and distant. He had wasted some opium
on a man who carried no money.

'That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is
always good. There is no respect in these days--not even when a
Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star
leads him to war follow a holy man?'

'But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in talk and
in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an
one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'

'Thou art not. That I can see. But I do not know that other. He
marches well, though.'

The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long,
easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically
clicking his rosary.

They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the
flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the
snowcapped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work in
the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmen
behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt
the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on
the stirrup-leather.

'It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said the
lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.

The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first
time was aware of him.

'Seekest thou the River also?' said he, turning.

'The day is new,' was the reply. 'What need of a river save to water
at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.'

'That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will. But why the
sword?'

The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game of
make-believe.

'The sword,' he said, fumbling it. 'Oh, that was a fancy of mine an
old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear
weapons throughout Hind, but'--he cheered up and slapped the hilt--'all
the constabeels hereabout know me.'

'It is not a good fancy,' said the lama. 'What profit to kill men?'

'Very little--as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it
would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak
without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with
blood.'

'What madness was that, then?'

'The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into
all the Army, and they turned against their offic