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- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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“That’s consolin’—from the head of the Ethnological Survey. It’s this mixture of Red Bulls and Rivers of Healing (poor heathen, God help him!) an’ notes of hand and Masonic certificates. Are you a Mason, by any chance?”
“By Jove, I am, now I come to think of it. That’s an additional reason,” said the Colonel absently.
“I’m glad ye see a reason in it. But as I said, it’s the mixture o’ things that’s beyond me. An’ his prophesyin’ to our Colonel, sitting on my bed with his little shimmy torn open showing his white skin; an’ the prophecy comin’ true! They’ll cure all that nonsense at St Xavier’s, eh?”
“Sprinkle him with holy water,” the Colonel laughed.
“On my word, I fancy I ought to sometimes. But I’m hoping he’ll be brought up as a good Catholic. All that troubles me is what’ll happen if the old beggar-man—”
“Lama, lama, my dear sir; and some of them are gentlemen in their own country.”
“The lama, then, fails to pay next year. He’s a fine business head to plan on the spur of the moment, but he’s bound to die some day. An’ takin’ a heathen’s money to give a child a Christian education—”
“But he said explicitly what he wanted. As soon as he knew the boy was white he seems to have made his arrangements accordingly. I’d give a month’s pay to hear how he explained it all at the Tirthankars’ Temple at Benares. Look here, Padre, I don’t pretend to know much about natives, but if he says he’ll pay, he’ll pay—dead or alive. I mean, his heirs will assume the debt. My advice to you is, send the boy down to Lucknow. If your Anglican Chaplain thinks you’ve stolen a march on him—”
“Bad luck to Bennett! He was sent to the Front instead o’ me. Doughty certified me medically unfit. I’ll excommunicate Doughty if he comes back alive! Surely Bennett ought to be content with—”
“Glory, leaving you the religion. Quite so! As a matter of fact I don’t think Bennett will mind. Put the blame on me. I—er—strongly recommend sending the boy to St Xavier’s. He can go down on pass as a soldier’s orphan, so the railway fare will be saved. You can buy him an outfit from the Regimental subscription. The Lodge will be saved the expense of his education, and that will put the Lodge in a good temper. It’s perfectly easy. I’ve got to go down to Lucknow next week. I’ll look after the boy on the way—give him in charge of my servants, and so on.”
“You’re a good man.”
“Not in the least. Don’t make that mistake. The lama has sent us money for a definite end. We can’t very well return it. We shall have to do as he says. Well, that’s settled, isn’t it? Shall we say that, Tuesday next, you’ll hand him over to me at the night train south? That’s only three days. He can’t do much harm in three days.”
“It’s a weight off my mind, but—this thing here?”—he waved the note of hand—“I don’t know Gobind Sahai: or his bank, which may be a hole in a wall.”
“You’ve never been a subaltern in debt. I’ll cash it if you like, and send you the vouchers in proper order.”
“But with all your own work too! It’s askin’—”
“It’s not the least trouble indeed. You see, as an ethnologist, the thing’s very interesting to me. I’d like to make a note of it for some Government work that I’m doing. The transformation of a regimental badge like your Red Bull into a sort of fetish that the boy follows is very interesting.”
“But I can’t thank you enough.”
“There’s one thing you can do. All we Ethnological men are as jealous as jackdaws of one another’s discoveries. They’re of no interest to anyone but ourselves, of course, but you know what book-collectors are like. Well, don’t say a word, directly or indirectly, about the Asiatic side of the boy’s character—his adventures and his prophecy, and so on. I’ll worm them out of the boy later on and—you see?”
“I do. Ye’ll make a wonderful account of it. Never a word will I say to anyone till I see it in print.”
“Thank you. That goes straight to an ethnologist’s heart. Well, I must be getting back to my breakfast. Good Heavens! Old Mahbub here still?” He raised his voice, and the horse-dealer came out from under the shadow of the tree, “Well, what is it?”
“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.
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 Lama, the Holy One from Bhotiyal seeking for a River, who is now in the Temple of the 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 very 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
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