Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/279

Rh 'Hast thou met—a physician of sick pearls?' He switched out the long, tight-rolled turban cloth and, with swiftest hands, rolled it over and under about his loins into the intricate devices of a Saddhu's cincture.

'Hah! Dost thou know his touch, then? He was my teacher for a while. We must bare thy legs. Ash cures wounds. Smear it again.'

'I was his pride once, but thou art almost better. The Gods are good to us. Give me that.'

It was a tin box of opium pills among the rubbish of the Jat's bundle. E.23 gulped down a half handful. 'They are good against hunger, fear, and chill. And they make the eyes red, too,' he explained. 'Now I shall have heart to play the Game. We lack only the Saddhu's tongs. What of the old clothes?'

Kim rolled them small, and stuffed them into the slack folds of his bosom. With the yellow ochre cake he smeared the legs and the breast, great streaks against the background of flour and ash and turmeric.

'The blood on them is enough to hang thee, brother.'

'Maybe; but no need to throw them out of the window. . . . It is finished. ' His voice thrilled with a boy's pure delight in the Game. 'Turn and look, O Jat!'

'The Gods protect us,' said the hooded Kamboh, emerging like a buffalo from a swamp. 'But—whither went the Mahratta? What hast thou done?'

Kim had been trained by Lurgan Sahib; and E.23, by virtue of his business, was no bad actor. In place of the tremulous, shrinking trader there lolled against the corner an all but naked, ash-smeared, ochre-barred, dusty-haired Saddhu, his swollen eyes—opium takes quick effect on an empty stomach—luminous