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By Root 4708 0

and chance. Three days of torment passed in the big, echoing white rooms. He walked out of afternoons under escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard from his companion were the few useless words which seemed to make two-thirds of the white man’s abuse. Kim knew and despised them all long ago. The boy resented his silence and lack of interest by beating him, as was only natural. He did not care for any of the bazars which were in bounds. He styled all natives ‘niggers’; yet servants and sweepers called him abominable names to his face, and, misled by their deferential attitude, he never understood. This somewhat consoled Kim for the beatings.

On the morning of the fourth day a judgment overtook that drummer. They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse. He returned alone, weeping, with news that young O‘Hara, to whom he had been doing nothing in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger on horseback; that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a peculiarly adhesive quirt,173 picked up young O’Hara, and borne him off at full gallop. These tidings came to Father Victor and he drew down his long upper lip. He was already sufficiently startled by a letter from the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares, enclosing a native banker’s note of hand for three hundred rupees, and an amazing prayer to ‘Almighty God.’ The lama would have been more annoyed than the priest had he known how the bazar letter-writer had translated his phrase ‘to acquire merit.’

‘Powers of Darkness below!’ Father Victor fumbled with the note. ‘An’ now he’s off with another of his peep-o’-day174 friends. I don’t know whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or to have him lost. He’s beyond my comprehension. How the Divil—yes, he’s the man I mean—can a street-beggar raise money to educate white boys?’

Three miles off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a grey Kabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was saying:

‘But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my honour and reputation to be considered. All the officer-Sahibs in all the regiments, and all Umballa, know Mahbub Ali. Men saw me pick thee up and chastise that boy. We are seen now from far across this plain. How can I take thee away, or account for thy disappearing if I set thee down and let thee run off into the crops? They would put me in jail. Be patient. Once a Sahib, always a Sahib. When thou art a man—who knows?—thou wilt be grateful to Mahbub Ali.’

‘Take me beyond their sentries where I can change this red. Give me money and I will go to Benares and be with my lama again. I do not want to be a Sahib, and remember I did deliver that message.’

The stallion bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven home the sharp-edged stirrup. (He was not the new sort of fluent horse-dealer who wears English boots and spurs.) Kim drew his own conclusions from that betrayal.

‘That was a small matter. It lay on the straight road to Benares. I and the Sahib have by this time forgotten it. I send so many letters and messages to men who ask questions about horses, I cannot well remember one from the other. Was it some matter of a bay mare that Peters Sahib wished the pedigree of?’

Kim saw the trap at once. If he had said ‘bay mare’ Mahbub would have known by his very readiness to fall in with the amendment that the boy suspected something. Kim replied therefore:

‘Bay mare. No. I do not forget my messages thus. It was a white stallion.’

‘Ay, so it was. A white Arab stallion. But thou didst write “bay mare” to me.’

‘Who cares to tell truth to a letter-writer?’ Kim answered, feeling Mahbub’s palm on his heart.

‘Hi! Mahbub, you old villain, pull up!’ cried a voice, and an Englishman raced alongside on a little polo-pony. ‘I’ve been chasing you half over the country. That Kabuli of yours can go. For sale, I suppose?’

‘I have some young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the delicate and difficult polo-game. He has no equal. He—’

‘Plays polo and waits at table. Yes. We know all that. What the deuce have you got there?’

‘A boy,’ said Mahbub gravely.