'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 gray-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.
'Ay. But that any one may have seen.' The crowd were breathless-still through all this talk.
'That is true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now. First the great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus. (Kim drew a forefinger over his forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the angle of the jaw.) Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He thrusts his hat under his left armpit.' Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.
The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd shivered.
'So – so – so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?'
'He rubs the skin at the back of his neck – thus. Then falls one finger on the table and he makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then He speaks, saying: "Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such guns."'
The old man rose stiffly and saluted.
'"For"' – Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa – '"For," says He, "we should have done this long ago. It is not war – it is a chastisement. Snff!"'
'Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen and heard. It is He!'
'I saw no smoke' – Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He, standing in a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken truth?'
'It is He. Past all doubt it is He.'
The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.
'Said I not – said I not he was from the other world?' cried the lama proudly. 'He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the Stars!'
'At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know – '
'Or I care,' said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with thy cattle.'
'Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?'
Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the faquirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.
The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly – a dry and blighting smile.
'Is there no priest then in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,' cried Kim.
'Ay – but – ' the woman began.
'But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks.' The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the village. 'It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calf to thy own priest, and, unless thy gods are angry past recall, she will give milk within a month.'
'A master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest approvingly. 'Not the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man rich?'
'A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,' Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious – 'does one grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn the road at least.'
He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples.
'Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be treasure.'
'He is mad – many times mad. There is nothing else.'
Here the old soldier hobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the temple – at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.
'Where is the money?' he whispered, beckoning the old man off into the darkness.
'In my bosom. Where else?'
'Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me.'
'But why? Here is no ticket to buy.'
'Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet about the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it.' He slipped his hand above the lama's girdle and brought away the purse.
'Be it so – be it so.' The old man nodded his head. 'This is a great and terrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in it.'
Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep.
'Certainly the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I sleep lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broad day. Even now I am heavy.'
'Drink a draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not a few such remedies to