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From Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is
sure.'

'The boy has heard bazar-talk,' said the priest.

'But he was always by my side,' said the lama. 'How should he know?
I did not know.'

'He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,' muttered
the priest to the headman. 'What new trick is this?'

'A sign. Give me a sign,' thundered the old soldier suddenly. 'If
there were war my sons would have told me.'

'When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a
long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things
lie.' Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences
in the letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he
pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for
larger things - the sheer excitement and the sense of power. He
drew a new breath and went on.

'Old man, give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight
thousand redcoats - with guns?'

'No.' Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.

'Dost thou know who He is, then, that gives the order?'

'I have seen Him.'

'To know again?'

'I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana (the
Artillery).'

'A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?' Kim took
a few paces in a stiff, wooden style.

'Ay. But that anyone may have seen.' The crowd were breathless -
still through all this talk.

'That is true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now. First
the great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus.' (Kim drew a
forefinger over his forehead and downwards till it came to rest
by the angle of the jaw.) 'Anon He twitches his fingers thus.
Anon He thrusts his hat under his left armpit.' Kim illustrated
the motion and stood like a stork.

The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd
shivered.

'So - so - so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?'

'He rubs the skin at the back of his neck - thus. Then falls one
finger on the table and He makes a small sniffing noise through
his nose. Then He speaks, saying: "Loose such and such a regiment.
Call out such guns."'

The old man rose stiffly and saluted.

'"For"' - Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching
sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa - '"For,"
says He, "we should have done this long ago. It is not war - it is
a chastisement. Snff!"'

'Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles.
Seen and heard. It is He!'

'I saw no smoke' - Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the
wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man
to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He standing in
a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I
spoken truth?'

'It is He. Past all doubt it is He.'

The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the
old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple

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