`I am this Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared the village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, but the priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium on a man who carried no money.
`That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is always good. There is no respect in these days - not even when a Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star leads him to war follow a holy man?'
`But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. `In truth, and in talk and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.'
`Thou art not. That I can see. But I do not know that other. He marches well, though.'
The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long, easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically clicking his rosary.
They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the snow-capped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work in the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmen behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on the stirrup-leather.
`It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said the lama on the last bead of his eighty-one.
The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first time was aware of him.
`Seekest thou the River also?' said he, turning.
`The day is new,' was the reply. `What need of a river save to water at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.'
`That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will. But why the sword?'
The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game of make-believe.
`The sword,' he said, fumbling it. `Oh, that was a fancy of mine - an old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear weapons throughout Hind, but' - he cheered up and slapped the hilt - `all the constabeels hereabout know me.'
`It is not a good fancy,' said the lama. `What profit to kill men?'
`Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with blood.'
`What madness was that, then?'
`The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was the first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But they chose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then came the Sahibs from over the sea and called them to most strict account.'
`Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They called it the Black Year, as I remember.'
`What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumour indeed! All earth knew, and trembled!'
`Our earth never shook but once - upon the day that the Excellent One received Enlightenment.'