Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

good. But that was very long ago,” he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown hand⁠—“and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.”

“Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born’s thought might have led?” said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet beard.

“It is permitted,” said Kim, and threw back the very tone. “They say at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a fault.”

Mahbub’s hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a “black man”36 is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed. “Speak, Sahib. Thy black man hears.”

“But,” said Kim, “I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed by a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it was well done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service. I will stay in the madrissah till I am ripe.”

“Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of using compasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills above to show thee.”

“I will learn their teaching upon a condition⁠—that my time is given to me without question when the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me of the Colonel.”

“But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs’ tongue?”

“The Colonel is the servant of the Government. He is sent hither and yon at a word, and must consider his own advancement. (See how much I have already learned at Nucklao!) Moreover, the Colonel I know since three months only. I have known one Mahbub Ali for six years. So! To the madrissah I will go. At the madrissah I will learn. In the madrissah I will be a Sahib. But when the madrissah is shut, then must I be free and go among my people. Otherwise I die!”

“And who are thy people, Friend of all the World?”

“This great and beautiful land,” said Kim, waving his paw round the little clay-walled room where the oil-lamp in its niche burned heavily through the tobacco-smoke. “And, further, I would see my lama again. And, further, I need money.”

“That is the need of everyone,” said Mahbub ruefully. “I will give thee eight annas, for much money is not picked out of horses’ hooves, and it must suffice for many days. As to all the rest, I am well pleased, and no further talk is needed. Make haste to learn, and in three years, or it may be less, thou wilt be an aid⁠—even to me.”

“Have I been such a hindrance till now?” said Kim, with a boy’s giggle.

“Do not give answers,” Mahbub grunted. “Thou art my new horse-boy. Go and bed among my men. They are near the north end of the station, with the horses.”

“They will beat me to the south end of the station if I come without authority.”

Mahbub felt in his belt, wetted his thumb on a cake of Chinese ink, and dabbed the impression on a piece of soft native paper. From Balkh to Bombay men know that rough-ridged print with the old scar running diagonally across it.

“That is enough to show my headman. I come in the morning.”

“By which road?” said Kim.

“By the road from the city. There is but one, and then we return to Creighton Sahib. I have saved thee a beating.”

“Allah! What is a beating when the very head is loose on the shoulders?”

Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house, keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a mile or so. Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at leisure, for he needed time to invent a story if any of Mahbub’s retainers asked questions.

They were camped on a piece of waste ground beside the railway, and, being natives, had not, of course, unloaded the two trucks in which Mahbub’s animals stood among a consignment of country-breds bought by the Bombay tram-company. The headman, a broken-down, consumptive-looking Mohammedan, promptly challenged Kim, but was pacified at sight of Mahbub’s sign-manual.

“The Hajji has of his favour given me service,” said Kim testily. “If this be doubted, wait till he comes in the morning. Meantime, a place by the fire.”

Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the little knot of Mahbub’s followers, almost under the wheels of a horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded horses and unwashed Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but Kim was utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots of St. Xavier’s all arow under the punkah gave him joy as keen as the repetition of the multiplication-table in English.

“I am very old,” he thought sleepily. “Every month I become a year more old. I was very young, and a fool to boot, when I took Mahbub’s message to Umballa. Even when I was with that white Regiment I was very young and small and had no wisdom. But now I learn every day, and in three years the Colonel will take me out of the madrissah and let me go upon the Road with Mahbub hunting for horses’ pedigrees, or maybe I shall go by myself; or maybe I shall find the lama and go with him. Yes; that is best. To walk again as a chela with my lama when he comes back to Benares.”

The thoughts came more slowly and disconnectedly. He was plunging into a beautiful