‘They are all most holy and — most greedy,’ said the Jat with bitterness.  ’I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed, and the child is no whit better.  And the mother being sick too ...  Hush, then, little one ...  We changed his name when the fever came.  We put him into girl’s clothes.  There was nothing we did not do, except — I said to his mother when she bundled me off to Benares -she should have come with me — I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan would serve us best.  We know His generosity, but these down-country Gods are strangers.’

The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked at Kim through heavy eyelids.

‘And was it all worthless?’ Kim asked, with easy interest.

‘All worthless — all worthless,’ said the child, lips cracking with fever.

‘The Gods have given him a good mind, at least’ said the father proudly.  ’To think he should have listened so cleverly.  Yonder is thy Temple.  Now I am a poor man — many priests have dealt with me — but my son is my son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him — I am at my very wits’ end.’

Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride.  Three years ago he would have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way without a thought; but now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved that he was a man.  Moreover, he had tasted fever once or twice already, and knew enough to recognize starvation when he saw it.

’Call him forth and I will give him a bond on my best yoke, so that the child is cured.’

Kim halted at the carved outer door of the temple.  A white-clad Oswal banker from Ajmir, his sins of usury new wiped out, asked him what he did.

’I am chela to Teshoo Lama, an Holy One from Bhotiyal -within there.  He bade me come.  I wait.  Tell him.’

‘Do not forget the child,’ cried the importunate Jat over his shoulder, and then bellowed in Punjabi; ’O Holy One — O disciple of the Holy One — O Gods above all the Worlds -behold affliction sitting at the gate!’ That cry is so common in Benares that the passers never turned their heads.

The Oswal, at peace with mankind, carried the message into the darkness behind him, and the easy, uncounted Eastern minutes slid by; for the lama was asleep in his cell, and no priest would wake him.  When the click of his rosary again broke the hush of the inner court where the calm images of the Arhats stand, a novice whispered, ‘Thy chela is here,’ and the old man strode forth, forgetting the end of that prayer.

Hardly had the tall figure shown in the doorway than the Jat ran before him, and, lifting up the child, cried:  ’Look upon this, Holy One; and if the Gods will, he lives — he lives!’

He fumbled in his waist-belt and drew out a small silver coin.

‘What is now?’ The lama’s eyes turned to Kim.  It was noticeable he spoke far clearer Urdu than long ago, under ZamZammah; but father would allow no private talk.