fers. I
shall just be four or five miles ahead. There is no hurry for
Hurree--that is an Europe pun, ha! ha!--and you come after. There is
plenty of time; they will plot and survey and map, of course. I shall
go tomorrow, and you the next day, if you choose. Eh? You go think on
it till morning. By Jove, it is near morning now.' He yawned
ponderously, and with never a civil word lumbered off to his
sleeping-place. But Kim slept little, and his thoughts ran in
Hindustani:

'Well is the Game called great! I was four days a scullion at Quetta,
waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole. And that was part
of the Great Game! From the South--God knows how far--came up the
Mahratta, playing the Great Game in fear of his life. Now I shall go
far and far into the North playing the Great Game. Truly, it runs like
a shuttle throughout all Hind. And my share and my joy'--he smiled to
the darkness--'I owe to the lama here. Also to Mahbub Ali--also to
Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy One. He is right--a great and
a wonderful world--and I am Kim--Kim--Kim--alone--one person--in the
middle of it all. But I will see these strangers with their levels and
chains...'

'What was the upshot of last night's babble?' said the lama, after his
orisons.

'There came a strolling seller of drugs--a hanger-on of the Sahiba's.
Him I abolished by arguments and prayers, proving that our charms are
worthier than his coloured waters.'

'Alas, my charms! Is the virtuous woman still bent upon a new one?'

'Very strictly.'

'Then it must be written, or she will deafen me with her clamour.' He
fumbled at his pencase.

'In the Plains,' said Kim, 'are always too many people. In the Hills,
as I understand, there are fewer.'

'Oh! the Hills, and the snows upon the Hills.' The lami tore off a
tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet. 'But what dost thou know
of the Hills?'

'They are very close.' Kim thrust open the door and looked at the
long, peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in morning-gold. 'Except
in the dress of a Sahib, I have never set foot among them.'

The lama snuffed the wind wistfully.

'If we go North,'--Kim put the question to the waking sunrise--'would
not much mid-day heat be avoided by walking among the lower hills at
least? ... Is the charm made, Holy One?'

'I have written the names of seven silly devils--not one of whom is
worth a grain of dust in the eye. Thus do foolish women