Chapter III

       Table of Contents

      'Yea, voice of every Soul that clung

       To Life that strove from rung to rung

       When Devadatta's rule was young,

       The warm wind brings Kamakura.'

      Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.

      'Such an one,' said the lama, disregarding the dogs, 'is impolite to strangers, intemperate of speech and uncharitable. Be warned by his demeanour, my disciple.'

      'Ho, shameless beggars!' shouted the farmer. 'Begone! Get hence!'

      'We go,' the lama returned, with quiet dignity. 'We go from these unblessed fields.'

      'Ah,' said Kim, sucking in his breath. 'If the next crops fail, thou canst only blame thy own tongue.'

      The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. 'The land is full of beggars,' he began, half apologetically.

      'And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O Mali?' said Kim tartly, using the name that a market-gardener least likes. 'All we sought was to look at that river beyond the field there.'

      'River, forsooth!' the man snorted. 'What city do ye hail from not to know a canal-cut? It runs as straight as an arrow, and I pay for the water as though it were molten silver. There is a branch of a river beyond. But if ye need water I can give that—and milk.'

      'Nay, we will go to the river,' said the lama, striding out.

      'Milk and a meal,' the man stammered, as he looked at the strange tall figure. 'I—I would not draw evil upon myself—or my crops; but beggars are so many in these hard days.'

      'Take notice,' the lama turned to Kim. 'He was led to speak harshly by the Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he becomes courteous and of an affable heart. May his fields be blessed. Beware not to judge men too hastily, O farmer.'

      'I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone to byre,' said Kim to the abashed man. 'Is he not wise and holy? I am his disciple.'

      He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the narrow field-borders with great dignity.

      'There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.'

      'But thou hast said he was low caste and discourteous.'

      'Low caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way of deliverance.' He halted at a little runlet among the fields, and considered the hoof-pitted bank.

      'Now, how wilt thou know thy River?' said Kim, squatting in the shade of some tall sugar-cane.

      'When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I feel, is not the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou couldst tell me where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the fields bear!'

      'Look! Look!' Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A yellow and brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still—a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes.

      'I have no stick—I have no stick,' said Kim. 'I will get me one and break his back.'

      'Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are—a life ascending or descending—very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.'

      'I hate all snakes,' said Kim. No native training can quench the white man's horror of the Serpent.

      'Let him live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. 'May thy release come soon, brother,' the lama continued placidly. 'Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?'

      'Never have I seen such a man as thou art,' Kim whispered, overwhelmed. 'Do the very snakes understand thy talk?'

      'Who knows?'. He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head. It flattened itself among the dusty coils.

      'Come thou!' he called over his shoulder.

      'Not I,' said Kim. 'I go round.'

      'Come. He does no hurt.'

      Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign.

      'Never have I seen such a man.' Kim wiped the sweat from his forehead. 'And now, whither go we?'

      'That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger—far from my own place. But that the rel-carriage fills my head with noises of devil-drums I would go in it to Benares now. . . . Yet by so going we may miss the River. Let us find another river.'

      Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a year—through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, and nol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; the lama replying to the vollied questions with an unswerving simplicity. They sought a River—a River of miraculous healing. Had any one knowledge of such a stream? Sometimes men laughed, but more often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and the little children as children are the world over, alternately shy and venturesome. Evening found them at rest under the village tree of a mud-walled, mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the headman as the cattle came in from the grazing-grounds and the women prepared the day's last meal. They had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green of the staple crops.

      He