‘Ah!  That’s your opinion as Secretary to the Regimental Lodge,’ said Father Victor; ’but we might as well tell the old man what we are going to do.  He doesn’t look like a villain.’

’My experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental mind.  Now, Kimball, I wish you to tell this man what I say word for word.’

Kim gathered the import of the next few sentences and began thus: 

’Holy One, the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the son of a Sahib.’

‘But how?’

’Oh, it is true.  I knew it since my birth, but he could only find it out by rending the amulet from my neck and reading all the papers.  He thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib, and between the two of them they purpose to keep me in this Regiment or to send me to a madrissah [a school].  It has happened before.  I have always avoided it.  The fat fool is of one mind and the camel-like one of another.  But that is no odds.  I may spend one night here and perhaps the next.  It has happened before.  Then I will run away and return to thee.’

’But tell them that thou art my chela.  Tell them how thou didst come to me when I was faint and bewildered.  Tell them of our Search, and they will surely let thee go now.’

’I have already told them.  They laugh, and they talk of the police.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Mr Bennett.

’Oah.  He only says that if you do not let me go it will stop him in his business — his ur-gent private af-fairs.’  This last was a reminiscence of some talk with a Eurasian clerk in the Canal Department, but it only drew a smile, which nettled him.  ’And if you did know what his business was you would not be in such a beastly hurry to interfere.’

‘What is it then?’ said Father Victor, not without feeling, as he watched the lama’s face.

’There is a River in this country which he wishes to find so verree much.  It was put out by an Arrow which -’ Kim tapped his foot impatiently as he translated in his own mind from the vernacular to his clumsy English.  ’Oah, it was made by our Lord God Buddha, you know, and if you wash there you are washed away from all your sins and made as white as cotton-wool.’ (Kim had heard mission-talk in his time.) ’I am his disciple, and we must find that River.  It is so verree valuable to us.’

‘Say that again,’ said Bennett.  Kim obeyed, with amplifications.

‘But this is gross blasphemy!’ cried the Church of England.

‘Tck!  Tck!’ said Father Victor sympathetically.  ’I’d give a good deal to be able to talk the vernacular.  A river that washes away sin!  And how long have you two been looking for it?’

’Oh, many days.  Now we wish to go away and look for it again.  It is not here, you see.’

‘I see,’ said Father Victor gravely.  ’But he can’t go on in that old man’s company.  It would be different, Kim, if you were not a soldier’s son.  Tell him that the Regiment will take care of you and make you as good a man as your — as good a man as can be.  Tell him that if he believes in miracles he must believe that -’