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the Colonel riding on a horse will look after you when you find the
Red Bull!" I did not know what to do when I saw the Bull, but I
went away and I came again when it was dark. I wanted to see the
Bull again, and I saw the Bull again with the - the Sahibs praying
to it. I think the Bull shall help me. The holy man said so too. He
is sitting outside. Will you hurt him, if I call him a shout now?
He is very holy. He can witness to all the things I say, and he
knows I am not a thief.'

'"Sahibs praying to a bull!" What in the world do you make of
that?' said Bennett. "'Disciple of a holy man!" Is the boy mad?'

'It's O'Hara's boy, sure enough. O'Hara's boy leagued with all the
Powers of Darkness. It's very much what his father would have done
if he was drunk. We'd better invite the holy man. He may know
something.'

'He does not know anything,' said Kim. 'I will show you him if you
come. He is my master. Then afterwards we can go.'

'Powers of Darkness!' was all that Father Victor could say, as
Bennett marched off, with a firm hand on Kim's shoulder.

They found the lama where he had dropped.

'The Search is at an end for me,' shouted Kim in the vernacular. 'I
have found the Bull, but God knows what comes next. They will not
hurt you. Come to the fat priest's tent with this thin man and see
the end. It is all new, and they cannot talk Hindi. They are only
uncurried donkeys.'

'Then it is not well to make a jest of their ignorance,' the lama
returned. 'I am glad if thou art rejoiced, chela.'

Dignified and unsuspicious, he strode into the little tent, saluted
the Churches as a Churchman, and sat down by the open charcoal
brazier. The yellow lining of the tent reflected in the lamplight
made his face red-gold.

Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the
creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of
'heathen'.

'And what was the end of the Search? What gift has the Red Bull
brought?' The lama addressed himself to Kim.

'He says, "What are you going to do?"' Bennett was staring uneasily
at Father Victor, and Kim, for his own ends, took upon himself the
office of interpreter.

'I do not see what concern this fakir has with the boy, who is
probably his dupe or his confederate,' Bennett began. 'We cannot
allow an English boy - Assuming that he is the son of a Mason, the
sooner he goes to the Masonic Orphanage the better.'

'Ah! That's your opinion as Secretary to the Regimental Lodge,'
said Father Victor; 'but we might as well tell the old man what we
are going to do. He doesn't look like a villain.'

'My experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental mind. Now,
Kimball, I wish you to tell this man what I say word for word.'

Kim gathered the import of the next few sentences and began thus:

'Holy One, the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the
son of a Sahib.'

'But how?'

'Oh, it is true. I knew it since my birth, but he could only find

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