few rupees'--the Pathan threw out his open hand
carelessly--'to the Colonel Sahib?  He spends them for a purpose, not
in any way for love of thee.'

'That,' said Kim slowly, 'I knew a very long time ago.'

'Who told?'

'The Colonel Sahib himself.  Not in those many words, but plainly
enough for one who is not altogether a mud-head.  Yea, he told me in
the te-rain when we went down to Lucknow.'

'Be it so.  Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World, though
in the telling I lend thee my head.'

'It was forfeit to me,' said Kim, with deep relish, 'in Umballa, when
thou didst pick me up on the horse after the drummer-boy beat me.'

'Speak a little plainer.  All the world may tell lies save thou and I.
For equally is thy life forfeit to me if I chose to raise my finger
here.'

'And this is known to me also,' said Kim, readjusting the live
charcoal-ball on the weed.  'It is a very sure tie between us. Indeed,
thy hold is surer even than mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to
death, or, it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Most people
here and in Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would, on the
other hand, say:  "What has come to Mahbub Ali?" if he were found dead
among his horses.  Surely, too, the Colonel Sahib would make inquiries.
But again,'--Kim's face puckered with cunning,--'he would not make
overlong inquiry, lest people should ask:  "What has this Colonel Sahib
to do with that horse-dealer?" But I--if I lived--'

'As thou wouldst surely die--'

'Maybe; but I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, would know that one had
come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to Mahbub Ali's bulkhead in
the serai, and there had slain him, either before or after that thief
had made a full search into his saddlebags and between the soles of his
slippers.  Is that news to tell to the Colonel, or would he say to
me--(I have not forgotten when he sent me back for a cigar-case that he
had not left behind him)--"What is Mahbub Ali to me?"?'

Up went a gout of heavy smoke.  There was a long pause:  then Mahbub
Ali spoke in admiration:  'And with these things on thy mind, dost thou
lie down and rise again among all the Sahibs' little sons at the
madrissah and meekly take instruction from thy teachers?'

'It is an order,' said Kim blandly.  'Who am I to dispute an order?'

'A most finished Son of Eblis,' said Mahbub Ali.  'But what is this
tale of the thief and the search?'

'That which I saw,' said Kim, 'the night that my lama and I lay next
thy place in the Kashmir Seral.  The door was left unlocked, which I
think is not thy custom, Mahbub.  He came in as one assured that thou
wouldst not soon return.  My eye was against a knot-hole in the plank.
He searched as it were for something--not a rug, not stirrups, nor a
bridle, nor brass pots--something little and most carefully hid.  Else
why did he prick with an iron between the soles of thy slippers?'

'Ha!'  Mahbub Ali smiled gently.  'And seeing these things, what tale
didst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the Truth?'

'None.  I put my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my
skin, and, remembering the pedigree of a white stallion that I had
bitten out of a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa
perceiving that a heavy trust was laid upon me.  At that hour, had I
chosen, thy head was forfeit.  It needed only to say to that man, "I
have here a paper concerning a horse which I cannot read."  And then?'
Kim peered at Mahbub under his eyebrows.

'Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice--perhaps thrice, afterwards.
I do not think more than thrice,' said Mahbub simply.

'It is true.  I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I
loved thee, Mahbub.  Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but
(and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see what
Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion's
pedigree.'

'And what did he?'  for Kim had bitten off the conversation.

'Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?'  Kim asked.

'I sell and--I buy.'  Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and
held it up.

'Eight!'  said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the
East.

Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin.  'It is too easy to deal in that
market, Friend of all the World.  Tell me for love.  Our lives lie in
each other's hand.'

'Very good.  I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief] come
to a big dinner.  I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office.  I saw the two
read the white stallion's pedigree.  I heard the very orders given for
the opening of a great war.'

'Hah!'  Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire.  'The game is well
played.  That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the
flower--thanks to me--and thee.  What didst thou later?'

'I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among
the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama.  But I bore
away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing.  So next
morning he was angry.  Ho!  Ho!  And I also used the news when I fell
into the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!'

'That was foolishness.'  Mahbub scowled.  'News is not meant to be
thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly--like bhang.'

'So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good.  But that was
very long ago,' he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown
hand--'and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at
the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'

'Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought might have
led?'  said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet
beard.

'It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone.  'They say
at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a
fault.'

Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a 'black man'
[kala admi] is a blood-insult.  Then he remembered and laughed. 'Speak,
Sahib.  Thy black man hears.'

'But,' said Kim, 'I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse
thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed
by a Pathan.  I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished
to kill that low-caste drummer-boy.  I say now, Hajji, that it was well
done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service.  I will
stay in the madrissah till I am ripe.'

'Well said.  Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of
using compasses to be learned in that game.  One waits in the Hills
above to show thee.'

'I will learn their teaching upon a condition--that my time is given to
me without question when the madrissah is shut.  Ask that for me of the
Colonel.'

'But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs' tongue?'

'The Colonel is the servant of the Government.  He is sent hither and
yon at a word, and must consider his own advancement.  (See how much I
have already learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since
three months only.  I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years.  So!  To
the madrissah I will go.  At the madrissah I will learn.  In the
madrissah I will be a Sahib.  But when the madrissah is shut, then must
I be free and go among my people.  Otherwise I die!'

'And who are thy people, Friend of all the World?'

'This great and beautiful land,' said Kim, waving his paw round the
little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned heavily
through the tobacco-smoke.  'And, further, I would see my lama again.
And, further, I need money.'

'That is the need of everyone,' said Mahbub ruefully.  'I will give
thee eight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses' hooves,
and it must suffice for many days.  As to all the rest, I am well
pleased, and no further talk is needed.  Make haste to learn, and in
three years, or it may be less, thou wilt be an aid--even to me.'

'Have I been such a hindrance till now?'  said Kim, with a boy's giggle.

'Do not give answers,' Mahbub grunted.  'Thou art my new horse-boy. Go
and bed among my men.  They are near the north end of the station, with
the horses.'

'They will beat me to the south end of the station if I come without
authority.'

Mahbub felt in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese ink, and
dabbed the impression on a piece of soft native paper.  From Balkh to
Bombay men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar running
diagonally across it.

'That is enough to show my headman.  I come in the morning.'

'By which road?'  said Kim.

'By the road from the city.  There is but one, and then we return to
Creighton Sahib.  I have saved thee a beating.'

'Allah!  What is a beating when the very head is loose on the
shoulders?'

Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house,
keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a mile
or so.  Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at leisure, for
he needed time to invent a story if any of Mahbub's retainers asked
questions.

They were camped on a piece of waste ground beside the railway, and,
being natives, had not, of course, unloaded the two trucks in which
Mahbub's animals stood among a consignment of country-breds bought by
the Bombay tram-company.  The headman, a broken-down,
consumptive-looking Mohammedan, promptly challenged Kim, but was
pacified at sight of Mahbub's sign-manual.

'The Hajji has of his favour given me service,' said Kim testily. 'If
this be doubted, wait till he comes in the morning.  Meantime, a place
by the fire.'

Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must
raise on every occasion.  It died down, and Kim lay out behind the
little knot of Mahbub's followers, almost under the wheels of a
horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering.  Now a bed among
brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded
horses and unwashed Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but
Kim was utterly happy.  Change of scene, service, and surroundings were
the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots
of St Xavier's all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as the
repetition of the multiplication-table in English.

'I am very old,' he thought sleepily.  'Every month I become a year
more old.  I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub's
message to Umballa.  Even when I was with that white Regiment I was
very young and small and had no wisdom.  But now I learn every day, and
in three years the Colonel will take me out of the madrissah and let me
go upon the Road with Mahbub hunting for horses' pedigrees, or maybe I
shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with him.
Yes; that is best.  To walk again as a chela with my lama when he comes
back to Benares.'

The thoughts came more slowly and disconnectedly.  He was plunging into
a beautiful dreamland when his ears caught a whisper, thin and sharp,
above the monotonous babble round the fire.  It came from behind the
iron-skinned horse-truck.

'He is not here, then?'

'Where should he be but roystering in the city.  Who looks for a rat in
a frog-pond?  Come away.  He is not our man.'

'He must not go back beyond the Passes a second time.  It is the order.'

'Hire some woman to drug him.  It is a few rupees only, and there is no
evidence.'

'Except the woman.  It must be more certain; and remember the price
upon his head.'

'Ay, but the police have a long arm, and we are far from the Border.
If it were in Peshawur, now!'

'Yes--in Peshawur,' the second voice sneered.  'Peshawur, full of his
blood-kin--full of bolt-holes and women behind whose clothes he will
hide.  Yes, Peshawur or Jehannum would suit us equally well.'

'Then what is the plan?'

'O fool, have I not told it a hundred times?  Wait till he comes to lie
down, and then one sure shot.  The trucks are between us and pursuit.
We have but to run back over the lines and go our way. They will not
see whence the shot came.  Wait here at least till the dawn.  What
manner of fakir art thou, to shiver at a little watching?'

'Oho!'  thought Kim, behind close-shut eyes.  'Once again it is Mahbub.
Indeed a white stallion's pedigree is not a good thing to peddle to
Sahibs!  Or maybe Mahbub has been selling other news.  Now what is to
do, Kim?  I know not where Mahbub houses, and if he comes here before
the dawn they will shoot him.  That would be no profit for thee, Kim.
And this is not a matter for the police.  That would be no profit for
Mahbub; and'--he giggled almost aloud--'I do not remember any lesson at
Nucklao which will help me.  Allah!  Here is Kim and yonder are they.
First, then, Kim must wake and go away, so that they shall not suspect.
A bad dream wakes a man--thus--'

He threw the blanket off his face, and raised himself suddenly with the
terrible, bubbling, meaningless yell of the Asiatic roused by nightmare.

'Urr-urr-urr-urr!  Ya-la-la-la-la!  Narain!  The churel!  The churel!'

A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in
child-bed.  She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on
the ankles, and she leads men to torment.

Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his feet
and staggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for waking them.
Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down again, taking care
that the whisperers should hear his grunts and groans as he recomposed
himself.  After a few minutes he rolled towards the road and stole away
into the thick darkness.

He paddled along swiftly till he came to a culvert, and dropped behind
it, his chin on a level with the coping-stone.  Here he could command
all the night-traffic, himself unseen.

Two or three carts passed, jingling out to the suburbs; a coughing
policeman and a hurrying foot-passenger or two who sang to keep off
evil spirits.  Then rapped the shod feet of a horse.

'Ah!  This is more like Mahbub,' thought Kim, as the beast shied at the
little head above the culvert.

'Ohe', Mahbub Ali,' he whispered, 'have a care!'

The horse was reined back almost on its haunches, and forced towards
the culvert.

'Never again,' said Mahbub, 'will I take a shod horse for night-work.
They pick up all the bones and nails in the city.'  He stooped to lift
its forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of Kim's.

'Down--keep down,' he muttered.  'The night is full of eyes.'

'Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks.  They will shoot thee
at thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head.  I heard,
sleeping near the horses.'

'Didst thou see them?  ...  Hold still, Sire of Devils!'  This
furiously to the horse.

'No.'

'Was one dressed belike as a fakir?'

'One said to the other, "What manner of fakir art thou, to shiver at a
little watching?"'

'Good.  Go back to the camp and lie down.  I do not die tonight.'

Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished.  Kim tore back down the ditch
till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped
across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled himself in the blanket.

'At least Mahbub knows,' he thought contentedly.  'And certainly he
spoke as one expecting it.  I do not think those two men will profit by
tonight's watch.'

An hour passed, and, with the best will in the world to keep awake all
night, he slept deeply.  Now and again a night train roared along the
metals within twenty feet of him; but he had all the Oriental's
indifference to mere noise, and it did not even weave a dream through
his slumber.

Mahbub was anything but asleep.  It annoyed him vehemently that people
outside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should pursue him
for the life.  His first and natural impulse was to cross the line
lower down, work up again, and, catching his well-wishers from behind,
summarily slay them.  Here, he reflected with sorrow, another branch of
the Government, totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton, might
demand explanations which would be hard to supply; and he knew that
south of the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse
or so.  He had not been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to
Umballa with the message, and hoped that suspicion had been finally
diverted.

Then a most brilliant notion struck him.

'The English do eternally tell the truth,' he said, 'therefore we of
this country are eternally made foolish.  By Allah, I will tell the
truth to an Englishman!  Of what use is the Government police if a poor
Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks.  This is as bad as
Peshawur!  I should lay a complaint at the station.  Better still, some
young Sahib on the Railway!  They are zealous, and if they catch
thieves it is remembered to their honour.'

He tied up his horse outside the station, and strode on to the platform.

'Hullo, Mahbub Ali' said a young Assistant District Traffic
Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line--a tall, tow-haired,
horsey youth in dingy white linen.  'What are you doing here?  Selling
weeds--eh?'

'No; I am not troubled for my horses.  I come to look for Lutuf Ullah.
I have a truck-load up the line.  Could anyone take them out without
the Railway's knowledge?'

'Shouldn't think so, Mahbub.  You can claim against us if they do.'

'I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucks
nearly all night.  Fakirs do not steal horses, so I gave them no more
thought.  I would find Lutuf Ullah, my partner.'

'The deuce you did?  And you didn't bother your head about it?  'Pon my
word, it's just almost as well that I met you.  What were they like,
eh?'

'They were only fakirs.  They will no more than take a little grain,
perhaps, from one of the trucks.  There are many up the line.  The
State will never miss the dole.  I came here seeking for my partner,
Lutuf Ullah.'

'Never mind your partner.  Where are your horse-trucks?'

'A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps for
the trains.'--

'The signal-box!  Yes.'

'And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand
side--looking up the line thus.  But as regards Lutuf Ullah--a tall man
with a broken nose, and a Persian greyhound Aie!'

The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic policeman;
for, as he said, the Railway had suffered much from depredations in the
goods-yard.  Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard.

'They will walk in their boots, making a noise, and then they will
wonder why there are no fakirs.  They are very clever boys--Barton
Sahib and Young Sahib.'

He waited idly for a few minutes, expecting to see them hurry up the
line girt for action.  A light engine slid through the station, and he
caught a glimpse of young Barton in the cab.

'I did that child an injustice.  He is not altogether a fool,' said
Mahbub Ali.  'To take a fire-carriage for a thief is a new game!'

When Mahbub Ali came to his camp in the dawn, no one thought it worth
while to tell him any news of the night.  No one, at least, but one
small horseboy, newly advanced to the great man's service, whom Mahbub
called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing.

'It is all known to me,' whispered Kim, bending above saddlebags. 'Two
Sahibs came up on a te-train.  I was running to and fro in the dark on
this side of the trucks as the te-train moved up and down slowly.  They
fell upon two men sitting under this truck--Hajji, what shall I do with
this lump of tobacco?  Wrap it in paper and put it under the salt-bag?
Yes--and struck them down.  But one man struck at a Sahib with a
fakir's buck's horn' (Kim meant the conjoined black-buck horns, which
are a fakir's sole temporal weapon)--'the blood came.  So the other
Sahib, first smiting his own man senseless, smote the stabber with a
short gun which had rolled from the first man's hand.  They all raged
as though mad together.'

Mahbub smiled with heavenly resignation.  'No!  That is not so much
dewanee [madness, or a case for the civil court--the word can be punned
upon both ways] as nizamut [a criminal case].  A gun, sayest thou?  Ten
good years in jail.'

'Then they both lay still, but I think they were nearly dead when they
were put on the te-train.  Their heads moved thus.  And there is much
blood on the line.  Come and see?'

'I have seen blood before.  Jail is the sure place--and assuredly they
will give false names, and assuredly no man will find them for a long
time.  They were unfriends of mine.  Thy fate and mine seem on one
string.  What a tale for the healer of pearls!  Now swiftly with the
saddle-bags and the cooking-platter.  We will take out the horses and
away to Simla.'

Swiftly--as Orientals understand speed--with long explanations, with
abuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a hundred checks for little
things forgotten, the untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen stiff
and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the rain-swept
dawn.  Kim, regarded as Mahbub Ali's favourite by all who wished to
stand well with the Pathan, was not called upon to work.  They strolled
on by the easiest of stages, halting every few hours at a wayside
shelter.  Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka road; and, as Mahbub
Ali says, every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a judge of a
horse, and, though he be over head in debt to the money-lender, must
make as if to buy.  That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib, rolling
along in a stage-carriage, would stop and open talk.  Some would even
descend from their vehicles and feel the horses' legs; asking inane
questions, or, through sheer ignorance of the vernacular, grossly
insulting the imperturbable trader.

'When first I dealt with Sahibs, and that was when Colonel Soady Sahib
was Governor of Fort Abazai and flooded the Commissioner's
camping-ground for spite,' Mahbub confided to Kim as the boy filled his
pipe under a tree, 'I did not know how greatly they were fools, and
this made me wroth.  As thus--,' and he told Kim a tale of an
expression, misused in all innocence, that doubled Kim up with mirth.
'Now I see, however,'--he exhaled smoke slowly--'that it is with them
as with all men--in certain matters they are wise, and in others most
foolish.  Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for
though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know
that?  He is more like to search truth with a dagger.'

'True.  True talk,' said Kim solemnly.  'Fools speak of a cat when a
woman is brought to bed, for instance.  I have heard them.'

'Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particularly behoves thee to
remember this with both kinds of faces.  Among Sahibs, never forgetting
thou art a Sahib; among the folk of Hind, always remembering thou
art--' He paused, with a puzzled smile.

'What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist?  That is a hard knot.'

'Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be
damned.  So says my Law--or I think it does.  But thou art also my
Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee.  So says my heart.
This matter of creeds is like horseflesh.  The wise man knows horses
are good--that there is a profit to be made from all; and for
myself--but that I am a good Sunni and hate the men of Tirah--I could
believe the same of all the Faiths.  Now manifestly a Kathiawar mare
taken from the sands of her birthplace and removed to the west of
Bengal founders--nor is even a Balkh stallion (and there are no better
horses than those of Balkh, were they not so heavy in the shoulder) of
any account in the great Northern deserts beside the snow-camels I have
seen.  Therefore I say in my heart the Faiths are like the horses.
Each has merit in its own country.'

'But my lama said altogether a different thing.'

'Oh, he is an old dreamer of dreams from Bhotiyal.  My heart is a
little angry, Friend of all the World, that thou shouldst see such
worth in a man so little known.'

'It is true, Hajji; but that worth do I see, and to him my heart is
drawn.'

'And his to thine, I hear.  Hearts are like horses.  They come and they
go against bit or spur.  Shout Gul Sher Khan yonder to drive in that
bay stallion's pickets more firmly.  We do not want a horse-fight at
every resting-stage, and the dun and the black will be locked in a
little ...  Now hear me.  Is it necessary to the comfort of thy heart
to see that lama?'

'It is one part of my bond,' said Kim.  'If I do not see him, and if he
is taken from me, I will go out of that madrissah in Nucklao and,
and--once gone, who is to find me again?'

'It is true.  Never was colt held on a lighter heel-rope than thou.'
Mahbub nodded his head.

'Do not be afraid.'  Kim spoke as though he could have vanished on the
moment.  'My lama has said that he will come to see me at the
madrissah--'

'A beggar and his bowl in the presence of those young Sa--'

'Not all!'  Kim cut in with a snort.  'Their eyes are blued and their
nails are blackened with low-caste blood, many of them.  Sons of
mehteranees--brothers-in-law to the bhungi [sweeper].'

We need not follow the rest of the pedigree; but Kim made his little
point clearly and without heat, chewing a piece of sugar-cane the while.

'Friend of all the World,' said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe for the
boy to clean, 'I have met many men, women, and boys, and not a few
Sahibs.  I have never in all my days met such an imp as thou art.'

'And why?  When I always tell thee the truth.'

'Perhaps the very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest men.'
Mahbub Ali hauled himself off the ground, girt in his belt, and went
over to the horses.

'Or sell it?'

There was that in the tone that made Mahbub halt and turn.  'What new
devilry?'

'Eight annas, and I will tell,' said Kim, grinning.  'It touches thy
peace.'

'O Shaitan!'  Mahbub gave the money.

'Rememberest thou the little business of the thieves in the dark, down
yonder at Umballa?'

'Seeing they sought my life, I have not altogether forgotten.  Why?'

'Rememberest thou the Kashmir Serai?'

'I will twist thy ears in a moment--Sahib.'

'No need--Pathan.  Only, the second fakir, whom the Sahibs beat
senseless, was the man who came to search thy bulkhead at Lahore.  I
saw his face as they helped him on the engine.  The very same man.'

'Why didst thou not tell before?'

'Oh, he will go to jail, and be safe for some years.  There is no need
to tell more than is necessary at any one time.  Besides, I did not
then need money for sweetmeats.'

'Allah kerim!'  said Mahbub Ah.  'Wilt thou some day sell my head for a
few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee?'

Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from Umballa,
through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by, up to Simla.  A sudden
spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse (the most valuable, be
sure), and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders.  Farther up
the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant, and being
in high condition of grass food, it cost a day and a half to get them
together again.  Then they met Sikandar Khan coming down with a few
unsaleable screws--remnants of his string--and Mahbub, who has more of
horse-coping in his little fingernail than Sikandar Khan in all his
tents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that meant eight hours'
laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco.  But it was all pure
delight--the wandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the
growing spurs; the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows;
the branched cacti, tier upon tier on the stony hillsides; the voices
of a thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys; the solemn
deodars, climbing one after another with down-drooped branches; the
vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging
of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga
swung round a curve; the halts for prayers (Mahbub was very religious
in dry-washings and bellowings when time did not press); the evening
conferences by the halting-places, when camels and bullocks chewed
solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the news of the Road--all
these things lifted Kim's heart to song within him.

'But, when the singing and dancing is done,' said Mahbub Ali, 'comes
the Colonel Sahib's, and that is not so sweet.'

'A fair land--a most beautiful land is this of Hind--and the land of
the Five Rivers is fairer than all,' Kim half chanted.  'Into it I will
go again if Mahbub Ali or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me.
Once gone, who shall find me?  Look, Hajji, is yonder the city of
Simla?  Allah, what a city!'

'My father's brother, and he was an old man when Mackerson Sahib's well
was new at Peshawur, could recall when there were but two houses in it.'

He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar--the
crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the Town Hall
at an angle of forty-five.  A man who knows his way there can defy all
the police of India's summer capital, so cunningly does veranda
communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with
bolt-hole.  Here live those who minister to the wants of the glad
city--jhampanis who pull the pretty ladies' 'rickshaws by night and
gamble till the dawn; grocers, oil-sellers, curio-vendors,
firewood-dealers, priests, pickpockets, and native employees of the
Government.  Here are discussed by courtesans the things which are
supposed to be profoundest secrets of the India Council; and here
gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the Native States.  Here, too,
Mahbub Ali rented a room, much more securely locked than his bulkhead
at Lahore, in the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer.  It was a place
of miracles, too, for there went in at twilight a Mohammedan horseboy,
and there came out an hour later a Eurasian lad--the Lucknow girl's dye
was of the best--in badly-fitting shop-clothes.

'I have spoken with Creighton Sahib,' quoth Mahbub Ali, 'and a second
time has the Hand of Friendship averted the Whip of Calamity.  He says
that thou hast altogether wasted sixty days upon the Road, and it is
too late, therefore, to send thee to any Hill-school.'

'I have said that my holidays are my own.  I do not go to school twice
over.  That is one part of my bond.'

'The Colonel Sahib is not yet aware of that contract.  Thou art to
lodge in Lurgan Sahib's house till it is time to go again to Nucklao.'

'I had sooner lodge with thee, Mahbub.'

'Thou dost not know the honour.  Lurgan Sahib himself asked for thee.
Thou wilt go up the hill and along the road atop, and there thou must
forget for a while that thou hast ever seen or spoken to me, Mahbub
Ali, who sells horses to Creighton Sahib, whom thou dost not know.
Remember this order.'

Kim nodded.  'Good,' said he, 'and who is Lurgan Sahib?  Nay'--he
caught Mahbub's sword-keen glance--'indeed I have never heard his name.
Is he by chance--he lowered his voice--'one of us?'

'What talk is this of us, Sahib?'  Mahbub Ali returned, in the tone he
used towards Europeans.  'I am a Pathan; thou art a Sahib and the son
of a Sahib.  Lurgan Sahib has a shop among the European shops. All
Simla knows it.  Ask there ...  and, Friend of all the World, he is one
to be obeyed to the last wink of his eyelashes.  Men say he does magic,
but that should not touch thee.  Go up the hill and ask. Here begins
the Great Game.'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Mahbub Ali wants to know all about Kim's escape from St. Xavier's, and lets slip that Creighton has been spending money on Kim because he has a plan in mind. Kim knows all of this already--he knows that Creighton has some kind of job for him. Kim finally tells Mahbub Ali all about that night in Umballa with the message--about seeing the thieves searching Mahbub Ali's drunken, passed out body for the message and about going to Creighton's house to deliver Mahbub Ali's news. Mahbub Ali agrees that both he and Kim owe each other their lives. And Kim finally admits that Mahbub Ali made the right decision in leaving Kim at the school. Kim is willing to stay at St. Xavier's until he is ready for whatever job Creighton is planning for him. Kim spends the night among the servants pretending to a horseman employed by Mahbub Ali, and as he drifts off to sleep, he overhears two people planning to try and kill Mahbub Ali. Kim pretends to wake up with a loud nightmare. Everyone in the camp tells him to shut up, and he slips away. He finds Mahbub Ali preparing to leave, and warns him that there are two men waiting to shoot him. Mahbub Ali sends Kim off to lie down; he is prepared. Mahbub Ali decides to use English justice to get what he wants, so he goes to a local official and plays dumb, dropping hints about two men hiding under a truck who maybe want to steal something. Mahbub Ali spots the local official and his friend Young in a fire engine heading off to surprise the hiding men. Later, Kim tells Mahbub Ali about two Englishmen who got into a fight with these two disguised assassins. One of the assassins drew a gun, but they were both knocked unconscious by the Englishmen. Mahbub Ali figures that they'll each get about ten years in prison. As Kim travels with Mahbub Ali's people to Simla, Mahbub Ali praises him for realizing that it is important to know the right thing to say to each person. Kim's great talent is that he can be a Sahib among Sahibs, but he can also join in equally well with Indians of all faiths. For a small bribe, Kim tells Mahbub Ali that the second assassin was the same man who searched Mahbub Ali back in Umballa in Chapter 3. Mahbub Ali asks why Kim didn't tell him this before. Kim didn't need to tell him, because the man's going to jail anyway. Also, he didn't need money for sweets then. Mahbub Ali isn't super pleased, but he now realizes that Kim always has a price. Once again Kim is happy as a clam traveling along the roads of India. He and Mahbub Ali wind up in Simla . Mahbub Ali comes to Kim with a message from Creighton. Creighton's mad that Kim spent sixty days out on the road, when he could have been going to a local school. However, Kim is in luck. A local legend named Lurgan Sahib is in town. This man is rumored to be able to do magic, and he has invited Kim to stay with him in Simla until the term starts again in Lucknow.