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such a near road.' A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed
the sentence. Even the priest was impressed, and the headman
feared an evil spell: but none could look at the lama's simple,
eager face and doubt him long.

'Seest thou my chela?' he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with
an important sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with
courtesy.

'I see - and hear.' The headman rolled his eye where Kim was
chatting to a girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a
fire.

'He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a
Red Bull on a green field will some day raise him to honour. He
is, I think, not altogether of this world. He was sent of a
sudden to aid me in this search, and his name is Friend of all
the World.'

The priest smiled. 'Ho, there, Friend of all the World,' he cried
across the sharp-smelling smoke, 'what art thou?'

'This Holy One's disciple,' said Kim.

'He says thou are a but [a spirit].'

'Can buts eat?' said Kim, with a twinkle. 'For I am hungry.'

'It is no jest,' cried the lama. 'A certain astrologer of that city
whose name I have forgotten -'

'That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last
night,' Kim whispered to the priest.

'Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my
chela should find his desire within two days. But what said he of
the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?'

Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village
greybeards.

'The meaning of my Star is War,' he replied pompously.

Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the
brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have
lain down, Kim's white blood set him upon his feet.

'Ay, War,' he answered.

'That is a sure prophecy,' rumbled a deep voice. 'For there is
always war along the Border - as I know.'

It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the
days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry
regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the
village, and though the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded
officers on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still
a person of consequence. English officials - Deputy Commissioners
even - turned aside from the main road to visit him, and on those
occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and
stood up like a ramrod.

'But this shall be a great war - a war of eight thousand.' Kim's
voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing
himself.

'Redcoats or our own regiments?' the old man snapped, as though
he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.

'Redcoats,' said Kim at a venture. 'Redcoats and guns.'

'But - but the astrologer said no word of this,' cried the lama,
snuffing prodigiously in his excitement.

'But I know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One's
disciple. There will rise a war - a war of eight thousand redcoats.

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