‘No! I don’t think any one will go after you!’

The wheeling basket vomited its contents as it dropped. The theodolite hit a jutting cliff-ledge and exploded like a shell; the books, inkstands, paint-boxes, compasses, and rulers showed for a few seconds like a swarm of bees. Then they vanished; and, though Kim, hanging half out of the window, strained his young ears, never a sound came up from the gulf.

‘Five hundred — a thousand rupees could not buy them,’ he thought sorrowfully. ‘It was verree wasteful, but I have all their other stuff — everything they did — I hope. Now how the deuce am I to tell Hurree Babu, and whatt the deuce am I to do? And my old man is sick. I must tie up the letters in oilskin. That is something to do first — else they will get all sweated … And I am all alone!’ He bound them into a neat packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilskin at the corners, for his roving life had made him as methodical as an old hunter in matters of the road. Then with double care he packed away the books at the bottom of the food-bag.

The woman rapped at the door.

‘But thou hast made no charm,’ she said, looking about.

‘There is no need.’ Kim had completely overlooked the necessity for a little patter-talk. The woman laughed at his confusion irreverently.

‘None — for thee. Thou canst cast a spell by the mere winking of an eye. But think of us poor people when thou art gone. They were all too drunk last night to hear a woman. Thou art not drunk?’

‘I am a priest.’ Kim had recovered himself, and, the woman being aught but unlovely, thought best to stand on his office.

‘I warned them that the Sahibs will be angry and will make an inquisition and a report to the Rajah. There is also the Babu with them. Clerks have long tongues.’

‘Is that all thy trouble?’ The plan rose fully formed in Kim’s mind, and he smiled ravishingly.

‘Not all,’ quoth the woman, putting out a hard brown hand all covered with turquoises set in silver.

‘I can finish that in a breath,’ he went on quickly. ‘The Babu is the very hakim (thou hast heard of him?) who was wandering among the hills by Ziglaur. I know him.’

‘He will tell for the sake of a reward. Sahibs cannot distinguish one hillman from another, but Babus have eyes for men — and women.’

‘Carry a word to him from me.’

‘There is nothing I would not do for thee.’

He accepted the compliment calmly, as men must in lands where women make the love, tore a leaf from a note-book, and with a patent indelible pencil wrote in gross Shikast — the script that bad little boys use when they write dirt on walls: ‘I have everything that they have written: their pictures of the country, and many letters. Especially the murasla. Tell me what to do. I am at Shamlegh-under-the-Snow. The old man is sick.’

‘Take this to him. It will altogether shut his mouth. He cannot have gone far.’

‘Indeed no. They are still in the forest across the spur. Our children went to watch them when the light came, and have cried the news as they moved.’