Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

he came suddenly. Such things have befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remember now, he said he was of this world⁠—a Hindu.”

“And his name?”

“That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?”

“His country⁠—his race⁠—his village? Mussalman⁠—Sikh⁠—Hindu⁠—Jain⁠—low caste or high?”

“Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle Way. If he is my chela⁠—does⁠—will⁠—can anyone take him from me? for, look you, without him I shall not find my River.” He wagged his head solemnly.

“None shall take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis,” said Mahbub Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.

“Is he not quite mad?” said Kim, coming forward to the light again. “Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?”

Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost whispering: “Umballa is on the road to Benares⁠—if indeed ye two go there.”

“Tck! Tck! I tell thee he does not know how to lie⁠—as we two know.”

“And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I will give thee money. It concerns a horse⁠—a white stallion which I have sold to an officer upon the last time I returned from the Passes. But then⁠—stand nearer and hold up hands as begging⁠—the pedigree of the white stallion was not fully established, and that officer, who is now at Umballa, bade me make it clear.” (Mahbub here described the horse and the appearance of the officer.) “So the message to that officer will be: ‘The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established.’ By this will he know that thou comest from me. He will then say ‘What proof hast thou?’ and thou wilt answer: ‘Mahbub Ali has given me the proof.’ ”

“And all for the sake of a white stallion,” said Kim, with a giggle, his eyes aflame.

“That pedigree I will give thee now⁠—in my own fashion and some hard words as well.” A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.

“Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead. Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well⁠—”

He turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft, greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. “Go and lie down among my horse-boys for tonight⁠—thou and the lama. Tomorrow I may give thee service.”

Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he found a small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with three silver rupees⁠—enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust money and paper into his leather amulet-case. The lama, sumptuously fed by Mahbub’s Baltis, was already asleep in a corner of one of the stalls. Kim lay down beside him and laughed. He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe the tale of the stallion’s pedigree.

But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C25 1B. Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally⁠—it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4⁠—quite true. It concerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities, explorers of nationalities other than English, and the gun-trade⁠—was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of “information received” on which the Indian Government acts. But, recently, five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate, had been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage of news from their territories into British India. So those Kings’ Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps, after the Oriental fashion. They suspected, among many others, the bullying, red-bearded horse-dealer whose caravans ploughed through their fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At least, his caravan that season had been ambushed and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub’s men accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or might not, have been hired for the job. Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious developments.

And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an hour longer than was necessary⁠—a wad of closely folded tissue-paper, wrapped in oilskin⁠—an impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five microscopic pinholes in one corner, that most scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an important, semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the south. This last was R17’s work, which Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying in for R17, who, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, could not leave his post of observation. Dynamite was milky and innocuous beside that report of C25; and even an Oriental, with an Oriental’s views of the value of time, could see that the sooner it was in the proper hands the better. Mahbub had no particular desire to die by violence, because two or three family blood-feuds across the Border hung unfinished on his hands, and when these scores were cleared he intended to settle down as a more or less virtuous citizen. He had never passed the serai gate since his arrival two days ago, but had been ostentatious in sending telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some of his money; to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own clan was selling horses to the agent of a Rajputana state; and to Umballa, where an Englishman was excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white stallion. The public letter-writer, who knew English, composed excellent telegrams, such as: “Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa. Horse is Arabian as already advised. Sorrowful delayed pedigree which am translating.” And