aksali Gate.

'We priests! Thou art not yet old enough to--' She checked the joke
with another laugh. 'Believe me, now and again, we women, O priest,
think of other matters than sons. Moreover, my daughter has borne her
man-child.'

'Two arrows in the quiver are better than one; and three are better
still.' Kim quoted the proverb with a meditative cough, looking
discreetly earthward.

'True--oh, true. But perhaps that will come. Certainly those
down-country Brahmins are utterly useless. I sent gifts and monies and
gifts again to them, and they prophesied.'

'Ah,' drawled Kim, with infinite contempt, 'they prophesied!' A
professional could have done no better.

'And it was not till I remembered my own Gods that my prayers were
heard. I chose an auspicious hour, and--perhaps thy Holy One has heard
of the Abbot of the Lung-Cho lamassery. It was to him I put the
matter, and behold in the due time all came about as I desired. The
Brahmin in the house of the father of my daughter's son has since said
that it was through his prayers--which is a little error that I will
explain to him when we reach our journey's end. And so afterwards I go
to Buddh Gaya, to make shraddha for the father of my children.'

'Thither go we.'

'Doubly auspicious,' chirruped the old lady. 'A second son at least!'

'O Friend of all the World!' The lama had waked, and, simply as a
child bewildered in a strange bed, called for Kim.

'I come! I come, Holy One!' He dashed to the fire, where he found the
lama already surrounded by dishes of food, the hillmen visibly adoring
him and the Southerners looking sourly.

'Go back! Withdraw!' Kim cried. 'Do we eat publicly like dogs?' They
finished the meal in silence, each turned a little from the other, and
Kim topped it with a native-made cigarette.

'Have I not said an hundred times that the South is a good land? Here
is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill Rajah on pilgrimage, she
says, to Buddha Gay. She it is sends us those dishes; and when thou
art well rested she would speak to thee.'

'Is this also thy work?' The lama dipped deep into his snuff-gourd.

'Who else watched over thee since our wonderful journey began?' Kim's
eyes danced in his head as he blew the rank smoke through his nostrils
and stretched him on the dusty ground. 'Have I failed to oversee thy
comforts, Holy One?'

'A blessing on thee.' The lama inclined his solemn head. 'I have
known many men in