Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

the lama replied in the voice of authority. “Let us go to Benares.”

“Not by night. Thieves are abroad. Wait till the day.”

“But there is no place to sleep.” The old man was used to the order of his monastery, and though he slept on the ground, as the Rule decrees, preferred a decency in these things.

“We shall get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai,” said Kim, laughing at his perplexity. “I have a friend there. Come!”

The hot and crowded bazaars blazed with light as they made their way through the press of all the races in Upper India, and the lama mooned through it like a man in a dream. It was his first experience of a large manufacturing city, and the crowded tramcar with its continually squealing brakes frightened him. Half pushed, half towed, he arrived at the high gate of the Kashmir Serai: that huge open square over against the railway station, surrounded with arched cloisters, where the camel and horse caravans put up on their return from Central Asia. Here were all manner of Northern folk, tending tethered ponies and kneeling camels; loading and unloading bales and bundles; drawing water for the evening meal at the creaking well-windlasses; piling grass before the shrieking, wild-eyed stallions; cuffing the surly caravan dogs; paying off camel-drivers; taking on new grooms; swearing, shouting, arguing, and chaffering in the packed square. The cloisters, reached by three or four masonry steps, made a haven of refuge around this turbulent sea. Most of them were rented to traders, as we rent the arches of a viaduct; the space between pillar and pillar being bricked or boarded off into rooms, which were guarded by heavy wooden doors and cumbrous native padlocks. Locked doors showed that the owner was away, and a few rude⁠—sometimes very rude⁠—chalk or paint scratches told where he had gone. Thus: “Lutuf Ullah is gone to Kurdistan.” Below, in coarse verse: “O Allah, who sufferest lice to live on the coat of a Kabuli, why hast thou allowed this louse Lutuf to live so long?”

Kim, fending the lama between excited men and excited beasts, sidled along the cloisters to the far end, nearest the railway station, where Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader, lived when he came in from that mysterious land beyond the Passes of the North.

Kim had had many dealings with Mahbub in his little life, especially between his tenth and his thirteenth year⁠—and the big burly Afghan, his beard dyed scarlet with lime (for he was elderly and did not wish his grey hairs to show), knew the boy’s value as a gossip. Sometimes he would tell Kim to watch a man who had nothing whatever to do with horses: to follow him for one whole day and report every soul with whom he talked. Kim would deliver himself of his tale at evening, and Mahbub would listen without a word or gesture. It was intrigue of some kind, Kim knew; but its worth lay in saying nothing whatever to anyone except Mahbub, who gave him beautiful meals all hot from the cookshop at the head of the serai, and once as much as eight annas in money.

“He is here,” said Kim, hitting a bad-tempered camel on the nose. “Ohé. Mahbub Ali!” He halted at a dark arch and slipped behind the bewildered lama.

The horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed, was lying on a pair of silk carpet saddlebags, pulling lazily at an immense silver hookah. He turned his head very slightly at the cry; and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in his deep chest.

“Allah! A lama! A Red Lama! It is far from Lahore to the Passes. What dost thou do here?”

The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.

“God’s curse on all unbelievers!” said Mahbub. “I do not give to a lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels. They may value your blessings. Oh, horse-boys, here is a countryman of yours. See if he be hungry.”

A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and who was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest, and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the horse-boys’ fire.

“Go!” said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away, leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister.

“Go!” said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. “Little Hindu, run away. God’s curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my tail who are of thy faith.”

“Maharaj,” whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and thoroughly enjoying the situation; “my father is dead⁠—my mother is dead⁠—my stomach is empty.”

“Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There must be some Hindus in my tail.”

“Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am I a Hindu?” said Kim in English.

The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy eyebrows.

“Little Friend of all the World,” said he, “what is this?”

“Nothing. I am now that holy man’s disciple; and we go a pilgrimage together⁠—to Benares, he says. He is quite mad, and I am tired of Lahore city. I wish new air and water.”

“But for whom dost thou work? Why come to me?” The voice was harsh with suspicion.

“To whom else should I come? I have no money. It is not good to go about without money. Thou wilt sell many horses to the officers. They are very fine horses, these new ones: I have seen them. Give me a rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give thee a bond and pay.”

“Um!” said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. “Thou hast never before lied to me. Call that lama⁠—stand back in the dark.”

“Oh, our tales will agree,” said Kim, laughing.

“We go to Benares,” said the lama, as soon as he understood the drift of Mahbub Ali’s questions. “The boy and I, I go to seek for a certain River.”

“Maybe⁠—but the boy?”

“He is my disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River. Sitting under a gun was I when