Part 25 (1/2)

Ki his head in denial

'Do not jest,' said the lareat matters A sickness of soul took me in the Hills, and him a sickness of the body Since then I have lived upon his strength - eating hi and old,' she sniffed, but forbore to make any new jokes 'May this present hospitality restore ye! Hold awhile and I will co tio on inspection round the farm - she won to the meat of the matter, explained low-voicedly by the laether Ki soddenly The laet food

'I know - I know Who but I?' she cackled 'We who go down to the burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those co up fro water-jars I did the boy wrong He lent thee his strength? It is true that the old eat the young daily Stands noe must restore him'

'Thou hast many ti of bonescurries for men who do not ask ”Who cooked this?” Now if it were stored up for randson -'

'He that had the belly-pain?'

'To think the Holy One reular honour! ”He that had the belly-pain” - straightway the Holy One remembered She will be proud'

'My chela is to randson, rather Mothers have not the wisdom of our years If a child cries they say the heavens are falling Now a grand and the pleasure of giving the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness pure or the wind And since thou speakest once again of wind, when last the Holy One was here,for char that form of address a Buddhist monk may sometimes employ towards a nun, 'if charms comfort thee -'

'They are better than ten thousand doctors'

'I say, if they comfort thee, I as Abbot of Such-zen, will make as many as thou mayest desire I have never seen thy face -'

'That even the ain Hee! hee!'

'But as he who sleeps there said,' - he nodded at the shut door of the guest-chaoldAnd he is in the spirit randson” to me'

'Good! I am the Holy One's cow' This was pure Hinduism, but the lama never heeded 'I am old I have borne sons in the body Oh, once I could please men! Now I can cure theh she bared arms for action 'I will take over the boy and dose him, and stuff him, andyet'

Wherefore when Kio to the cook-house to get hiscoercion about hirizzled s that he was on no account to do

'ThouWhat? A locked box in which to keep holy books? Oh, that is another matter Heavens forbid I should coht, and thou shalt keep the key'

They pushed the coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the locked books and diaries, with a groan of relief For so to their weight on his poor hts

'Thine is a sickness uncoiven up tending their betters The res,' said the Sahiba; and he was glad to give himself up to the blankness that half menaced and half soothed him

She brewed drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the still-room - drenches that smelt pestilently and tasted worse She stood over Kim till they went down, and inquired exhaustively after they had come up She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and enforced it by means of an armed man It is true he was seventy odd, that his scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt; but he represented the authority of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants, calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a wide compass by those parts Best of all, when the body was cleared, she cut out from the s - house-hold dogs, we name them - a cousin's , skilled in what Europeans, who know nothing about it, callhim east and west, that the mysterious earth-currents which thrill the clay of our bodiesafternoon - bone by bone, ament, and lastly, nerve by nerve Kneaded to irresponsible pulp, half hypnotized by the perpetual flick and readjustment of the uneasy chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim slid ten thousand miles into slumber - thirty-six hours of it - sleep that soaked like rain after drought

Then she fed him, and the house spun to her claetables, and the sober, slow- thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks - anon limes for sherbets, fat quails froinger between

'I have seen so of this world,' she said over the crowded trays, 'and there are but two sorts of woth out of a man and those who put it back Once I was that one, and now I a with ood now, it hen thou takest the road again Cousin,' - this to the poor relation, never wearied of extolling her patroness's charity - 'he is getting a bloom on the skin of a new-curried horse Our work is like polishi+ng jewels to be thrown to a dance-girl - eh?'

Kim sat up and smiled The terrible weakness had dropped froain, and but a week back the lightest word clogged it like ashes The pain in his neck (he one with the heavy dengue-aches and the evil taste in the mouth The two old women, a little, but not much, more careful about their veils now, clucked as h the open door

'Where is my Holy One?' he demanded

'Hear hih that is none of his merit, Knew I a charood food that I cooked hts on an empty belly - and to tumble into a brook at the end of it - call you that holiness? Then, when he has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he tells me that he has acquired merit Oh, how like are all men! No, that was not it - he tells me that he is freed from all sin I could have told him that before he wetted hio - but burn me such holiness! A babe of three would do better Do not fret thyself for the Holy One He keeps both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks'

'I do not rehts passed like bars of white and black, opening and shutting I was not sick: I was but tired”

'A lethargy that coht some few score years later But it is done now'

'Maharanee,' Kied it to the title of plain love - 'Mother, I owe my life to thee How shall I s upon thy house and -'

'The house be unblessed!' (It is iive exactly the old lady's word) 'Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me, if thou carest, as a son Heavens above! Have I shi+fted thee and lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts flung at my head? Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her heart What used thou to her - son?'

'I had no mother, my '

'Hai ht if - when thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing No s, but - but -' She stamped her foot at the poor relation 'Take up the trays to the house What is the good of stale food in the room, O woman of ill-omen?'

'I ha - have borne a son in ure behind the chudder 'Thou knowest he died! I only waited for the order to take away the tray'

'It is I that am the woo down to the chattris [the big uhats where the priests take their last dues] clutch hard at the bearers of the chattis [water-jars - young folk full of the pride of life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy] When one cannot dance in the festival onetakes all a woives hter's eldest, by reason - is it? - that he is wholly free frooes about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters'

'What hakiave me the pill which rent o, vowing that he and thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning great anxiety for thy health He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders to have him stuffed too - him and his anxiety!'

'I would see him if he is here'

'He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save himself from an apoplexy He is so full of anxiety for thy health that he sticks to the cook-house door and stays hiet rid of him'

'Send him here, mother' - the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for a flash - 'and I will try'

'I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn At least he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One did not say, acquiring merit'

'He is a very wise haki priest? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last ive him a caste-dinner afterwards,abed is the mother of seventy devilsmy son! my son!'

She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to the shoulders like a Roman emperor, jowled like titus, bare-headed, with new patent- leather shoes, in highest condition of fat, exuding joy and salutations

'By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I are jolly-glad to see you I will kindly shut the door It is a pity you are sick Are you very sick?'

'The papers - the papers from the kilta The maps and the murasla!' He held out the key iet rid of the loot

'You are quite right That is correct Depart?'

'All that was handwritten in the kilta I took The rest I thren the hill' He could hear the key's grate in the lock, the sticky pull of the slow-rending oilskin, and a quick shuffling of papers He had been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that they lay below hih the sick idle days - a burden incoh his body, when Hurree, skipping elephantinely, shook hands again

'This is fine! This is finest! Mister O'Hara! you have - ha! ha! swiped the whole bag of tricks - locks, stocks, and barrels They told one up the spouts! By Jove, how they beat me!Look, here is the letter from Hilas!' He intoned a line or two of Court Persian, which is the language of authorized and unauthorized diplomacy 'Mister Rajah Sahib has just about put his foot in the holes He will have to explain offeecially how the deuce-an'-all he is writing love-letters to the Czar And they are very clever mapsand there is three or four Prime Ministers of these parts implicated by the correspondence By Gad, sar! The British Governe the succession in Hilas and Bunar, and nominate new heirs to the throne ”Trea-son most base”but you do not understand? Eh?'

'Are they in thy hands?' said Kim It was all he cared for