The terrible weakness had dropped from him like
an old shoe. His tongue itched for free speech again, and but a week
back the lightest word clogged it like ashes. The pain in his neck (he
must have caught it from the lama) had gone with the heavy dengue-aches
and the evil taste in the mouth. The two old women, a little, but not
much, more careful about their veils now, clucked as merrily as the
hens that had entered pecking through the open door.

'Where is my Holy One?' he demanded.

'Hear him! Thy Holy One is well,' she snapped viciously. 'Though that
is none of his merit. Knew I a charm to make him wise, I'd sell my
jewels and buy it. To refuse good food that I cooked myself--and go
roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly--and to tumble
into a brook at the end of it--call you that holiness? Then, when he
has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he
tells me that he has acquired merit. Oh, how like are all men! No,
that was not it--he tells me that he is freed from all sin. I could
have told him that before he wetted himself all over. He is well
now--this happened a week ago--but burn me such holiness! A babe of
three would do better. Do not fret thyself for the Holy One. He keeps
both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks.'

'I do not remember to have seen him. I remember that the days and
nights passed like bars of white and black, opening and shutting. I
was not sick: I was but tired.'

'A lethargy that comes by right some few score years later. But it is
done now.'

'Maharanee,' Kim began, but led by the look in her eye, changed it to
the title of plain love--'Mother, I owe my life to thee. How shall I
make thanks? Ten thousand blessings upon thy house and--'

'The house be unblessed!' (It is impossible to give exactly the old
lady's word.) 'Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me,
if thou carest, as a son. Heavens above! Have I shifted thee and
lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts flung at
my head? Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her heart.
What used thou to her--son?'

'I had no mother, my mother,' said Kim. 'She died, they tell me, when
I was young.'

'Hai mai! Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if--when
thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used
for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing. No matter. I
need no ble