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quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with
the old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on
his dry knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty
years in their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep.

'Certainly the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I
sleep lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking
till broad day. Even now I am heavy.'

'Drink a draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not a few
such remedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. 'It is time to
take the Road again.'

'The long Road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,' said the
lama gaily. 'Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense
these people, and especially the priest, for their great kindness?
Truly they are but parast, but in other lives, maybe, they will
receive enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is
no more than stone and red paint, but the heart of man we must
acknowledge when and where it is good.'

'Holy One, hast thou ever taken the Road alone?' Kim looked up
sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the fields.

'Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot - from Kulu, where my first
chela died. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men
were well-disposed throughout all the Hills.'

'It is otherwise in Hind,' said Kim drily. 'Their Gods are many-
armed and malignant. Let them alone.'

'I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the World,
thou and thy yellow man.' The old soldier ambled up the village
street, all shadowy in the dawn, on a punt, scissor-hocked pony.
'Last night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried
heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in
the air. I smell it. See! I have brought my sword.'

He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at his
side - hand dropped on the pommel - staring fiercely over the flat
lands towards the North. 'Tell me again how He showed in thy
vision. Come up and sit behind me. The beast will carry two.'

'I am this Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared the
village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them,
but the priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some
opium on a man who carried no money.

'That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect
is always good. There is no respect in these days - not even when
a Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose
Star leads him to war follow a holy man?'

'But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in talk
and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such
an one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'

'Thou art not. That I can see. But I do not know that other. He
marches well, though.'

The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long,
easy, camel-like strides.

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