The lama dropped to his knees, half-stunned; the coolies
under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run aross the
level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get
away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance. The
Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some
notion of making him a hostage for his companion. A shower of cutting
stones--hillmen are very straight shots--drove him away, and a coolie
from Ao-chung snatched the lama into the stampede. All came about as
swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness.

'They have taken the baggage and all the guns,' yelled the Frenchman,
firing blindly into the twilight.

'All right, sar! All right! Don't shoot. I go to rescue,' and
Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted
and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe's head against a
boulder.

'Go back to the coolies,' whispered the Babu in his ear. 'They have
the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but look
through all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla [King's
letter]. Go! The other man comes!'

Kim tore uphill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side, and he
cowered partridge-wise.

'If you shoot,' shouted Hurree, 'they will descend and annihilate us.
I have rescued the gentleman, sar. This is particularly dangerous.'

'By Jove!' Kim was thinking hard in English. 'This is dam'-tight
place, but I think it is self-defence.' He felt in his bosom for
Mahbub's gift, and uncertainly--save for a few practice shots in the
Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun--pulled the trigger.

'What did I say, sar!' The Babu seemed to be in tears. 'Come down
here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you.'

The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried
upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat--or a country-bred.

'Did they wound thee, chela?' called the lama above him.

'No. And thou?' He dived into a clump of stunted firs.

'Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.'

'But not before we have done justice,' a voice cried. 'I have got the
Sahibs' guns--all four. Let us go down.'

'He struck the Holy One--we saw it! Our cattle will be barren--our
wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go
home... Atop of all other oppression too!'

The little fir-clump filled