Chapter: O ye who tread the Narrow Way
  By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
  Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
  To Buddha at Kamakura!

  Buddha at Kamakura.


He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on
her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher--the Wonder House, as
the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that
'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze
piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.

There was some justification for Kim--he had kicked Lala Dinanath's boy
off the trunnions--since the English held the Punjab and Kim was
English.  Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the
vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain
sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the
small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very
poorest.  The half-caste woman who looked after him (she smoked opium,
and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by the square where
the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was Kim's mother's
sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a Colonel's family and had
married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-sergeant of the Mavericks, an
Irish regiment.  He afterwards took a post on the Sind, Punjab, and
Delhi Railway, and his Regiment went home without him.  The wife died
of cholera in Ferozepore, and O'Hara fell to drink and loafing up and
down the line with the keen-eyed three-year-old baby.  Societies and
chaplains, anxious for the child, tried to catch him, but O'Hara
drifted away, till he came across the woman who took opium and learned
the taste from her, and died as poor whites die in India.  His estate
at death consisted of three papers--one he called his 'ne varietur'
because those words were written below his signature thereon, and
another his 'clearance-certificate'.  The third was Kim's
birth-certificate.  Those things, he was used to say, in his glorious
opium-hours, would yet make little Kimball a man.  On no account was
Kim to part with them, for they belonged to a great piece of
magic--such magic as men practised over yonder behind the Museum, in
the big blue-and-white Jadoo-Gher--the Magic House, as we name the
Masonic Lodge.  It would, he said, all come right some day, and Kim's
horn would be exalted between pillars--monstrous pillars--of beauty and
strength.  The Colonel himself, riding on a horse, at the head of the
finest Regiment in the world, would attend to Kim--little Kim that
should have been better off than his father.  Nine hundred first-class
devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim,
if they had not forgotten O'Hara--poor O'Hara that was gang-foreman on
the Ferozepore line.  Then he would weep bitterly in the broken rush
chair on the veranda.  So it came about after his death that the woman
sewed parchment, paper, and birth-certificate into a leather
amulet-case which she strung round Kim's neck.

'And some day,' she said, confusedly remembering O'Hara's prophecies,
'there will come for you a great Red Bull on a green field, and the
Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and' dropping into
English--'nine hundred devils.'

'Ah,' said Kim, 'I shall remember.  A Red Bull and a Colonel on a horse
will come, but first, my father said, will come the two men making
ready the ground for these matters.  That is how my father said they
always did; and it is always so when men work magic.'

If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those papers,
he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial Lodge, and
sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had heard of
magic she distrusted.  Kim, too, held views of his own.  As he reached
the years of indiscretion, he learned to avoid missionaries and white
men of serious aspect who asked who he was, and what he did.  For Kim
did nothing with an immense success.  True, he knew the wonderful
walled city of Lahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; was
hand in glove with men who led lives stranger than anything Haroun al
Raschid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild as that of the Arabian
Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of charitable societies could
not see the beauty of it.  His nickname through the wards was 'Little
Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and
inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded
housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion.  It was
intrigue,--of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since
he could speak,--but what he loved was the game for its own sake--the
stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a
waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on the flat
roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of
the hot dark. Then there were holy men, ash-smeared fakirs by their
brick shrines under the trees at the riverside, with whom he was quite
familiar--greeting them as they returned from begging-tours, and, when
no one was by, eating from the same dish.  The woman who looked after
him insisted with tears that he should wear European clothes--trousers,
a shirt and a battered hat.  Kim found it easier to slip into Hindu or
Mohammedan garb when engaged on certain businesses.  One of the young
men of fashion--he who was found dead at the bottom of a well on the
night of the earthquake--had once given him a complete suit of Hindu
kit, the costume of a lowcaste street boy, and Kim stored it in a
secret place under some baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the
Punjab High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after
they have driven down the Ravi.  When there was business or frolic
afoot, Kim would use his properties, returning at dawn to the veranda,
all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage procession, or
yelling at a Hindu festival.  Sometimes there was food in the house,
more often there was not, and then Kim went out again to eat with his
native friends.

As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and again from
his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and Abdullah the
sweetmeat-seller's son, to make a rude remark to the native policeman
on guard over rows of shoes at the Museum door. The big Punjabi grinned
tolerantly:  he knew Kim of old.  So did the water-carrier, sluicing
water on the dry road from his goat-skin bag.  So did Jawahir Singh,
the Museum carpenter, bent over new packing-cases.  So did everybody in
sight except the peasants from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder
House to view the things that men made in their own province and
elsewhere.  The Museum was given up to Indian arts and manufactures,
and anybody who sought wisdom could ask the Curator to explain.

'Off!  Off!  Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's wheel.

'Thy father was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi,' sang Kim.
'All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!'

'Let me up!' shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered cap.
His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but India is the
only democratic land in the world.

'The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too.  The Mussalmans pushed them off.
Thy father was a pastry-cook--'

He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring Motee
Bazar, such a man as Kim, who thought he knew all castes, had never
seen.  He was nearly six feet high, dressed in fold upon fold of dingy
stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it could Kim refer to
any known trade or profession.  At his belt hung a long open-work iron
pencase and a wooden rosary such as holy men wear.  On his head was a
gigantic sort of tam-o'-shanter. His face was yellow and wrinkled, like
that of Fook Shing, the Chinese bootmaker in the bazar.  His eyes
turned up at the corners and looked like little slits of onyx.

'Who is that?' said Kim to his companions.

'Perhaps it is a man,' said Abdullah, finger in mouth, staring.

'Without doubt,' returned Kim; 'but he is no man of India that I have
ever seen.'

'A priest, perhaps,' said Chota Lal, spying the rosary.  'See!  He goes
into the Wonder House!'

'Nay, nay,' said the policeman, shaking his head.  'I do not understand
your talk.'  The constable spoke Punjabi.  'O Friend of all the World,
what does he say?'

'Send him hither,' said Kim, dropping from Zam-Zammah, flourishing his
bare heels.  'He is a foreigner, and thou art a buffalo.'

The man turned helplessly and drifted towards the boys.  He was old,
and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of the stinking artemisia of the
mountain passes.

'O Children, what is that big house?' he said in very fair Urdu.

'The Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!'  Kim gave him no title--such as
Lala or Mian.  He could not divine the man's creed.

'Ah!  The Wonder House!  Can any enter?'

'It is written above the door--all can enter.'

'Without payment?'

'I go in and out.  I am no banker,' laughed Kim.

'Alas!  I am an old man.  I did not know.'  Then, fingering his rosary,
he half turned to the Museum.

'What is your caste?  Where is your house?  Have you come far?'  Kim
asked.

'I came by Kulu--from beyond the Kailas--but what know you? From the
Hills where'--he sighed--'the air and water are fresh and cool.'

'Aha!  Khitai [a Chinaman],' said Abdullah proudly.  Fook Shing had
once chased him out of his shop for spitting at the joss above the
boots.

'Pahari [a hillman],' said little Chota Lal.

'Aye, child--a hillman from hills thou'lt never see.  Didst hear of
Bhotiyal [Tibet]?  I am no Khitai, but a Bhotiya [Tibetan], since you
must know--a lama--or, say, a guru in your tongue.'

'A guru from Tibet,' said Kim.  'I have not seen such a man.  They be
Hindus in Tibet, then?'

'We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our lamasseries,
and I go to see the Four Holy Places before I die. Now do you, who are
children, know as much as I do who am old.' He smiled benignantly on
the boys.

'Hast thou eaten?'

He fumbled in his bosom and drew forth a worn, wooden begging-bowl. The
boys nodded.  All priests of their acquaintance begged.

'I do not wish to eat yet.'  He turned his head like an old tortoise in
the sunlight.  'Is it true that there are many images in the Wonder
House of Lahore?'  He repeated the last words as one making sure of an
address.

'That is true,' said Abdullah.  'It is full of heathen busts.  Thou
also art an idolater.'

'Never mind him,' said.  Kim.  'That is the Government's house and
there is no idolatry in it, but only a Sahib with a white beard. Come
with me and I will show.'

'Strange priests eat boys,' whispered Chota Lal.

'And he is a stranger and a but-parast [idolater],' said Abdullah, the
Mohammedan.

Kim laughed.  'He is new.  Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe.
Come!'

Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man followed
and halted amazed.  In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of
the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how long since, by
forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for
the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch. There were hundreds of
pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues and slabs
crowded with figures that had encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist
stupas and viharas of the North Country and now, dug up and labelled,
made the pride of the Museum.  In open-mouthed wonder the lama turned
to this and that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a large
alto-relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord Buddha.
The Master was represented seated on a lotus the petals of which were
so deeply undercut as to show almost detached. Round Him was an adoring
hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time Buddhas.  Below were
lotus-covered waters with fishes and water-birds.  Two butterfly-winged
devas held a wreath over His head; above them another pair supported an
umbrella surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat.

'The Lord!  The Lord!  It is Sakya Muni himself,' the lama half sobbed;
and under his breath began the wonderful Buddhist invocation:

To Him the Way, the Law, apart, Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat.

'And He is here!  The Most Excellent Law is here also.  My pilgrimage
is well begun.  And what work!  What work!'

'Yonder is the Sahib.'  said Kim, and dodged sideways among the cases
of the arts and manufacturers wing.  A white-bearded Englishman was
looking at the lama, who gravely turned and saluted him and after some
fumbling drew forth a note-book and a scrap of paper.

'Yes, that is my name,' smiling at the clumsy, childish print.

'One of us who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places--he is now Abbot
of the Lung-Cho Monastery--gave it me,' stammered the lama.  'He spoke
of these.'  His lean hand moved tremulously round.

'Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet.  Here be the images, and I am
here'--he glanced at the lama's face--'to gather knowledge. Come to my
office awhile.'  The old man was trembling with excitement.

The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from the
sculpture-lined gallery.  Kim laid himself down, his ear against a
crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following his instinct,
stretched out to listen and watch.

Most of the talk was altogether above his head.  The lama, haltingly at
first, spoke to the Curator of his own lamassery, the Such-zen,
opposite the Painted Rocks, four months' march away.  The Curator
brought out a huge book of photos and showed him that very place,
perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley of many-hued
strata.

'Ay, ay!'  The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of Chinese
work.  'Here is the little door through which we bring wood before
winter.  And thou--the English know of these things? He who is now
Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe. The Lord--the
Excellent One--He has honour here too?  And His life is known?'

'It is all carven upon the stones.  Come and see, if thou art rested.'

Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside him,
went through the collection with the reverence of a devotee and the
appreciative instinct of a craftsman.

Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the
blurred stone, puzzled here and there by the unfamiliar Greek
convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove.  Where the
sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it from
his mound of books--French and German, with photographs and
reproductions.

Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian
story, holding the Holy Child on his knee while mother and father
listened; and here were incidents in the legend of the cousin
Devadatta.  Here was the wicked woman who accused the Master of
impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park; the
miracle that stunned the fire-worshippers; here was the Bodhisat in
royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth; the death at Kusinagara,
where the weak disciple fainted; while there were almost countless
repetitions of the meditation under the Bodhi tree; and the adoration
of the alms-bowl was everywhere.  In a few minutes the Curator saw that
his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts.
And they went at it all over again, the lama taking snuff, wiping his
spectacles, and talking at railway speed in a bewildering mixture of
Urdu and Tibetan.  He had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims,
Fu-Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was any
translation of their record.  He drew in his breath as he turned
helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas Julien.  ''Tis all
here.  A treasure locked.'  Then he composed himself reverently to
listen to fragments hastily rendered into Urdu.  For the first time he
heard of the labours of European scholars, who by the help of these and
a hundred other documents have identified the Holy Places of Buddhism.
Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted and traced with yellow.  The
brown finger followed the Curator's pencil from point to point.  Here
was Kapilavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca
of Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One's
death.  The old man bowed his head over the sheets in silence for a
while, and the Curator lit another pipe.  Kim had fallen asleep.  When
he waked, the talk, still in spate, was more within his comprehension.

'And thus it was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go to the
Holy Places which His foot had trod--to the Birthplace, even to Kapila;
then to Mahabodhi, which is Buddh Gaya--to the Monastery--to the
Deer-park--to the place of His death.'

The lama lowered his voice.  'And I come here alone.  For
five--seven--eighteen--forty years it was in my mind that the Old Law
was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom,
charms, and idolatry.  Even as the child outside said but now.  Ay,
even as the child said, with but-parasti.'

'So it comes with all faiths.'

'Thinkest thou?  The books of my lamassery I read, and they were dried
pith; and the later ritual with which we of the Reformed Law have
cumbered ourselves--that, too, had no worth to these old eyes.  Even
the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud with one
another.  It is all illusion.  Ay, maya, illusion. But I have another
desire'--the seamed yellow face drew within three inches of the
Curator, and the long forefinger-nail tapped on the table.  'Your
scholars, by these books, have followed the Blessed Feet in all their
wanderings; but there are things which they have not sought out.  I
know nothing--nothing do I know--but I go to free myself from the Wheel
of Things by a broad and open road.'  He smiled with most simple
triumph.  'As a pilgrim to the Holy Places I acquire merit.  But there
is more.  Listen to a true thing.  When our gracious Lord, being as yet
a youth, sought a mate, men said, in His father's Court, that He was
too tender for marriage.  Thou knowest?'

The Curator nodded, wondering what would come next.

'So they made the triple trial of strength against all comers. And at
the test of the Bow, our Lord first breaking that which they gave Him,
called for such a bow as none might bend.  Thou knowest?'

'It is written.  I have read.'

'And, overshooting all other marks, the arrow passed far and far beyond
sight.  At the last it fell; and, where it touched earth, there broke
out a stream which presently became a River, whose nature, by our
Lord's beneficence, and that merit He acquired ere He freed himself, is
that whoso bathes in it washes away all taint and speckle of sin.'

'So it is written,' said the Curator sadly.

The lama drew a long breath.  'Where is that River?  Fountain of
Wisdom, where fell the arrow?'

'Alas, my brother, I do not know,' said the Curator.

'Nay, if it please thee to forget--the one thing only that thou hast
not told me.  Surely thou must know?  See, I am an old man!  I ask with
my head between thy feet, O Fountain of Wisdom.  We know He drew the
bow!  We know the arrow fell!  We know the stream gushed!  Where, then,
is the River?  My dream told me to find it. So I came.  I am here.  But
where is the River?'

'If I knew, think you I would not cry it aloud?'

'By it one attains freedom from the Wheel of Things,' the lama went on,
unheeding.  'The River of the Arrow!  Think again!  Some little stream,
maybe--dried in the heats?  But the Holy One would never so cheat an
old man.'

'I do not know.  I do not know.'

The lama brought his thousand-wrinkled face once more a handsbreadth
from the Englishman's.  'I see thou dost not know. Not being of the
Law, the matter is hid from thee.'

'Ay--hidden--hidden.'

'We are both bound, thou and I, my brother.  But I'--he rose with a
sweep of the soft thick drapery--'I go to cut myself free. Come also!'

'I am bound,' said the Curator.  'But whither goest thou?'

'First to Kashi [Benares]:  where else?  There I shall meet one of the
pure faith in a Jain temple of that city.  He also is a Seeker in
secret, and from him haply I may learn.  Maybe he will go with me to
Buddh Gaya.  Thence north and west to Kapilavastu, and there will I
seek for the River.  Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go--for the place
is not known where the arrow fell.'

'And how wilt thou go?  It is a far cry to Delhi, and farther to
Benares.'

'By road and the trains.  From Pathankot, having left the Hills, I came
hither in a te-rain.  It goes swiftly.  At first I was amazed to see
those tall poles by the side of the road snatching up and snatching up
their threads,'--he illustrated the stoop and whirl of a telegraph-pole
flashing past the train.  'But later, I was cramped and desired to
walk, as I am used.'

'And thou art sure of thy road?'  said the Curator.

'Oh, for that one but asks a question and pays money, and the appointed
persons despatch all to the appointed place.  That much I knew in my
lamassery from sure report,' said the lama proudly.

'And when dost thou go?'  The Curator smiled at the mixture of
old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India today.

'As soon as may be.  I follow the places of His life till I come to the
River of the Arrow.  There is, moreover, a written paper of the hours
of the trains that go south.'

'And for food?'  Lamas, as a rule, have good store of money somewhere
about them, but the Curator wished to make sure.

'For the journey, I take up the Master's begging-bowl.  Yes.  Even as
He went so go I, forsaking the ease of my monastery.  There was with me
when I left the hills a chela [disciple] who begged for me as the Rule
demands, but halting in Kulu awhile a fever took him and he died.  I
have now no chela, but I will take the alms-bowl and thus enable the
charitable to acquire merit.'  He nodded his head valiantly.  Learned
doctors of a lamassery do not beg, but the lama was an enthusiast in
this quest.

'Be it so,' said the Curator, smiling.  'Suffer me now to acquire
merit.  We be craftsmen together, thou and I. Here is a new book of
white English paper:  here be sharpened pencils two and three--thick
and thin, all good for a scribe.  Now lend me thy spectacles.'

The Curator looked through them.  They were heavily scratched, but the
power was almost exactly that of his own pair, which he slid into the
lama's hand, saying:  'Try these.'

'A feather!  A very feather upon the face.'  The old man turned his
head delightedly and wrinkled up his nose.  'How scarcely do I feel
them!  How clearly do I see!'

'They be bilaur--crystal--and will never scratch.  May they help thee
to thy River, for they are thine.'

'I will take them and the pencils and the white note-book,' said the
lama, 'as a sign of friendship between priest and priest--and now--' He
fumbled at his belt, detached the open-work iron pincers, and laid it
on the Curator's table.  'That is for a memory between thee and me--my
pencase.  It is something old--even as I am.'

It was a piece of ancient design, Chinese, of an iron that is not
smelted these days; and the collector's heart in the Curator's bosom
had gone out to it from the first.  For no persuasion would the lama
resume his gift.

'When I return, having found the River, I will bring thee a written
picture of the Padma Samthora such as I used to make on silk at the
lamassery.  Yes--and of the Wheel of Life,' he chuckled, 'for we be
craftsmen together, thou and I.'

The Curator would have detained him:  they are few in the world who
still have the secret of the conventional brush-pen Buddhist pictures
which are, as it were, half written and half drawn.  But the lama
strode out, head high in air, and pausing an instant before the great
statue of a Bodhisat in meditation, brushed through the turnstiles.

Kim followed like a shadow.  What he had overheard excited him wildly.
This man was entirely new to all his experience, and he meant to
investigate further, precisely as he would have investigated a new
building or a strange festival in Lahore city. The lama was his trove,
and he purposed to take possession.  Kim's mother had been Irish, too.

The old man halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his eye fell on
Kim.  The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for awhile, and he
felt old, forlorn, and very empty.

'Do not sit under that gun,' said the policeman loftily.

'Huh!  Owl!'  was Kim's retort on the lama's behalf.  'Sit under that
gun if it please thee.  When didst thou steal the milkwoman's slippers,
Dunnoo?'

That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the moment,
but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim's clear yell could call up
legions of bad bazaar boys if need arose.

'And whom didst thou worship within?'  said Kim affably, squatting in
the shade beside the lama.

'I worshipped none, child.  I bowed before the Excellent Law.'

Kim accepted this new God without emotion.  He knew already a few score.

'And what dost thou do?'

'I beg.  I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk. What is
the custom of charity in this town?  In silence, as we do of Tibet, or
speaking aloud?'

'Those who beg in silence starve in silence,' said Kim, quoting a
native proverb.  The lama tried to rise, but sank back again, sighing
for his disciple, dead in far-away Kulu.  Kim watched head to one side,
considering and interested.

'Give me the bowl.  I know the people of this city--all who are
charitable.  Give, and I will bring it back filled.'

Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl.

'Rest, thou.  I know the people.'

He trotted off to the open shop of a kunjri, a low-caste
vegetable-seller, which lay opposite the belt-tramway line down the
Motee Bazar.  She knew Kim of old.

'Oho, hast thou turned yogi with thy begging-bowl?'  she cried.

'Nay.'  said Kim proudly.  'There is a new priest in the city--a man
such as I have never seen.'

'Old priest--young tiger,' said the woman angrily.  'I am tired of new
priests!  They settle on our wares like flies.  Is the father of my son
a well of charity to give to all who ask?'

'No,' said Kim.  'Thy man is rather yagi [bad-tempered] than yogi [a
holy man].  But this priest is new.  The Sahib in the Wonder House has
talked to him like a brother.  O my mother, fill me this bowl.  He
waits.'

'That bowl indeed!  That cow-bellied basket!  Thou hast as much grace
as the holy bull of Shiv.  He has taken the best of a basket of onions
already, this morn; and forsooth, I must fill thy bowl. He comes here
again.'

The huge, mouse-coloured Brahmini bull of the ward was shouldering his
way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen plantain hanging out of
his mouth.  He headed straight for the shop, well knowing his
privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his head, and puffed heavily
along the line of baskets ere making his choice.  Up flew Kim's hard
little heel and caught him on his moist blue nose.  He snorted
indignantly, and walked away across the tram-rails, his hump quivering
with rage.

'See!  I have saved more than the bowl will cost thrice over.  Now,
mother, a little rice and some dried fish atop--yes, and some vegetable
curry.'

A growl came out of the back of the shop, where a man lay.

'He drove away the bull,' said the woman in an undertone.  'It is good
to give to the poor.'  She took the bowl and returned it full of hot
rice.

'But my yogi is not a cow,' said Kim gravely, making a hole with his
fingers in the top of the mound.  'A little curry is good, and a fried
cake, and a morsel of conserve would please him, I think.'

'It is a hole as big as thy head,' said the woman fretfully.  But she
filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable curry, clapped
a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed
a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side; and Kim looked at the
load lovingly.

'That is good.  When I am in the bazar the bull shall not come to this
house.  He is a bold beggar-man.'

'And thou?'  laughed the woman.  'But speak well of bulls.  Hast thou
not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a field to help
thee?  Now hold all straight and ask for the holy man's blessing upon
me.  Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my daughter's sore eyes.  Ask.
him that also, O thou Little Friend of all the World.'

But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging pariah dogs
and hungry acquaintances.

'Thus do we beg who know the way of it,' said he proudly to the lama,
who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl.  'Eat now and--I will
eat with thee.  Ohe, bhisti!'  he called to the water-carrier, sluicing
the crotons by the Museum.  'Give water here.  We men are thirsty.'

'We men!'  said the bhisti, laughing.  'Is one skinful enough for such
a pair?  Drink, then, in the name of the Compassionate.'

He loosed a thin stream into Kim's hands, who drank native fashion; but
the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible upper
draperies and drink ceremonially.

'Pardesi [a foreigner],' Kim explained, as the old man delivered in an
unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.

They ate together in great content, clearing the beggingbowl. Then the
lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd, fingered his
rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the shadow
of Zam-Zammah grew long.

Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively young
Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that they sell
to students of the Punjab University who copy English customs.  Then he
smoked and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the gun, and the
outcome of his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in the
direction of Nila Ram's timber-yard.

The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun with
lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed clerks and subordinates
from the Government offices.  He stared dizzily in all directions, but
none looked at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty turban and
Isabella-coloured clothes.  Suddenly he bowed his head on his knees and
wailed.

'What is this?'  said the boy, standing before him.  'Hast thou been
robbed?'

'It is my new chela [disciple] that is gone away from me, and I know
not where he is.'

'And what like of man was thy disciple?'

'It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of
the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there.'
He pointed towards the Museum.  'He came upon me to show me a road
which I had lost.  He led me into the Wonder House, and by his talk
emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was
cheered and made strong.  And when I was faint with hunger he begged
for me, as would a chela for his teacher.  Suddenly was he sent.
Suddenly has he gone away.  It was in my mind to have taught him the
Law upon the road to Benares.'

Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the
Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a
thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.

'But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose.  By this I know that
I shall find a certain River for which I seek.'

'The River of the Arrow?'  said Kim, with a superior smile.

'Is this yet another Sending?'  cried the lama.  'To none have I spoken
of my search, save to the Priest of the Images.  Who art thou?'

'Thy chela,' said Kim simply, sitting on his heels.  'I have never seen
anyone like to thee in all this my life.  I go with thee to Benares.
And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to
chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.'

'But the River--the River of the Arrow?'

'Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman.  I lay
against the door.'

The lama sighed.  'I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted. Such
things fall sometimes--but I am not worthy.  Thou dost not, then, know
the River?'

'Not I,' Kim laughed uneasily.  'I go to look for--for a bull--a Red.
Bull on a green field who shall help me.'  Boylike, if an acquaintance
had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his own; and, boylike, he
had really thought for as much as twenty minutes at a time of his
father's prophecy.

'To what, child?'  said the lama.

'God knows, but so my father told me'.  I heard thy talk in the Wonder
House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if one so old
and so little--so used to truth-telling--may go out for the small
matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must go a-travelling.  If
it is our fate to find those things we shall find them--thou, thy
River; and I, my Bull, and the Strong Pillars and some other matters
that I forget.'

'It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,' said the
lama.

'That is all one.  Perhaps they will make me a king,' said Kim,
serenely prepared for anything.

'I will teach thee other and better desires upon the road,' the lama
replied in the voice of authority.  'Let us go to Benares.'

'Not by night.  Thieves are abroad.  Wait till the day.'

'But there is no place to sleep.'  The old man was used to the order of
his monastery, and though he slept on the ground, as the Rule decrees,
preferred a decency in these things.

'We shall get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai,' said Kim, laughing at
his perplexity.  'I have a friend there.  Come!'

The hot and crowded bazars blazed with light as they made their way
through the press of all the races in Upper India, and the lama mooned
through it like a man in a dream.  It was his first experience of a
large manufacturing city, and the crowded tram-car with its continually
squealing brakes frightened him.  Half pushed, half towed, he arrived
at the high gate of the Kashmir Serai:  that huge open square over
against the railway station, surrounded with arched cloisters, where
the camel and horse caravans put up on their return from Central Asia.
Here were all manner of Northern folk, tending tethered ponies and
kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales and bundles; drawing water
for the evening meal at the creaking well-windlasses; piling grass
before the shrieking, wild-eyed stallions; cuffing the surly caravan
dogs; paying off camel-drivers; taking on new grooms; swearing,
shouting, arguing, and chaffering in the packed square.  The cloisters,
reached by three or four masonry steps, made a haven of refuge around
this turbulent sea.  Most of them were rented to traders, as we rent
the arches of a viaduct; the space between pillar and pillar being
bricked or boarded off into rooms, which were guarded by heavy wooden
doors and cumbrous native padlocks.  Locked doors showed that the owner
was away, and a few rude--sometimes very rude--chalk or paint scratches
told where he had gone.  Thus:  'Lutuf Ullah is gone to Kurdistan.'
Below, in coarse verse:  'O Allah, who sufferest lice to live on the
coat of a Kabuli, why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to live so
long?'

Kim, fending the lama between excited men and excited beasts, sidled
along the cloisters to the far end, nearest therailway station, where
Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader, lived when he came in from that
mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North.

Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life, especially
between his tenth and his thirteenth year--and the big burly Afghan,
his beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not wish
his grey hairs to show), knew the boy's value as a gossip.  Sometimes
he would tell Kim to watch a man who had nothing whatever to do with
horses:  to follow him for one whole day and report every soul with
whom he talked.  Kim would deliver himself of his tale at evening, and
Mahbub would listen without a word or gesture.  It was intrigue of some
kind, Kim knew; but its worth lay in saying nothing whatever to anyone
except Mahbub, who gave him beautiful meals all hot from the cookshop
at the head of the serai, and once as much as eight annas in money.

'He is here,' said Kim, hitting a bad-tempered camel on the nose. 'Ohe.
Mahbub Ali!'  He halted at a dark arch and slipped behind the
bewildered lama.

The horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed, was
lying on a pair of silk carpet saddle-bags, pulling lazily at an
immense silver hookah.  He turned his head very slightly at the cry;
and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in his deep chest.

'Allah!  A lama!  A Red Lama!  It is far from Lahore to the Passes.
What dost thou do here?'

The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.

'God's curse on all unbelievers!'  said Mahbub.  'I do not give to a
lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels. They
may value your blessings.  Oh, horseboys, here is a countryman of
yours.  See if he be hungry.'

A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and who
was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest,
and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the horseboys'
fire.

'Go!'  said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away, leaving
Kim at the edge of the cloister.

'Go!'  said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah.  'Little Hindu, run
away.  God's curse on all unbelievers!  Beg from those of my tail who
are of thy faith.'

'Maharaj,' whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and thoroughly
enjoying the situation; 'my father is dead--my mother is dead--my
stomach is empty.'

'Beg from my men among the horses, I say.  There must be some Hindus in
my tail.'

'Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am I a Hindu?'  said Kim in English.

The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy
eyebrows.

'Little Friend of all the World,' said he, 'what is this?'

'Nothing.  I am now that holy man's disciple; and we go a pilgrimage
together--to Benares, he says.  He is quite mad, and I am tired of
Lahore city.  I wish new air and water.'

'But for whom dost thou work?  Why come to me?'  The voice was harsh
with suspicion.

'To whom else should I come?  I have no money.  It is not good to go
about without money.  Thou wilt sell many horses to the officers.  They
are very fine horses, these new ones:  I have seen them.  Give me a
rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give thee a bond
and pay.'

'Um!'  said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly.  'Thou hast never before lied
to me.  Call that lama--stand back in the dark.'

'Oh, our tales will agree,' said Kim, laughing.

'We go to Benares,' said the lama, as soon as he understood the drift
of Mahbub Ali's questions.  'The boy and I, I go to seek for a certain
River.'

'Maybe--but the boy?'

'He is my disciple.  He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River.
Sitting under a gun was I when he came suddenly.  Such things have
befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remember
now, he said he was of this world--a Hindu.'

'And his name?'

'That I did not ask.  Is he not my disciple?'

'His country--his race--his village?  Mussalman--Sikh Hindu--Jain--low
caste or high?'

'Why should I ask?  There is neither high nor low in the Middle Way.
If he is my chela--does--will--can anyone take him from me?  for, look
you, without him I shall not find my River.'  He wagged his head
solemnly.

'None shall take him from thee.  Go, sit among my Baltis,' said Mahbub
Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.

'Is he not quite mad?'  said Kim, coming forward to the light again.
'Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?'

Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence.  Then he began, almost whispering:
'Umballa is on the road to Benares--if indeed ye two go there.'

'Tck!  Tck!  I tell thee he does not know how to lie--as we two know.'

'And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I will give
thee money.  It concerns a horse--a white stallion which I have sold to
an officer upon the last time I returned from the Passes.  But
then--stand nearer and hold up hands as begging--the pedigree of the
white stallion was not fully established, and that officer, who is now
at Umballa, bade me make it clear.'  (Mahbub here described the horse
and the appearance of the officer.) 'So the message to that officer
will be:  "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established."
By this will he know that thou comest from me.  He will then say "What
proof hast thou?"  and thou wilt answer:  "Mahbub Ali has given me the
proof."'

'And all for the sake of a white stallion,' said Kim, with a giggle,
his eyes aflame.

'That pedigree I will give thee now--in my own fashion and some hard
words as well.'  A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel.
Mahbub Ali raised his voice.

'Allah!  Art thou the only beggar in the city?  Thy mother is dead. Thy
father is dead.  So is it with all of them.  Well, well--'

He turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft,
greasy Mussalman bread to the boy.  'Go and lie down among my horseboys
for tonight--thou and the lama.  Tomorrow I may give thee service.'

Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he found a
small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with three silver
rupees--enormous largesse.  He smiled and thrust money and paper into
his leather amulet-case.  The lama, sumptuously fed by Mahbub's Baltis,
was already asleep in a corner of one of the stalls.  Kim lay down
beside him and laughed. He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub
Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe the tale of the
stallion's pedigree.

But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best
horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose
caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered
in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C25 IB.
Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story, baldly told
but most interesting, and generally--it was checked by the statements
of R17 and M4--quite true.  It concerned all manner of out-of-the-way
mountain principalities, explorers of nationalities other than English,
and the guntrade--was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of
'information received' on which the Indian Government acts.  But,
recently, five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate,
had been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage
of news from their territories into British India.  So those Kings'
Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps, after the
Oriental fashion.  They suspected, among many others, the bullying,
red-bearded horsedealer whose caravans ploughed through their
fastnesses belly-deep in snow.  At least, his caravan that season had
been ambushed and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub's men
accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or might not, have been
hired for the job.  Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the
insalubrious city of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to
Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious
developments.

And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an hour
longer than was necessary--a wad of closely folded tissue-paper,
wrapped in oilskin--an impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five
microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most scandalously betrayed
the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu
banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an important,
semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the south.  This last was R17's
work, which Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying
in for R17, who, owing to circumstances over which he had no control,
could not leave his post of observation.  Dynamite was milky and
innocuous beside that report of C25; and even an Oriental, with an
Oriental's views of the value of time, could see that the sooner it was
in the proper hands the better.  Mahbub had no particular desire to die
by violence, because two or three family blood-feuds across the Border
hung unfinished on his hands, and when these scores were cleared he
intended to settle down as a more or less virtuous citizen.  He had
never passed the serai gate since his arrival two days ago, but had
been ostentatious in sending telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some
of his money; to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own clan was selling
horses to the agent of a Rajputana state; and to Umballa, where an
Englishman was excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white stallion.
The public letter-writer, who knew English, composed excellent
telegrams, such as:  'Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa. Horse is Arabian
as already advised.  Sorrowful delayed pedigree which am translating.'
And later to the same address:  'Much sorrowful delay.  Will forward
pedigree.'  To his sub-partner at Delhi he wired:  'Lutuf Ullah.  Have
wired two thousand rupees your credit Luchman Narain's bank--' This was
entirely in the way of trade, but every one of those telegrams was
discussed and rediscussed, by parties who conceived themselves to be
interested, before they went over to the railway station in charge of a
foolish Balti, who allowed all sorts of people to read them on the road.

When, in Mahbub's own picturesque language, he had muddied the wells of
inquiry with the stick of precaution, Kim had dropped on him, sent from
Heaven; and, being as prompt as he was unscrupulous, Mahbub Ali used to
taking all sorts of gusty chances, pressed him into service on the spot.

A wandering lama with a low-caste boy-servant might attract a moment's
interest as they wandered about India, the land of pilgrims; but no one
would suspect them or, what was more to the point, rob.

He called for a new light-ball to his hookah, and considered the case.
If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm, the paper
would incriminate nobody.  And he would go up to Umballa leisurely
and--at a certain risk of exciting fresh suspicion--repeat his tale by
word of mouth to the people concerned.

But R17's report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it would be
distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand. However, God
was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he could for the time
being.  Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a lie.
That would have been a fatal blot on Kim's character if Mahbub had not
known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim could
lie like an Oriental.

Then Mahbub Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the Harpies who
paint their eyes and trap the stranger, and was at some pains to call
on the one girl who, he had reason to believe, was a particular friend
of a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had waylaid his simple Balti in
the matter of the telegrams.  It was an utterly foolish thing to do;
because they fell to drinking perfumed brandy against the Law of the
Prophet, and Mahbub grew wonderfully drunk, and the gates of his mouth
were loosened, and he pursued the Flower of Delight with the feet of
intoxication till he fell flat among the cushions, where the Flower of
Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit, searched him from
head to foot most thoroughly.

About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub's deserted stall.
The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left his door unlocked, and his
men were busy celebrating their return to India with a whole sheep of
Mahbub's bounty.  A sleek young gentleman from Delhi, armed with a
bunch of keys which the Flower had unshackled from the senseless one's
belt, went through every single box, bundle, mat, and saddle-bag in
Mahbub's possession even more systematically than the Flower and the
pundit were searching the owner.

'And I think.'  said the Flower scornfully an hour later, one rounded
elbow on the snoring carcass, 'that he is no more than a pig of an
Afghan horse-dealer, with no thought except women and horses.
Moreover, he may have sent it away by now--if ever there were such a
thing.'

'Nay--in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black
heart,' said the pundit.  'Was there nothing?'

The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered.  'I
searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched his
clothes.  This is not the man but another.  I leave little unseen.'

'They did not say he was the very man,' said the pundit thoughtfully.
'They said, "Look if he be the man, since our counsels are troubled."'

'That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of lice.
There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah all heads of
kafilas [caravans]--who deal there,' said the Flower.

'They have not yet come in,' said the pundit.  'Thou must ensnare them
later.'

Phew!'  said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head from
her lap.  'I earn my money.  Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan--yaie!  Go!  I sleep now.  This
swine will not stir till dawn.'

When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness.  Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt, and
staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very near to it.

'What a colt's trick!'  said he to himself.  'As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it!  But 'twas prettily done.  Now God He knows
how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to test
me--perhaps with the knife.  So it stands that the boy must go to
Umballa--and by rail--for the writing is something urgent.  I abide
here, following the Flower and drinking wine as an Afghan coper should.'

He halted at the stall next but one to his own.  His men lay there
heavy with sleep.  There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

'Up!'  He stirred a sleeper.  'Whither went those who lay here last
even--the lama and the boy?  Is aught missing?'

'Nay,' grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow saying
he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.'

'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!'  said Mahbub heartily, and
climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.

But it was Kim who had wakened the lama--Kim with one eye laid against
a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man's search
through the boxes.  This was no common thief that turned over letters,
bills, and saddles--no mere burglar who ran a little knife sideways
into the soles of Mahbub's slippers, or picked the seams of the
saddle-bags so deftly.  At first Kim had been minded to give the
alarm--the long-drawn choor--choor! [thief!  thief!] that sets the
serai ablaze of nights; but he looked more carefully, and, hand on
amulet, drew his own conclusions.

'It must be the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie,' said he, 'the
thing that I carry to Umballa.  Better that we go now.  Those who
search bags with knives may presently search bellies with knives.
Surely there is a woman behind this.  Hai!  Hai!  in a whisper to the
light-sleeping old man.  'Come.  It is time--time to go to Benares.'

The lama rose obediently, and they passed out of the serai like shadows.

 Kimball O'Hara, Kim for short, lives in the city of Lahore in the province of the Punjab. Even though Kim feels totally comfortable running around the city talking to the city kids in Urdu, he is white. His mother was a nursemaid and his father a low-ranking officer in an Irish regiment stationed in India, who also was an opium addict . During Kim Senior's drugged visions, he would sometimes talk about "nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field" . The woman who takes care of Kim doesn't understand what the father is talking about, but she tells Kim that his father left him a prophecy: One day a Red Bull will arrive with a colonel on horseback . This woman tries to dress Kim up in European clothes, but he prefers to blend in with the other kids. He also likes to explore the city and to carry secret messages for the local guys in the middle of the night. One day, when Kim is playing with two other kids in front of the Wonder-House ), he spots a guy who looks like no one he has ever seen before. The new guy tells the kids that he is a Buddhist lama from Tibet, and that he is on a pilgrimage. Kim leads the lama to meet the English curator for the Wonder-House. The lama tells the curator that he is visiting the Four Holy Sites of Buddhism. During his travels though, he has seen evidence of a lot of fake statues and false worship of the Buddha, so now the lama has started on a second quest. He tells the curator that once, as part of a trial of strength, the Buddha shot an arrow into the air. Where this arrow landed a river sprang up, and the lama believes that, if he can find this river, he will free himself of the pointless cycle of rebirth that is human life . The lama plans to head south to the city of Benares . To help the lama on his search, the curator trades glasses with the man--they both have the same prescription , but the curator's lenses are much clearer and cleaner. The lama is thrilled. Outside the museum, the lama settles down to beg for food. Kim is much more familiar with the ways of Lahore, so he volunteers to get food for the lama, and hits up a local vegetable-seller for food. She has been having trouble with a bull who keeps eating stuff from her vegetable stall. Kim promises that the lama will pray to keep the bull away from her stall if she'll just help them out with a bit of food. Kim and the lama eat together happily, and we see the beginning of a great bromance. Kim volunteers to become the lama's chela--his disciple--and he will help the lama on the road south. As they heads south, Kim plans to keep an eye out for that Red Bull his dad was talking about. Kim takes the lama to his friend Mahbub Ali, as they try to find a place to crash for the night. Mahbub Ali has an errand for Kim: If he's going south, he will have to pass through the city of Umballa, and at Umballa, Mahbub Ali wants Kim to deliver this message to a specific officer in the army: "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established" . And indeed, Mahbub Ali's message is actually about five local kings and a gun-running scheme--in other words, it's about important government stuff. Mahbub Ali realizes that a random boy traveling with an elderly lama won't attract the attention of robbers or spies, and seizes the opportunity. It's lucky for Mahbub Ali that he passes on this message to Kim when he does, because that night he gets stinking drunk and passes out in the arms of a prostitute. She and two other guys working for the Five Kings search him and his property, hoping to find this message. They don't find what they are looking for, but Kim spots them searching the unconscious Mahbub Ali. Kim makes the lama leave Lahore early so that they can avoid the people searching for Mahbub Ali's message.

