Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

school was shut? Look, too, how I, living upon my friends or working for my bread, as I did with the Sikh, have saved the Colonel Sahib a great expense.”

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

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

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

“Who told?”

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

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

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

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

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

“As thou wouldst surely die⁠—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib35 come to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib’s office. I saw the two read the white stallion’s pedigree. I heard the very orders given for the opening of a great war.”

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

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

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

“So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of