V

“They call me Kim Rishti Ke. That is Kim of the Rishti.”

“What is that⁠—‘Rishti’?”

“ Eye -rishti⁠—that was the Regiment⁠—my father’s.”

“Irish⁠—oh, I see.”

“Yess. That was how my father told me. My father, he has lived.”

“Has lived where?”

“Has lived. Of course he is dead⁠—gone-out.”

“Oh! That’s your abrupt way of putting it, is it?”

Bennett interrupted. “It is possible I have done the boy an injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am sure I must have bruised him. I do not think spirits⁠—”

“Get him a glass of sherry, then, and let him squat on the cot. Now, Kim,” continued Father Victor, “no one is going to hurt you. Drink that down and tell us about yourself. The truth, if you’ve no objection.”

Kim coughed a little as he put down the empty glass, and considered. This seemed a time for caution and fancy. Small boys who prowl about camps are generally turned out after a whipping. But he had received no stripes; the amulet was evidently working in his favour, and it looked as though the Umballa horoscope and the few words that he could remember of his father’s maunderings fitted in most miraculously. Else why did the fat padre seem so impressed, and why the glass of hot yellow drink from the lean one?

“My father, he is dead in Lahore city since I was very little. The woman, she kept kabarri shop near where the hire-carriages are.” Kim began with a plunge, not quite sure how far the truth would serve him.