Then they talked of matters secular; but it was noticeable that the lama never demanded any details of life at St. Xavier’s, nor showed the faintest curiosity as to the manners and customs of Sahibs. His mind moved all in the past, and he revived every step of their wonderful first journey together, rubbing his hands and chuckling, till it pleased him to curl himself up into the sudden sleep of old age.
Kim watched the last dusty sunshine fade out of the court, and played with his ghost-dagger and rosary. The clamour of Benares, oldest of all earth’s cities awake before the Gods, day and night, beat round the walls as the sea’s roar round a breakwater. Now and again, a Jain priest crossed the court, with some small offering to the images, and swept the path about him lest by chance he should take the life of a living thing. A lamp twinkled, and there followed the sound of a prayer. Kim watched the stars as they rose one after another in the still, sticky dark, till he fell asleep at the foot of the altar. That night he dreamed in Hindustani, with never an English word …
“Holy One, there is the child to whom we gave the medicine,” he said, about three o’clock in the morning, when the lama, also waking from dreams, would have fared forth on pilgrimage. “The Jat will be here at the light.”
“I am well answered. In my haste I would have done a wrong.” He sat down on the cushions and returned to his rosary. “Surely old folk are as children,” he said pathetically. “They desire a matter—behold, it must be done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times when I was upon the Road I have been ready to stamp with my feet at the hindrance of an oxcart in the way, or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I was a man—a long time ago. None the less it is wrongful—”
“But thou art indeed old, Holy One.”
“The thing was done. A Cause was put out into the world, and, old or young, sick or sound, knowing or unknowing, who can rein in the effect