of War and of armed men. See how they have given
me wine to drink and set me upon a bed of honour! My father must have
been some great person. So if they raise me to honour among them,
good. If not, good again. However it goes, I will run back to thee
when I am tired. But stay with the Rajputni, or I shall miss thy feet
... Oah yess,' said the boy, 'I have told him everything you tell me to
say.'

'And I cannot see any need why he should wait,' said Bennett, feeling
in his trouser-pocket. 'We can investigate the details later--and I
will give him a ru--'

'Give him time. Maybe he's fond of the lad,' said Father Victor, half
arresting the clergyman's motion.

The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hat-brim over his
eyes.

'What can he want now?'

'He says'--Kim put up one hand. 'He says: "Be quiet." He wants to
speak to me by himself. You see, you do not know one little word of
what he says, and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very bad
curses. When he takes those beads like that, you see, he always wants
to be quiet.'

The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in Bennett's
eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed to the
religious arm.

'A Sahib and the son of a Sahib--' The lama's voice was harsh with
pain. 'But no white man knows the land and the customs of the land as
thou knowest. How comes it this is true?'

'What matter, Holy One?--but remember it is only for a night or two.
Remember, I can change swiftly. It will all be as it was when I first
spoke to thee under Zam-Zammah the great gun--'

'As a boy in the dress of white men--when I first went to the Wonder
House. And a second time thou wast a Hindu. What shall the third
incarnation be?' He chuckled drearily. 'Ah, chela, thou has done a
wrong to an old man because my heart went out to thee.'

'And mine to thee. But how could I know that the Red Bull would bring
me to this business?'

The lama covered his face afresh, and nervously rattled the rosary. Kim
squatted beside him and laid hold upon a fold of his clothing.

'Now it is understood that the boy is a Sahib?' he went on in a
muffled tone. 'Such a Sahib as was he who kept the images in the
Wonder House.' The lama's experience of white men was limited. He
seemed to be repeating a lesson. 'So then it is not seemly that he
should do other than as the Sahibs do. He must go back to his own
people.'

'For a day an