’Humph!  The end of the tale, I think, is true; but what of the fore-part?’

’About the Five Kings?  Oah! there is ever so much truth in it.  A lots more than you would suppose,’ said Hurree earnestly.  ’You come - eh?  I go from here straight into the Doon.  It is verree verdant and painted meads.  I shall go to Mussoorie to good old Munsoorie Pahar, as the gentlemen and ladies say.  Then by Rampur into Chini.  That is the only way they can come.  I do not like waiting in the cold, but we must wait for them.  I want to walk with them to Simla.  You see, one Russian is a Frenchman, and I know my French pretty well.  I have friends in Chandernagore.’

‘He would certainly rejoice to see the Hills again,’ said Kim meditatively.  ’All his speech these ten days past has been of little else.  If we go together -’

’Oah!  We can be quite strangers on the road, if your lama prefers.  I shall just be four or five miles ahead.  There is no hurry for Hurree - that is an Europe pun, ha! ha! — and you come after.  There is plenty of time; they will plot and survey and map, of course.  I shall go tomorrow, and you the next day, if you choose.  Eh?  You go think on it till morning.  By Jove, it is near morning now.’  He yawned ponderously, and with never a civil word lumbered off to his sleeping-place.  But Kim slept little, and his thoughts ran in Hindustani: 

’Well is the Game called great!  I was four days a scullion at Quetta, waiting on the wife of the man whose book I stole.  And that was part of the Great Game!  From the South — God knows how far — came up the Mahratta, playing the Great Game in fear of his life.  Now I shall go far and far into the North playing the Great Game.  Truly, it runs like a shuttle throughout all Hind.  And my share and my joy’ — he smiled to the darkness- ’I owe to the lama here.  Also to Mahbub Ali — also to Creighton Sahib, but chiefly to the Holy One.  He is right — a great and a wonderful world — and I am Kim — Kim — Kim — alone — one person — in the middle of it all.  But I will see these strangers with their levels and chains ...’

‘What was the upshot of last night’s babble?’ said the lama, after his orisons

’There came a strolling seller of drugs — a hanger-on of the Sahiba’s.  Him I abolished by arguments and prayers, proving that our charms are worthier than his coloured waters.’

‘Alas, my charms!  Is the virtuous woman still bent upon a new one?’

‘Very strictly.’

‘Then it must be written, or she will deafen me with her clamour.’  He fumbled at his pencase.

‘In the Plains,’ said Kim, ’are always too many people.  In the Hills, as I understand, there are fewer.’

‘Oh! the Hills, and the snows upon the Hills.’  The lami tore off a tiny square of paper fit to go in an amulet.  ’But what dost thou know of the Hills?’

‘They are very close.’  Kim thrust open the door and looked at the long, peaceful line of the Himalayas flushed in morning-gold.  ‘Except in the dress of a Sahib, I have never set foot among them.’