My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) To stone and brass in heathen wise, But in my brother’s voice I hear My own unanswered agonies. His God is as his Fates assign— His prayer is all the world’s—and mine.
At moonrise the cautious coolies got under way. The lama, refreshed by his sleep and the spirit, needed no more than Kim’s shoulder to bear him along—a silent, swift-striding man. They held the shale-sprinkled grass for an hour, swept round the shoulder of an immortal cliff, and climbed into a new country entirely blocked off from all sight of Chini valley. A huge pasture-ground ran up fan-shaped to the living snow. At its base was perhaps half an acre of flat land, on which stood a few soil and timber huts. Behind them—for, hill-fashion, they were perched on the edge of all things—the ground fell sheer two thousand feet to Shamlegh-midden, where never yet man has set foot.
The men made no motion to divide the plunder till they had seen the lama bedded down in the best room of the place, with Kim shampooing his feet, Mohammedan-fashion.
“We will send food,” said the Ao-chung man, “and the red-topped kilta . By dawn there will be none to give evidence, one way or the other. If anything is not needed in the kilta —see here!”
He pointed through the window—opening into space that was filled with moonlight reflected from the snow—and threw out an empty whisky-bottle.
“No need to listen for the fall. This is the world’s end,” he said, and went out. The lama looked forth, a hand on either sill, with eyes that shone