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‘Not so bad—not so bad,’ said Kim with calm. ‘But have a care, my brother, lest we-we, I say—be minded to give a curse or so in return. And our curses have the knack of biting home.’

The Ooryas laughed; the hillman sprang forward threateningly. The lama suddenly raised his head, bringing his huge tamo’ -shanter hat into the full light of Kim’s new-started fire.

‘What is it?’ said he.

The man halted as though struck to stone. ‘I—I—am saved from a great sin,’ he stammered.

‘The foreigner has found him a priest at last,’ whispered one of the Ooryas.

‘Hai! Why is that beggar-brat not well beaten?’ the old woman cried.

The hillman drew back to the cart and whispered something to the curtain. There was dead silence, then a muttering.

‘This goes well,’ thought Kim, pretending neither to see nor hear.

‘When—when—he has eaten’—the hillman fawned on Kim—’it—it is requested that the Holy One will do the honour to talk to one who would speak to him.’

‘After he has eaten he will sleep,’ Kim returned loftily. He could not quite see what new turn the game had taken, but stood resolute to profit by it. ‘Now I will get him his food.’ The last sentence, spoken loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness.

‘I—I myself and the others of my people will look to that—if it is permitted.’

‘It is permitted,’ said Kim, more loftily than ever. ‘Holy One, these people will bring us food.’

‘The land is good. All the country of the South is good—a great and a terrible world,’ mumbled the lama drowsily.

‘Let him sleep,’ said Kim, ‘but look to it that we are well fed when he wakes. He is a very holy man.’

Again one of the Ooryas said something contemptuously.

‘He is not a fakir. He is not a down-country beggar,’ Kim went on severely, addressing the stars. ‘He is the most holy of holy men. He is above all castes. I am his chela.’

‘Come here!’ said the flat thin voice behind the curtain; and Kim came, conscious that eyes he could not see were staring at him. One skinny brown finger heavy with rings lay on the edge of the cart, and the talk went this way:

‘Who is that one?’

‘An exceedingly holy one. He comes from far off. He comes from Tibet.’

‘Where in Tibet?’

‘From behind the snows—from a very far place. He knows the stars; he makes horoscopes; he reads nativities. But he does not do this for money. He does it for kindness and great charity. I am his disciple. I am called also the Friend of the Stars.’

‘Thou art no hillman.’

‘Ask him. He will tell thee I was sent to him from the Stars to show him an end to his pilgrimage.’

‘Humph! Consider, brat, that I am an old woman and not altogether a fool. Lamas I know, and to these I give reverence, but thou art no more a lawful chela than this my finger is the pole of this wagon. Thou art a casteless Hindu—a bold and unblushing beggar, attached, belike, to the Holy One for the sake of gain.’

‘Do we not all work for gain?’ Kim changed his tone promptly to match that altered voice. ‘I have heard’—this was a bow drawn at a venture132—‘I have heard——’

‘What hast thou heard?’ she snapped, rapping with the finger.

‘Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars, which is doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs—small hill Rajahs——’

‘But none the less of good Rajput blood.’

‘Assuredly of good blood. That these even sell the more comely of their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them—to zemindars133 and such-all of Oudh.’134

If there be one thing in the world that the small Hill Rajahs deny it is just this charge; but it happens to be one thing that the bazars believe, when they discuss the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The old lady explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whisper, precisely what manner and fashion of malignant liar he was. Had Kim hinted this when she was a girl, he would have been pommelled to death that same evening by an elephant. This was perfectly true.

‘Ahai! I am only a beggar’s brat, as the Eye of Beauty has said,’ he wailed in extravagant terror.

‘Eye of Beauty,