`It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but (and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see what Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion's pedigree.'

`And what did he?' for Kim had bitten off the conversation.

`Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?' Kim asked.

`I sell and - I buy.' Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and held it up.

`Eight!' said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the East.

Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. `It is too easy to deal in that market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in each other's hand.'

`Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief] come to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw the two read the white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders given for the opening of a great war.'

`Hah!' Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. `The game is well played. That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the flower - thanks to me - and thee. What didst thou later?'

`I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I bore away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So next morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the news when I fell into the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!'

`That was foolishness.' Mahbub scowled. `News is not meant to be thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly - like bhang.'

`So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good. But that was very long ago,' he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown hand - `and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'

`Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought might have led?' said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet beard.

`It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone. `They say at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a fault.'

Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a black man [kala admi] is a blood-insult. Then he remembered and laughed. `Speak, Sahib. Thy black man hears.'

`But,' said Kim, `I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed by a Pathan. I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished to kill that low-caste drummer-boy. I say now, Hajji, that it was well done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service. I will stay in the madrissah till I am ripe.'

`Well said. Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of using compasses to be learned in that game. One waits in the Hills above to show thee.'

`I will learn their teaching upon a condition - that my time is given to me without question when the madrissah is shut. Ask that for me of the Colonel.'

`But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs' tongue?'