The Amritzar girl stepped out with her bundles, and it was on her that Kim kept his watchful eye. Ladies of that persuasion, he knew, were generous.

`A ticket - a little tikkut to Umballa - O Breaker of Hearts!' She laughed. `Hast thou no charity?'

`Does the holy man come from the North'

`From far and far in the North he comes,' cried Kim. `From among the hills.'

`There is snow among the pine-trees in the North - in the hills there is snow. My mother was from Kulu. Get thee a ticket. Ask him for a blessing.'

`Ten thousand blessings,' shrilled Kim. `O Holy One, a woman has given us in charity so that I can come with thee - a woman with a golden heart. I run for the tikkut.'

The girl looked up at the lama, who had mechanically followed Kim to the platform. He bowed his head that he might not see her, and muttered in Tibetan as she passed on with the crowd.

`Light come - light go,' said the cultivator's wife viciously.

`She has acquired merit,' returned the lama. `Beyond doubt it was a nun.'

`There be ten thousand such nuns in Amritzar alone. Return, old man, or the te-rain may depart without thee,' cried the banker.

`Not only was it sufficient for the ticket, but for a little food also,' said Kim, leaping to his place. `Now eat, Holy One. Look. Day comes!'

Golden, rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists smoked away across the flat green levels. All the rich Punjab lay out in the splendour of the keen sun. The lama flinched a little as the telegraph-posts swung by.

`Great is the speed of the te-rain,' said the banker, with a patronizing grin. `We have gone farther since Lahore than thou couldst walk in two days: at even, we shall enter Umballa.'

`And that is still far from Benares,' said the lama wearily, mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered. They all unloosed their bundles and made their morning meal. Then the banker, the cultivator, and the soldier prepared their pipes and wrapped the compartment in choking, acrid smoke, spitting and coughing and enjoying themselves. The Sikh and the cultivator's wife chewed pan; the lama took snuff and told his beads, while Kim, cross-legged, smiled over the comfort of a full stomach.

`What rivers have ye by Benares?' said the lama of a sudden to the carriage at large.

`We have Gunga,' returned the banker, when the little titter had subsided.

`What others?'

`What other than Gunga?'

`Nay, but in my mind was the thought of a certain River of healing.'

`That is Gunga. Who bathes in her is made clean and goes to the Gods. Thrice have I made pilgrimage to Gunga.' He looked round proudly.

`There was need,' said the young sepoy drily, and the travellers' laugh turned against the banker.