They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two came forward uncertainly. They were the advance-party of a regiment on the march, sent out, as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot sticks with fluttering flags, and called to each other as they spread over the flat earth.
At last they entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.
“It’s here or hereabouts—officers’ tents under the trees, I take it, an’ the rest of us can stay outside. Have they marked out for the baggage-wagons behind?”
They cried again to their comrades in the distance, and the rough answer came back faint and mellowed.
“Shove the flag in here, then,” said one.
“What do they prepare?” said the lama, wonderstruck. “This is a great and terrible world. What is the device on the flag?”
A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion, who looked up and down the shaded cave of greenery, and returned it.
Kim stared with all his eyes, his breath coming short and sharp between his teeth. The soldiers stamped off into the sunshine.
“O Holy One!” he gasped. “My horoscope! The drawing in the dust by the priest at Umballa! Remember what he said. First come two— ferashes —to make all things ready—in a dark place, as it is always at the beginning of a vision.”
“But this is not vision,” said the lama. “It is the world’s Illusion, and no more.”