“Get her her pipe. In the name of the Gods, get her her pipe and stop her ill-omened mouth,” cried an Oorya, tying up his shapeless bundles of bedding. “She and the parrots are alike. They screech in the dawn.”
“The lead-bullocks! Hai! Look to the lead-bullocks!” They were backing and wheeling as a grain-cart’s axle caught them by the horns. “Son of an owl, where dost thou go?” This to the grinning carter.
“Ai! Yai! Yai! That within there is the Queen of Delhi going to pray for a son,” the man called back over his high load. “Room for the Queen of Delhi and her Prime Minister the grey monkey climbing up his own sword!” Another cart loaded with bark for a down-country tannery followed close behind, and its driver added a few compliments as the ruth -bullocks backed and backed again.
From behind the shaking curtains came one volley of invective. It did not last long, but in kind and quality, in blistering, biting appropriateness, it was beyond anything that even Kim had heard. He could see the carter’s bare chest collapse with amazement, as the man salaamed reverently to the voice, leaped from the pole, and helped the escort haul their volcano on to the main road. Here the voice told him truthfully what sort of wife he had wedded, and what she was doing in his absence.
“Oh, shabash !” murmured Kim, unable to contain himself, as the man slunk away.
“Well done, indeed? It is a shame and a scandal that a poor woman may not go to make prayer to her Gods except she be jostled and insulted by all the refuse of Hindustan—that she must eat gali as men eat ghi . But I have yet a wag left to my tongue—a word or two well spoken that serves the occasion. And still am I without my tobacco! Who is the one-eyed and luckless son of shame that has not yet prepared my pipe?”
It was hastily thrust in by a hillman, and a trickle of thick smoke from each corner of the curtains showed that peace was restored.