Kim (4 page)

The horse-trader, his deep, embroidered Bokhariot belt unloosed, was lying on a pair of silk carpet saddle-bags, pulling lazily at an immense silver hookah. He turned his head very slightly at the cry; and seeing only the tall silent figure, chuckled in his deep chest.

‘Allah! A lama! A Red Lama! It is far from Lahore to the Passes. What dost thou do here?’

The lama held out the begging-bowl mechanically.

‘God’s curse on all unbelievers!’ said Mahbub. ‘I do not give to a lousy Tibetan; but ask my Baltis over yonder behind the camels. They may value your blessings. Oh, horse-boys, here is a countryman of yours. See if he be hungry.’

A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and who was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest, and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the horse-boys’ fire.

‘Go!’ said Kim, pushing him lightly, and the lama strode away, leaving Kim at the edge of the cloister.

‘Go!’ said Mahbub Ali, returning to his hookah. ‘Little Hindu, run away. God’s curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my tail who are of thy faith.’

‘Maharaj,’ whined Kim, using the Hindu form of address, and thoroughly enjoying the situation; ‘my father is dead—my mother is dead—my stomach is empty.’

‘Beg from my men among the horses, I say. There must be some Hindus in my tail.’

‘Oh, Mahbub Ali, but am
I
a Hindu?’ said Kim in English.

The trader gave no sign of astonishment, but looked under shaggy eyebrows.

‘Little Friend of all the World,’ said he, ‘what is this?’

‘Nothing. I am now that holy man’s disciple; and we go a pilgrimage together—to Benares, he says. He is quite mad, and I am tired of Lahore city. I wish new air and water.’

‘But for whom dost thou work? Why come to me?’ The voice was harsh with suspicion.

‘To whom else should I come? I have no money. It is not good to go about without money. Thou wilt sell many horses to the officers. They are very fine horses, these new ones: I have seen them. Give me a rupee, Mahbub Ali, and when I come to my wealth I will give thee a bond and pay.’

‘Um!’ said Mahbub Ali, thinking swiftly. ‘Thou hast never before lied to me. Call that lama—stand back in the dark.’

‘Oh, our tales will agree,’ said Kim, laughing.

‘We go to Benares,’ said the lama, as soon as he understood the drift of Mahbub Ali’s questions. ‘The boy and I. I go to seek for a certain River.’

‘Maybe—but the boy?’

‘He is my disciple. He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River. Sitting under a gun was I when he came suddenly. Such things have befallen the fortunate to whom guidance was allowed. But I remember now, he said he was of this world—a Hindu.’

‘And his name?’

‘That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?’

‘His country—his race—his village? Mussalman—Sikh—Hindu—Jain—low-caste or high?’

‘Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle Way. If he is my
chela
—does—will—can anyone take him from me? for, look you, without him I shall not find my River.’ He wagged his head solemnly.

‘None shall take him from thee. Go, sit among my Baltis,’ said Mahbub Ali, and the lama drifted off, soothed by the promise.

‘Is he not quite mad?’ said Kim, coming forward to the light again. ‘Why should I lie to thee, Hajji?’

Mahbub puffed his hookah in silence. Then he began, almost whispering: ‘Umballa is on the road to Benares—if indeed ye two go there.’

‘Tck! Tck! I tell thee he does not know how to lie—as we two know.’

‘And if thou wilt carry a message for me as far as Umballa, I will give thee money. It concerns a horse—a white stallion which I have sold to an officer upon the last time I returned from the Passes. But then—stand nearer and hold up hands as begging—the pedigree of the white stallion was not fully established, and that officer, who is now at Umballa, bade me make it clear.’ (Mahbub here described the horse and the appearance of the officer.) ‘So the message to that officer will be: “The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established.” By this will he know that thou comest from me. He will then say “What proof hast thou?” and thou wilt answer: “Mahbub Ali has given me the proof.” ’

‘And all for the sake of a white stallion,’ said Kim, with a giggle, his eyes aflame.

‘That pedigree I will give thee now—in my own fashion—and some hard words as well.’ A shadow passed behind Kim, and a feeding camel. Mahbub Ali raised his voice.

‘Allah! Art thou the only beggar in the city? Thy mother is dead. Thy father is dead. So is it with all of them. Well, well——’ He turned as feeling on the floor beside him and tossed a flap of soft, greasy Mussalman bread to the boy. ‘Go and lie down among my horse-boys for tonight—thou and the lama. Tomorrow I may give thee service.’

Kim slunk away, his teeth in the bread, and, as he expected, he found a small wad of folded tissue-paper wrapped in oilskin, with three silver rupees—enormous largesse. He smiled and thrust money and paper into his leather amulet-case. The lama, sumptuously fed by Mahbub’s Baltis, was already asleep in a corner of one of the stalls. Kim lay down beside him and laughed. He knew he had rendered a service to Mahbub Ali, and not for one little minute did he believe the tale of the stallion’s pedigree.

But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C.25.1B. Twice or thrice yearly C.25 would send in a little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally—it was checked by the statements of R.17 and M.4—quite true. It concerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities, explorers of nationalities other than English, and the gun-trade—was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of ‘information received’ on which the Indian Government acts. But, recently, five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate, had been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage of news from their territories into British India. So those Kings’ Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps, after the Oriental fashion. They suspected, among many others, the bullying, red-bearded horse-dealer whose caravans ploughed through their fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At least, his caravan that season had been ambushed and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub’s men accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or might not, have been hired for the job. Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious developments.

And there was that on Mahbub Ali which he did not wish to keep an hour longer than was necessary—a wad of closely folded tissue-paper, wrapped in oilskin—an impersonal, unaddressed statement, with five microscopic pin-holes in one corner, that most scandalously betrayed the five confederated Kings, the sympathetic Northern Power, a Hindu banker in Peshawur, a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, and an important, semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the south. This last was R.17’s work, which Mahbub had picked up beyond the Dora Pass and was carrying in for R.17, who, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, could not leave his post of observation. Dynamite was milky and innocuous beside that report of C.25; and even an Oriental, with an Oriental’s views of the value of time, could see that the sooner it was in the proper hands the better. Mahbub had no particular desire to die by violence, because two or three family blood-feuds across the Border hung unfinished on his hands, and when these scores were cleared he intended to settle down as a more or less virtuous citizen. He had never passed the serai gate since his arrival two days ago, but had been ostentatious in sending telegrams to Bombay, where he banked some of his money; to Delhi, where a sub-partner of his own clan was selling horses to the agent of a Rajputana state; and to Umballa, where an Englishman was excitedly demanding the pedigree of a white stallion. The public letter-writer, who knew English, composed excellent telegrams, such as:—‘
Creighton, Laurel Bank, Umballa. Horse is Arabian as already advised. Sorrowful delayed pedigree which am translating.
’ And later to the same address: ‘
Much sorrowful delay. Will forward pedigree.
’ To his sub-partner at Delhi he wired: ‘
Lutuf Ullah. Have wired two thousand rupees your credit Luchman Narain’s bank.
’ This was entirely in the way of trade, but every one of those telegrams was discussed and re-discussed, by parties who conceived themselves to be interested, before they went over to the railway station in charge of a foolish Balti, who allowed all sorts of people to read them on the road.

When, in Mahbub’s own picturesque language, he had muddied the wells of inquiry with the stick of precaution, Kim had dropped on him, sent from Heaven; and, being as prompt as he was unscrupulous, Mahbub Ali, used to taking all sorts of gusty chances, pressed him into service on the spot.

A wandering lama with a low-caste boy-servant might attract a moment’s interest as they wandered about India, the land of pilgrims; but no one would suspect them or, what was more to the point, rob.

He called for a new light-ball to his hookah, and considered the case. If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm, the paper would incriminate nobody. And he would go up to Umballa leisurely and—at a certain risk of exciting fresh suspicion—repeat his tale by word of mouth to the people concerned.

But R.17’s report was the kernel of the whole affair, and it would be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand. However, God was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he could for the time being. Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on Kim’s character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub’s business, Kim could lie like an Oriental.

Then Mahbub Ali rolled across the serai to the Gate of the Harpies who paint their eyes and trap the stranger, and was at some pains to call on the one girl who, he had reason to believe, was a particular friend of a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit who had waylaid his simple Balti in the matter of the telegrams. It was an utterly foolish thing to do; because they fell to drinking perfumed brandy against the Law of the Prophet, and Mahbub grew wonderfully drunk, and the gates of his mouth were loosened, and he pursued the Flower of Delight with the feet of intoxication till he fell flat among the cushions, where the Flower of Delight, aided by a smooth-faced Kashmiri pundit, searched him from head to foot most thoroughly.

About the same hour Kim heard soft feet in Mahbub’s deserted stall. The horse-trader, curiously enough, had left his door unlocked, and his men were busy celebrating their return to India with a whole sheep of Mahbub’s bounty. A sleek young gentleman from Delhi, armed with a bunch of keys which the Flower had unshackled from the senseless one’s belt, went through every single box, bundle, mat, and saddle-bag in Mahbub’s possession even more systematically than the Flower and the pundit were searching the owner.

‘And I think,’ said the Flower scornfully an hour later, one rounded elbow on the snoring carcass, ‘that he is no more than a pig of an Afghan horse-dealer, with no thought except women and horses. Moreover, he may have sent it away by now—if ever there were such a thing.’

‘Nay—in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black heart,’ said the pundit. ‘Was there nothing?’

The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered. ‘I searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched his clothes. This is not the man but another. I leave little unseen.’

‘They did not say he was the very man,’ said the pundit thoughtfully. ‘They said, “Look if he be the man, since our counsels are troubled.” ’

‘That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of lice. There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah—all heads of
Kafilas
(caravans)—who deal there,’ said the Flower.

‘They have not yet come in,’ said the pundit. ‘Thou must ensnare them later.’

‘Phew!’ said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub’s head from her lap. ‘I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan—yaie! Go! I sleep now. This swine will not stir till dawn.’

When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanœuvred an enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt, and staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very near to it.

‘What a colt’s trick!’ said he to himself. ‘As if every girl in Peshawur did not use it! But ’twas prettily done. Now God He knows how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to test me—perhaps with the knife. So it stands that the boy must go to Umballa—and by rail—for the writing is something urgent. I abide here, following the Flower and drinking wine as an Afghan coper should.’

He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

‘Up!’ He stirred a sleeper. ‘Whither went those who lay here last even—the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?’

‘Nay,’ grunted the man, ‘the old madman rose at second cockcrow saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.’

‘The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!’ said Mahbub heartily, and climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.

But it was Kim who had wakened the lama—Kim with one eye laid against a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man’s search through the boxes. This was no common thief that turned over letters, bills, and saddles—no mere burglar who ran a little knife sideways into the soles of Mahbub’s slippers, or picked the seams of the saddle-bags so deftly. At first Kim had been minded to give the alarm—the long-drawn
cho-or—choor!
(thief! thief!) that sets the serai ablaze of nights; but he looked more carefully, and, hand on amulet, drew his own conclusions.