e. It
lost nothing by repetition.

'Cease, Holy One! In mercy, cease!' cried the Jat. 'Do not curse the
household. I saw nothing! I heard nothing! I am thy cow!' and he
made to grab at Kim's bare foot beating rhythmically on the carriage
floor. 'But since thou hast been permitted to aid me in the matter of
a pinch of flour and a little opium and such trifles as I have honoured
by using in my art, so will the Gods return a blessing,' and he gave it
at length, to the man's immense relief. It was one that he had learned
from Lurgan Sahib.

The lama stared through his spectacles as he had not stared at the
business of disguisement. 'Friend of the Stars,' he said at last,
'thou hast acquired great wisdom. Beware that it do not give birth to
pride. No man having the Law before his eyes speaks hastily of any
matter which he has seen or encountered.'

'No--no--no, indeed,' cried the farmer, fearful lest the master should
be minded to improve on the pupil. E23, with relaxed mouth, gave
himself up to the opium that is meat, tobacco, and medicine to the
spent Asiatic.

So, in a silence of awe and great miscomprehension, they slid into
Delhi about lamp-lighting time.

Chapter 12

Who hath desired the Sea--the sight of salt-water unbounded?
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber
wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm--grey, foamless, enormous,
and growing?
Stark calm on the lap of the Line--or the crazy-eyed hurricane
blowing?
His Sea in no showing the same--his Sea and the same 'neath all
showing--
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise--so and no otherwise hill-men desire their Hills!

The Sea and the Hills.

'I have found my heart again,' said E23, under cover of the platform's
tumult. 'Hunger and fear make men dazed, or I might have thought of
this escape before. I was right. They come to hunt for me. Thou hast
saved my head.'

A group of yellow-trousered Punjab policemen, headed by a hot and
perspiring young Englishman, parted the crowd about the carriages.
Behind them, inconspicuous as a cat, ambled a small fat person who
looked like a lawyer's tout.

'See the young Sahib reading from a paper. My description is in his
hand,' said E23. 'Thev go carriage by carriage, like fisher-folk
netting a pool.'

When the procession reached their compartment, E23 was counting his
beads with a steady j