‘By Jove!’ Kim was thinking hard in English. ‘This is dam’-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.’ He felt in his bosom for Mahbub’s gift, and uncertainly — save for a few practice shots in the Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun — pulled the trigger.
‘What did I say, sar!’ The Babu seemed to be in tears. ‘Come down here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you.’
The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat — or a country-bred.
‘Did they wound thee, chela?’ called the lama above him.
‘No. And thou?’ He dived into a clump of stunted firs.
‘Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.’
‘But not before we have done justice,’ a voice cried. ‘I have got the Sahibs’ guns — all four. Let us go down.’
‘He struck the Holy One — we saw it! Our cattle will be barren — our wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go home … Atop of all other oppression too!’
The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies — panicstricken, and in their terror capable of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked the breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go downhill.
‘Wait a little, Holy One; they cannot go far. Wait till I return,’ said he.
‘It is this person who has suffered wrong,’ said the lama, his hand over his brow.
‘For that very reason,’ was the reply.
‘If this person overlooks it, your hands are clean. Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedience.’
‘Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together,’ the man insisted.
For a moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff a cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama hesitated. Then he rose to his feet, and laid a finger on the man’s shoulder.
‘Hast thou heard? I say there shall be no killing — I who was Abbot of Such-zen. Is it any lust of thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake under the eaves — a worm in the belly of the most mean beast? Is it thy wish to —’
The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the voice boomed like a Tibetan devil-gong.
‘Ai! ai!’ cried the Spiti men. ‘Do not curse us — do not curse him. It was but his zeal, Holy One! … Put down the rifle, fool!’
‘Anger on anger! Evil on evil! There will be no killing. Let the priest-beaters go in bondage to their own acts. Just and sure is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! They will be born many times — in torment.’ His head drooped, and he leaned heavily on Kim’s shoulder.
‘I have come near to great evil, chela,’ he whispered in that dead hush under the pines. ‘I was tempted to loose the bullet; and truly, in Tibet there would have been a heavy and a slow death for them … He struck me across the face … upon the flesh …’ He slid to the ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear the over-driven heart bump and check.
‘Have they hurt him to the death?’ said the Ao-chung man, while the others stood mute.