overtaken! Thou didst cure the Kamboh's
child solely to acquire merit. But thou didst put a spell on the
Mahratta with prideful workings--I watched thee--and with sidelong
glances to bewilder an old old man and a foolish farmer: whence
calamity and suspicion.'

Kim controlled himself with an effort beyond his years. Not more than
any other youngster did he like to eat dirt or to be misjudged, but he
saw himself in a cleft stick. The train rolled out of Delhi into the
night.

'It is true,' he murmured. 'Where I have offended thee I have done
wrong.'

'It is more, chela. Thou hast loosed an Act upon the world, and as a
stone thrown into a pool so spread the consequences thou canst not tell
how far.'

This ignorance was well both for Kim's vanity and for the lama's peace
of mind, when we think that there was then being handed in at Simla a
code-wire reporting the arrival of E23 at Delhi, and, more important,
the whereabouts of a letter he had been commissioned to--abstract.
Incidentally, an over-zealous policeman had arrested, on charge of
murder done in a far southern State, a horribly indignant Ajmir
cotton-broker, who was explaining himself to a Mr Strickland on Delhi
platform, while E23 was paddling through byways into the locked heart
of Delhi city. In two hours several telegrams had reached the angry
minister of a southern State reporting that all trace of a somewhat
bruised Mahratta had been lost; and by the time the leisurely train
halted at Saharunpore the last ripple of the stone Kim had helped to
heave was lapping against the steps of a mosque in far-away Roum--where
it disturbed a pious man at prayers.

The lama made his in ample form near the dewy bougainvillea-trellis
near the platform, cheered by the clear sunshine and the presence of
his disciple. 'We will put these things behind us,' he said,
indicating the brazen engine and the gleaming track. 'The jolting of
the te-rain--though a wonderful thing--has turned my bones to water.
We will use clean air henceforward.'

'Let us go to the Kulu woman's house' said Kim, and stepped forth
cheerily under the bundles. Early morning Saharunpore-way is clean and
well scented. He thought of the other mornings at St Xavier's, and it
topped his already thrice-heaped contentment.

'Where is this new haste born from? Wise men do not run about like
chickens in the sun. We have come hundreds upon hundreds of koss
already, and, till now, I have scarcely