‘Herein is my reward.  Enter!  Enter!  And is all well?’ They passed to the inner court, where the afternoon sun sloped golden across.  ‘Stand that I may see.  So!’ He peered critically.  ’It is no longer a child, but a man, ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician.  I did well — I did well when I gave thee up to the armed men on that black night.  Dost thou remember our first day under Zam-Zammah?’

‘Ay,’ said Kim.  ’Dost thou remember when I leapt off the carriage the first day I went to -’

’The Gates of Learning?  Truly.  And the day that we ate the cakes together at the back of the river by Nucklao.  Aha!  Many times hast thou begged for me, but that day I begged for thee.’

‘Good reason,’ quoth Kim.  ’I was then a scholar in the Gates of Learning, and attired as a Sahib.  Do not forget, Holy One,’ he went on playfully.  ‘I am still a Sahib — by thy favour.’

‘True.  And a Sahib in most high esteem.  Come to my cell, chela.’

‘How is that known to thee?’

The lama smiled.  ’First by means of letters from the kindly priest whom we met in the camp of armed men; but he is now gone to his own country, and I sent the money to his brother.’  Colonel Creighton, who had succeeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor went to England with the Mavericks, was hardly the Chaplain’s brother.  ’But I do not well understand Sahibs’ letters.  They must be interpreted to me.  I chose a surer way.  Many times when I returned from my Search to this Temple, which has always been a nest to me, there came one seeking Enlightenment — a man from Leh — that had been, he said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods.’  The lama pointed to the Arhats.

‘A fat man?’ said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.

’Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given up to useless things — such as devils and charms and the form and fashion of our tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we initiated the novices.  A man abounding in questions; but he was a friend of thine, chela.  He told me that thou wast on the road to much honour as a scribe.  And I see thou art a physician.’

’Yes, that am I — a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside when I come as thy disciple.  I have accomplished the years appointed for a Sahib.’

‘As it were a novice?’ said the lama, nodding his head.  ’Art thou freed from the schools?  I would not have thee unripe.’

’I am all free.  In due time I take service under the Government as a scribe -’

‘Not as a warrior.  That is well.’

’But first I come to wander with thee.  Therefore I am here.  Who begs for thee, these days?’ he went on quickly.  The ice was thin.

’Very often I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom here, except when I come to look again at my disciple.  From one end to another of Hind have I travelled afoot and in the te-rain.  A great and a wonderful land!  But here, when I put in, is as though I were in my own Bhotiyal.’