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called him abominable names to his face, and, misled by their
deferential attitude, he never understood. This somewhat consoled
Kim for the beatings.

On the morning of the fourth day a judgement overtook that drummer.
They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse. He returned
alone, weeping, with news that young O'Hara, to whom he had been
doing nothing in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger on
horseback; that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a
peculiarly adhesive quirt, picked up young O'Hara, and borne him
off at full gallop. These tidings came to Father Victor, and he
drew down his long upper lip. He was already sufficiently startled
by a letter from the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares,
enclosing a native banker's note of hand for three hundred rupees,
and an amazing prayer to 'Almighty God'. The lama would have been
more annoyed than the priest had he known how the bazar letter-
writer had translated his phrase 'to acquire merit.'

'Powers of Darkness below!' Father Victor fumbled with the note.
'An' now he's off with another of his peep-o'-day friends. I don't
know whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or
to have him lost. He's beyond my comprehension. How the Divil -
yes, he's the man I mean -can a street-beggar raise money to
educate white boys?'

Three miles off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a grey
Kabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was saying:

'But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my honour and
reputation to be considered. All the officer-Sahibs in all the
regiments, and all Umballa, know Mahbub Ali. Men saw me pick thee
up and chastise that boy. We are seen now from far across this
plain. How can I take thee away, or account for thy disappearing if
I set thee down and let thee run off into the crops? They would put
me in jail. Be patient. Once a Sahib, always a Sahib. When thou art
a man - who knows? - thou wilt be grateful to Mahbub Ali.'

'Take me beyond their sentries where I can change this red. Give me
money and I will go to Benares and be with my lama again. I do not
want to be a Sahib, and remember I did deliver that message.'

The stallion bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven
home the sharp-edged stirrup. (He was not the new sort of fluent
horse-dealer who wears English boots and spurs.) Kim drew his own
conclusions from that betrayal.

'That was a small matter. It lay on the straight road to Benares. I
and the Sahib have by this time forgotten it. I send so many
letters and messages to men who ask questions about horses, I
cannot well remember one from the other. Was it some matter of a
bay mare that Peters Sahib wished the pedigree of?'

Kim saw the trap at once. If he had said 'bay mare' Mahbub would
have known by his very readiness to fall in with the amendment that
the boy suspected something. Kim replied therefore:

'Bay mare. No. I do not forget my messages thus.

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