between the embroideries. Behind the cart was a wall of uncertain darkness speckled with little flames and alive with half-caught forms and faces and shadows. The voices of early evening had settled down to one soothing hum whose deepest note was the steady chumping of the bullocks above their chopped straw, and whose highest was the tinkle of a Bengali dancing-girl’s sitar . Most men had eaten and pulled deep at their gurgling, grunting hookahs, which in full blast sound like bullfrogs.
At last the lama returned. A hillman walked behind him with a wadded cotton-quilt and spread it carefully by the fire.
“She deserves ten thousand grandchildren,” thought Kim. “None the less, but for me, those gifts would not have come.”
“A virtuous woman—and a wise one.” The lama slackened off, joint by joint, like a slow camel. “The world is full of charity to those who follow the Way.” He flung a fair half of the quilt over Kim.
“And what said she?”