Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

“It is a hole as big as thy head,” said the woman fretfully. But she filled it, none the less, with good, steaming vegetable curry, clapped a fried cake atop, and a morsel of clarified butter on the cake, dabbed a lump of sour tamarind conserve at the side; and Kim looked at the load lovingly.

“That is good. When I am in the bazaar the bull shall not come to this house. He is a bold beggar-man.”

“And thou?” laughed the woman. “But speak well of bulls. Hast thou not told me that some day a Red Bull will come out of a field to help thee? Now hold all straight and ask for the holy man’s blessing upon me. Perhaps, too, he knows a cure for my daughter’s sore eyes. Ask him that also, O thou Little Friend of all the World.”

But Kim had danced off ere the end of the sentence, dodging pariah dogs and hungry acquaintances.

“Thus do we beg who know the way of it,” said he proudly to the lama, who opened his eyes at the contents of the bowl. “Eat now and⁠—I will eat with thee. Ohé, bhisti!” he called to the water-carrier, sluicing the crotons by the Museum. “Give water here. We men are thirsty.”

“We men!” said the bhisti, laughing. “Is one skinful enough for such a pair? Drink, then, in the name of the Compassionate.”

He loosed a thin stream into Kim’s hands, who drank native fashion; but the lama must needs pull out a cup from his inexhaustible upper draperies and drink ceremonially.

“Pardesi,”10 Kim explained, as the old man delivered in an unknown tongue what was evidently a blessing.

They ate together in great content, clearing the beggar’s bowl. Then the lama took snuff from a portentous wooden snuff-gourd, fingered his rosary awhile, and so dropped into the easy sleep of age, as the shadow of Zam-Zammah grew long.

Kim loafed over to the nearest tobacco-seller, a rather lively young Mohammedan woman, and begged a rank cigar of the brand that they sell to students of the Punjab University who copy English customs. Then he smoked and thought, knees to chin, under the belly of the gun, and the outcome of his thoughts was a sudden and stealthy departure in the direction of Nila Ram’s timber-yard.

The lama did not wake till the evening life of the city had begun with lamp-lighting and the return of white-robed clerks and subordinates from the Government offices. He stared dizzily in all directions, but none looked at him save a Hindu urchin in a dirty turban and Isabella-coloured clothes. Suddenly he bowed his head on his knees and wailed.

“What is this?” said the boy, standing before him. “Hast thou been robbed?”

“It is my new chela that is gone away from me, and I know not where he is.”

“And what like of man was thy disciple?”

“It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there.” He pointed towards the Museum. “He came upon me to show me a road which I had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by his talk emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was cheered and made strong. And when I was faint with hunger he begged for me, as would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent. Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have taught him the Law upon the road to Benares.”

Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.

“But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I know that I shall find a certain River for which I seek.”

“The River of the Arrow?” said Kim, with a superior smile.

“Is this yet another Sending?” cried the lama. “To none have I spoken of my search, save to the Priest of the Images. Who art thou?”

“Thy chela,” said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. “I have never seen anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to Benares. And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.”

“But the River⁠—the River of the Arrow?”

“Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I lay against the door.”

The lama sighed. “I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted. Such things fall sometimes⁠—but I am not worthy. Thou dost not, then, know the River?”

“Not I,” Kim laughed uneasily. “I go to look for⁠—for a bull⁠—a Red Bull on a green field who shall help me.” Boylike, if an acquaintance had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his own; and, boylike, he had really thought for as much as twenty minutes at a time of his father’s prophecy.

“To what, child?” said the lama.

“God knows, but so my father told me. I heard thy talk in the Wonder House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if one so old and so little⁠—so used to truth-telling⁠—may go out for the small matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must go a-travelling. If it is our fate to find those things we shall find them⁠—thou, thy River; and I, my Bull, and the Strong Pillars and some other matters that I forget.”

“It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,” said the lama.

“That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king,” said Kim, serenely prepared for anything.

“I will teach thee other and better desires upon the road,”