Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/77

Rh 'No.' Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal.

'Dost thou know who he is then that gives the order?'

'I have seen him.' 'To know again?'

'I have known him since he was a lieutenant in the top-khana (the Artillery).'

'A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?' Kim took a few paces in a stiff, wooden style.

'Ay. But that any one may have seen.' The crowd were breathless-still through all this talk.

'That is true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now. First the great man walks thus. Then he thinks thus.' (Kim drew a forefinger over his forehead and downward till it came to rest by the angle of the jaw.) 'Anon he twitches his fingers thus. Anon he thrusts his hat under his left armpit.' Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork.

The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd shivered.

'So—so—so. But what does he when he is about to give an order?'

'He rubs the skin at the back of his neck—thus. Then falls one finger on the table and he makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then he speaks, saying: "Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such guns."

The old man rose stiffly and saluted.

'"For"'—Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he had heard at the dressing-room at Umballa—'"For," says he, "we should have done this long ago. It is not war—it is a chastisement. Snff!"'