aross the level.  They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance.  The Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion.  A shower of cutting stones — hillmen are very straight shots — drove him away, and a coolie from Ao-chung snatched the lama into the stampede.  All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness.

‘They have taken the baggage and all the guns,’ yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight.

‘All right, sar!  All right!  Don’t shoot.  I go to rescue,’ and Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe’s head against a boulder.

‘Go back to the coolies,’ whispered the Babu in his ear.  ’They have the baggage.  The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but look through all.  Take their papers, and specially the murasla [King’s letter].  Go!  The other man comes!’

Kim tore uphill.  A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side, and he cowered partridge-wise.

‘If you shoot,’ shouted Hurree, ’they will descend and annihilate us.  I have rescued the gentleman, sar.  This is particularly dangerous.’

‘By Jove!’ Kim was thinking hard in English.  ’This is dam’-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.’  He felt in his bosom for Mahbub’s gift, and uncertainly — save for a few practice shots in the Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun -pulled the trigger.

‘What did I say, sar!’ The Babu seemed to be in tears.  ’Come down here and assist to resuscitate.  We are all up a tree, I tell you.’

The shots ceased.  There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat — or a country-bred.

‘Did they wound thee, chela?’ called the lama above him.

‘No.  And thou?’ He dived into a clump of stunted firs.

’Unhurt.  Come away.  We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.’

‘But not before we have done justice,’ a voice cried.  ’I have got the Sahibs’ guns — all four.  Let us go down.’

’He struck the Holy One — we saw it!  Our cattle will be barren — our wives will cease to bear!  The snows will slide upon us as we go home ...  Atop of all other oppression too!’

The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies — panic-stricken, and in their terror capable of anything.  The man from Ao-chung clicked the breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go downhill.

‘Wait a little, Holy One; they cannot go far.  Wait till I return,’ said he.

‘It is this person who has suffered wrong,’ said the lama, his hand over his brow.

‘For that very reason,’ was the reply.

’If this person overlooks it, your hands are clean.  Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedience.’