any way for love of thee.”
“That,” said Kim slowly, “I knew a very long time ago.”
“Who told?”
“The Colonel Sahib himself. Not in those many words, but plainly enough for one who is not altogether a mud-head. Yea, he told me in the te-rain when we went down to Lucknow.”
“Be it so. Then I will tell thee more, Friend of all the World, though in the telling I lend thee my head.”
“It was forfeit to me,” said Kim, with deep relish, “in Umballa, when thou didst pick me up on the horse after the drummer-boy beat me.”
“Speak a little plainer. All the world may tell lies save thou and I. For equally is thy life forfeit to me if I chose to raise my finger here.”
“And this is known to me also,” said Kim, readjusting the live charcoal-ball on the weed. “It is a very sure tie between us. Indeed, thy hold is surer even than mine; for who would miss a boy beaten to death, or, it may be, thrown into a well by the roadside? Most people here and in Simla and across the passes behind the Hills would, on the other hand, say: ‘What has come to Mahbub Ali?’ if he were found dead among his horses. Surely, too, the Colonel Sahib would make inquiries. But again,”—Kim’s face puckered with cunning—“he would not make overlong inquiry, lest people should ask: ‘What has this Colonel Sahib to do with that horse-dealer?’ But I—if I lived—”
“As thou wouldst surely die—”
“Maybe; but I say, if I lived, I, and I alone, would know that one had come by night, as a common thief perhaps, to Mahbub Ali’s bulkhead in the serai, and there had slain him, either before or after that thief had