Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (119 page)

‘Pity they did not save him from a broken head! I heard that thou wast the tiger-hearted one who smote the Sahib. Let him dream a little longer. Stay!’

‘Hillwoman,’ said Kim, with austerity that could not harden the outlines of his young oval face, ‘these matters are too high for thee.’

‘The Gods be good to us! Since when have men and women been other than men and women?’

‘A priest is a priest. He says he will go upon this hour. I am his chela, and I go with him. We need food for the Road. He is an honoured guest in all the villages, but’  —  he broke into a pure boyish grin  —  ’the food here is good. Give me some.’

‘What if I do not give it thee? I am the woman of this village.’

‘Then I curse thee  —  a little  —  not greatly, but enough to remember.’ He could not help smiling.

‘Thou hast cursed me already by the down-dropped eyelash and the uplifted chin. Curses? What should I care for mere words?’ She clenched her hands upon her bosom. . . . ‘But I would not have thee to go in anger, thinking hardly of me  —  a gatherer of cow-dung and grass at Shamlegh, but still a woman of substance.’

‘I think nothing,’ said Kim, ‘but that I am grieved to go, for I am very tired, and that we need food. Here is the bag.’

The woman snatched it angrily. ‘I was foolish,’ said she. ‘Who is thy woman in the Plains? Fair or black? I was fair once. Laughest thou? Once, long ago, if thou canst believe, a Sahib looked on me with favour. Once, long ago, I wore European clothes at the Mission-house yonder.’ She pointed towards Kotgarh. ‘Once, long ago, I was Ker-lis-ti-an and spoke English  —  as the Sahibs speak it. Yes. My Sahib said he would return and wed me  —  yes, wed me. He went away  —  I had nursed him when he was sick  —  but he never returned. Then I saw that the Gods of the Kerlistians lied, and I went back to my own people. . . . I have never set eyes on a Sahib since. (Do not laugh at me. The fit is past, little priestling.) Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put me in mind of my Sahib, though thou art only a wandering mendicant to whom I give a dole. Curse me? Thou canst neither curse nor bless!’ She set her hands on her hips and laughed bitterly. ‘Thy Gods are lies; thy works are lies; thy words are lies. There are no Gods under all the heavens. I know it. . . . But for a while I thought it was my Sahib come back, and he was my God. Yes, once I made music on a pianno in the Mission-house at Kotgarh. Now I give alms to priests who are heatthen.’ She wound up with the English word, and tied the mouth of the brimming bag.

‘I wait for thee, chela,’ said the lama, leaning against the door-post.

The woman swept the tall figure with her eyes. ‘He walk? He cannot cover half a mile. Whither would old bones go?’

At this Kim, already perplexed by the lama’s collapse, and foreseeing the weight of the bag, fairly lost his temper.

‘What is it to thee, woman of ill-omen, where he goes?’

‘Nothing  —  but something to thee, priest with a Sahib’s face. Wilt thou carry him on thy shoulders?’

‘I go to the Plains. None must hinder my return. I have wrestled with my soul till I am strengthless. The stupid body is spent, and we are far from the Plains.’

‘Behold!’ she said simply, and drew aside to let Kim see his own utter helplessness. ‘Curse me. May be it will give him strength. Make a charm! Call on thy great God. Thou art a priest.’ She turned away.

The lama had squatted limply, still holding by the door-post. One cannot strike down an old man that he recovers again like a boy in a night. Weakness bowed him to the earth, but his eyes that hung on Kim were alive and imploring.

‘It is all well,’ said Kim. ‘It is the thin air that weakens thee. In a little while we go! It is the mountain-sickness. I too am a little sick at stomach,’ . . . and he knelt and comforted with such poor words as came first to his lips. Then the woman returned, more erect than ever.

‘Thy Gods useless, heh? Try mine. I am the Woman of Shamlegh.’ She hailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen her two husbands and three others with a dooli, the rude native litter of the Hills, that they use for carrying the sick and for visits of state. ‘These cattle,’ she did not condescend to look at them, ‘are thine for so long as thou shalt need.’

‘But we will not go Simla-way. We will not go near the Sahibs,’ cried the first husband.

‘They will not run away as the others did, nor will they steal baggage. Two I know for weaklings. Stand to the rear-pole, Sonoo and Taree.’ They obeyed swiftly. ‘Lower now, and lift in that holy man. I will see to the village and your virtuous wives till ye return.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Ask the priests. Do not pester me. Lay the food-bag at the foot, it balances better so.’

‘Oh, Holy One, thy Hills are kinder than our Plains!’ cried Kim, relieved, as the lama tottered to the litter. ‘It is a very king’s bed  —  a place of honour and ease. And we owe it to  —  ’

‘A woman of ill-omen. I need thy blessings as much as I do thy curses. It is my order and none of thine. Lift and away! Here! Hast thou money for the road?’

She beckoned Kim to her hut, and stooped above a battered English cash-box under her cot.

‘I do not need anything,’ said Kim, angered where he should have been grateful. ‘I am already rudely loaded with favours.’

She looked up with a curious smile and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘At least, thank me. I am foul-faced and a hillwoman, but, as thy talk goes, I have acquired merit. Shall I show thee how the Sahibs render thanks?’ and her hard eyes softened.

‘I am but a wandering priest,’ said Kim, his eyes lighting in answer. ‘Thou needest neither my blessings nor my curses.’

‘Nay. But for one little moment  —  thou canst overtake the dooli in ten strides  —  if thou wast a Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst do?’

‘How if I guess, though?’ said Kim, and putting his arm round her waist, he kissed her on the cheek, adding in English: ‘Thank you verree much, my dear.’

Kissing is practically unknown among Asiatics, which may have been the reason that she leaned back with wide-open eyes and a face of panic.

‘Next time,’ Kim went on, ‘you must not be so sure of your heatthen priests. Now I say good-bye.’ He held out his hand English-fashion. She took it mechanically. ‘Good-bye, my dear.’

‘Good-bye, and  —  and’  —  she was remembering her English words one by one  —  ’you will come back again? Good-bye, and  —  thee God bless you.’

Half an hour later, as the creaking litter jolted up the hill path that leads south-easterly from Shamlegh, Kim saw a tiny figure at the hut door waving a white rag.

‘She has acquired merit beyond all others,’ said the lama. ‘For to set a man upon the way to Freedom is half as great as though she had herself found it.’

‘Umm,’ said Kim thoughtfully, considering the past. ‘It may be that I have acquired merit also. . . . At least she did not treat me like a child.’ He hitched the front of his robe, where lay the slab of documents and maps, restowed the precious food-bag at the lama’s feet, laid his hand on the litter edge, and buckled down to the slow pace of the grunting husbands.

‘These also acquire merit,’ said the lama, after three miles.

‘More than that, they shall be paid in silver,’ quoth Kim. The Woman of Shamlegh had given it to him; and it was only fair, he argued, that her men should earn it back again.

CHAPTER XV

I’d not give room for an Emperor  — 
I’d hold my road for a King.
To the Triple Crown I’d not bow down  — 
But this is a different thing!
I’ll not fight with the Powers of Air  — 
Sentries pass him through!
Drawbridge let fall  —  He’s the Lord of us all  — 
The Dreamer whose dream came true!
‘The Siege of the Fairies.’

TWO hundred miles north of Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh, lies Yankling Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathfully across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker  —  a man from Ao-chung. But that renegade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges, is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market, and Yankling Sahib will learn next season how very ill he has been.

Up the valleys of Bushahr  —  the far-beholding eagles of the Himalayas swerve at his new blue-and-white gored umbrella  —  hurries a Bengali, once fat and well-looking, now lean and weather-worn. He has received the thanks of two foreigners of distinction, piloted not unskillfully to Mashobra tunnel which leads to the great and gay capital of India. It was not his fault that, blanketed by wet mists, he conveyed them past the telegraph-station and European colony of Kotgarh. It was not his fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he discoursed so engagingly, that he led them into the borders of Nahan, where the Rajah of that state mistook them for deserting British soldiery. Hurree Babu explained the greatness and glory, in their own country, of his companions, till the drowsy kinglet smiled. He explained it to every one who asked  —  many times  —  aloud  —  variously. He begged food, arranged accommodation, proved a skilful leech for an injury of the groin  —  such a blow as one may receive rolling down a rock-covered hillside in the dark  —  and in all things indispensable. The reason of his friendliness did him credit. With millions of fellow-serfs, he had learned to look upon Russia as the great deliverer from the North. He was a fearful man. He had been afraid that he could not save his illustrious employers from the anger of an excited peasantry. He himself would just as lief hit a holy man as not, but. . . . He was deeply grateful and sincerely rejoiced that he had done his ‘little possible’ towards bringing their venture to  —  barring the lost baggage  —  a successful issue. He had forgotten the blows; denied that any blows had been dealt that unseemly first night under the pines. He asked neither pension nor retaining fee, but, if they deemed him worthy, would they write him a testimonial? It might be useful to him later, if others, their friends, came over the Passes. He begged them to remember him in their future greatnesses, for he ‘opined subtly’ that he, even he, Mohendro Lal Dutt, M. A. of Calcutta, had ‘done the state some service.’

They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy, helpfulness, and unerring skill as a guide. He put it in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion; they had endured so many dangers together. He led them at high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance Bank of Simla, where they wished to establish their identity. Thence he vanished like a dawn-cloud on Jakko.

Behold him, too fine drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brass-bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man made perfect. Watch him, all Babudom laid aside, smoking at noon on a cot, while a woman with turquoise-studded head-gear points south-easterly across the bare grass. Litters, she says, do not travel as fast as single men, but his birds should now be in the Plains. The holy man would not stay though Lispeth pressed him. The Babu groans heavily, girds up his huge loins, and is off again. He does not care to travel after dusk; but his days’ marches  —  there is none to enter them in a book  —  would astonish folk who mock at his race. Kindly villagers, remembering the Dacca drug-vendor of two months ago, give him shelter against evil spirits of the wood. He dreams of Bengali Gods, University text-books of education, and the Royal Society, London, England. Next dawn the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes forward.

On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind them and the Plains spread out in golden dust before, rests a worn litter in which  —  all the Hills know it  —  lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing. Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it, for not only has the lama given them blessings, but his disciple good money  —  full one-third Sahibs’ prices. Twelve miles a day has the dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, and by roads that few Sahibs use. Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust filled every fold of the impassive lama’s drapery; between the black horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of the wild goats through the clouds; pitching and strained on the shale below; hard-held between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati; swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the descent into the Valley of the Waters; pressed along the steamy levels of that locked valley; up, up and out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath; set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly oak-forests; passed from village to village in dawn-chill, when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men; or by torchlight, when the least fearful think of ghosts  —  the dooli has reached her last stage. The little hill-folk sweat in the modified heat of the lower Sewaliks, and gather round the priests for their blessing and their wage.

‘Ye have acquired merit,’ says the lama. ‘Merit greater than your knowing. And ye will return to the Hills,’ he sighs.

‘Surely. The high hills as soon as may be.’ The bearer rubs his shoulder, drinks water, spits it out again, and readjusts his grass sandal. Kim  —  his face is drawn and tired  —  pays very small silver from his belt, heaves out the food-bag, crams an oilskin packet  —  they are holy writings  —  into his bosom, and helps the lama to his feet. The peace has come again into the old man’s eyes, and he does not look for the hills to fall down and crush him as he did that terrible night when they were delayed by the flooded river.

The men pick up the dooli and swing out of sight between the scrub clumps.

The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas. ‘Not with you, O blessed among all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord! And never shall I breathe your air again!’

‘But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air,’ says Kim, for to his wearied soul appeal the well-cropped, kindly plains. ‘Here, or hereabouts, fell the Arrow, yes. We will go very softly, perhaps a kos a day, for the Search is sure. But the bag weighs heavy.’

‘Ay, our Search is sure. I have come out of great temptation.’

It was never more than a couple of miles a day now, and Kim’s shoulders bore all the weight of it  —  the burden of an old man, the burden of the heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load of the writings on his heart, and the details of the daily routine. He begged in the dawn, set blankets for the lama’s meditation, held the weary head on his lap through the noon-day heats, fanning away the flies till his wrist ached, begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the lama’s feet, who rewarded him with promise of Freedom  —  to-day, to-morrow, or, at furthest, the next day.