ou a charm to change my shape? Else I am dead. Five--ten
minutes alone, if I had not been so pressed, and I might--'

'Is he cured yet, miracle-worker?' said the Kamboh jealously. 'Thou
hast chanted long enough.'

'Nay. There is no cure for his hurts, as I see, except he sit for
three days in the habit of a bairagi.' This is a common penance, often
imposed on a fat trader by his spiritual teacher.

'One priest always goes about to make another priest,' was the retort.
Like most grossly superstitious folk, the Kamboh could not keep his
tongue from deriding his Church.

'Will thy son be a priest, then? It is time he took more of my
quinine.'

'We Jats are all buffaloes,' said the Kamboh, softening anew.

Kim rubbed a finger-tip of bitterness on the child's trusting little
lips. 'I have asked for nothing,' he said sternly to the father,
'except food. Dost thou grudge me that? I go to heal another man.
Have I thy leave--Prince?'

Up flew the man's huge paws in supplication. 'Nay--nay. Do not mock
me thus.'

'It pleases me to cure this sick one. Thou shalt acquire merit by
aiding. What colour ash is there in thy pipe-bowl? White. That is
auspicious. Was there raw turmeric among thy foodstuffs?'

'I--I--'

'Open thy bundle!'

It was the usual collection of small oddments: bits of cloth, quack
medicines, cheap fairings, a clothful of atta--greyish, rough-ground
native flour--twists of down-country tobacco, tawdry pipe-stems, and a
packet of curry-stuff, all wrapped in a quilt. Kim turned it over with
the air of a wise warlock, muttering a Mohammedan invocation.

'This is wisdom I learned from the Sahibs,' he whispered to the lama;
and here, when one thinks of his training at Lurgan's, he spoke no more
than the truth. 'There is a great evil in this man's fortune, as shown
by the Stars, which--which troubles him. Shall I take it away?'

'Friend of the Stars, thou hast done well in all things. Let it be at
thy pleasure. Is it another healing?'

'Quick! Be quick!' gasped the Mahratta. 'The train may stop.'

'A healing against the shadow of death,' said Kim, mixing the Kamboh's
flour with the mingled charcoal and tobacco ash in the red-earth bowl
of the pipe. E, without a word, slipped off his turban and shook down
his long black hair.

'That is my food--priest,' the jat growled.

'A buffalo in the temple! Hast thou dared to look even thus far?' said
Kim. 'I must do mysteries bef