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.'

 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.

