Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/214

188 eye. 'I buy them because they are pretty, and sometimes I sell—if I like the buyer's look. My work is on the table—some of it.' It blazed in the morning light—all red and blue and green flashes, picked out with the vicious blue-white spurt of a diamond here and there. Kim opened his eyes.

'Oh, they are quite well, those stones. It will not hurt them to see the sun. Besides, they are cheap. But with sick stones it is very different.' He piled Kim's plate anew. 'There is no one but me can doctor a sick pearl and re-blue turquoises. I grant you opals—any fool can cure an opal—but for a sick pearl there is only me. Suppose I were to die! Then there would be no one. . . . Oh no! You cannot do anything with jewels. It will be quite enough if you understand a little about turquoises—some day.'

He moved to the end of the verandah to refill the heavy, porous clay water-jug from the filter.

'Do you want drink?'

Kim nodded. Lurgan Sahib, fifteen feet away, laid one hand on the jar. Next instant it stood at Kim's elbow, full to within half an inch of the brim—the white cloth only showing, by a small wrinkle, that it had slid into its place.

'Wah!' said Kim in most utter amazement. 'That is magic.' Lurgan Sahib's smile showed that the compliment had gone home.

'Throw it back.'

'It will break.'

'I say, throw it back.'

Kim grasped it by the neck and pitched it at random. It fell short and crashed into fifty pieces, while the water dripped through the rough verandah boarding.