Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [95]
‘But he is so young, Mahbub—not more than sixteen—is he ?’
‘When I was fifteen, I had shot my man and begot my man, Sahib.’
‘You impenitent old heathen!’ Creighton turned to Lurgan. The black beard nodded assent to the wisdom of the Afghan’s dyed scarlet.
‘I should have used him long ago,’ said Lurgan. ‘The younger the better. That is why I always have my really valuable jewels watched by a child. You sent him to me to try. I tried him in every way: he is the only boy I could not make to see things.’
‘In the crystal—in the ink-pool?’ demanded Mahbub.
‘No. Under my hand, as I told you. That has never happened before. It means that he is strong enough—but you think it skittles, 250 Colonel Creighton—to make any one do anything he wants. And that is three years ago. I have taught him a good deal since, Colonel Creighton. I think you waste him now.’
‘Hmm! Maybe you’re right. But, as you know, there is no Survey work for him at present.’
‘Let him out—let him go,’ Mahbub interrupted. ‘Who expects any colt to carry heavy weight at first? Let him run with the caravans—like our white camel-colts—for luck. I would take him myself, but——’
‘There is a little business where he would be most useful—in the South,’ said Lurgan, with peculiar suavity, dropping his heavy blued eyelids.
‘E.23 has that in hand,’ said Creighton quickly. ‘He must not go down there. Besides, he knows no Turki.’251
‘Only tell him the shape and the smell of the letters we want and he will bring them back,’ Lurgan insisted.
‘No. That is a man’s job,’ said Creighton.
It was a wry-necked matter of unauthorised and incendiary correspondence between a person who claimed to be the ultimate authority in all matters of the Mohammedan religion throughout the world, and a younger member of a royal house who had been brought to book for kidnapping women within British territory. The Moslem Archbishop had been emphatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was no need he should continue a correspondence which might some day compromise him. One letter indeed had been procured, but the finder was later found dead by the roadside in the habit of an Arab trader, as E.23, taking up the work, duly reported.
These facts, and a few others not to be published, made both Mahbub and Creighton shake their heads.
‘Let him go out with his Red Lama,’ said the horse-dealer with visible effort. ‘He is fond of the old man. He can learn his paces by the rosary at least.’
‘I have had some dealings with the old man—by letter,’ said Colonel Creighton, smiling to himself. ‘Whither goes he?’
‘Up and down the land,252 as he has these three years. He seeks a River of Healing. God’s curse upon all——’ Mahbub checked himself. ‘He beds down at the Temple of the Tirthankars or at Buddh Gaya when he is in from the Road. Then he goes to see the boy at the madrissah, as we know, for the boy was punished for it twice or thrice. He is quite mad, but a peaceful man. I have met him. The Babu also has had dealings with him. We have watched him for three years. Red Lamas are not so common in Hind that one loses track.’
‘Babus are very curious,’ said Lurgan meditatively. ‘Do you know what Hurree Babu really wants? He wants to be made a member of the Royal Society by taking ethnological notes. I tell you, I tell him about the lama everything which Mahbub and the boy have told me. Hurree Babu goes down to Benares—at his own expense, I think.’
‘I don’t,’ said Creighton briefly. He had paid Hurree’s travelling expenses, out of a most lively curiosity to learn what the lama might be.
‘And he applies to the lama for information on lamaism, and devil-dances, and spells and charms, several times in these few years. Holy Virgin! I could have told him all that yee-ars ago. I think Hurree Babu is getting too old for the Road. He likes better to collect manners and customs information. Yes, he wants to be an F.R.S.’
‘Hurree thinks well of the boy, doesn’t he?’
‘Oh, very indeed—we have had some pleasant evenings at my little place