第53章 Chapter 9(1)

S'doaks was son of Yelth the wise--

Chief of the Raven clan.

Itswoot the Bear had him in care To make him a medicine-man.

He was quick and quicker to learn--

Bold and bolder to dare:

He danced the dread Klo-Kwallie Dance To tickle Itswoot the Bear!

Oregon Legend Kim flung himself whole-heartedly upon the next turn of the wheel.He would be a Sahib again for a while.In that idea,so soon as he had reached the broad road under Simla Town Hall,he cast about for one to impress.A Hindu child,some ten years old,squatted under a lamp-post.

'Where is Mr Lurgan's house?'demanded Kim.

'I do not understand English,'was the answer,and Kim shifted his speech accordingly.

'I will show.'

Together they set off through the mysterious dusk,full of the noises of a city below the hillside,and the breath of a cool wind in deodar-crowned Jakko,shouldering the stars.The house-lights,scattered on every level,made,as it were,a double firmament.Some were fixed,others belonged to the 'rickshaws of the careless,open-spoken English folk,going out to dinner.

'It is here,'said Kim's guide,and halted in a veranda flush with the main road.No door stayed them,but a curtain of beaded reeds that split up the lamplight beyond.

'He is come,'said the boy,in a voice little louder than a sigh,and vanished.Kim felt sure that the boy had been posted to guide him from the first,but,putting a bold face on it,parted the curtain.A black-bearded man,with a green shade over his eyes,sat at a table,and,one by one,with short,white hands,picked up globules of light from a tray before him,threaded them on a glancing silken string,and hummed to himself the while.Kim was conscious that beyond the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of all the East.A whiff of musk,a puff of sandal-wood,and a breath of sickly jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.

'I am here,'said Kim at last,speaking in the vernacular:the smells made him forget that he was to be a Sahib.

'Seventy-nine,eighty,eighty-one,'the man counted to himself;stringing pearl after pearl so quickly that Kim could scarcely follow his fingers.

He slid off the green shade and looked fixedly at Kim for a full half-minute.

The pupils of the eye dilated and closed to pin-pricks,as if at will.

There was a fakir by the Taksali Gate who had just this gift and made money by it,especially when cursing silly women.Kim stared with interest.His disreputable friend could further twitch his ears,almost like a goat,and Kim was disappointed that this new man could not imitate him.

'Do not be afraid,'said Lurgan Sahib suddenly.

'Why should I fear?'

'Thou wilt sleep here tonight,and stay with me till it is time to go again to Nucklao.It is an order.'

'It is an order,'Kim repeated.'But where shall I sleep?'

'Here,in this room.'Lurgan Sahib waved his hand towards the darkness behind him.

'So be it,'said Kim composedly.'Now?'

He nodded and held the lamp above his head.As the light swept them,there leaped out from the walls a collection of Tibetan devil-dance masks,hanging above the fiend-embroidered draperies of those ghastly functions -horned masks,scowling masks,and masks of idiotic terror.In a corner,a Japanese warrior,mailed and plumed,menaced him with a halberd,and a score of lances and khandas and kuttars gave back the unsteady gleam.But what interested Kim more than all these things -he had seen devil-dance masks at the Lahore Museum -was a glimpse of the soft-eyed Hindu child who had left him in the doorway,sitting cross-legged under the table of pearls with a little smile on his scarlet lips.

'I think that Lurgan Sahib wishes to make me afraid.And I am sure that that devil's brat below the table wishes to see me afraid.This place,'

he said aloud,'is like a Wonder House.Where is my bed?'

Lurgan Sahib pointed to a native quilt in a corner by the loathsome masks,picked up the lamp,and left the room black.

'Was that Lurgan Sahib?'Kim asked as he cuddled down.No answer.He could hear the Hindu boy breathing,however,and,guided by the sound,crawled across the floor,and cuffed into the darkness,crying:'Give answer,devil!Is this the way to lie to a Sahib?'

From the darkness he fancied he could hear the echo of a chuckle.It could not be his soft-fleshed companion,because he was weeping.So Kim lifted up his voice and called aloud:'Lurgan Sahib!O Lurgan Sahib!Is it an order that thy servant does not speak to me?'

'It is an order.'The voice came from behind him and he started.

'Very good.But remember,'he muttered,as he resought the quilt,'Iwill beat thee in the morning.I do not love Hindus.'

That was no cheerful night;the room being overfull of voices and music.

Kim was waked twice by someone calling his name.The second time he set out in search,and ended by bruising his nose against a box that certainly spoke with a human tongue,but in no sort of human accent.It seemed to end in a tin trumpet and to be joined by wires to a smaller box on the floor -so far,at least,as he could judge by touch.And the voice,very hard and whirring,came out of the trumpet.Kim rubbed his nose and grew furious,thinking,as usual,in Hindi.

'This with a beggar from the bazar might be good,but -I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib and,which is twice as much more beside,a student of Nucklao.Yess'(here he turned to English),'a boy of St Xavier's.Damn Mr Lurgan's eyes!-It is some sort of machinery like a sewing-machine.

Oh,it is a great cheek of him -we are not frightened that way at Lucknow -No!'Then in Hindi:'But what does he gain?He is only a trader -I am in his shop.But Creighton Sahib is a Colonel -and I think Creighton Sahib gave orders that it should be done.How I will beat that Hindu in the morning!What is this?'

The trumpet-box was pouring out a string of the most elaborate abuse that even Kim had ever heard,in a high uninterested voice,that for a moment lifted the short hairs of his neck.When the vile thing drew breath,Kim was reassured by the soft,sewing-machine-like whirr.