第 十四 章 · Chapter XIV

. Chapter XIV

My brother kneels (so saith Kabir)

To stone and brass in heathen wise,

But in my brother’s voice I hear

My own unanswered agonies.

His God is as his Fates assign—

His prayer is all the world’s—and mine.

KABIR.

At moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. The lama, refreshed by

his sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim’s shoulder to bear

him along—a silent, swift-striding man. They held the shale-sprinkled

grass for an hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal cliff, and

climbed into a new country entirely blocked off from all sight of Chini

valley. A huge pasture-ground ran up fan-shaped to the living snow. At

its base was perhaps half an acre of flat land, on which stood a few

soil and timber huts. Behind them—for, hill-fashion, they were perched

on the edge of all things—the ground fell sheer two thousand feet to

Shamlegh-midden, where never yet man has set foot.

The men made no motion to divide the plunder till they had seen the

lama bedded down in the best room of the place, with Kim shampooing his

feet, Mohammedan-fashion.

“We will send food,” said the Ao-chung man, “and the red-topped

_kilta_. By dawn there will be none to give evidence, one way or the

other. If anything is not needed in the _kilta_—see here!”

He pointed through the window—opening into space that was filled with

moonlight reflected from the snow—and threw out an empty whisky-bottle.

“No need to listen for the fall. This is the world’s end,” he said, and

went out. The lama looked forth, a hand on either sill, with eyes that

shone like yellow opals. From the enormous pit before him white peaks

lifted themselves yearning to the moonlight. The rest was as the

darkness of interstellar space.

“These,” he said slowly, “are indeed my Hills. Thus should a man abide,

perched above the world, separated from delights, considering vast

matters.”

“Yes; if he has a _chela_ to prepare tea for him, and to fold a blanket

for his head, and to chase out calving cows.”

A smoky lamp burned in a niche, but the full moonlight beat it down;

and by the mixed light, stooping above the food-bag and cups, Kim moved

like a tall ghost.

“Ai! But now I have let the blood cool, my head still beats and drums,

and there is a cord round the back of my neck.”

“No wonder. It was a strong blow. May he who dealt it—”

“But for my own passions there would have been no evil.”

“What evil? Thou hast saved the Sahibs from the death they deserved a

hundred times.”

“The lesson is not well learnt, _chela_.” The lama came to rest on a

folded blanket, as Kim went forward with his evening routine. “The blow

was but a shadow upon a shadow. Evil in itself—my legs weary apace

these latter days!—it met evil in me: anger, rage, and a lust to return

evil. These wrought in my blood, woke tumult in my stomach, and dazzled

my ears.” Here he drank scalding black-tea ceremonially, taking the hot

cup from Kim’s hand. “Had I been passionless, the evil blow would have

done only bodily evil—a scar, or a bruise—which is illusion. But my

mind was _not_ abstracted, for rushed in straightway a lust to let the

Spiti men kill. In fighting that lust, my soul was torn and wrenched

beyond a thousand blows. Not till I had repeated the Blessings” (he

meant the Buddhist Beatitudes) “did I achieve calm. But the evil

planted in me by that moment’s carelessness works out to its end. Just

is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! Learn the lesson, _chela_.”

“It is too high for me,” Kim muttered. “I am still all shaken. I am

glad I hurt the man.”

“I felt that, sleeping upon thy knees, in the wood below. It disquieted

me in my dreams—the evil in thy soul working through to mine. Yet on

the other hand”—he loosed his rosary—“I have acquired merit by saving

two lives—the lives of those that wronged me. Now I must see into the

Cause of Things. The boat of my soul staggers.”

“Sleep, and be strong. That is wisest.”

“I meditate. There is a need greater than thou knowest.”

Till the dawn, hour after hour, as the moonlight paled on the high

peaks, and that which had been belted blackness on the sides of the far

hills showed as tender green forest, the lama stared fixedly at the

wall. From time to time he groaned. Outside the barred door, where

discomfited kine came to ask for their old stable, Shamlegh and the

coolies gave itself up to plunder and riotous living. The Ao-chung man

was their leader, and once they had opened the Sahibs’ tinned foods and

found that they were very good they dared not turn back. Shamlegh

kitchen-midden took the dunnage.

When Kim, after a night of bad dreams, stole forth to brush his teeth

in the morning chill, a fair-coloured woman with turquoise-studded

headgear drew him aside.

“The others have gone. They left thee this _kilta_ as the promise was.

I do not love Sahibs, but thou wilt make us a charm in return for it.

We do not wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name on account of

the—accident. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.” She looked him over with

bold, bright eyes, unlike the usual furtive glance of hillwomen.

“Assuredly. But it must be done in secret.”

She raised the heavy _kilta_ like a toy and slung it into her own hut.

“Out and bar the door! Let none come near till it is finished,” said

Kim.

“But afterwards—we may talk?”

Kim tilted the _kilta_ on the floor—a cascade of Survey-instruments,

books, diaries, letters, maps, and queerly scented native

correspondence. At the very bottom was an embroidered bag covering a

sealed, gilded, and illuminated document such as one King sends to

another. Kim caught his breath with delight, and reviewed the situation

from a Sahib’s point of view.

“The books I do not want. Besides, they are logarithms—Survey, I

suppose.” He laid them aside. “The letters I do not understand, but

Colonel Creighton will. They must all be kept. The maps—they draw

better maps than me—of course. All the native letters—oho!—and

particularly the _murasla_.” He sniffed the embroidered bag. “That must

be from Hilás or Bunár, and Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove! It is a

fine haul. I wish Hurree could know ... The rest must go out of the

window.” He fingered a superb prismatic compass and the shiny top of a

theodolite. But after all, a Sahib cannot very well steal, and the

things might be inconvenient evidence later. He sorted out every scrap

of manuscript, every map, and the native letters. They made one softish

slab. The three locked ferril-backed books, with five worn

pocket-books, he put aside.

“The letters and the _murasla_ I must carry inside my coat and under my

belt, and the hand-written books I must put into the food-bag. It will

be very heavy. No. I do not think there is anything more. If there is,

the coolies have thrown it down the _khud_, so _thatt_ is all right.

Now you go too.” He repacked the _kilta_ with all he meant to lose, and

hove it up on to the windowsill. A thousand feet below lay a long,

lazy, round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by the morning

sun. A thousand feet below that was a hundred-year-old pine-forest. He

could see the green tops looking like a bed of moss when a wind-eddy

thinned the cloud.

“No! I don’t think any one will go after _you!_”

The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The theodolite

hit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded like a shell; the books,

inkstands, paint-boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few seconds

like a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though Kim, hanging half

out of the window, strained his young ears, never a sound came up from

the gulf.

“Five hundred—a thousand rupees could not buy them,” he thought

sorrowfully. “It was verree wasteful, but I have all their other

stuff—everything they did—I hope. Now how the deuce am I to tell Hurree

Babu, and _whatt_ the deuce am I to do? And my old man is sick. I must

tie up the letters in oilskin. That is something to do first—else they

will get all sweated ... And I am all alone!” He bound them into a neat

packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilskin at the comers, for his

roving life had made him as methodical as an old hunter in matters of

the road. Then with double care he packed away the books at the bottom

of the food-bag.

The woman rapped at the door.

“But thou hast made no charm,” she said, looking about.

“There is no need.” Kim had completely overlooked the necessity for a

little patter-talk. The woman laughed at his confusion irreverently.

“None—for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the mere winking of an eye.

But think of us poor people when thou art gone. They were all too drunk

last night to hear a woman. Thou art not drunk?”

“I am a priest.” Kim had recovered himself, and, the woman being aught

but unlovely, thought best to stand on his office.

“I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make an

inquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also the Babu with

them. Clerks have long tongues.”

“Is that all thy trouble?” The plan rose fully formed in Kim’s mind,

and he smiled ravishingly.

“Not all,” quoth the woman, putting out a hard brown hand all covered

with turquoises set in silver.

“I can finish that in a breath,” he went on quickly. “The Babu is the

very _hakim_ (thou hast heard of him?) who was wandering among the

hills by Ziglaur. I know him.”

“He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs cannot distinguish one

hillman from another, but Babus have eyes for men—and women.”

“Carry a word to him from me.”

“There is nothing I would not do for thee.”

He accepted the compliment calmly, as men must in lands where women

make the love, tore a leaf from a note-book, and with a patent

indelible pencil wrote in gross Shikast—the script that bad little boys

use when they write dirt on walls: “_I have everything that they have

written: their pictures of the country, and many letters. Especially

the murasla. Tell me what to do. I am at Shamlegh-under-the-Snow. The

old man is sick._”

“Take this to him. It will altogether shut his mouth. He cannot have

gone far.”

“Indeed no. They are still in the forest across the spur. Our children

went to watch them when the light came, and have cried the news as they

moved.”

Kim looked his astonishment; but from the edge of the sheep-pasture

floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending cattle had picked it

up from a brother or sister on the far side of the slope that commanded

Chini valley.

“My husbands are also out there gathering wood.” She drew a handful of

walnuts from her bosom, split one neatly, and began to eat. Kim

affected blank ignorance.

“Dost thou not know the meaning of the walnut—priest?” she said coyly,

and handed him the half-shells.

“Well thought of.” He slipped the piece of paper between them quickly.

“Hast thou a little wax to close them on this letter?”

The woman sighed aloud, and Kim relented.

“There is no payment till service has been rendered. Carry this to the

Babu, and say it was sent by the Son of the Charm.”

“Ai! Truly! Truly! By a magician—who is like a Sahib.”

“Nay, a Son of the Charm: and ask if there be any answer.”

“But if he offer a rudeness? I—I am afraid.”

Kim laughed. “He is, I have no doubt, very tired and very hungry. The

Hills make cold bedfellows. Hai, my”—it was on the tip of his tongue to

say Mother, but he turned it to Sister—“thou art a wise and witty

woman. By this time all the villages know what has befallen the

Sahibs—eh?”

“True. News was at Ziglaur by midnight, and by tomorrow should be at

Kotgarh. The villages are both afraid and angry.”

“No need. Tell the villages to feed the Sahibs and pass them on, in

peace. We must get them quietly away from our valleys. To steal is one

thing—to kill another. The Babu will understand, and there will be no

after-complaints. Be swift. I must tend my master when he wakes.”

“So be it. After service—thou hast said?—comes the reward. I am the

Woman of Shamlegh, and I hold from the Rajah. I am no common bearer of

babes. Shamlegh is thine: hoof and horn and hide, milk and butter. Take

or leave.”

She turned resolutely uphill, her silver necklaces clicking on her

broad breast, to meet the morning sun fifteen hundred feet above them.

This time Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin

edges of the packets.

“How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is so—always

pestered by women? There was that girl at Akrola of the Ford; and there

was the scullion’s wife behind the dovecot—not counting the others—and

now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am

a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts, indeed! Ho! ho! It

is almonds in the Plains!”

He went out to levy on the village—not with a begging-bowl, which might

do for down-country, but in the manner of a prince. Shamlegh’s summer

population is only three families—four women and eight or nine men.

They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks, from ammoniated

quinine to white vodka, for they had taken their full share in the

overnight loot. The neat Continental tents had been cut up and shared

long ago, and there were patent aluminium saucepans abroad.

But they considered the lama’s presence a perfect safeguard against all

consequences, and impenitently brought Kim of their best—even to a

drink of _chang_—the barley-beer that comes from Ladakh-way. Then they

thawed out in the sun, and sat with their legs hanging over infinite

abysses, chattering, laughing, and smoking. They judged India and its

Government solely from their experience of wandering Sahibs who had

employed them or their friends as _shikarris_. Kim heard tales of shots

missed upon ibex, serow, or markhor, by Sahibs twenty years in their

graves—every detail lighted from behind like twigs on tree-tops seen

against lightning. They told him of their little diseases, and, more

important, the diseases of their tiny, sure-footed cattle; of trips as

far as Kotgarh, where the strange missionaries live, and beyond even to

marvellous Simla, where the streets are paved with silver, and anyone,

look you, can get service with the Sahibs, who ride about in

two-wheeled carts and spend money with a spade. Presently, grave and

aloof, walking very heavily, the lama joined himself to the chatter

under the eaves, and they gave him great room. The thin air refreshed

him, and he sat on the edge of precipices with the best of them, and,

when talk languished, flung pebbles into the void. Thirty miles away,

as the eagle flies, lay the next range, seamed and channelled and

pitted with little patches of brush—forests, each a day’s dark march.

Behind the village, Shamlegh hill itself cut off all view to southward.

It was like sitting in a swallow’s nest under the eaves of the roof of

the world.

From time to time the lama stretched out his hand, and with a little

low-voiced prompting would point out the road to Spiti and north across

the Parungla.

“Beyond, where the hills lie thickest, lies De-ch’en” (he meant

Han-lé’), “the great Monastery. s’Tag-stan-ras-ch’en built it, and of

him there runs this tale.” Whereupon he told it: a fantastic piled

narrative of bewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh a-gasping.

Turning west a little, he steered for the green hills of Kulu, and

sought Kailung under the glaciers. “For thither came I in the old, old

days. From Leh I came, over the Baralachi.”

“Yes, yes; we know it,” said the far-faring people of Shamlegh.

“And I slept two nights with the priests of Kailung. These are the

Hills of my delight! Shadows blessed above all other shadows! There my

eyes opened on this world; there my eyes were opened to this world;

there I found Enlightenment; and there I girt my loins for my Search.

Out of the Hills I came—the high Hills and the strong winds. Oh, just

is the Wheel!” He blessed them in detail—the great glaciers, the naked

rocks, the piled moraines and tumbled shale; dry upland, hidden

salt-lake, age-old timber and fruitful water-shot valley one after the

other, as a dying man blesses his folk; and Kim marvelled at his

passion.

“Yes—yes. There is no place like our Hills,” said the people of

Shamlegh. And they fell to wondering how a man could live in the hot

terrible Plains where the cattle run as big as elephants, unfit to

plough on a hillside; where village touches village, they had heard,

for a hundred miles; where folk went about stealing in gangs, and what

the robbers spared the Police carried utterly away.

So the still forenoon wore through, and at the end of it Kim’s

messenger dropped from the steep pasture as unbreathed as when she had

set out.

“I sent a word to the _hakim_,” Kim explained, while she made

reverence.

“He joined himself to the idolaters? Nay, I remember he did a healing

upon one of them. He has acquired merit, though the healed employed his

strength for evil. Just is the Wheel! What of the _hakim?_”

“I feared that thou hadst been bruised and—and I knew he was wise.” Kim

took the waxed walnut-shell and read in English on the back of his

note: _Your favour received. Cannot get away from present company at

present, but shall take them into Simla. After which, hope to rejoin

you. Inexpedient to follow angry gentlemen. Return by same road you

came, and will overtake. Highly gratified about correspondence due to

my forethought._ “He says, Holy One, that he will escape from the

idolaters, and will return to us. Shall we wait awhile at Shamlegh,

then?”

The lama looked long and lovingly upon the hills and shook his head.

“That may not be, _chela_. From my bones outward I do desire it, but it

is forbidden. I have seen the Cause of Things.”

“Why? When the Hills give thee back thy strength day by day? Remember

we were weak and fainting down below there in the Doon.”

“I became strong to do evil and to forget. A brawler and a swashbuckler

upon the hillsides was I.” Kim bit back a smile. “Just and perfect is

the Wheel, swerving not a hair. When I was a man—a long time ago—I did

pilgrimage to Guru Ch’wan among the poplars” (he pointed Bhotanwards),

“where they keep the Sacred Horse.”

“Quiet, be quiet!” said Shamlegh, all arow. “He speaks of

Jam-lin-nin-k’or, the Horse That Can Go Round The World In a Day.”

“I speak to my _chela_ only,” said the lama, in gentle reproof, and

they scattered like frost on south eaves of a morning. “I did not seek

truth in those days, but the talk of doctrine. All illusion! I drank

the beer and ate the bread of Guru Ch’wan. Next day one said: ‘We go

out to fight Sangor Gutok down the valley to discover’ (mark again how

Lust is tied to Anger!) ‘which Abbot shall bear rule in the valley and

take the profit of the prayers they print at Sangor Gutok.’ I went, and

we fought a day.”

“But how, Holy One?”

“With our long pencases as I could have shown ... I say, we fought

under the poplars, both Abbots and all the monks, and one laid open my

forehead to the bone. See!” He tilted back his cap and showed a

puckered silvery scar. “Just and perfect is the Wheel! Yesterday the

scar itched, and after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and the

face of him who dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion. Followed that

which thou didst see—strife and stupidity. Just is the Wheel! The

idolater’s blow fell upon the scar. Then I was shaken in my soul: my

soul was darkened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the waters of

illusion. Not till I came to Shamlegh could I meditate upon the Cause

of Things, or trace the running grass-roots of Evil. I strove all the

long night.”

“But, Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil. May I be thy sacrifice!”

Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man’s sorrow, and Mahbub Ali’s

phrase slipped out unawares.

“In the dawn,” the lama went on more gravely, ready rosary clicking

between the slow sentences, “came enlightenment. It is here ... I am an

old man ... hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my Hills.

Three years I travelled through Hind, but—can earth be stronger than

Mother Earth? My stupid body yearned to the Hills and the snows of the

Hills, from below there. I said, and it is true, my Search is sure. So,

at the Kulu woman’s house I turned hillward, over-persuaded by myself.

There is no blame to the _hakim_. He—following Desire—foretold that the

Hills would make me strong. They strengthened me to do evil, to forget

my Search. I delighted in life and the lust of life. I desired strong

slopes to climb. I cast about to find them. I measured the strength of

my body, which is evil, against the high Hills, I made a mock of thee

when thy breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested when thou wouldst

not face the snow of the pass.”

“But what harm? I _was_ afraid. It was just. I am not a hillman; and I

loved thee for thy new strength.”

“More than once I remember”—he rested his cheek dolefully on his

hand—“I sought thy praise and the _hakim’s_ for the mere strength of my

legs. Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full. Just is the Wheel!

All Hind for three years did me all honour. From the Fountain of Wisdom

in the Wonder House to”—he smiled—“a little child playing by a big

gun—the world prepared my road. And why?”

“Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I myself am

still sick and shaken.”

“No! It was because I was upon the Way—tuned as are _si-nen_ (cymbals)

to the purpose of the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune was

broken: followed the punishment. In my own Hills, on the edge of my own

country, in the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet—here!”

(He touched his brow.) “As a novice is beaten when he misplaces the

cups, so am I beaten, who was Abbot of Such-zen. No word, look you, but

a blow, _chela_.”

“But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?”

“We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and Lust upon

the road, and they begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am no

better than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who can read the

Cause of an act is halfway to Freedom! ‘Back to the path,’ says the

Blow. ‘The Hills are not for thee. Thou canst not choose Freedom and go

in bondage to the delight of life.’”

“Would we had never met that cursed Russian!”

“Our Lord Himself cannot make the Wheel swing backward. And for my

merit that I had acquired I gain yet another sign.” He put his hand in

his bosom, and drew forth the Wheel of Life. “Look! I considered this

after I had meditated. There remains untorn by the idolater no more

than the breadth of my fingernail.”

“I see.”

“So much, then, is the span of my life in this body. I have served the

Wheel all my days. Now the Wheel serves me. But for the merit I have

acquired in guiding thee upon the Way, there would have been added to

me yet another life ere I had found my River. Is it plain, _chela?_”

Kim stared at the brutally disfigured chart. From left to right

diagonally the rent ran—from the Eleventh House where Desire gives

birth to the Child (as it is drawn by Tibetans)—across the human and

animal worlds, to the Fifth House—the empty House of the Senses. The

logic was unanswerable.

“Before our Lord won Enlightenment”—the lama folded all away with

reverence—“He was tempted. I too have been tempted, but it is finished.

The Arrow fell in the Plains—not in the Hills. Therefore, what make we

here?”

“Shall we at least wait for the _hakim?_”

“I know how long I shall live in this body. What can a _hakim_ do?”

“But thou art all sick and shaken. Thou canst not walk.”

“How can I be sick if I see Freedom?” He rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Then I must get food from the village. Oh, the weary Road!” Kim felt

that he too needed rest.

“That is lawful. Let us eat and go. The Arrow fell in the Plains ...

but I yielded to Desire. Make ready, _chela_.”

Kim turned to the woman with the turquoise headgear who had been idly

pitching pebbles over the cliff. She smiled very kindly.

“I found him like a strayed buffalo in a cornfield—the Babu; snorting

and sneezing with cold. He was so hungry that he forgot his dignity and

gave me sweet words. The Sahibs have nothing.” She flung out an empty

palm. “One is very sick about the stomach. Thy work?”

Kim nodded, with a bright eye.

“I spoke to the Bengali first—and to the people of a near-by village

after. The Sahibs will be given food as they need it—nor will the

people ask money. The plunder is already distributed. The Babu makes

lying speeches to the Sahibs. Why does he not leave them?”

“Out of the greatness of his heart.”

“Was never a Bengali yet had one bigger than a dried walnut. But it is

no matter ... Now as to walnuts. After service comes reward. I have

said the village is thine.”

“It is my loss,” Kim began. “Even now I had planned desirable things in

my heart which”—there is no need to go through the compliments proper

to these occasions. He sighed deeply ... “But my master, led by a

vision—”

“Huh! What can old eyes see except a full begging-bowl?”

“—turns from this village to the Plains again.”

“Bid him stay.”

Kim shook his head. “I know my Holy One, and his rage if he be

crossed,” he replied impressively. “His curses shake the Hills.”

“Pity they did not save him from a broken head! I heard that thou wast

the tiger-hearted one who smote the Sahib. Let him dream a little

longer. Stay!”

“Hillwoman,” said Kim, with austerity that could not harden the

outlines of his young oval face, “these matters are too high for thee.”

“The Gods be good to us! Since when have men and women been other than

men and women?”

“A priest is a priest. He says he will go upon this hour. I am his

_chela_, and I go with him. We need food for the Road. He is an

honoured guest in all the villages, but”—he broke into a pure boy’s

grin—“the food here is good. Give me some.”

“What if I do not give it thee? I am the woman of this village.”

“Then I curse thee—a little—not greatly, but enough to remember.” He

could not help smiling.

“Thou hast cursed me already by the down-dropped eyelash and the

uplifted chin. Curses? What should I care for mere words?” She clenched

her hands upon her bosom ... “But I would not have thee to go in anger,

thinking hardly of me—a gatherer of cow-dung and grass at Shamlegh, but

still a woman of substance.”

“I think nothing,” said Kim, “but that I am grieved to go, for I am

very weary; and that we need food. Here is the bag.”

The woman snatched it angrily. “I was foolish,” said she. “Who is thy

woman in the Plains? Fair or black? I was fair once. Laughest thou?

Once, long ago, if thou canst believe, a Sahib looked on me with

favour. Once, long ago, I wore European clothes at the Mission-house

yonder.” She pointed towards Kotgarh. “Once, long ago. I was

_Ker-lis-ti-an_ and spoke English—as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib

said he would return and wed me—yes, wed me. He went away—I had nursed

him when he was sick—but he never returned. Then I saw that the Gods of

the Kerlistians lied, and I went back to my own people ... I have never

set eyes on a Sahib since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit is past, little

priestling.) Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put me in

mind of my Sahib, though thou art only a wandering mendicant to whom I

give a dole. Curse me? Thou canst neither curse nor bless!” She set her

hands on her hips and laughed bitterly. “Thy Gods are lies; thy works

are lies; thy words are lies. There are no Gods under all the Heavens.

I know it ... But for awhile I thought it was my Sahib come back, and

he was my God. Yes, once I made music on a _pianno_ in the

Mission-house at Kotgarh. Now I give alms to priests who are

_heatthen_.” She wound up with the English word, and tied the mouth of

the brimming bag.

“I wait for thee, _chela_,” said the lama, leaning against the

door-post.

The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes. “He walk! He cannot

cover half a mile. Whither would old bones go?”

At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama’s collapse and foreseeing

the weight of the bag, fairly lost his temper.

“What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he goes?”

“Nothing—but something to thee, priest with a Sahib’s face. Wilt thou

carry him on thy shoulders?”

“I go to the Plains. None must hinder my return. I have wrestled with

my soul till I am strengthless. The stupid body is spent, and we are

far from the Plains.”

“Behold!” she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his own utter

helplessness. “Curse me. Maybe it will give him strength. Make a charm!

Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest.” She turned away.

The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the door-post. One

cannot strike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in the

night. Weakness bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on Kim

were alive and imploring.

“It is all well,” said Kim. “It is the thin air that weakens thee. In a

little while we go! It is the mountain-sickness. I too am a little sick

at stomach,”—and he knelt and comforted with such poor words as came

first to his lips. Then the woman returned, more erect than ever.

“Thy Gods useless, heh? Try mine. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.” She

hailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen her two husbands and

three others with a _dooli_, the rude native litter of the Hills, that

they use for carrying the sick and for visits of state. “These

cattle”—she did not condescend to look at them—“are thine for so long

as thou shalt need.”

“But we will not go Simla-way. We will not go near the Sahibs,” cried

the first husband.

“They will not run away as the others did, nor will they steal baggage.

Two I know for weaklings. Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and Taree.”

They obeyed swiftly. “Lower now, and lift in that holy man. I will see

to the village and your virtuous wives till ye return.”

“When will that be?”

“Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the food-bag at the foot, it

balances better so.”

“Oh, Holy One, thy Hills are kinder than our Plains!” cried Kim,

relieved, as the lama tottered to the litter. “It is a very king’s

bed—a place of honour and ease. And we owe it to—”

“A woman of ill-omen. I need thy blessings as much as I do thy curses.

It is _my_ order and none of thine. Lift and away! Here! Hast thou

money for the road?”

She beckoned Kim to her hut, and stooped above a battered English

cash-box under her cot.

“I do not need anything,” said Kim, angered where he should have been

grateful. “I am already rudely loaded with favours.”

She looked up with a curious smile and laid a hand on his shoulder. “At

least, thank me. I am foul-faced and a hillwoman, but, as thy talk

goes, I have acquired merit. Shall I show thee how the Sahibs render

thanks?” and her hard eyes softened.

“I am but a wandering priest,” said Kim, his eyes lighting in answer.

“Thou needest neither my blessings nor my curses.”

“Nay. But for one little moment—thou canst overtake the _dooli_ in ten

strides—_if_ thou wast a Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst

do?”

“How if I guess, though?” said Kim, and putting his arm round her

waist, he kissed her on the cheek, adding in English: “Thank you verree

much, my dear.”

Kissing is practically unknown among Asiatics, which may have been the

reason that she leaned back with wide-open eyes and a face of panic.

“Next time,” Kim went on, “you must not be so sure of your heatthen

priests. Now I say good-bye.” He held out his hand English-fashion. She

took it mechanically. “Good-bye, my dear.”

“Good-bye, and—and”—she was remembering her English words one by

one—“you will come back again? Good-bye, and—thee God bless you.”

Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path that

leads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut

door waving a white rag.

“She has acquired merit beyond all others,” said the lama. “For to set

a man upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had

herself found it.”

“Umm,” said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. “It may be that I

have acquired merit also ... At least she did not treat me like a

child.” He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the slab of

documents and maps, re-stowed the precious food-bag at the lama’s feet,

laid his hand on the litter’s edge, and buckled down to the slow pace

of the grunting husbands.

“These also acquire merit,” said the lama after three miles.

“More than that, they shall be paid in silver,” quoth Kim. The Woman of

Shamlegh had given it to him; and it was only fair, he argued, that her

men should earn it back again.