Chapter: Now I remember comrades--
  Old playmates on new seas--
  Whenas we traded orpiment
  Among the savages.
  Ten thousand leagues to southward,
  And thirty years removed--
  They knew not noble Valdez,
  But me they knew and loved.

  Song of Diego Valdez.


Very early in the morning the white tents came down and disappeared as
the Mavericks took a side-road to Umballa.  It did not skirt the
resting-place, and Kim, trudging beside a baggage-cart under fire of
comments from soldiers' wives, was not so confident as overnight.  He
discovered that he was closely watched--Father Victor on the one side,
and Mr Bennett on the other.

In the forenoon the column checked.  A camel-orderly handed the Colonel
a letter.  He read it, and spoke to a Major.  Half a mile in the rear,
Kim heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on him through the
thick dust.  Then someone beat him on the back, crying: 'Tell us how ye
knew, ye little limb of Satan?  Father dear, see if ye can make him
tell.'

A pony ranged alongside, and he was hauled on to the priest's saddlebow.

'Now, my son, your prophecy of last night has come true.  Our orders
are to entrain at Umballa for the Front tomorrow.'

'What is thatt?'  said Kim, for 'front' and 'entrain' were newish words
to him.

'We are going to "thee War," as you called it.'

'Of course you are going to thee War.  I said last night.'

'Ye did; but, Powers o' Darkness, how did ye know?'

Kim's eyes sparkled.  He shut his lips, nodded his head, and looked
unspeakable things.  The Chaplain moved on through the dust, and
privates, sergeants, and subalterns called one another's attention to
the boy.  The Colonel, at the head of the column, stared at him
curiously.  'It was probably some bazar rumour.'  he said; 'but even
then--' He referred to the paper in his hand.  'Hang it all, the thing
was only decided within the last forty-eight hours.'

'Are there many more like you in India?'  said Father Victor, 'or are
you by way o' being a lusus naturae?'

'Now I have told you,' said the boy, 'will you let me go back to my old
man?  If he has not stayed with that woman from Kulu, I am afraid he
will die.'

'By what I saw of him he's as well able to take care of himself as you.
No.  Ye've brought us luck, an' we're goin' to make a man of you.  I'll
take ye back to your baggage-cart and ye'll come to me this evening.'

For the rest of the day Kim found himself an object of distinguished
consideration among a few hundred white men.  The story of his
appearance in camp, the discovery of his parentage, and his prophecy,
had lost nothing in the telling.  A big, shapeless white woman on a
pile of bedding asked him mysteriously whether he thought her husband
would come back from the war.  Kim reflected gravely, and said that he
would, and the woman gave him food.  In many respects, this big
procession that played music at intervals--this crowd that talked and
laughed so easily--resembled a festival in Lahore city.  So far, there
was no sign of hard work, and he resolved to lend the spectacle his
patronage.  At evening there came out to meet them bands of music, and
played the Mavericks into camp near Umballa railway station.  That was
an interesting night.  Men of other regiments came to visit the
Mavericks.  The Mavericks went visiting on their own account.  Their
pickets hurried forth to bring them back, met pickets of strange
regiments on the same duty; and, after a while, the bugles blew madly
for more pickets with officers to control the tumult.  The Mavericks
had a reputation for liveliness to live up to.  But they fell in on the
platform next morning in perfect shape and condition; and Kim, left
behind with the sick, women, and boys, found himself shouting farewells
excitedly as the trains drew away.  Life as a Sahib was amusing so far;
but he touched it with a cautious hand.  Then they marched him back in
charge of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks, whose floors
were covered with rubbish and string and paper, and whose ceilings gave
back his lonely footfall.  Native-fashion, he curled himself up on a
stripped cot and went to sleep.  An angry man stumped down the veranda,
woke him up, and said he was a schoolmaster.  This was enough for Kim,
and he retired into his shell.  He could just puzzle out the various
English Police notices in Lahore city, because they affected his
comfort; and among the many guests of the woman who looked after him
had been a queer German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling
theatre.  He told Kim that he had been 'on the barricades in
'Forty-eight,' and therefore--at least that was how it struck Kim--he
would teach the boy to write in return for food.  Kim had been kicked
as far as single letters, but did not think well of them.

'I do not know anything.  Go away!'  said Kim, scenting evil. Hereupon
the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a far-off wing
where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and told him to be
still if he could do nothing else.  This he managed very successfully.
The man explained something or other with white lines on a black board
for at least half an hour, and Kim continued his interrupted nap.  He
much disapproved of the present aspect of affairs, for this was the
very school and discipline he had spent two-thirds of his young life in
avoiding.  Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to him, and he wondered
that he had not thought of it before.

The man dismissed them, and first to spring through the veranda into
the open sunshine was Kim.

''Ere, you!  'Alt!  Stop!'  said a high voice at his heels.  'I've got
to look after you.  My orders are not to let you out of my sight. Where
are you goin'?'

It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the
forenoon--a fat and freckled person of about fourteen, and Kim loathed
him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

'To the bazar--to get sweets--for you,' said Kim, after thought.

'Well, the bazar's out o' bounds.  If we go there we'll get a
dressing-down.  You come back.'

'How near can we go?'  Kim did not know what bounds meant, but he
wished to be polite--for the present.

''Ow near?  'Ow far, you mean!  We can go as far as that tree down the
road.'

'Then I will go there.'

'All right.  I ain't goin'.  It's too 'ot.  I can watch you from 'ere.
It's no good your runnin' away.  If you did, they'd spot you by your
clothes.  That's regimental stuff you're wearin'.  There ain't a picket
in Umballa wouldn't 'ead you back quicker than you started out.'

This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment
would tire him out if he tried to run.  He slouched to the tree at the
corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives
passing.  Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest caste.  Kim
hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary
insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow
it.  The low, quick answer undeceived him.  Kim put his fettered soul
into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue
he knew best.  'And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the bazar
and tell him to come here.  I would write a letter.'

'But--but what manner of white man's son art thou to need a bazar
letter-writer?  Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?'

'Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort.  Do my order, you--you Od! Thy
mother was married under a basket!  Servant of Lal Beg' (Kim knew the
God of the sweepers), 'run on my business or we will talk again.'

The sweeper shuffled off in haste.  'There is a white boy by the
barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,' he stammered to
the first bazar letter-writer he came across.  'He needs thee.'

'Will he pay?'  said the spruce scribe, gathering up his desk and pens
and sealing-wax all in order.

'I do not know.  He is not like other boys.  Go and see.  It is well
worth.'

Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in sight.
As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.

'First I will take my pay,' the letter-writer said.  'Bad words have
made the price higher.  But who art thou, dressed in that fashion, to
speak in this fashion?'

'Aha!  That is in the letter which thou shalt write.  Never was such a
tale.  But I am in no haste.  Another writer will serve me.  Umballa
city is as full of them as is Lahore.'

'Four annas,' said the writer, sitting down and spreading his cloth in
the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.

Mechanically Kim squatted beside him--squatted as only the natives
can--in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.

The writer regarded him sideways.

'That is the price to ask of Sahibs,' said Kim.  'Now fix me a true
one.'

'An anna and a half.  How do I know, having written the letter, that
thou wilt not run away?'

I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be
considered.'

'I get no commission on the price of the stamp.  Once more, what manner
of white boy art thou?'

'That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the
horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore.  He is my friend.'

'Wonder on wonder!'  murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in the
inkstand.  'To be written in Hindi?'

'Assuredly.  To Mahbub Ali then.  Begin!  I have come down with the old
man as far as Umballa in the train.  At Umballa I carried the news of
the bay mare's pedigree.'  After what he had seen in the garden, he was
not going to write of white stallions.

'Slower a little.  What has a bay mare to do ...  Is it Mahbub Ali, the
great dealer?'

'Who else?  I have been in his service.  Take more ink.  Again.  As the
order was, so I did it.  We then went on foot towards Benares, but on
the third day we found a certain regiment.  Is that down?'

'Ay, pulton,' murmured the writer, all ears.

'I went into their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm about
my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the son of
some man in the regiment:  according to the prophecy of the Red Bull,
which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.'  Kim waited for this
shaft to sink into the letter-writer's heart, cleared his throat, and
continued:  'A priest clothed me and gave me a new name ...  One
priest, however, was a fool.  The clothes are very heavy, but I am a
Sahib and my heart is heavy too.  They send me to a school and beat me.
I do not like the air and water here. Come then and help me, Mahbub
Ali, or send me some money, for I have not sufficient to pay the writer
who writes this.'

'"Who writes this."  It is my own fault that I was tricked.  Thou art
as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury stamps at Nucklao.
But what a tale!  What a tale!  Is it true by any chance?'

'It does not profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali.  It is better to help
his friends by lending them a stamp.  When the money comes I will
repay.'

The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his desk, sealed
the letter, handed it over to Kim, and departed.  Mahbub Ali's was a
name of power in Umballa.

'That is the way to win a good account with the Gods,' Kim shouted
after him.

'Pay me twice over when the money comes,' the man cried over his
shoulder.

'What was you bukkin' to that nigger about?'  said the drummer-boy when
Kim returned to the veranda.  'I was watch-in' you.'

'I was only talkin' to him.'

'You talk the same as a nigger, don't you?'

'No-ah!  No-ah!  I onlee speak a little.  What shall we do now?'

'The bugles'll go for dinner in arf a minute.  My Gawd!  I wish I'd
gone up to the Front with the Regiment.  It's awful doin' nothin' but
school down 'ere.  Don't you 'ate it?'

'Oah yess!'

I'd run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in this
bloomin' Injia you're only a prisoner at large.  You can't desert
without bein' took back at once.  I'm fair sick of it.'

'You have been in Be--England?'

'W'y, I only come out last troopin' season with my mother.  I should
think I 'ave been in England.  What a ignorant little beggar you are!
You was brought up in the gutter, wasn't you?'

'Oah yess.  Tell me something about England.  My father he came from
there.'

Though he would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every word the
drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England.  It
passed the heavy time till dinner--a most unappetizing meal served to
the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room.  But that he
had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have been almost depressed.  The
indifference of native crowds he was used to; but this strong
loneliness among white men preyed on him. He was grateful when, in the
course of the afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father Victor,
who lived in another wing across another dusty parade-ground.  The
priest was reading an English letter written in purple ink.  He looked
at Kim more curiously than ever.

'An' how do you like it, my son, as far as you've gone?  Not much, eh?
It must be hard--very hard on a wild animal.  Listen now.  I've an
amazin' epistle from your friend.'

'Where is he?  Is he well?  Oah!  If he knows to write me letters, it
is all right.'

'You're fond of him then?'

'Of course I am fond of him.  He was fond of me.'

'It seems so by the look of this.  He can't write English, can he?'

'Oah no.  Not that I know, but of course he found a letter-writer who
can write English verree well, and so he wrote.  I do hope you
understand.'

'That accounts for it.  D'you know anything about his money affairs?'
Kim's face showed that he did not.

'How can I tell?'

'That's what I'm askin'.  Now listen if you can make head or tail o'
this.  We'll skip the first part ...  It's written from Jagadhir Road
...  "Sitting on wayside in grave meditation, trusting to be favoured
with your Honour's applause of present step, which recommend your
Honour to execute for Almighty God's sake.  Education is greatest
blessing if of best sorts.  Otherwise no earthly use." Faith, the old
man's hit the bull's-eye that time!  "If your Honour condescending
giving my boy best educations Xavier" (I suppose that's St Xavier's in
Partibus) "in terms of our conversation dated in your tent 15th
instant" (a business-like touch there!) "then Almighty God blessing
your Honour's succeedings to third an' fourth generation and"--now
listen!--"confide in your Honour's humble servant for adequate
remuneration per hoondi per annum three hundred rupees a year to one
expensive education St Xavier, Lucknow, and allow small time to forward
same per hoondi sent to any part of India as your Honour shall address
yourself.  This servant of your Honour has presently no place to lay
crown of his head, but going to Benares by train on account of
persecution of old woman talking so much and unanxious residing
Saharunpore in any domestic capacity."  Now what in the world does that
mean?'

'She has asked him to be her puro--her clergyman--at Saharunpore, I
think.  He would not do that on account of his River.  She did talk.'

'It's clear to you, is it?  It beats me altogether.  "So going to
Benares, where will find address and forward rupees for boy who is
apple of eye, and for Almighty God's sake execute this education, and
your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever awfully pray. Written by
Sobrao Satai, Failed Entrance Allahabad University, for Venerable
Teshoo Lama the priest of Such-zen looking for a River, address care of
Tirthankars' Temple, Benares.  P. M.--Please note boy is apple of eye,
and rupees shall be sent per hoondi three hundred per annum.  For God
Almighty's sake."  Now, is that ravin' lunacy or a business
proposition?  I ask you, because I'm fairly at my wits' end.'

'He says he will give me three hundred rupees a year?  So he will give
me them.'

'Oh, that's the way you look at it, is it?'

'Of course.  If he says so!'

The priest whistled; then he addressed Kim as an equal.  'I don't
believe it; but we'll see.  You were goin' off today to the Military
Orphanage at Sanawar, where the Regiment would keep you till you were
old enough to enlist.  Ye'd be brought up to the Church of England.
Bennett arranged for that.  On the other hand, if ye go to St Xavier's
ye'll get a better education an--an can have the religion.  D'ye see my
dilemma?  Kim saw nothing save a vision of the lama going south in a
train with none to beg for him.

'Like most people, I'm going to temporize.  If your friend sends the
money from Benares--Powers of Darkness below, where's a street-beggar
to raise three hundred rupees?--ye'll go down to Lucknow and I'll pay
your fare, because I can't touch the subscription-money if I intend, as
I do, to make ye a Catholic.  If he doesn't, ye'll go to the Military
Orphanage at the Regiment's expense.  I'll allow him three days' grace,
though I don't believe it at all.  Even then, if he fails in his
payments later on ...  but it's beyond me.  We can only walk one step
at a time in this world, praise God! An' they sent Bennett to the Front
an' left me behind.  Bennett can't expect everything.'

'Oah yess,' said Kim vaguely.

The priest leaned forward.  'I'd give a month's pay to find what's
goin' on inside that little round head of yours.'

'There is nothing,' said Kim, and scratched it.  He was wondering
whether Mahbub Ali would send him as much as a whole rupee.  Then he
could pay the letter-writer and write letters to the lama at Benares.
Perhaps Mahbub Ali would visit him next time he came south with horses.
Surely he must know that Kim's delivery of the letter to the officer at
Umballa had caused the great war which the men and boys had discussed
so loudly over the barrack dinner-tables. But if Mahbub Ali did not
know this, it would be very unsafe to tell him so.  Mahbub Ali was hard
upon boys who knew, or thought they knew, too much.

'Well, till I get further news'--Father Victor's voice interrupted the
reverie.  'Ye can run along now and play with the other boys. They'll
teach ye something--but I don't think ye'll like it.'

The day dragged to its weary end.  When he wished to sleep he was
instructed how to fold up his clothes and set out his boots; the other
boys deriding.  Bugles waked him in the dawn; the schoolmaster caught
him after breakfast, thrust a page of meaningless characters under his
nose, gave them senseless names and whacked him without reason.  Kim
meditated poisoning him with opium borrowed from a barrack-sweeper, but
reflected that, as they all ate at one table in public (this was
peculiarly revolting to Kim, who preferred to turn his back on the
world at meals), the stroke might be dangerous. Then he attempted
running off to the village where the priest had tried to drug the
lama--the village where the old soldier lived.  But far-seeing sentries
at every exit headed back the little scarlet figure. Trousers and
jacket crippled body and mind alike so he abandoned the project and
fell back, Oriental-fashion, on time and chance.  Three days of torment
passed in the big, echoing white rooms.  He walked out of afternoons
under escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard from his companions
were the few useless words which seemed to make two-thirds of the white
man's abuse.  Kim knew and despised them all long ago.  The boy
resented his silence and lack of interest by beating him, as was only
natural.  He did not care for any of the bazars which were in bounds.
He styled all natives 'niggers'; yet servants and sweepers called him
abominable names to his face, and, misled by their deferential
attitude, he never understood.  This somewhat consoled Kim for the
beatings.

On the morning of the fourth day a judgement overtook that drummer.
They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse.  He returned
alone, weeping, with news that young O'Hara, to whom he had been doing
nothing in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger on
horseback; that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a
peculiarly adhesive quirt, picked up young O'Hara, and borne him off at
full gallop.  These tidings came to Father Victor, and he drew down his
long upper lip.  He was already sufficiently startled by a letter from
the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares, enclosing a native banker's
note of hand for three hundred rupees, and an amazing prayer to
'Almighty God'.  The lama would have been more annoyed than the priest
had he known how the bazar letter-writer had translated his phrase 'to
acquire merit.'

'Powers of Darkness below!'  Father Victor fumbled with the note. 'An'
now he's off with another of his peep-o'-day friends.  I don't know
whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or to have
him lost.  He's beyond my comprehension.  How the Divil--yes, he's the
man I mean--can a street-beggar raise money to educate white boys?'

Three miles off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a grey
Kabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was saying:

'But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my honour and reputation
to be considered.  All the officer-Sahibs in all the regiments, and all
Umballa, know Mahbub Ali.  Men saw me pick thee up and chastise that
boy.  We are seen now from far across this plain.  How can I take thee
away, or account for thy disappearing if I set thee down and let thee
run off into the crops?  They would put me in jail.  Be patient.  Once
a Sahib, always a Sahib.  When thou art a man--who knows?--thou wilt be
grateful to Mahbub Ali.'

'Take me beyond their sentries where I can change this red.  Give me
money and I will go to Benares and be with my lama again.  I do not
want to be a Sahib, and remember I did deliver that message.'

The stallion bounded wildly.  Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven home
the sharp-edged stirrup.  (He was not the new sort of fluent
horse-dealer who wears English boots and spurs.) Kim drew his own
conclusions from that betrayal.

'That was a small matter.  It lay on the straight road to Benares.  I
and the Sahib have by this time forgotten it.  I send so many letters
and messages to men who ask questions about horses, I cannot well
remember one from the other.  Was it some matter of a bay mare that
Peters Sahib wished the pedigree of?'

Kim saw the trap at once.  If he had said 'bay mare' Mahbub would have
known by his very readiness to fall in with the amendment that the boy
suspected something.  Kim replied therefore:

'Bay mare.  No.  I do not forget my messages thus.  It was a white
stallion.'

'Ay, so it was.  A white Arab stallion.  But thou didst write "bay
mare" to me.'

'Who cares to tell truth to a letter-writer?'  Kim answered, feeling
Mahbub's palm on his heart.

'Hi!  Mahbub, you old villain, pull up!'  cried a voice, and an
Englishman raced alongside on a little polo-pony.  'I've been chasing
you half over the country.  That Kabuli of yours can go.  For sale, I
suppose?'

'I have some young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the delicate and
difficult polo-game.  He has no equal.  He--'

'Plays polo and waits at table.  Yes.  We know all that.  What the
deuce have you got there?'

'A. boy,' said Mahbub gravely.  'He was being beaten by another boy.
His father was once a white soldier in the big war.  The boy was a
child in Lahore city.  He played with my horses when he was a babe. Now
I think they will make him a soldier.  He has been newly caught by his
father's Regiment that went up to the war last week.  But I do not
think he wants to be a soldier.  I take him for a ride.  Tell me where
thy barracks are and I will set thee there.'

'Let me go.  I can find the barracks alone.'

'And if thou runnest away who will say it is not my fault?'

'He'll run back to his dinner.  Where has he to run to?'  the
Englishman asked.

'He was born in the land.  He has friends.  He goes where he chooses.
He is a chabuk sawai [a sharp chap].  It needs only to change his
clothing, and in a twinkling he would be a low-caste Hindu boy.'

'The deuce he would!'  The Englishman looked critically at the boy as
Mahbub headed towards the barracks.  Kim ground his teeth.  Mahbub was
mocking him, as faithless Afghans will; for he went on:

'They will send him to a school and put heavy boots on his feet and
swaddle him in these clothes.  Then he will forget all he knows. Now,
which of the barracks is thine?'

Kim pointed--he could not speak--to Father Victor's wing, all staring
white near by.

'Perhaps he will make a good soldier,' said Mahbub reflectively.

'He will make a good orderly at least.  I sent him to deliver a message
once from Lahore.  A message concerning the pedigree of a white
stallion.'

Here was deadly insult on deadlier injury--and the Sahib to whom he had
so craftily given that war-waking letter heard it all.  Kim beheld
Mahbub Ali frying in flame for his treachery, but for himself he saw
one long grey vista of barracks, schools, and barracks again.  He gazed
imploringly at the clear-cut face in which there was no glimmer of
recognition; but even at this extremity it never occurred to him to
throw himself on the white man's mercy or to denounce the Afghan.  And
Mahbub stared deliberately at the Englishman, who stared as
deliberately at Kim, quivering and tongue-tied.

'My horse is well trained,' said the dealer.  'Others would have
kicked, Sahib.'

'Ah,' said the Englishman at last, rubbing his pony's damp withers with
his whip-butt.  'Who makes the boy a soldier?'

'He says the Regiment that found him, and especially the Padre-sahib of
that regiment.

'There is the Padre!'  Kim choked as bare-headed Father Victor sailed
down upon them from the veranda.

'Powers O' Darkness below, O'Hara!  How many more mixed friends do you
keep in Asia?'  he cried, as Kim slid down and stood helplessly before
him.

'Good morning, Padre,' the Englishman said cheerily.  'I know you by
reputation well enough.  Meant to have come over and called before
this.  I'm Creighton.'

'Of the Ethnological Survey?'  said Father Victor.  The Englishman
nodded.  'Faith, I'm glad to meet ye then; an' I owe you some thanks
for bringing back the boy.'

'No thanks to me, Padre.  Besides, the boy wasn't going away.  You
don't know old Mahbub Ali.'  The horse-dealer sat impassive in the
sunlight.  'You will when you have been in the station a month.  He
sells us all our crocks.  That boy is rather a curiosity.  Can you tell
me anything about him?'

'Can I tell you?'  puffed Father Victor.  'You'll be the one man that
could help me in my quandaries.  Tell you!  Powers o' Darkness, I'm
bursting to tell someone who knows something o' the native!'

A groom came round the corner.  Colonel Creighton raised his voice,
speaking in Urdu.  'Very good, Mahbub Ali, but what is the use of
telling me all those stories about the pony?  Not one pice more than
three hundred and fifty rupees will I give.'

'The Sahib is a little hot and angry after riding,' the horse-dealer
returned, with the leer of a privileged jester.  'Presently, he will
see my horse's points more clearly.  I will wait till he has finished
his talk with the Padre.  I will wait under that tree.'

'Confound you!'  The Colonel laughed.  'That comes of looking at one of
Mahbub's horses.  He's a regular old leech, Padre.  Wait, then, if thou
hast so much time to spare, Mahbub.  Now I'm at your service, Padre.
Where is the boy?  Oh, he's gone off to collogue with Mahbub. Queer
sort of boy.  Might I ask you to send my mare round under cover?'

He dropped into a chair which commanded a clear view of Kim and Mahbub
Ali in conference beneath the tree.  The Padre went indoors for
cheroots.

Creighton heard Kim say bitterly:  'Trust a Brahmin before a snake, and
a snake before an harlot, and an harlot before a Pathan, Mahbub Ali.'

'That is all one.'  The great red beard wagged solemnly.  'Children
should not see a carpet on the loom till the pattern is made plain.
Believe me, Friend of all the World, I do thee great service.  They
will not make a soldier of thee.'

'You crafty old sinner!'  thought Creighton.  'But you're not far
wrong.  That boy mustn't be wasted if he is as advertised.'

'Excuse me half a minute,' cried the Padre from within, 'but I'm
gettin' the documents in the case.'

'If through me the favour of this bold and wise Colonel Sahib comes to
thee, and thou art raised to honour, what thanks wilt thou give Mahbub
Ali when thou art a man?'

'Nay, nay!  I begged thee to let me take the Road again, where I should
have been safe; and thou hast sold me back to the English. What will
they give thee for blood-money?'

'A cheerful young demon!'  The Colonel bit his cigar, and turned
politely to Father Victor.

'What are the letters that the fat priest is waving before the Colonel?
Stand behind the stallion as though looking at my bridle!' said Mahbub
Ali.

'A letter from my lama which he wrote from Jagadhir Road, saying that
he will pay three hundred rupees by the year for my schooling.'

'Oho!  Is old Red Hat of that sort?  At which school?'

'God knows.  I think in Nucklao.'

'Yes.  There is a big school there for the sons of Sahibs--and
half-Sahibs.  I have seen it when I sell horses there.  So the lama
also loved the Friend of all the World?'

'Ay; and he did not tell lies, or return me to captivity.'

'Small wonder the Padre does not know how to unravel the thread. How
fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib!'  Mahbub Ali chuckled.  'By Allah!'
the keen eyes swept the veranda for an Instant--'thy lama has sent what
to me looks like a note of hand.  I have had some few dealings in
hoondis.  The Colonel Sahib is looking at it.'

'What good is all this to me?'  said Kim wearily.  'Thou wilt go away,
and they will return me to those empty rooms where there is no good
place to sleep and where the boys beat me.'

'I do not think that.  Have patience, child.  All Pathans are not
faithless--except in horseflesh.'

Five--ten--fifteen minutes passed, Father Victor talking energetically
or asking questions which the Colonel answered.

'Now I've told you everything that I know about the boy from beginnin
to end; and it's a blessed relief to me.  Did ye ever hear the like?'

'At any rate, the old man has sent the money.  Gobind Sahai's notes of
hand are good from here to China,' said the Colonel.  'The more one
knows about natives the less can one say what they will or won't do.'

'That's consolin'--from the head of the Ethnological Survey.  It's this
mixture of Red Bulls and Rivers of Healing (poor heathen, God help
him!) an' notes of hand and Masonic certificates.  Are you a Mason, by
any chance?'

'By Jove, I am, now I come to think of it.  That's an additional
reason,' said the Colonel absently.

'I'm glad ye see a reason in it.  But as I said, it's the mixture o'
things that's beyond me.  An' his prophesyin' to our Colonel, sitting
on my bed with his little shimmy torn open showing his white skin; an'
the prophecy comin' true!  They'll cure all that nonsense at St
Xavier's, eh?'

'Sprinkle him with holy water,' the Colonel laughed.

'On my word, I fancy I ought to sometimes.  But I'm hoping he'll be
brought up as a good Catholic.  All that troubles me is what'll happen
if the old beggar-man--'

'Lama, lama, my dear sir; and some of them are gentlemen in their own
country.'

'The lama, then, fails to pay next year.  He's a fine business head to
plan on the spur of the moment, but he's bound to die some day. An'
takin' a heathen's money to give a child a Christian education--'

'But he said explicitly what he wanted.  As soon as he knew the boy was
white he seems to have made his arrangements accordingly.  I'd give a
month's pay to hear how he explained it all at the Tirthankars' Temple
at Benares.  Look here, Padre, I don't pretend to know much about
natives, but if he says he'll pay, he'll pay--dead or alive.  I mean,
his heirs will assume the debt.  My advice to you is, send the boy down
to Lucknow.  If your Anglican Chaplain thinks you've stolen a march on
him--'

'Bad luck to Bennett!  He was sent to the Front instead o' me. Doughty
certified me medically unfit.  I'll excommunicate Doughty if he comes
back alive!  Surely Bennett ought to be content with--'

'Glory, leaving you the religion.  Quite so!  As a matter of fact I
don't think Bennett will mind.  Put the blame on me.  I--er--strongly
recommend sending the boy to St Xavier's.  He can go down on pass as a
soldier's orphan, so the railway fare will be saved. You can buy him an
outfit from the Regimental subscription.  The Lodge will be saved the
expense of his education, and that will put the Lodge in a good temper.
It's perfectly easy.  I've got to go down to Lucknow next week.  I'll
look after the boy on the way--give him in charge of my servants, and
so on.'

'You're a good man.'

'Not in the least.  Don't make that mistake.  The lama has sent us
money for a definite end.  We can't very well return it.  We shall have
to do as he says.  Well, that's settled, isn't it?  Shall we say that,
Tuesday next, you'll hand him over to me at the night train south?
That's only three days.  He can't do much harm in three days.'

'It's a weight off my mind, but--this thing here?'--he waved the note
of hand--'I don't know Gobind Sahai:  or his bank, which may be a hole
in a wall.'

'You've never been a subaltern in debt.  I'll cash it if you like, and
send you the vouchers in proper order.'

'But with all your own work too!  It's askin'--'

'It's not the least trouble indeed.  You see, as an ethnologist, the
thing's very interesting to me.  I'd like to make a note of it for some
Government work that I'm doing.  The transformation of a regimental
badge like your Red Bull into a sort of fetish that the boy follows is
very interesting.'

'But I can't thank you enough.'

'There's one thing you can do.  All we Ethnological men are as jealous
as jackdaws of one another's discoveries.  They're of no interest to
anyone but ourselves, of course, but you know what book-collectors are
like.  Well, don't say a word, directly or indirectly, about the
Asiatic side of the boy's character--his adventures and his prophecy,
and so on.  I'll worm them out of the boy later on and--you see?'

'I do.  Ye'll make a wonderful account of it.  Never a word will I say
to anyone till I see it in print.'

'Thank you.  That goes straight to an ethnologist's heart.  Well, I
must be getting back to my breakfast.  Good Heavens!  Old Mahbub here
still?'  He raised his voice, and the horse-dealer came out from under
the shadow of the tree, 'Well, what is it?'

'As regards that young horse,' said Mahbub, 'I say that when a colt is
born to be a polo-pony, closely following the ball without
teaching--when such a colt knows the game by divination--then I say it
is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!'

'So say I also, Mahbub.  The colt will be entered for polo only. (These
fellows think of nothing in the world but horses, Padre.) I'll see you
tomorrow, Mahbub, if you've anything likely for sale.'

The dealer saluted, horseman-fashion, with a sweep of the off hand. 'Be
patient a little, Friend of all the World,' he whispered to the
agonized Kim.  'Thy fortune is made.  In a little while thou goest to
Nucklao, and--here is something to pay the letter-writer. I shall see
thee again, I think, many times,' and he cantered off down the road.

'Listen to me,' said the Colonel from the veranda, speaking in the
vernacular.  'In three days thou wilt go with me to Lucknow, seeing and
hearing new things all the while.  Therefore sit still for three days
and do not run away.  Thou wilt go to school at Lucknow.'

'Shall I meet my Holy One there?'  Kim whimpered.

'At least Lucknow is nearer to Benares than Umballa.  It may be thou
wilt go under my protection.  Mahbub Ali knows this, and he will be
angry if thou returnest to the Road now.  Remember--much has been told
me which I do not forget.'

'I will wait,' said Kim, 'but the boys will beat me.'

Then the bugles blew for dinner.

 The next morning, the Colonel of the regiment receives a letter. It does indeed say that they have to march north to fight. Father Victor is deeply impressed. Everyone in the regiment is totally fascinated with Kim . When the soldiers of the regiment head north, Kim gets left behind with the women and children. A teacher finds Kim and drags him into school; Kim does not find this experience pleasant, since he's bored and barely knows how to read. Kim slips away, but a fourteen-year old kid catches him. This drummer-boy has been specifically assigned to keep an eye on Kim. The drummer-boy tells Kim he's not allowed to go past a tree down the road. So Kim hangs around that tree and waits for someone to pass by. A sweeper walks past, and Kim demands that he bring a letter-writer to meet Kim. The sweeper is so amazed at being spoken to in his own language by a white kid that he does what Kim asks. The letter-writer arrives and takes down Kim's letter to Mahbub Ali. In it, Kim explains everything that has happened to him. He begs for Mahbub Ali to help him escape the horrors of School. The drummer-boy mocks Kim for being able to talk in an Indian language . Kim listens to the drummer-boy speak about England, but Kim's opinion of the drummer-boy is obviously about as low as ours is. Father Victor lets Kim know that he has received a letter from the lama offering to pay three hundred rupees a year so that Kim can be educated at St. Xavier's, the best school in India. The lama also mentions that he is going south to Benares on his own because he can't stand the Kulu woman's talk any longer. As Father Victor explains all of this to him, Kim sits quietly thinking about: who will beg for the lama if he is on his own, and how he can stay in touch with his old friend Mahbub Ali. Kim continues to hate school and to hate the drummer-boy, who keeps beating him up for no reason. Luckily, after three days, Mahbub Ali comes riding up, hits the drummer-boy, and grabs Kim; that same day, Father Victor receives a check from the lama for three hundred rupees to pay for Kim's education. Mahbub Ali has to tell Kim that he can't just help him escape. Mahbub Ali has lots of English contacts, and he'd get arrested if he helped a British kid to disappear. An Englishman comes running up to talk to Mahbub Ali about buying a horse. It's the man from Umballa, to whom Kim slipped Mahbub Ali's message. The Englishman spots Kim, whose face he has never seen before, since Kim was hiding in a hedge when he passed on the message. Mahbub Ali explains the boy's whole history, including his great abilities with disguise--Kim is furious: he wanted to keep all of that to himself. But Kim does not say a word against Mahbub Ali to the Englishman. Mahbub Ali returns Kim to Father Victor, and the Englishman goes with him. The Englishman introduces himself as Colonel Creighton, and he starts asking after Kim. Meanwhile, Mahbub Ali tells Kim not to worry--things are bad now, but in the long run, they will get better. Father Victor talks Creighton's ear off about Kim's strange origins and about whether or not he should trust the lama to keep paying Kim's tuition. Creighton reassures him: if the lama says he'll pay, then he'll pay. Creighton also asks Father Victor to keep quiet about Kim's upbringing, and claims that he wants to write a paper about Kim's weird beliefs surrounding the Red Bull. Mahbub Ali gives Kim some money for letter writers and wishes him luck. Creighton talks to Kim in Urdu: stay put, and you'll get to go to school in Lucknow. Lucknow is closer to Benares--and the lama--than Umballa is. Kim agrees to stay, even though it will be horrible.

