to the sudden sleep of old age.

Kim watched the last dusty sunshine fade out of the court, and played
with his ghost-dagger and rosary. The clamour of Benares, oldest of
all earth's cities awake before the Gods, day and night, beat round the
walls as the sea's roar round a breakwater. Now and again, a Jain
priest crossed the court, with some small offering to the images, and
swept the path about him lest by chance he should take the life of a
living thing. A lamp twinkled, and there followed the sound of a
prayer. Kim watched the stars as they rose one after another in the
still, sticky dark, till he fell asleep at the foot of the altar. That
night he dreamed in Hindustani, with never an English word...

'Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave the medicine,' he said,
about three o'clock in the morning, when the lama, also waking from
dreams, would have fared forth on pilgrimage. 'The Jat will be here at
the light.'

'I am well answered. In my haste I would have done a wrong.' He sat
down on the cushions and returned to his rosary. 'Surely old folk are
as children,' he said pathetically. 'They desire a matter--behold, it
must be done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times when I was
upon the Road I have been ready to stamp with my feet at the hindrance
of an ox-cart in the way, or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I
was a man--a long time ago. None the less it is wrongful--'

'But thou art indeed old, Holy One.'

'The thing was done. A Cause was put out into the world, and, old or
young, sick or sound, knowing or unknowing, who can rein in the effect
of that Cause? Does the Wheel hang still if a child spin it--or a
drunkard? Chela, this is a great and a terrible world.'

'I think it good,' Kim yawned. 'What is there to eat? I have not
eaten since yesterday even.'

'I had forgotten thy need. Yonder is good Bhotiyal tea and cold rice.'

'We cannot walk far on such stuff.' Kim felt all the European's lust
for flesh-meat, which is not accessible in a Jain temple. Yet, instead
of going out at once with the begging-bowl, he stayed his stomach on
slabs of cold rice till the full dawn. It brought the farmer, voluble,
stuttering with gratitude.

'In the night the fever broke and the sweat came,' he cried. 'Feel
here--his skin is fresh and new! He esteemed the salt lozenges, and
took milk with greed.' He drew the cloth from the child's face, and it
smiled sleepily at Kim. A litt