第45章 Chapter 7(5)

'Now-send out and get me a cloth for the turban.Woe is me,my head is all unshaved!And he will surely knock off my turban.'

'I am not a barber,but I will make shift.Thou wast born to be a breaker of hearts!All this disguise for one evening?Remember,the stuff does not wash away.'She shook with laughter till her bracelets and anklets jingled.'But who is to pay me for this?Huneefa herself could not have given thee better stuff.'

'Trust in the Gods,my sister,'said Kim gravely,screwing his face round as the stain dried.'Besides,hast thou ever helped to paint a Sahib thus before?'

'Never indeed.But a jest is not money.'

'It is worth much more.'

'Child,thou art beyond all dispute the most shameless son of Shaitan that I have ever known to take up a poor girl's time with this play,and then to say:'Is not the jest enough?'Thou wilt go very far in this world.'

She gave the dancing-girls'salutation in mockery.

'All one.Make haste and rough-cut my head.'Kim shifted from foot to foot,his eyes ablaze with mirth as he thought of the fat days before him.

He gave the girl four annas,and ran down the stairs in the likeness of a low-caste Hindu boy -perfect in every detail.A cookshop was his next point of call,where he feasted in extravagance and greasy luxury.

On Lucknow station platform he watched young De Castro,all covered with prickly-heat,get into a second-class compartment.Kim patronized a third,and was the life and soul of it.He explained to the company that he was assistant to a juggler who had left him behind sick with fever,and that he would pick up his master at Umballa.As the occupants of the carriage changed,he varied this tale,or adorned it with all the shoots of a budding fancy,the more rampant for being held off native speech so long.In all India that night was no human being so joyful as Kim.At Umballa he got out and headed eastward,plashing over the sodden fields to the village where the old soldier lived.

About this time Colonel Creighton at Simla was advised from Lucknow by wire that young O'Hara had disappeared.Mahbub Ali was in town selling horses,and to him the Colonel confided the affair one morning cantering round Annandale racecourse.

'Oh,that is nothing,'said the horse-dealer.'Men are like horses.

At certain times they need salt,and if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from the earth.He has gone back to the Road again for a while.The madrissah wearied him.I knew it would.Another time,I will take him upon the Road myself.Do not be troubled,Creighton Sahib.It is as though a polo-pony,breaking loose,ran out to learn the game alone.'

'Then he is not dead,think you?'

'Fever might kill him.I do not fear for the boy otherwise.A monkey does not fall among trees.'

Next morning,on the same course,Mahbub's stallion ranged alongside the Colonel.

'It is as I had thought,'said the horse-dealer.'He has come through Umballa at least,and there he has written a letter to me,having learned in the bazar that I was here.'

'Read,'said the Colonel,with a sigh of relief.It was absurd that a man of his position should take an interest in a little country-bred vagabond;but the Colonel remembered the conversation in the train,and often in the past few months had caught himself thinking of the queer,silent,self-possessed boy.His evasion,of course,was the height of insolence,but it argued some resource and nerve.

Mahbub's eyes twinkled as he reined out into the centre of the cramped little plain,where none could come near unseen.

'"The Friend of the Stars,who is the Friend of all the World -"'

'What is this?'