the
situation from a Sahib's point of view.

'The books I do not want. Besides, they are logarithms--Survey, I
suppose.' He laid them aside. 'The letters I do not understand, but
Colonel Creighton will. They must all be kept. The maps--they draw
better maps than me--of course. All the native letters--oho!--and
particularly the murasla.' He sniffed the embroidered bag. 'That must
be from Hilas or Bunar, and Hurree Babu spoke truth. By Jove! It is a
fine haul. I wish Hurree could know ... The rest must go out of the
window.' He fingered a superb prismatic compass and the shiny top of a
theodolite. But after all, a Sahib cannot very well steal, and the
things might be inconvenient evidence later. He sorted out every scrap
of manuscript, every map, and the native letters. They made one
softish slab. The three locked ferril-backed books, with five worn
pocket-books, he put aside.

'The letters and the murasla I must carry inside my coat and under my
belt, and the hand-written books I must put into the food-bag. It will
be very heavy. No. I do not think there is anything more. If there
is, the coolies have thrown it down the khud, so thatt is all right.
Now you go too.' He repacked the kilta with all he meant to lose, and
hove it up on to the windowsill. A thousand feet below lay a long,
lazy, round-shouldered bank of mist, as yet untouched by the morning
sun. A thousand feet below that was a hundred-year-old pine-forest.
He could see the green tops looking like a bed of moss when a wind-eddy
thinned the cloud.

'No! I don't think any one will go after you!'

The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The theodolite
hit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded like a shell; the books,
inkstands, paint-boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few seconds
like a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though Kim, hanging
half out of the window, strained his young ears, never a sound came up
from the gulf.

'Five hundred--a thousand rupees could not buy them,' he thought
sorrowfully. 'It was verree wasteful, but I have all their other
stuff--everything they did--I hope. Now how the deuce am I to tell
Hurree Babu, and whatt the deuce am I to do? And my old man is sick. I
must tie up the letters in oilskin. That is something to do
first--else they will get all sweated ... And I am all alone!' He
bound them into a neat packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilskin
at the comers, for