Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/205

Rh 'Why didst thou not tell, Shaitan?'

'Oh, he would go to jail and be safe for some years. There is no need to tell more than is necessary at any time. Besides, I did not then need money for sweetmeats.' 'Allah kerien!' said Mahbub Ali, 'wilt thou some day sell my head for a few sweetmeats then if the fit takes thee?'

Kim will remember till he dies that long, lazy journey from Umballa, through Kalka and the Pinjore gardens near by, up to Simla. A sudden spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse (the most valuable, be sure), and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders. Farther up the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant, and being in high condition of grass food, it cost a day and a half to get them together again. Then they met Sikander Khan coming down with a few unsaleable crocks,—remnants of his string,—and Mahbub, who had more of horse-coping in his little finger-nail than Sikander Khan in all his tents, must needs buy two of the worst, and that meant eight hours' laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco. But it was all pure delight—the wandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the growing spurs; the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows; the branched cacti; tier upon tier the stony hillsides; the voices of a thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys; the solemn deodars, climbing one after another with down-drooped branches; the vista of the plains rolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga swung round a curve; the halts for prayers (Mahbub was very religious in dry-washings and bellowings when time did not press); the evening conferences by