Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

and the travellers’ laugh turned against the banker.

“Clean⁠—to return again to the Gods,” the lama muttered. “And to go forth on the round of lives anew⁠—still tied to the Wheel.” He shook his head testily. “But maybe there is a mistake. Who, then, made Gunga in the beginning?”

“The Gods. Of what known faith art thou?” the banker said, appalled.

“I follow the Law⁠—the Most Excellent Law. So it was the Gods that made Gunga. What like of Gods were they?”

The carriage looked at him in amazement. It was inconceivable that anyone should be ignorant of Gunga.

“What⁠—what is thy God?” said the moneylender at last.

“Hear!” said the lama, shifting the rosary to his hand. “Hear: for I speak of Him now! O people of Hind, listen!”

He began in Urdu the tale of the Lord Buddha, but, borne by his own thoughts, slid into Tibetan and long-droned texts from a Chinese book of the Buddha’s life. The gentle, tolerant folk looked on reverently. All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to the end.

“Um!” said the soldier of the Ludhiana Sikhs. “There was a Mohammedan regiment lay next to us at the Pirzai Kotal, and a priest of theirs⁠—he was, as I remember, a naik⁠—when the fit was on him, spake prophecies. But the mad all are in God’s keeping. His officers overlooked much in that man.”

The lama fell back on Urdu, remembering that he was in a strange land. “Hear the tale of the Arrow which our Lord loosed from the bow,” he said.

This was much more to their taste, and they listened curiously while he told it. “Now, O people of Hind, I go to seek that River. Know ye aught that may guide me, for we be all men and women in evil case.”

“There is Gunga⁠—and Gunga alone⁠—who washes away sin,” ran the murmur round the carriage.

“Though past question we have good Gods Jullundur-way,” said the cultivator’s wife, looking out of the window. “See how they have blessed the crops.”

“To search every river in the Punjab is no small matter,” said her husband. “For me, a stream that leaves good silt on my land suffices, and I thank Bhumia, the God of the Homestead.” He shrugged one knotted, bronzed shoulder.

“Think you our Lord came so far North?” said the lama, turning to Kim.

“It may be,” Kim replied soothingly, as he spat red pan-juice on the floor.

“The last of the Great Ones,” said the Sikh with authority, “was Sikander Julkarn.14 He paved the streets of Jullundur and built a great tank near Umballa. That pavement holds to this day; and the tank is there also. I never heard of thy God.”

“Let thy hair grow long and talk Punjabi,” said the young soldier jestingly to Kim, quoting a Northern proverb. “That is all that makes a Sikh.” But he did not say this very loud.

The lama sighed and shrank into himself, a dingy, shapeless mass. In the pauses of their talk they could hear the low droning⁠—“Om mane pudme hum! Om mane pudme hum!”⁠—and the thick click of the wooden rosary beads.

“It irks me,” he said at last. “The speed and the clatter irk me. Moreover, my chela, I think that maybe we have over-passed that River.”

“Peace, peace,” said Kim. “Was not the River near Benares? We are yet far from the place.”

“But⁠—if our Lord came North, it may be any one of these little ones that we have run across.”

“I do not know.”

“But thou wast sent to me⁠—wast thou sent to me?⁠—for the merit I had acquired over yonder at Such-zen. From beside the cannon didst thou come⁠—bearing two faces⁠—and two garbs.”

“Peace. One must not speak of these things here,” whispered Kim. “There was but one of me. Think again and thou wilt remember. A boy⁠—a Hindu boy⁠—by the great green cannon.”

“But was there not also an Englishman with a white beard holy among images⁠—who himself made more sure my assurance of the River of the Arrow?”

“He⁠—we⁠—went to the Ajaib-Gher in Lahore to pray before the Gods there,” Kim explained to the openly listening company. “And the Sahib of the Wonder House talked to him⁠—yes, this is truth as a brother. He is a very holy man, from far beyond the Hills. Rest, thou. In time we come to Umballa.”

“But my River⁠—the River of my healing?”

“And then, if it please thee, we will go hunting for that River on foot. So that we miss nothing⁠—not even a little rivulet in a field-side.”

“But thou hast a Search of thine own?” The lama⁠—very pleased that he remembered so well⁠—sat bolt upright.

“Ay,” said Kim, humouring him. The boy was entirely happy to be out chewing pan and seeing new people in the great good-tempered world.

“It was a bull⁠—a Red Bull that shall come and help thee and carry thee⁠—whither? I have forgotten. A Red Bull on a green field, was it not?”

“Nay, it will carry me nowhere,” said Kim. “It is but a tale I told thee.”

“What is this?” The cultivator’s wife leaned forward, her bracelets clinking on her arm. “Do ye both dream dreams? A Red Bull on a green field, that shall carry thee to the heavens or what? Was it a vision? Did one make a prophecy? We have a Red Bull in our village behind Jullundur city, and he grazes by choice in the very greenest of our fields!”

“Give a woman an old wife’s tale and a weaverbird a leaf and a thread, they will weave wonderful things,” said the Sikh. “All holy men dream dreams, and by following holy men their disciples attain that power.”

“A Red Bull on a green field, was it?” the lama repeated. “In a former life it may be thou hast acquired merit, and the Bull will come to reward thee.”

“Nay⁠—nay⁠—it was but a