LITMIR.BIZ

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V

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      Here come I to my own again—

       Fed, forgiven, and known again—

       Claimed by bone of my bone again,

       And sib to flesh of my flesh!

       The fatted calf is dressed for me,

       But the husks have greater zest for me . . .

       I think my pigs will be best for me,

       So I'm off to the styes afresh.

       'The Prodigal Son.'

      Once more the lazy, string-tied, shuffling procession got under way, and she slept till they reached the next halting-stage. It was a very short march, and time lacked an hour to sundown, so Kim cast about for means of amusement.

      'But why not sit and rest?' said one of the escort. 'Only the devils and the English walk to and fro without reason.'

      'Never make friends with the Devil, a monkey, or a boy. No man knows what they will do next,' said his fellow.

      Kim turned a scornful back—he did not want to hear the old story how the Devil played with the boys and repented of it—and walked idly across country.

      The lama strode after him. All that day, whenever they passed a stream, he had turned aside to look at it, but in no case had he received any warning that he had found his River. Insensibly too the comfort of speaking to some one in a reasonable tongue, and of being properly considered and respected as her spiritual adviser by a well-born woman, had weaned his thoughts a little from the Search. And further, he was prepared to spend serene years in his quest; having nothing of the white man's impatience, but a great faith.

      'Where goest thou?' he called after Kim.

      'No whither—it was a small march, and all this'—Kim waved his hands abroad—'is new to me.'

      'She is beyond question a wise and a discerning woman. But it is hard to meditate when—'

      'All women are thus.' Kim spoke as might have Solomon.

      'Before the lamassery was a broad platform,' the lama muttered, looping up the well-worn rosary, 'of stone. On that I have left the marks of my feet—pacing to and fro with these.'

      He clicked the beads, and began the 'Om mane pudme hum' of his devotion; grateful for the cool, the quiet, and the absence of dust.

      One thing after another drew Kim's idle eye across the plain. There was no purpose in his wanderings, except that the build of the huts near by seemed new, and he wished to investigate.

      They came out on a broad tract of grazing-ground, brown and purple in the afternoon light, with a heavy clump of mangoes in the centre. It struck Kim as curious that no shrine stood in so eligible a spot: the boy was observing as any priest for these things. Far across the plain walked side by side four men, made small by the distance. He looked intently under his curved palms and caught the sheen of brass.

      'Soldiers. White soldiers!' said he. 'Let us see.'

      'It is always soldiers when thou and I go out alone together. But I have never seen the white soldiers.'

      'They do no harm except when they are drunk. Keep behind this tree.'

      They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the mango-tope. Two little figures halted; the other two came forward uncertainly. They were the advance-party of a regiment on the march, sent out, as usual, to mark the camp. They bore five-foot sticks with fluttering flags, and called to each other as they spread over the flat earth.

      At last they entered the mango-grove, walking heavily.

      'It's here or hereabouts—officers' tents under the trees, I take it, an' the rest of us can stay outside. Have they marked out for the baggage-waggons behind?'

      They cried again to their comrades in the distance, and the rough answer came back faint and mellowed.

      'Shove the flag in here, then,' said one.

      'What do they prepare?' said the lama, wonder-struck. 'This is a great and terrible world. What is the device on the flag?'

      A soldier thrust a stave within a few feet of them, grunted discontentedly, pulled it up again, conferred with his companion, who looked up and down the shaded cave of greenery, and returned it.

      Kim stared with all his eyes, his breath coming short and sharp between his teeth. The soldiers stamped off into the sunshine.

      'O Holy One,' he gasped, 'my horoscope! The drawing in the dust by the priest at Umballa! Remember what he said. First come two—ferashes—to make all things ready—in a dark place, as it is always at the beginning of a vision.'

      'But this is not vision,' said the lama. 'It is the world's Illusion, and no more.'

      'And after them comes the Bull—the Red Bull on the green field. Look! It is he!'

      He pointed to the flag that was snap-snapping in the evening breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an ordinary camp marking-flag; but the regiment, always punctilious in matters of millinery, had charged it with the regimental device, the Red Bull, which is the crest of the Mavericks—the great Red Bull on a background of Irish green.

      'I see, and now I remember,' said the lama. 'Certainly it is thy Bull. Certainly, also, the two men came to make all ready.'

      'They are soldiers—white soldiers. What said the priest? "The sign over against the Bull is the sign of War and armed men." Holy One, this thing touches my Search.'

      'True. It is true.' The lama stared fixedly at the device that flamed like a ruby in the dusk. 'The priest at Umballa said that thine was the sign of War.'

      'What is to do now?'

      'Wait. Let us wait.'

      'Even now the darkness clears,' said Kim. It was only natural that the descending sun should at last strike through the tree-trunks, across the grove, filling it with mealy gold light for a few minutes; but to Kim it was crown of the Umballa Brahmin's prophecy.

      'Hark!' said the lama. 'One beats a drum—far off!'

      At first the sound, carrying diluted through the still air, resembled the beating of an artery in the head. Soon a sharpness was added.

      'Ah! The music,' Kim explained. He knew the sound of a regimental band, but it amazed the lama.

      At the far end of the plain a heavy, dusty column crawled in sight. Then the wind brought the tune:—

      'We crave your condescension

       To tell you what we know

       Of marching in the Mulligan Guards

       To Sligo Port below.'

      Here broke in the shrill-tongued fifes:—

      'We shouldered arms,

       We marched—we marched away

       From Phoenix Park

       We marched to Dublin Bay.

       The drums and the fifes,

       Oh, sweetly they did play,

       As we marched—marched—marched—with the Mulligan Guards!'

      It was the band of the Mavericks playing the regiment to camp; for the men were route-marching with their baggage. The rippling column swung into the level—carts behind it—divided left and right, ran about like an ant-hill, and . . .

      But this is sorcery!' said the lama.

      The plain dotted itself with tents that seemed to rise, all spread, from the carts. Another rush of men invaded the grove, pitched a huge tent in silence, ran up yet eight or nine more by the side of it, unearthed cooking-pots,

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