Kim

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'As regards that young horse,' said Mahbub, 'I say that when a colt
is born to be a polo-pony, closely following the ball without
teaching - when such a colt knows the game by divination - then I
say it is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!'

'So say I also, Mahbub. The colt will be entered for polo only.
(These fellows think of nothing in the world but horses, Padre.)
I'll see you tomorrow, Mahbub, if you've anything likely for sale.'

The dealer saluted, horseman-fashion, with a sweep of the off hand.
'Be patient a little, Friend of all the World,' he whispered to
the agonized Kim. 'Thy fortune is made. In a little while thou
goest to Nucklao, and - here is something to pay the letter-writer.
I shall see thee again, I think, many times,' and he cantered off
down the road.

'Listen to me,' said the Colonel from the veranda, speaking in the
vernacular. 'In three days thou wilt go with me to Lucknow, seeing
and hearing new things all the while. Therefore sit still for three
days and do not run away. Thou wilt go to school at Lucknow.'

'Shall I meet my Holy One there?' Kim whimpered.

'At least Lucknow is nearer to Benares than Umballa. It may be thou
wilt go under my protection. Mahbub Ali knows this, and he will be
angry if thou returnest to the Road now. Remember - much has been
told me which I do not forget.'

'I will wait,' said Kim, 'but the boys will beat me.'

Then the bugles blew for dinner.

Chapter 7

Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised
With idiot moons and stars retracing stars?
Creep thou betweene - thy coming's all unnoised.
Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars.
Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fraye
(By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway);
Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say
Which planet mends thy threadbare fate or mars?

Sir John Christie.

In the afternoon the red-faced schoolmaster told Kim that he had
been 'struck off the strength', which conveyed no meaning to him
till he was ordered to go away and play. Then he ran to the bazar,
and found the young letter-writer to whom he owed a stamp.

'Now I pay,' said Kim royally, 'and now I need another letter to be
written.'

'Mahbub Ali is in Umballa,' said the writer jauntily. He was, by
virtue of his office, a bureau of general misinformation.

'This is not to Mahbub, but to a priest. Take thy pen and write
quickly. To Teshoo La ma, the Holy One from Bhotiyal seeking for a
River, who is now in the Temple ofihe Tirthankars at Benares. Take
more ink! In three days I am to go down to Nucklao to the school at
Nucklao. The name of the school is Xavier. I do not know where that
school is, but it is at Nucklao.'

'But I know Nucklao,' the writer interrupted. 'I know the school.'

'Tell him where it is, and I give half an anna.'

The reed pen scratched busily. 'He cannot mistake.' The man lifted
his head. 'Who watches us across the street?'

Kim looked up hurriedly and saw Colonel Creighton in tennis-
flannels.

'Oh, that is some Sahib who knows the fat priest in the barracks.
He is beckoning me.'

'What dost thou?' said the Colonel, when Kim trotted up.

'I - I am not running away. I send a letter to my Holy One at
Benares.'

'I had not thought of that. Hast thou said that I take thee to
Lucknow?'

'Nay, I have not. Read the letter, if there be a doubt.'

'Then why hast thou left out my name in writing to that Holy One?'
The Colonel smiled a queer smile. Kim took his courage in both
hands.

'It was said once to me that it is inexpedient to write the names
of strangers concerned in any matter, because by the naming of
names many good plans are brought to confusion.'

'Thou hast been well taught,' the Colonel replied, and Kim flushed.
'I have left my cheroot-case in the Padre's veranda. Bring it to my
house this even.'

'Where is the house?' said Kim. His quick wit told him that he was
being tested in some fashion or another, and he stood on guard.

'Ask anyone in the big bazar.' The Colonel walked on.

'He has forgotten his cheroot-case,' said Kim, returning. 'I must
bring it to him this evening. That is all my letter except, thrice
over, Come to me! Come to me! Come to me! Now I will pay for a
stamp and put it in the post. He rose to go, and as an afterthought
asked: 'Who is that angry-faced Sahib who lost the cheroot-case?'

'Oh, he is only Creighton Sahib - a very foolish Sahib, who is a
Colonel Sahib without a regiment.'

'What is his business?'

'God knows. He is always buying horses which he cannot ride, and
asking riddles about the works of God - such as plants and stones
and the customs of people. The dealers call him the father of
fools, because he is so easily cheated about a horse. Mahbub Ali
says he is madder than most other Sahibs.'

'Oh!' said Kim, and departed. His training had given him some small
knowledge of character, and he argued that fools are not given
information which leads to calling out eight thousand men besides
guns. The Commander-in-Chief of all India does not talk, as Kim had
heard him talk, to fools. Nor would Mahbub Ali's tone have changed,
as it did every time he mentioned the Colonel's name, if the
Colonel had been a fool. Consequently - and this set Kim to
skipping - there was a mystery somewhere, and Mahbub Ali probably
spied for the Colonel much as Kim had spied for Mahbub. And, like
the horse-dealer, the Colonel evidently respected people who did
not show themselves to be too clever.

He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge of the Colonel's
house; and when, on his return to barracks, he discovered that no
cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with delight. Here was
a man after his own heart - a tortuous and indirect person playing
a hidden game. Well, if he could be a fool, so could Kim.

He showed nothing of his mind when Father Victor, for three long
mornings, discoursed to him of an entirely new set of Gods and
Godlings - notably of a Goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was
one with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology. He betrayed no
emotion when, after the lecture, Father Victor dragged him from
shop to shop buying articles of outfit, nor when envious drummer-
boys kicked him because he was going to a superior school did he
complain, but awaited the play of circumstances with an interested
soul. Father Victor, good man, took him to the station, put him
into an empty second-class next to Colonel Creighton's first, and
bade him farewell with genuine feeling.

'They'll make a man o' you, O'Hara, at St Xavier's - a white man,
an', I hope, a good man. They know all about your comin', an' the
Colonel will see that ye're not lost or mislaid anywhere on the
road. I've given you a notion of religious matters, - at least I
hope so, - and you'll remember, when they ask you your religion,
that you're a Cath'lic. Better say Roman Cath'lic, tho' I'm not
fond of the word.'

Kim lit a rank cigarette - he had been careful to buy a stock in
the bazar - and lay down to think. This solitary passage was verv
different from that joyful down-journey in the third-class with the
lama. 'Sahibs get little pleasure of travel,' he reflected.

'Hai mai! I go from one place to another as it might be a kickball.
It is my Kismet. No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to
Bibi Miriam, and I am a Sahib.' He looked at his boots ruefully.
'No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is
Kim?' He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done
before, till his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all
this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what
fate.

Presently the Colonel sent for him, and talked for a long time. So
far as Kim could gather, he was to be diligent and enter the Survey
of India as a chain-man. If he were very good, and passed the
proper examinations, he would be earning thirty rupees a month at
seventeen years old, and Colonel Creighton would see that he found
suitable employment.

Kim pretended at first to understand perhaps one word in three of
this talk. Then the Colonel, seeing his mistake, turned to fluent
and picturesque Urdu and Kim was contented. No man could be a fool
who knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and
silently, and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes
of other Sahibs.

'Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and
mountains and rivers to carry these pictures in thine eye till a
suitable time comes to set them upon paper. Perhaps some day, when
thou art a chain-man, I may say to thee when we are working
together: "Go across those hills and see what lies beyond." Then
one will say: "There are bad people living in those hills who will
slay the chain-man if he be seen to look like a Sahib." What then?'

Kim thought. Would it be safe to return the Colonel's lead?

'I would tell what that other man had said.'

'But if I answered: "I will give thee a hundred rupees for
knowledge of what is behind those hills - for a picture of a river
and a little news of what the people say in the villages there"?'

'How can I tell? I am only a boy. Wait till I am a man.' Then,
seeing the Colonel's brow clouded, he went on: 'But I think I
should in a few days earn the hundred rupees.'

'By what road?'

Kim shook his head resolutely. 'If I said how I would earn them,
another man might hear and forestall me. It is not good to sell
knowledge for nothing.'

'Tell now.' The Colonel held up a rupee. Kim's hand half reached
towards it, and dropped.

'Nay, Sahib; nay. I know the price that will be paid for the
answer, but I do not know why the question is asked.'

'Take it for a gift, then,' said Creighton, tossing it over. 'There
is a good spirit in thee. Do not let it be blunted at St Xavier's.
There are many boys there who despise the black men.'

'Their mothers were bazar-women,' said Kim. He knew well there is
no hatred like that of the half-caste for his brother-in-law.

'True; but thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Therefore, do
not at any time be led to contemn the black men. I have known boys
newly entered into the service of the Government who feigned not to
understand the talk or the customs of black men. Their pay was cut
for ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember
this.'

Several times in the course of the long twenty-four hours' run
south did the Colonel send for Kim, always developing this latter
text.

'We be all on one lead-rope, then,' said Kim at last, 'the Colonel,
Mahbub Ali, and I - when I become a chain-man. He will use me as
Mahbub Ali employed me, I think. That is good, if it allows me to
return to the Road again. This clothing grows no easier by wear.'

When they came to the crowded Lucknow station there was no sign of
the lama. He swallowed his disappointment, while the Colonel
bundled him into a ticca-gharri with his neat belongings and
despatched him alone to St Xavier's.

'I do not say farewell, because we shall meet again,' he cried.
'Again, and many times, if thou art one of good spirit. But thou
art not yet tried.'

'Not when I brought thee' - Kim actually dared to use the tum of
equals - 'a white stallion's pedigree that night?'

'Much is gained by forgetting, little brother,' said the Colonel,
with a look that pierced through Kim's shoulder-blades as he
scuttled into the carriage.

It took him nearly five minutes to recover. Then he sniffed the new
air appreciatively. 'A rich city,' he said. 'Richer than Lahore.
How good the bazars must be! Coachman, drive me a little through
the bazars here.'

'My order is to take thee to the school.' The driver used the
'thou', which is rudeness when applied to a white man. In the
clearest and most fluent vernacular Kim pointed out his error,
climbed on to the box-seat, and, perfect understanding established,
drove for a couple of hours up and down, estimating, comparing, and
enjoying. There is no city - except Bombay, the queen of all - more
beautiful in her garish style than Lucknow, whether you see her
from the bridge over the river, or from the top of the Imambara
looking down on the gilt umbrellas of the Chutter Munzil, and the
trees in which the town is bedded. Kings have adorned her with
fantastic buildings, endowed her with charities, crammed her with
pensioners, and drenched her with blood. She is the centre of all
idleness, intrigue, and luxury, and shares with Delhi the claim to
talk the only pure Urdu.

'A fair city - a beautiful city.' The driver, as a Lucknow man, was
pleased with the compliment, and told Kim many astounding things
where an English guide would have talked of the Mutiny.

'Now we will go to the school,' said Kim at last. The great old
school of St Xavier's in Partibus, block on block of low white
buildings, stands in vast grounds over against the Gumti River,' at
some distance from the city.

'What like of folk are they within?' said Kim.

'Young Sahibs - all devils. But to speak truth, and I drive many of
them to and fro from the railway station, I have never seen one
that had in him the making of a more perfect devil than thou - this
young Sahib whom I am now driving.'

Naturally, for he was never trained to consider them in any way
improper, Kim had passed the time of day with one or two frivolous
ladies at upper windows in a certain street, and naturally, in the
exchange of compliments, had acquitted himself well. He was about
to acknowledge the driver's last insolence, when his eye - it was
growing dusk - caught a figure sitting by one of the white plaster
gate-pillars in the long sweep of wall.

'Stop!' he cried. 'Stay here. I do not go to the school at once.'

'But what is to pay me for this coming and re-coming?' said the
driver petulantly. 'Is the boy mad? Last time it was a dancing-
girl. This time it is a priest.'

Kim was in the road headlong, patting the dusty feet beneath the
dirty yellow robe.

'I have waited here a day and a half,' the lama's level voice
began. 'Nay, I had a disciple with me. He that was my friend at the
Temple of the Tirthankars gave me a guide for this journey. I came
from Benares in the te-rain, when thy letter was given me. Yes, I
am well fed. I need nothing.'

'But why didst thou not stay with the Kulu woman, O Holy One? In
what way didst thou get to Benares? My heart has been heavy since
we parted.'

'The woman wearied me by constant flux of talk and requiring charms
for children. I separated myself from that company, permitting her
to acquire merit by gifts. She is at least a woman of open hands,
and I made a promise to return to her house if need arose. Then,
perceiving myself alone in this great and terrible world, I
bethought me of the te-rain to Benares, where I knew one abode in
the Tirthankars' Temple who was a Seeker, even as I.'

'Ah! Thy River,' said Kim. 'I had forgotten the River.'

'So soon, my chela? I have never forgotten it. But when I had left
thee it seemed better that I should go to the Temple and take
counsel, for, look you, India is very large, and it may be that
wise men before us, some two or three, have left a record of the
place of our River. There is debate in the Temple of the
Tirthankars on this matter; some saying one thing, and some
another. They are courteous folk.'

'So be it; but what dost thou do now?'

'I acquire merit in that I help thee, my chela, to wisdom. The
priest of that body of men who serve the Red Bull wrote me that all
should be as I desired for thee. I sent the money to suffice for
one year, and then I came, as thou seest me, to watch for thee
going up into the Gates of Learning. A day and a half have I waited
not because I was led by any affection towards thee - that is no
part of the Way - but, as they said at the Tirthankars' Temple,
because, money having been paid for learning, it was right that I
should oversee the end of the matter. They resolved my doubts most
clearly. I had a fear that, perhaps, I came because I wished to see
thee - misguided by the Red Mist of affection. It is not so . . .
Moreover, I am troubled by a dream.'

'But surely, Holy One, thou hast not forgotten the Road and all
that befell on it. Surely it was a little to see me that thou didst
come?'

'The horses are cold, and it is past their feeding-time,' whined
the driver.

'Go to Jehannum and abide there with thy reputationless aunt!' Kim
snarled over his shoulder. 'I am all alone in this land; I know not
where I go nor what shall befall me. My heart was in that letter I
sent thee. Except for Mahbub Ali, and he is a Pathan, I have no
friend save thee, Holy One. Do not altogether go away.'

'I have considered that also,' the lama replied, in a shaking
voice. 'It is manifest that from time to time I shall acquire merit
if before that I have not found my River - by assuring myself
that thy feet are set on wisdom. What they will teach thee I do
not know, but the priest wrote me that no son of a Sahib in all
India will be better taught than thou. So from time to time,
therefore, I will come again. Maybe thou wilt be such a Sahib as he
who gave me these spectacles' - the lama wiped them elaborately -
'in the Wonder House at Lahore. That is my hope, for he was a
Fountain of Wisdom - wiser than many abbots .... Again, maybe thou
wilt forget me and our meetings.'

'If I eat thy bread,' cried Kim passionately, 'how shall I ever
forget thee?' 'No - no.' He put the boy aside. 'I must go back to
Benares. From time to time,now that I know the customs of letter-
writers in this land, I will send thee a letter, and from time to
time I will come and see thee.'

'But whither shall I send my letters?' wailed Kim, clutching at the
robe, all forgetful that he was a Sahib.

'To the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares. That is the place I
have chosen till I find my River. Do not weep; for, look you, all
Desire is Illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel. Go up to the
Gates of Learning. Let me see thee go . .. Dost thou love me? Then
go, or my heart cracks .. . I will come again. Surely I will come
again.

The lama watched the ticca-gharri rumble into the compound, and
strode off, snuffing between each long stride.

'The Gates of Learning' shut with a clang.

The country born and bred boy has his own manners and customs,
which do not resemble those of any other land; and his teachers
approach him by roads which an English master would not understand.
Therefore, you would scarcely be interested in Kim's experiences as
a St Xavier's boy among two or three hundred precocious youths,
most of whom had never seen the sea. He suffered the usual
penalties for breaking out of bounds when there was cholera in the
city. This was before he had learned to write fair English, and so
was obliged to find a bazar letter-writer. He was, of course,
indicted for smoking and for the use of abuse more full-flavoured
than even St Xavier's had ever heard. He learned to wash himself
with the Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born, who in his
heart considers the Englishman rather dirty. He played the usual
tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-
rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales
till the dawn; and quietly he measured himself against his self-
reliant mates.

They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway, Telegraph,
and Canal Services; of warrant-officers, sometimes retired and
sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah's
army; of captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners,
planters, Presidency shopkeepers, and missionaries. A few were
cadets of the old Eurasian houses that have taken strong root in
Dhurrumtollah - Pereiras, De Souzas, and D'Silvas. Their parents
could well have educated them in England, but they loved the school
that had served their own youth, and generation followed sallow-
hued generation at St Xavier's. Their homes ranged from Howrah of
the railway people to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and
Chunar; lost tea-gardens Shillong-way; villages where their fathers
were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan; Mission-stations a
week from the nearest railway line; seaports a thousand miles
south, facing the brazen Indian surf; and cinchona-plantations
south of all. The mere story of their adventures, which to them
were no adventures, on their road to and from school would have
crisped a Western boy's hair. They were used to jogging off alone
through a hundred miles of jungle, where there was always the
delightful chance of being delayed by tigers; but they would no
more have bathed in the English Channel in an English August than
their brothers across the world would have lain still while a
leopard snuffed at their palanquin. There were boys of fifteen who
had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a flooded
river, taking charge, as by right, of a camp of frantic pilgrims
returning from a shrine. There were seniors who had requisitioned a
chance-met Rajah's elephant, in the name of St Francis Xavier, when
the Rains once blotted out the cart-track that led to their
father's estate, and had all but lost the huge beast in a
quicksand. There was a boy who, he said, and none doubted, had
helped his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush
of Akas in the days when those head-hunters were bold against
lonely plantations.

And every tale was told in the even, passionless voice of the
native-born, mixed with quaint reflections, borrowed unconsciously
from native foster-mothers, and turns of speech that showed they
had been that instant translated from the vernacular. Kim watched,
listened, and approved. This was not insipid, single-word talk of
drummer-boys. It dealt with a life he knew and in part understood.
The atmosphere suited him, and he throve by inches. They gave him a
white drill suit as the weather warmed, and he rejoiced in the new-
found bodily comforts as he rejoiced to use his sharpened mind over
the tasks they set him. His quickness would have delighted an
English master; but at St Xavier's they know the first rush of
minds developed by sun and surroundings, as they know the half-
collapse that sets in at twenty-two or twenty-three.

None the less he remembered to hold himself lowly. When tales were
told of hot nights, Kim did not sweep the board with his
reminiscences; for St Xavier's looks down on boys who 'go native
all-together.' One must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that
some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives.
Kim made a note of this, for he began to understand where
examinations led.

Then came the holidays from August to October - the long holidays
imposed by the heat and the Rains. Kim was informed that he would
go north to some station in the hills behind Umballa, where Father
Victor would arrange for him.

'A barrack-school?' said Kim, who had asked many questions and
thought more.

'Yes, I suppose so,' said the master. 'It will not do you any harm
to keep you out of mischief. You can go up with young De Castro as
far as Delhi.'

Kim considered it in every possible light. He had been diligent,
even as the Colonel advised. A boy's holiday was his own property -
of so much the talk of his companions had advised him, - and a
barrack-school would be torment after St Xavier's. Moreover - this
was magic worth anything else - he could write. In three months he
had discovered how men can speak to each other without a third
party, at the cost of half an anna and a little knowledge. No word
had come from the lama, but there remained the Road. Kim yearned
for the caress of soft mud squishing up between the toes, as his
mouth watered for mutton stewed with butter and cabbages, for rice
speckled with strong scented cardamoms, for the saffron-tinted
rice, garlic and onions, and the forbidden greasy sweetmeats of the
bazars. They would feed him raw beef on a platter at the barrack-
school, and he must smoke by stealth. But again, he was a Sahib and
was at St Xavier's, and that pig Mahbub Ali ... No, he would not
test Mahbub's hospitality - and yet ... He thought

it out alone in the dormitory, and came to the conclusion he had
been unjust to Mahbub.

The school was empty; nearly all the masters had gone away; Colonel
Creighton 's railway pass lay in his hand, and Kim puffed himself
that he had not spent Colonel Creighton 's or Mahbub's money in
riotous living. He was still lord of two rupees seven annas. His
new bullock-trunk, marked 'K. O'H.', and bedding-roll lay in the
empty sleeping-room. 'Sahibs are always tied to their baggage,'
said Kim, nodding at them. 'You will stay here' He went out into
the warm rain, smiling sinfully, and sought a certain house whose
outside he had noted down some time before. . .

'Arre'! Dost thou know what manner of women we be in this quarter?
Oh, shame!'

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