Kim (7 page)

‘Upon a day,’ said Kim, delighted at the sensation he was creating, ‘I shall be made great by means of a Red Bull on a green field, but first there will enter two men making all things ready.’

‘Yes: thus ever at the opening of a vision. A thick darkness that clears slowly; anon one enters with a broom making ready the place. Then begins the Sight. Two men—thou sayest? Ay, ay. The Sun, leaving the House of the Bull, enters that of the Twins. Hence the two men of the prophecy. Let us now consider. Fetch me a twig, little one.’

He knitted his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and scratched again in the dust mysterious signs—to the wonder of all save the lama, who, with fine instinct, forbore to interfere.

At the end of half an hour, he tossed the twig from him with a grunt.

‘Hm! Thus say the stars. Within three days come the two men to make all things ready. After them follows the Bull; but the sign over against him is the sign of War and armed men.’

‘There was indeed a man of the Ludhiana Sikhs in the carriage from Lahore,’ said the cultivator’s wife hopefully.

‘Tck! Armed men—many hundreds. What concern hast thou with war?’ said the priest to Kim. ‘Thine is a red and an angry sign of War to be loosed very soon.’

‘None—none,’ said the lama earnestly. ‘We seek only peace and our River.’

Kim smiled, remembering what he had overheard in the dressing-room. Decidedly he was a favourite of the stars.

The priest brushed his foot over the rude horoscope. ‘More than this I cannot see. In three days comes the Bull to thee, boy.’

‘And my River, my River,’ pleaded the lama. ‘I had hoped his Bull would lead us both to the River.’

‘Alas, for that wondrous River, my brother,’ the priest replied. ‘Such things are not common.’

Next morning, though they were pressed to stay, the lama insisted on departure. They gave Kim a large bundle of good food and nearly three annas in copper money for the needs of the road, and with many blessings watched the two go southward in the dawn.

‘Pity it is that these and such as these could not be freed from the Wheel of Things,’ said the lama.

‘Nay, then would only evil people be left on the earth, and who would give us meat and shelter?’ quoth Kim, stepping merrily under his burden.

‘Yonder is a small stream. Let us look,’ said the lama, and he led from the white road across the fields; walking into a very hornets’ nest of pariah dogs.

Yea, voice of every Soul that clung
To life that strove from rung to rung
When Devadatta’s rule was young,
    The warm wind brings Kamakura.
            — Buddha at Kamakura

Behind them
an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.

‘Such an one,’ said the lama, disregarding the dogs, ‘is impolite to strangers, intemperate of speech and uncharitable. Be warned by his demeanour, my disciple.’

‘Ho, shameless beggars!’ shouted the farmer. ‘Begone! Get hence!’

‘We go,’ the lama returned, with quiet dignity. ‘We go from these unblessed fields.’

‘Ah,’ said Kim, sucking in his breath. ‘If the next crops fail, thou canst only blame thine own tongue.’

The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. ‘The land is full of beggars,’ he began, half apologetically.

‘And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O Mali?’ said Kim tartly, using the name that a market-gardener least likes. ‘All we sought was to look at that river beyond the field there.’

‘River, forsooth!’ the man snorted. ‘What city do ye hail from not to know a canal-cut? It runs as straight as an arrow, and I pay for the water as though it were molten silver. There is a branch of a river beyond. But if ye need water I can give that—and milk.’

‘Nay, we will go to the river,’ said the lama, striding out.

‘Milk and a meal,’ the man stammered, as he looked at the strange tall figure. ‘I—I would not draw evil upon myself—or my crops. But beggars are so many in these hard days.’

‘Take notice.’ The lama turned to Kim. ‘He was led to speak harshly by the Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he becomes courteous and of an affable heart. May his fields be blessed! Beware not to judge men too hastily, O farmer.’

‘I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone to byre,’ said Kim to the abashed man. ‘Is he not wise and holy? I am his disciple.’

He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the narrow field-borders with great dignity.

‘There is no pride,’ said the lama, after a pause, ‘there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.’

‘But thou hast said he was low-caste and discourteous.’

‘Low-caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way of deliverance.’ He halted at a little runlet among the fields, and considered the hoof-pitted bank.

‘Now, how wilt thou know thy River?’ said Kim, squatting in the shade of some tall sugar-cane.

‘When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I feel, is not the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou couldst tell me where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the fields bear!’

‘Look! Look!’ Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still—a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes.

‘I have no stick—I have no stick,’ said Kim. ‘I will get me one and break his back.’

‘Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.’

‘I hate all snakes,’ said Kim. No native training can quench the white man’s horror of the Serpent.

‘Let him live out his life.’ The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. ‘May thy release come soon, brother!’ the lama continued placidly. ‘Hast
thou
knowledge, by chance, of my River?’

‘Never have I seen such a man as thou art,’ Kim whispered, overwhelmed. ‘Do the very snakes understand thy talk?’

‘Who knows?’ He passed within a foot of the cobra’s poised head. It flattened itself among the dusty coils.

‘Come, thou!’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Not I,’ said Kim. ‘I go round.’

‘Come. He does no hurt.’

Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.

‘Never have I seen such a man.’ Kim wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘And now, whither go we?’

‘That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger—far from my own place. But that the
rêl
-carriage fills my head with noises of devil-drums I would go in it to Benares now . . . Yet by so going we may miss the River. Let us find another river.’

Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a year—through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, and nol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; the lama replying to the volleyed questions with an unswerving simplicity. They sought a River—a River of miraculous healing. Had any one knowledge of such a stream? Sometimes men laughed, but more often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and the little children as children are the world over, alternately shy and venturesome. Evening found them at rest under the village tree of a mud-walled, mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the headman as the cattle came in from the grazing-grounds and the women prepared the day’s last meal. They had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green of the staple crops.

He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertaining strangers. He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warm cooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening ceremonies being finished in the village temple, sent for the village priest.

Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of Lahore, of railway travel, and such-like city things, while the men talked, slowly as their cattle chew the cud.

‘I cannot fathom it,’ said the headman at last to the priest. ‘How readest thou this talk?’ The lama, his tale told, was silently telling his beads.

‘He is a Seeker,’ the priest answered. ‘The land is full of such. Remember him who came only last month—the
fakir
with the tortoise?’

‘Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared in a vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he journeyed to Prayag. This man seeks no God who is within my knowledge.’

‘Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,’ the smooth-shaven priest replied. ‘Hear me.’ He turned to the lama. ‘Three
kos
to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta.’

‘But I would go to Benares—to Benares.’

‘And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of Hind. Now my word to thee, Holy One, is rest here till tomorrow. Then take the road’ (it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant) ‘and test each stream that it overpasses; for, as I understand, the virtue of thy River lies neither in one pool nor place, but throughout its length. Then, if thy Gods will, be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom.’

‘That is well said.’ The lama was much impressed by the plan. ‘We will begin tomorrow, and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such a near road.’ A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the sentence. Even the priest was impressed, and the headman feared an evil spell: but none could look at the lama’s simple, eager face and doubt him long.

‘Seest thou my
chela
?’ he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with an important sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy.

‘I see—and hear.’ The headman rolled his eye where Kim was chatting to a girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a fire.

‘He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a Red Bull on a green field will some day raise him to honour. He is, I think, not altogether of this world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me in this search, and his name is Friend of all the World.’

The priest smiled. ‘Ho there, Friend of all the World,’ he cried across the sharp-smelling smoke, ‘what art thou?’

‘This Holy One’s disciple,’ said Kim.

‘He says thou art a
būt
.’

‘Can
būts
eat?’ said Kim, with a twinkle. ‘For I am hungry.’

‘It is no jest,’ cried the lama. ‘A certain astrologer of that city whose name I have forgotten——’

‘That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night,’ Kim whispered to the priest.

‘Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my
chela
should find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?’

Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village greybeards.

‘The meaning of my Star is War,’ he replied pompously.

Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have lain down, Kim’s white blood set him upon his feet.

‘Ay, War,’ he answered.

‘That is a sure prophecy,’ rumbled a deep voice. ‘For there is always war along the Border—as I know.’

It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and though the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded officers on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence. English officials—Deputy Commissioners even—turned aside from the main road to visit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.

‘But this shall be a great war—a war of eight thousand.’ Kim’s voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.

‘Redcoats or our own regiments?’ the old man snapped, as though he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.

‘Redcoats,’ said Kim at a venture. ‘Redcoats and guns.’

‘But—but the astrologer said no word of this,’ cried the lama, snuffing prodigiously in his excitement.

‘But
I
know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One’s disciple. There will rise a war—a war of eight thousand redcoats. From Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is sure.’

‘The boy has heard bazar-talk,’ said the priest.

‘But he was always by my side,’ said the lama. ‘How should he know?
I
did not know.’

‘He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,’ muttered the priest to the headman. ‘What new trick is this?’

‘A sign. Give me a sign,’ thundered the old soldier suddenly. ‘If there were war my sons would have told me.’

‘When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie.’ Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things—the sheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath and went on.

‘Old man, give
me
a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight thousand redcoats—with guns?’

‘No.’ Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.

‘Dost thou know who He is, then, that gives the order?’

‘I have seen Him.’

‘To know again?’

‘I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the
topkhana
(the Artillery).’

‘A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?’ Kim took a few paces in a stiff, wooden style.