“And after them comes the Bull—the Red Bull on the green field. Look! It is he!”
He pointed to the flag that was snap snapping in the evening breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an ordinary camp marking-flag; but the regiment, always punctilious in matters of millinery, had charged it with the regimental device, the Red Bull, which is the crest of the Mavericks—the great Red Bull on a background of Irish green.
“I see, and now I remember,” said the lama. “Certainly it is thy Bull. Certainly, also, the two men came to make all ready.”
“They are soldiers—white soldiers. What said the priest? ‘The sign over against the Bull is the sign of War and armed men.’ Holy One, this thing touches my Search.”
“True. It is true.” The lama stared fixedly at the device that flamed like a ruby in the dusk. “The priest at Umballa said that thine was the sign of War.”
“What is to do now?”
“Wait. Let us wait.”
“Even now the darkness clears,” said Kim. It was only natural that the descending sun should at last strike through the tree-trunks, across the grove, filling it with mealy gold light for a few minutes; but to Kim it was the crown of the Umballa Brahmin’s prophecy.
“Hark!” said the lama. “One beats a drum—far off!”
At first the sound, carrying diluted through the still air, resembled the beating of an artery in the head. Soon a sharpness was added.
“Ah! The music,” Kim explained. He knew the sound of a regimental band, but it amazed the lama.