`So - so - so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?'
`He rubs the skin at the back of his neck - thus. Then falls one finger on the table and He makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then He speaks, saying: `Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such guns.''
The old man rose stiffly and saluted.
``For'' - Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa - ``For,' says He, `we should have done this long ago. It is not war - it is a chastisement. Snff!''
`Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen and heard. It is He!'
`I saw no smoke' - Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the wayside fortune-teller. `I saw this in darkness. First came a man to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He, standing in a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken truth?'
`It is He. Past all doubt it is He.'
The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.
`Said I not - said I not he was from the other world?' cried the lama proudly. `He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the Stars!'
`At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. `O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know - '
`Or I care,' said Kim. `My Stars do not concern themselves with thy cattle.'
`Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. `My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?'
Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the fakirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.
The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly - a dry and blighting smile.
`Is there no priest, then, in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,' cried Kim.
`Ay - but - ' the woman began.
`But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks.' The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the village. `It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calf to thine own priest, and, unless thy Gods are angry past recall, she will give milk within a month.'
`A master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest approvingly. `Not the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man rich?'
`A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,' Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious - `Does one grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn the road at least.'
He knew what the fakirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples.
`Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be treasure.'