Chapter Chapter 10 · Chapter X

. Chapter X

Your tiercel’s too long at hack, Sire. He’s no eyass

But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,

Dangerously free o’ the air. Faith! were he mine

(As mine’s the glove he binds to for his tirings)

I’d fly him with a make-hawk. He’s in yarak

Plumed to the very point—so manned, so weathered...

Give him the firmament God made him for,

And what shall take the air of him?—_Old Play._

Lurgan Sahib did not use as direct speech, but his advice tallied with

Mahbub’s; and the upshot was good for Kim. He knew better now than to

leave Lucknow city in native garb, and if Mahbub were anywhere within

reach of a letter, it was to Mahbub’s camp he headed, and made his

change under the Pathan’s wary eye. Could the little Survey paint-box

that he used for map-tinting in term-time have found a tongue to tell

of holiday doings, he might have been expelled. Once Mahbub and he went

together as far as the beautiful city of Bombay, with three truckloads

of tram-horses, and Mahbub nearly melted when Kim proposed a sail in a

dhow across the Indian Ocean to buy Gulf Arabs, which, he understood

from a hanger-on of the dealer Abdul Rahman, fetched better prices than

mere Kabulis.

He dipped his hand into the dish with that great trader when Mahbub and

a few co-religionists were invited to a big Haj dinner. They came back

by way of Karachi by sea, when Kim took his first experience of

sea-sickness sitting on the fore-hatch of a coasting-steamer, well

persuaded he had been poisoned. The Babu’s famous drug-box proved

useless, though Kim had restocked it at Bombay. Mahbub had business at

Quetta, and there Kim, as Mahbub admitted, earned his keep, and perhaps

a little over, by spending four curious days as scullion in the house

of a fat Commissariat sergeant, from whose office-box, in an auspicious

moment, he removed a little vellum ledger which he copied out—it seemed

to deal entirely with cattle and camel sales—by moonlight, lying behind

an outhouse, all through one hot night. Then he returned the ledger to

its place, and, at Mahbub’s word, left that service unpaid, rejoining

him six miles down the road, the clean copy in his bosom.

“That soldier is a small fish,” Mahbub Ali explained, “but in time we

shall catch the larger one. He only sells oxen at two prices—one for

himself and one for the Government—which I do not think is a sin.”

“Why could not I take away the little book and be done with it?”

“Then he would have been frightened, and he would have told his master.

Then we should miss, perhaps, a great number of new rifles which seek

their way up from Quetta to the North. The Game is so large that one

sees but a little at a time.”

“Oho!” said Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon holidays,

after he had taken the prize for mathematics. The Christmas holidays he

spent—deducting ten days for private amusements—with Lurgan Sahib,

where he sat for the most part in front of a roaring wood-fire—Jakko

road was four feet deep in snow that year—and—the small Hindu had gone

away to be married—helped Lurgan to thread pearls. He made Kim learn

whole chapters of the Koran by heart, till he could deliver them with

the very roll and cadence of a mullah. Moreover, he told Kim the names

and properties of many native drugs, as well as the runes proper to

recite when you administer them. And in the evenings he wrote charms on

parchment—elaborate pentagrams crowned with the names of devils—Murra,

and Awan the Companion of Kings—all fantastically written in the

corners. More to the point, he advised Kim as to the care of his own

body, the cure of fever-fits, and simple remedies of the Road. A week

before it was time to go down, Colonel Creighton Sahib—this was

unfair—sent Kim a written examination paper that concerned itself

solely with rods and chains and links and angles.

Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the way, he nearly

died of thirst, plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious

city of Bikanir, where the wells are four hundred feet deep, and lined

throughout with camel-bone. It was not an amusing trip from Kim’s point

of view, because—in defiance of the contract—the Colonel ordered him to

make a map of that wild, walled city; and since Mohammedan horse-boys

and pipe-tenders are not expected to drag Survey-chains round the

capital of an independent Native State, Kim was forced to pace all his

distances by means of a bead rosary. He used the compass for bearings

as occasion served—after dark chiefly, when the camels had been fed—and

by the help of his little Survey paint-box of six colour-cakes and

three brushes, he achieved something not remotely unlike the city of

Jeysulmir. Mahbub laughed a great deal, and advised him to make up a

written report as well; and in the back of the big account-book that

lay under the flap of Mahbub’s pet saddle Kim fell to work..

“It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or considered.

Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib himself had come by stealth with a

vast army outsetting to war.”

“How great an army?”

“Oh, half a lakh of men.”

“Folly! Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand. Not a

thousand thirsty men could come near by here.”

“Then write that down—also all the old breaches in the walls and whence

the firewood is cut—and what is the temper and disposition of the King.

I stay here till all my horses are sold. I will hire a room by the

gateway, and thou shalt be my accountant. There is a good lock to the

door.”

The report in its unmistakable St Xavier’s running script, and the

brown, yellow, and lake-daubed map, was on hand a few years ago (a

careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E’s second Seistan

survey), but by now the pencil characters must be almost illegible. Kim

translated it, sweating under the light of an oil-lamp, to Mahbub, the

second day of their return-journey.

The Pathan rose and stooped over his dappled saddle-bags.

“I knew it would be worthy a dress of honour, and so I made one ready,”

he said, smiling. “Were I Amir of Afghanistan (and some day we may see

him), I would fill thy mouth with gold.” He laid the garments formally

at Kim’s feet. There was a gold-embroidered Peshawur turban-cap, rising

to a cone, and a big turban-cloth ending in a broad fringe of gold.

There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milky white

shirt, fastening to the right, ample and flowing; green pyjamas with

twisted silk waist-string; and that nothing might be lacking,

russia-leather slippers, smelling divinely, with arrogantly curled

tips.

“Upon a Wednesday, and in the morning, to put on new clothes is

auspicious,” said Mahbub solemnly. “But we must not forget the wicked

folk in the world. So!”

He capped all the splendour, that was taking Kim’s delighted breath

away, with a mother-of-pearl, nickel-plated, self-extracting .450

revolver.

“I had thought of a smaller bore, but reflected that this takes

Government bullets. A man can always come by those—especially across

the Border. Stand up and let me look.” He clapped Kim on the shoulder.

“May you never be tired, Pathan! Oh, the hearts to be broken! Oh, the

eyes under the eyelashes, looking sideways!”

Kim turned about, pointed his toes, stretched, and felt mechanically

for the moustache that was just beginning. Then he stooped towards

Mahbub’s feet to make proper acknowledgment with fluttering,

quick-patting hands; his heart too full for words. Mahbub forestalled

and embraced him.

“My son, said he, “what need of words between us? But is not the little

gun a delight? All six cartridges come out at one twist. It is borne in

the bosom next the skin, which, as it were, keeps it oiled. Never put

it elsewhere, and please God, thou shalt some day kill a man with it.”

“_Hai mai!_” said Kim ruefully. “If a Sahib kills a man he is hanged in

the jail.”

“True: but one pace beyond the Border, men are wiser. Put it away; but

fill it first. Of what use is a gun unfed?”

“When I go back to the _madrissah_ I must return it. They do not allow

little guns. Thou wilt keep it for me?”

“Son, I am wearied of that _madrissah_, where they take the best years

of a man to teach him what he can only learn upon the Road. The folly

of the Sahibs has neither top nor bottom. No matter. Maybe thy written

report shall save thee further bondage; and God He knows we need men

more and more in the Game.”

They marched, jaw-bound against blowing sand, across the salt desert to

Jodhpur, where Mahbub and his handsome nephew Habib Ullah did much

trading; and then sorrowfully, in European clothes, which he was fast

outgrowing, Kim went second-class to St Xavier’s. Three weeks later,

Colonel Creighton, pricing Tibetan ghost-daggers at Lurgan’s shop,

faced Mahbub Ali openly mutinous. Lurgan Sahib operated as support in

reserve.

“The pony is made—finished—mouthed and paced, Sahib! From now on, day

by day, he will lose his manners if he is kept at tricks. Drop the rein

on his back and let go,” said the horse-dealer. “We need him.”

“But he is so young, Mahbub—not more than sixteen—is he?”

“When I was fifteen, I had shot my man and begot my man, Sahib.”

“You impenitent old heathen!” Creighton turned to Lurgan. The black

beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghan’s dyed scarlet.

“_I_ should have used him long ago,” said Lurgan. “The younger the

better. That is why I always have my really valuable jewels watched by

a child. You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every way: he is the

only boy I could not make to see things.”

“In the crystal—in the ink-pool?” demanded Mahbub.

“No. Under my hand, as I told you. That has never happened before. It

means that he is strong enough—but you think it skittles, Colonel

Creighton—to make anyone do anything he wants. And that is three years

ago. I have taught him a good deal since, Colonel Creighton. I think

you waste him now.”

“Hmm! Maybe you’re right. But, as you know, there is no Survey work for

him at present.”

“Let him out let him go,” Mahbub interrupted. “Who expects any colt to

carry heavy weight at first? Let him run with the caravans—like our

white camel-colts—for luck. I would take him myself, but—”

“There is a little business where he would be most useful—in the

South,” said Lurgan, with peculiar suavity, dropping his heavy blued

eyelids.

“E.23 has that in hand,” said Creighton quickly. “He must not go down

there. Besides, he knows no Turki.”

“Only tell him the shape and the smell of the letters we want and he

will bring them back,” Lurgan insisted.

“No. That is a man’s job,” said Creighton.

It was a wry-necked matter of unauthorized and incendiary

correspondence between a person who claimed to be the ultimate

authority in all matters of the Mohammedan religion throughout the

world, and a younger member of a royal house who had been brought to

book for kidnapping women within British territory. The Moslem

Archbishop had been emphatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was

merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was no

need he should continue a correspondence which might some day

compromise him. One letter indeed had been procured, but the finder was

later found dead by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader, as

E.23, taking up the work, duly reported.

These facts, and a few others not to be published, made both Mahbub and

Creighton shake their heads.

“Let him go out with his Red Lama,” said the horse-dealer with visible

effort. “He is fond of the old man. He can learn his paces by the

rosary at least.”

“I have had some dealings with the old man—by letter,” said Colonel

Creighton, smiling to himself. “Whither goes he?”

“Up and down the land, as he has these three years. He seeks a River of

Healing. God’s curse upon all—” Mahbub checked himself. “He beds down

at the Temple of the Tirthankars or at Buddh Gaya when he is in from

the Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the _madrissah_, as we know

for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice. He is quite mad, but a

peaceful man. I have met him. The Babu also has had dealings with him.

We have watched him for three years. Red Lamas are not so common in

Hind that one loses track.”

“Babus are very curious,” said Lurgan meditatively. “Do you know what

Hurree Babu really wants? He wants to be made a member of the Royal

Society by taking ethnological notes. I tell you, I tell him about the

lama everything which Mahbub and the boy have told me. Hurree Babu goes

down to Benares—at his own expense, I think.”

“_I_ don’t,” said Creighton briefly. He had paid Hurree’s travelling

expenses, out of a most lively curiosity to learn what the lama might

be.

“And he applies to the lama for information on lamaism, and

devil-dances, and spells and charms, several times in these few years.

Holy Virgin! I could have told him all that yeears ago. I think Hurree

Babu is getting too old for the Road. He likes better to collect

manners and customs information. Yes, he wants to be an FRS.

“Hurree thinks well of the boy, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, very indeed—we have had some pleasant evenings at my little

place—but I think it would be waste to throw him away with Hurree on

the Ethnological side.”

“Not for a first experience. How does that strike you, Mahbub? Let the

boy run with the lama for six months. After that we can see. He will

get experience.”

“He has it already, Sahib—as a fish controls the water he swims in. But

for every reason it will be well to loose him from the school.”

“Very good, then,” said Creighton, half to himself. “He can go with the

lama, and if Hurree Babu cares to keep an eye on them so much the

better. He won’t lead the boy into any danger as Mahbub would.

Curious—his wish to be an F R S. Very human, too. He _is_ best on the

Ethnological side—Hurree.”

No money and no preferment would have drawn Creighton from his work on

the Indian Survey, but deep in his heart also lay the ambition to write

“F R S” after his name. Honours of a sort he knew could be obtained by

ingenuity and the help of friends, but, to the best of his belief,

nothing save work—papers representing a life of it—took a man into the

Society which he had bombarded for years with monographs on strange

Asiatic cults and unknown customs. Nine men out of ten would flee from

a Royal Society soiree in extremity of boredom; but Creighton was the

tenth, and at times his soul yearned for the crowded rooms in easy

London where silver-haired, bald-headed gentlemen who know nothing of

the Army move among spectroscopic experiments, the lesser plants of the

frozen tundras, electric flight-measuring machines, and apparatus for

slicing into fractional millimetres the left eye of the female

mosquito. By all right and reason, it was the Royal Geographical that

should have appealed to him, but men are as chancy as children in their

choice of playthings. So Creighton smiled, and thought the better of

Hurree Babu, moved by like desire.

He dropped the ghost-dagger and looked up at Mahbub.

“How soon can we get the colt from the stable?” said the horse-dealer,

reading his eyes.

“Hmm! If I withdraw him by order now—what will he do, think you? I have

never before assisted at the teaching of such an one.”

“He will come to me,” said Mahbub promptly. “Lurgan Sahib and I will

prepare him for the Road.”

“So be it, then. For six months he shall run at his choice. But who

will be his sponsor?”

Lurgan slightly inclined his head. “He will not tell anything, if that

is what you are afraid of, Colonel Creighton.”

“It’s only a boy, after all.”

“Ye-es; but first, he has nothing to tell; and secondly, he knows what

would happen. Also, he is very fond of Mahbub, and of me a little.”

“Will he draw pay?” demanded the practical horse-dealer.

“Food and water allowance only. Twenty rupees a month.”

One advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no worrying audit.

That Service is ludicrously starved, of course, but the funds are

administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or present

itemized accounts. Mahbub’s eyes lighted with almost a Sikh’s love of

money. Even Lurgan’s impassive face changed. He considered the years to

come when Kim would have been entered and made to the Great Game that

never ceases day and night, throughout India. He foresaw honour and

credit in the mouths of a chosen few, coming to him from his pupil.

Lurgan Sahib had made E.23 what E.23 was, out of a bewildered,

impertinent, lying, little North-West Province man.

But the joy of these masters was pale and smoky beside the joy of Kim

when St Xavier’s Head called him aside, with word that Colonel

Creighton had sent for him.

“I understand, O’Hara, that he has found you a place as an assistant

chain-man in the Canal Department: that comes of taking up mathematics.

It is great luck for you, for you are only sixteen; but of course you

understand that you do not become _pukka_ (permanent) till you have

passed the autumn examination. So you must not think you are going out

into the world to enjoy yourself, or that your fortune is made. There

is a great deal of hard work before you. Only, if you succeed in

becoming _pukka_, you can rise, you know, to four hundred and fifty a

month.” Whereat the Principal gave him much good advice as to his

conduct, and his manners, and his morals; and others, his elders, who

had not been wafted into billets, talked as only Anglo-Indian lads can,

of favouritism and corruption. Indeed, young Cazalet, whose father was

a pensioner at Chunar, hinted very broadly that Colonel Creighton’s

interest in Kim was directly paternal; and Kim, instead of retaliating,

did not even use language. He was thinking of the immense fun to come,

of Mahbub’s letter of the day before, all neatly written in English,

making appointment for that afternoon in a house the very name of which

would have crisped the Principal’s hair with horror...

Said Kim to Mahbub in Lucknow railway station that evening, above the

luggage-scales: “I feared lest at the last, the roof would fall upon me

and cheat me. It is indeed all finished, O my father?”

Mahbub snapped his fingers to show the utterness of that end, and his

eyes blazed like red coals.

“Then where is the pistol that I may wear it?”

“Softly! A half-year, to run without heel-ropes. I begged that much

from Colonel Creighton Sahib. At twenty rupees a month. Old Red Hat

knows that thou art coming.”

“I will pay thee _dustoorie_ (commission) on my pay for three months,”

said Kim gravely. “Yea, two rupees a month. But first we must get rid

of these.” He plucked his thin linen trousers and dragged at his

collar. “I have brought with me all that I need on the Road. My trunk

has gone up to Lurgan Sahib’s.”

“Who sends his salaams to thee—Sahib.”

“Lurgan Sahib is a very clever man. But what dost thou do?”

“I go North again, upon the Great Game. What else? Is thy mind still

set on following old Red Hat?”

“Do not forget he made me that I am—though he did not know it. Year by

year, he sent the money that taught me.”

“I would have done as much—had it struck my thick head,” Mahbub

growled. “Come away. The lamps are lit now, and none will mark thee in

the bazar. We go to Huneefa’s house.”

On the way thither, Mahbub gave him much the same sort of advice as his

mother gave to Lemuel, and curiously enough, Mahbub was exact to point

out how Huneefa and her likes destroyed kings.

“And I remember,” he quoted maliciously, “one who said, ‘Trust a snake

before an harlot, and an harlot before a Pathan, Mahbub Ali.’ Now,

excepting as to Pathans, of whom I am one, all that is true. Most true

is it in the Great Game, for it is by means of women that all plans

come to ruin and we lie out in the dawning with our throats cut. So it

happened to such a one.” He gave the reddest particulars.

“Then why—?” Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to the

warm darkness of an upper chamber, in the ward that is behind Azim

Ullah’s tobacco-shop. Those who know it call it The Birdcage—it is so

full of whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings.

The room, with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs, smelt

abominably of stale tobacco. In one corner lay a huge and shapeless

woman clad in greenish gauzes, and decked, brow, nose, ear, neck,

wrist, arm, waist, and ankle with heavy native jewellery. When she

turned it was like the clashing of copper pots. A lean cat in the

balcony outside the window mewed hungrily. Kim checked, bewildered, at

the door-curtain.

“Is that the new stuff, Mahbub?” said Huneefa lazily, scarce troubling

to remove the mouthpiece from her lips. “O Buktanoos!”—like most of her

kind, she swore by the Djinns—“O Buktanoos! He is very good to look

upon.”

“That is part of the selling of the horse,” Mahbub explained to Kim,

who laughed.

“I have heard that talk since my Sixth Day,” he replied, squatting by

the light. “Whither does it lead?”

“To protection. Tonight we change thy colour. This sleeping under roofs

has blanched thee like an almond. But Huneefa has the secret of a

colour that catches. No painting of a day or two. Also, we fortify thee

against the chances of the Road. That is _my_ gift to thee, my son.

Take out all metals on thee and lay them here. Make ready, Huneefa.”

Kim dragged forth his compass, Survey paint-box, and the new-filled

medicine-box. They had all accompanied his travels, and boylike he

valued them immensely.

The woman rose slowly and moved with her hands a little spread before

her. Then Kim saw that she was blind. “No, no,” she muttered, “the

Pathan speaks truth—my colour does not go in a week or a month, and

those whom I protect are under strong guard.”

“When one is far off and alone, it would not be well to grow blotched

and leprous of a sudden,” said Mahbub. “When thou wast with me I could

oversee the matter. Besides, a Pathan is a fair-skin. Strip to the

waist now and look how thou art whitened.” Huneefa felt her way back

from an inner room. “It is no matter, she cannot see.” He took a pewter

bowl from her ringed hand.

The dye-stuff showed blue and gummy. Kim experimented on the back of

his wrist, with a dab of cotton-wool; but Huneefa heard him.

“No, no,” she cried, “the thing is not done thus, but with the proper

ceremonies. The colouring is the least part. I give thee the full

protection of the Road.”

“_Jadoo?_ (magic),”said Kim, with a half start. He did not like the

white, sightless eyes. Mahbub’s hand on his neck bowed him to the

floor, nose within an inch of the boards.

“Be still. No harm comes to thee, my son. I am thy sacrifice!”

He could not see what the woman was about, but heard the dish-clash of

her jewellery for many minutes. A match lit up the darkness; he caught

the well-known purr and fizzle of grains of incense. Then the room

filled with smoke—heavy aromatic, and stupefying. Through growing

drowse he heard the names of devils—of Zulbazan, Son of Eblis, who

lives in bazars and _paraos_, making all the sudden lewd wickedness of

wayside halts; of Dulhan, invisible about mosques, the dweller among

the slippers of the faithful, who hinders folk from their prayers; and

Musboot, Lord of lies and panic. Huneefa, now whispering in his ear,

now talking as from an immense distance, touched him with horrible soft

fingers, but Mahbub’s grip never shifted from his neck till, relaxing

with a sigh, the boy lost his senses.

“Allah! How he fought! We should never have done it but for the drugs.

That was his white blood, I take it,” said Mahbub testily. “Go on with

the _dawut_ (invocation). Give him full Protection.”

“_O Hearer! Thou that hearest with ears, be present. Listen, O

Hearer!_” Huneefa moaned, her dead eyes turned to the west. The dark

room filled with moanings and snortings.

From the outer balcony, a ponderous figure raised a round bullet head

and coughed nervously.

“Do not interrupt this ventriloquial necromanciss, my friend,” it said

in English. “I opine that it is very disturbing to you, but no

enlightened observer is jolly-well upset.”

“..._I will lay a plot for their ruin! O Prophet, bear with the

unbelievers. Let them alone awhile!_” Huneefa’s face, turned to the

northward, worked horribly, and it was as though voices from the

ceiling answered her.

Hurree Babu returned to his note-book, balanced on the window-sill, but

his hand shook. Huneefa, in some sort of drugged ecstasy, wrenched

herself to and fro as she sat cross-legged by Kim’s still head, and

called upon devil after devil, in the ancient order of the ritual,

binding them to avoid the boy’s every action.

“_With Him are the keys of the Secret Things! None knoweth them besides

Himself He knoweth that which is in the dry land and in the sea!_”

Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses.

“I—I apprehend it is not at all malignant in its operation?” said the

Babu, watching the throat-muscles quiver and jerk as Huneefa spoke with

tongues. “It—it is not likely that she has killed the boy? If so, I

decline to be witness at the trial .....What was the last hypothetical

devil mentioned?”

“Babuji,” said Mahbub in the vernacular. “I have no regard for the

devils of Hind, but the Sons of Eblis are far otherwise, and whether

they be _jumalee_ (well-affected) or _jullalee_ (terrible) they love

not Kafirs.”

“Then you think I had better go?” said Hurree Babu, half rising. “They

are, of course, dematerialized phenomena. Spencer says.”

Huneefa’s crisis passed, as these things must, in a paroxysm of

howling, with a touch of froth at the lips. She lay spent and

motionless beside Kim, and the crazy voices ceased.

“Wah! That work is done. May the boy be better for it; and Huneefa is

surely a mistress of _dawut_. Help haul her aside, Babu. Do not be

afraid.”

“How am I to fear the absolutely non-existent?” said Hurree Babu,

talking English to reassure himself. It is an awful thing still to

dread the magic that you contemptuously investigate—to collect

folk-lore for the Royal Society with a lively belief in all Powers of

Darkness.

Mahbub chuckled. He had been out with Hurree on the Road ere now. “Let

us finish the colouring,” said he. “The boy is well protected if—if the

Lords of the Air have ears to hear. I am a _sufi_ (free-thinker), but

when one can get blind-sides of a woman, a stallion, or a devil, why go

round to invite a kick? Set him upon the way, Babu, and see that old

Red Hat does not lead him beyond our reach. I must get back to my

horses.”

“All raight,” said Hurree Babu. “He is at present curious spectacle.”

About third cockcrow, Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of years.

Huneefa, in her corner, snored heavily, but Mahbub was gone.

“I hope you were not frightened,” said an oily voice at his elbow. “I

superintended entire operation, which was most interesting from

ethnological point of view. It was high-class _dawut_.”

“Huh!” said Kim, recognizing Hurree Babu, who smiled ingratiatingly.

“And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present costume.

I am not in the habit offeecially of carrying such gauds to

subordinates, but”—he giggled—“your case is noted as exceptional on the

books. I hope Mr Lurgan will note my action.”

Kim yawned and stretched himself. It was good to turn and twist within

loose clothes once again.

“What is this?” He looked curiously at the heavy duffle-stuff loaded

with the scents of the far North.

“Oho! That is inconspicuous dress of _chela_ attached to service of

lamaistic lama. _Com_plete in every particular,” said Hurree Babu,

rolling into the balcony to clean his teeth at a goglet. “I am of

opeenion it is not your old gentleman’s precise releegion, but rather

sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected notes To Whom It May

Concern: _Asiatic Quarterly Review_ on these subjects. Now it is

curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of

releegiosity. He is not a dam’ particular.”

“Do you know him?”

Hurree Babu held up his hand to show he was engaged in the prescribed

rites that accompany tooth-cleaning and such things among decently bred

Bengalis. Then he recited in English an Arya-Somaj prayer of a

theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with _pan_ and betel.

“Oah yes. I have met him several times at Benares, and also at Buddh

Gaya, to interrogate him on releegious points and devil-worship. He is

pure agnostic—same as me.”

Huneefa stirred in her sleep, and Hurree Babu jumped nervously to the

copper incense-burner, all black and discoloured in morning-light,

rubbed a finger in the accumulated lamp-black, and drew it diagonally

across his face.

“Who has died in thy house?” asked Kim in the vernacular.

“None. But she may have the Evil Eye—that sorceress,” the Babu replied.

“What dost thou do now, then?”

“I will set thee on thy way to Benares, if thou goest thither, and tell

thee what must be known by Us.”

“I go. At what hour runs the _te-rain?_” He rose to his feet, looked

round the desolate chamber and at the yellow-wax face of Huneefa as the

low sun stole across the floor. “Is there money to be paid that witch?”

“No. She has charmed thee against all devils and all dangers in the

name of her devils. It was Mahbub’s desire.” In English: “He is highly

obsolete, _I_ think, to indulge in such supersteetion. Why, it is all

ventri_lo_quy. Belly-speak—eh?”

Kim snapped his fingers mechanically to avert whatever evil—Mahbub, he

knew, meditated none—might have crept in through Huneefa’s

ministrations; and Hurree giggled once more. But as he crossed the room

he was careful not to step in Huneefa’s blotched, squat shadow on the

boards. Witches—when their time is on them—can lay hold of the heels of

a man’s soul if he does that.

“Now you must well listen,” said the Babu when they were in the fresh

air. “Part of these ceremonies which we witnessed they include supply

of effeecient amulet to those of our Department. If you feel in your

neck you will find one small silver amulet, verree cheap. That is

_ours_. Do you understand?”

“Oah yes, _hawa-dilli_ (a heart-lifter),” said Kim, feeling at his

neck.

“Huneefa she makes them for two rupees twelve annas with—oh, all sorts

of exorcisms. They are quite common, except they are partially black

enamel, and there is a paper inside each one full of names of local

saints and such things. _Thatt_ is Huneefa’s look-out, you see? Huneefa

makes them onlee for us, but in case she does not, when we get them we

put in, before issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr Lurgan he gives

them. There is no other source of supply; but it was me invented all

this. It is strictly unoffeecial of course, but convenient for

subordinates. Colonel Creighton he does not know. He is European. The

turquoise is wrapped in the paper ... Yes, that is road to railway

station ... Now suppose you go with the lama, or with me, I hope, some

day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a dam’-tight place. I am a

fearful man—most fearful—but I tell you I have been in dam’-tight

places more than hairs on my head. You say: ‘I am Son of the Charm.’

Verree good.”

“I do not understand quite. We must not be heard talking English here.”

“That is all raight. I am only Babu showing off my English to you. All

we Babus talk English to show off;” said Hurree, flinging his

shoulder-cloth jauntily. “As I was about to say, ‘Son of the Charm’

means that you may be member of the _Sat Bhai_—the Seven Brothers,

which is Hindi _and_ Tantric. It is popularly supposed to be extinct

Society, but I have written notes to show it is still extant. You see,

it is all my invention. Verree good. _Sat Bhai_ has many members, and

perhaps before they jolly-well-cut-your-throat they may give you just a

chance of life. That is useful, anyhow. And moreover, these foolish

natives—if they are not too excited—they always stop to think before

they kill a man who says he belongs to any speecific organization. You

see? You say then when you are in tight place, ‘I am Son of the Charm’,

and you get—perhaps—ah—your second wind. That is only in extreme

instances, or to open negotiations with a stranger. Can you quite see?

Verree good. But suppose now, I, or any one of the Department, come to

you dressed quite different. You would not know me at all unless I

choose, I bet you. Some day I will prove it. I come as Ladakhi

trader—oh, anything—and I say to you: ‘You want to buy precious

stones?’ You say: ‘Do I look like a man who buys precious stones?’ Then

I say: ‘Even verree poor man can buy a turquoise or _tarkeean_.’”

“That is _kichree_—vegetable curry,” said Kim.

“Of course it is. You say: ‘Let me see the _tarkeean_.’ Then I say: ‘It

was cooked by a woman, and perhaps it is bad for your caste.’ Then you

say: ‘There is no caste when men go to—look for _tarkeean_.’ You stop a

little between those words, ‘to—look’. That is thee whole secret. The

little stop before the words.”

Kim repeated the test-sentence.

“That is all right. Then I will show you my turquoise if there is time,

and then you know who I am, and then we exchange views and documents

and those-all things. And so it is with any other man of us. We talk

sometimes about turquoises and sometimes about _tarkeean_, but always

with that little stop in the words. It is verree easy. First, ‘Son of

the Charm’, if you are in a tight place. Perhaps that may help

you—perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the _tarkeean_, if you

want to transact offeecial business with a strange man. Of course, at

present, you have no offeecial business. You are—ah ha!—supernumerary

on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were Asiatic of birth you

might be employed right off; but this half-year of leave is to make you

de-Englishized, you see? The lama he expects you, because I have

demi-offeecially informed him you have passed all your examinations,

and will soon obtain Government appointment. Oh ho! You are on

acting-allowance, you see: so if you are called upon to help Sons of

the Charm mind you jolly-well try. Now I shall say good-bye, my dear

fellow, and I hope you—ah—will come out top-side all raight.”

Hurree Babu stepped back a pace or two into the crowd at the entrance

of Lucknow station and—was gone. Kim drew a deep breath and hugged

himself all over. The nickel-plated revolver he could feel in the bosom

of his sad-coloured robe, the amulet was on his neck; begging-gourd,

rosary, and ghost-dagger (Mr Lurgan had forgotten nothing) were all to

hand, with medicine, paint-box, and compass, and in a worn old

purse-belt embroidered with porcupine-quill patterns lay a month’s pay.

Kings could be no richer. He bought sweetmeats in a leaf-cup from a

Hindu trader, and ate them with glad rapture till a policeman ordered

him off the steps.