,' said the lama
shyly. 'It is good to be kind to babes.'

'As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst told me that
marriage and bearing were darkeners of the true light, stumbling-blocks
upon the Way. Do children drop from Heaven in thy country? Is it the
Way to sing them songs?'

'No man is all perfect,' said the lama gravely, recoiling the rosary.
'Run now to thy mother, little one.'

'Hear him!' said the soldier to Kim. 'He is ashamed for that he has
made a child happy. There was a very good householder lost in thee, my
brother. Hai, child!' He threw it a pice. 'Sweetmeats are always
sweet.' And as the little figure capered away into the sunshine: 'They
grow up and become men. Holy One, I grieve that I slept in the midst
of thy preaching. Forgive me.'

'We be two old men,' said the lama. 'The fault is mine. I listened to
thy talk of the world and its madness, and one fault led to the next.'

'Hear him! What harm do thy Gods suffer from play with a babe? And
that song was very well sung. Let us go on and I will sing thee the
song of Nikal Seyn before Delhi--the old song.'

And they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's
high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn wail
he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn [Nicholson]--the song that men sing
in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama listened
with deep interest.

'Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead--he died before Delhi! Lances of the North,
take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the end, marking
the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump.

'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the
compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. 'It is long
since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, Holy
One--the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For the most
part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle
road--all hard--takes the quick traffic. In the days before
rail-carriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now
there are only country-carts and such like. Left and right is the
rougher road for the heavy carts--grain and cotton and timber, fodder,
lime and hides. A man goes in safety here for at every few koss is a
police-station. The police are thieves and extortioners (I myself
would patrol it with cavalry--young recruits under a strong captain),
but at least th