Page:Kim - Rudyard Kipling (1912).djvu/78

60 'Enough. I believe. I have seen him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen and heard. It is he!'

'I saw no smoke'—Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came he, standing in a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken truth?'

'It is he. Past all doubt it is he.'

The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight.

'Said I not—said I not he was from the other world?' cried the lama proudly. 'He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the Stars!'

'At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know'

'Or I care,' said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with thy cattle.' 'Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?'

Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the faquirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.

The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly—a dry and blighting smile.

'Is there no priest then in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,' cried Kim.