ut of the charm. So, long and furious are the debates between
travellers and Eurasian ticket-collectors. Kim assisted at two or
three with grave advice, meant to darken counsel and to show off his
wisdom before the lama and the admiring Kamboh. But at Somna Road the
Fates sent him a matter to think upon. There tumbled into the
compartment, as the train was moving off, a mean, lean little person--a
Mahratta, so far as Kim could judge by the cock of the tight turban.
His face was cut, his muslin upper-garment was badly torn, and one leg
was bandaged. He told them that a country-cart had upset and nearly
slain him: he was going to Delhi, where his son lived. Kim watched
him closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolled over and over on
the earth, there should have been signs of gravel-rash on the skin.
But all his injuries seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from a cart
could not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As, with shaking
fingers, he knotted up the torn cloth about his neck he laid bare an
amulet of the kind called a keeper-up of the heart. Now, amulets are
common enough, but they are not generally strung on square-plaited
copper wire, and still fewer amulets bear black enamel on silver.
There were none except the Kamboh and the lama in the compartment,
which, luckily, was of an old type with solid ends. Kim made as to
scratch in his bosom, and thereby lifted his own amulet. The
Mahratta's face changed altogether at the sight, and he disposed the
amulet fairly on his breast.

'Yes,' he went on to the Kamboh, 'I was in haste, and the cart, driven
by a bastard, bound its wheel in a water-cut, and besides the harm done
to me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean. I was not a Son of the
Charm [a lucky man] that day.'

'That was a great loss,' said the Kamboh, withdrawing interest. His
experience of Benares had made him suspicious.

'Who cooked it?' said Kim.

'A woman.' The Mahratta raised his eyes.

'But all women can cook tarkeean,' said the Kamboh. 'It is a good
curry, as I know.'

'Oh yes, it is a good curry,' said the Mahratta.

'And cheap,' said Kim. 'But what about caste?'

'Oh, there is no caste where men go to--look for tarkeean,' the
Mahratta replied, in the prescribed cadence. 'Of whose service art
thou?'

'Of the service of this Holy One.' Kim pointed to the happy, drowsy
lama, who woke with a jerk at the well-loved word.

'Ah, he was sent from Heaven to aid me. He