as the answer. 'And his methods of
nativities, though that is beyond thee, are wise and sure.'

'Tell me,' said Kim lazily, 'whether I find my Red Bull on a green
field, as was promised me.'

'What knowledge hast thou of thy birth-hour?' the priest asked,
swelling with importance.

'Between first and second cockcrow of the first night in May.'

'Of what year?'

'I do not know; but upon the hour that I cried first fell the great
earthquake in Srinagar which is in Kashmir.' This Kim had from the
woman who took care of him, and she again from Kimball O'Hara. The
earthquake had been felt in India, and for long stood a leading date in
the Punjab.

'Ai!' said a woman excitedly. This seemed to make Kim's supernatural
origin more certain. 'Was not such an one's daughter born then--'

'And her mother bore her husband four sons in four years all likely
boys,' cried the cultivator's wife, sitting outside the circle in the
shadow.

'None reared in the knowledge,' said the family priest, 'forget how the
planets stood in their Houses upon that night.' He began to draw in
the dust of the courtyard. 'At least thou hast good claim to a half of
the House of the Bull. How runs thy prophecy?'

'Upon a day,' said Kim, delighted at the sensation he was creating, 'I
shall be made great by means of a Red Bull on a green field, but first
there will enter two men making all things ready.'

'Yes: thus ever at the opening of a vision. A thick darkness that
clears slowly; anon one enters with a broom making ready the place.
Then begins the Sight. Two men--thou sayest? Ay, ay. The Sun,
leaving the House of the Bull, enters that of the Twins. Hence the two
men of the prophecy. Let us now consider. Fetch me a twig, little
one.'

He knitted his brows, scratched, smoothed out, and scratched again in
the dust mysterious signs--to the wonder of all save the lama, who,
with fine instinct, forbore to interfere.

At the end of half an hour, he tossed the twig from him with a grunt.

'Hm! Thus say the stars. Within three days come the two men to make
all things ready. After them follows the Bull; but the sign over
against him is the sign of War and armed men.'

'There was indeed a man of the Ludhiana Sikhs in the carriage from
Lahore,' said the cultivator's wife hopefully.

'Tck! Armed men--many hundreds. What concern hast thou with war?'
said the priest to Kim. 'Thine is a red and an angry sign of War to be
loosed ve