seen.'

'They did not say he was the very man,' said the pundit thoughtfully.
'They said, "Look if he be the man, since our counsels are troubled."'

'That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of lice.
There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah all heads of
kafilas [caravans]--who deal there,' said the Flower.

'They have not yet come in,' said the pundit. 'Thou must ensnare them
later.'

Phew!' said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head from
her lap. 'I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan--yaie! Go! I sleep now. This
swine will not stir till dawn.'

When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt, and
staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very near to it.

'What a colt's trick!' said he to himself. 'As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done. Now God He knows
how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to test
me--perhaps with the knife. So it stands that the boy must go to
Umballa--and by rail--for the writing is something urgent. I abide
here, following the Flower and drinking wine as an Afghan coper should.'

He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

'Up!' He stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here last
even--the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?'

'Nay,' grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow saying
he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.'

'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub heartily, and
climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.

But it was Kim who had wakened the lama--Kim with one eye laid against
a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man's search
through the boxes. This was no common thief that turned over letters,
bills, and saddles--no mere burglar who ran a little knife sideways
into the soles of Mahbub's slippers, or picked the seams of the
saddle-bags so deftly. At first Kim had been minded to give the
alarm--the long-drawn choor--choor! [thief! thief!] that sets the
serai ablaze of nights; but he looked more carefully, and, hand on
amulet, drew his own conclusions.

'It must be the pedigree of that made-up horse-lie,