Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/289

Rh throw a few flowers or a handful of cowries upon its edge. It sufficed these humble ones they had met a Holy One who might be moved to remember them in his prayers. 'Cure them if they are sick,' said the lama, when Kim's sporting instincts woke. 'Cure them if they have fever, but by no means work charms. Remember what befell the Mahratta.'

'Then all doing is evil?' Kim replied, lying out under a big tree at the fork of the Doon road, watching the little ants run over his hand.

'To abstain from action is well—except to acquire merit.'

'At the Gates of Learning we were taught that to abstain from action was unbefitting a Sahib. And I am a Sahib.'

'Friend of all the World'—the lama looked directly at Kim,—'I am an old man—pleased with shows as are children. To those who follow the Way there is neither black nor white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. We be all souls seeking escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion—at my side. Hai! my_bones ache for that River, as they ached in the te-rain but my spirit sits above my bones, waiting. The Search is sure!'

'I am answered. Is it permitted to ask a question?'

The lama inclined his stately head. ' I ate thy bread for three years—as thou knowest. Holy One, whence come'

'There is much wealth, as men count it, in Bhotiyal,' the lama returned with composure. 'In my own place I have honour. I ask for that I need. I am not concerned with the account. That is for my monastery. Ai! the black high seats in the monastery, and the novices all in order. '

And he told stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the