XI

where his son lived. Kim watched him closely. If, as he asserted, he had been rolled over and over on the earth, there should have been signs of gravel-rash on the skin. But all his injuries seemed clean cuts, and a mere fall from a cart could not cast a man into such extremity of terror. As, with shaking fingers, he knotted up the torn cloth about his neck he laid bare an amulet of the kind called a keeper-up of the heart. Now, amulets are common enough, but they are not generally strung on square-plaited copper wire, and still fewer amulets bear black enamel on silver. There were none except the Kamboh and the lama in the compartment, which, luckily, was of an old type with solid ends. Kim made as to scratch in his bosom, and thereby lifted his own amulet. The Mahratta’s face changed altogether at the sight, and he disposed the amulet fairly on his breast.

“Yes,” he went on to the Kamboh, “I was in haste, and the cart, driven by a bastard, bound its wheel in a water-cut, and besides the harm done to me there was lost a full dish of tarkeean . I was not a Son of the Charm that day.”

“That was a great loss,” said the Kamboh, withdrawing interest. His experience of Benares had made him suspicious.

“Who cooked it?” said Kim.

“A woman.” The Mahratta raised his eyes.

“But all women can cook tarkeean ,” said the Kamboh. “It is a good curry, as I know.”

“Oh yes, it is a good curry,” said the Mahratta.

“And cheap,” said Kim. “But what about caste?”

“Oh, there is no caste where men go to⁠—look for tarkeean ,” the Mahratta replied, in the prescribed cadence. “Of whose service art thou?”