Previous - Next

with a whole sheep of Mahbub's bounty. A sleek young gentleman
from Delhi, armed with a bunch of keys which the Flower had
unshackled from the senseless one's belt, went through every
single box, bundle, mat, and saddle-bag in Mahbub's possession
even more systematically than the Flower and the pundit were
searching the owner.

'And I think.' said the Flower scornfully an hour later, one
rounded elbow on the snoring carcass, 'that he is no more than a
pig of an Afghan horse-dealer, with no thought except women and
horses. Moreover, he may have sent it away by now - if ever there
were such a thing.'

'Nay - in a matter touching Five Kings it would be next his black
heart,' said the pundit. 'Was there nothing?'

The Delhi man laughed and resettled his turban as he entered. 'I
searched between the soles of his slippers as the Flower searched
his clothes. This is not the man but another. I leave little
unseen.'

'They did not say he was the very man,' said the pundit
thoughtfully. 'They said, "Look if he be the man, since our
counsels are troubled."'

'That North country is full of horse-dealers as an old coat of
lice. There is Sikandar Khan, Nur Ali Beg, and Farrukh Shah all
heads of kafilas [caravans] - who deal there,' said the Flower.

'They have not yet come in,' said the pundit. 'Thou must ensnare
them later.'

Phew!' said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head
from her lap. 'I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan - yaie! Go! I sleep now. This
swine will not stir till dawn.'

When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt,
and staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very
near to it.

'What a colt's trick!' said he to himself. 'As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done. Now God He
knows how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to
test me - perhaps with the knife. So it stands that the boy must
go to Umballa - and by rail - for the writing is something
urgent. I abide here, following the Flower and drinking wine as
an Afghan coper should.'

He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

'Up!' He stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here last
even - the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?'

'Nay,' grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow
saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.'

'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub heartily,
and climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.

But it was Kim who had wakened the lama - Kim with one eye laid
against a knot-hole in the planking, who had seen the Delhi man's
search through the boxes. This was no common thief that turned

Previous - Next