’It is not Gunga.  The River that I know washes from all taint of sin.  Ascending the far bank one is assured of Freedom.  I do not know thy life, but thy face is the face of the honourable and courteous.  Thou hast clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was hard to give, in that Black Year of which I now remember other tales.  Enter now upon the Middle Way which is the path to Freedom.  Hear the Most Excellent Law, and do not follow dreams.’

‘Speak, then, old man,’ the soldier smiled, half saluting.  ’We be all babblers at our age.’

The lama squatted under the shade of a mango, whose shadow played checkerwise over his face; the soldier sat stiffly on the pony; and Kim, making sure that there were no snakes, lay down in the crotch of the twisted roots.

There was a drowsy buzz of small life in hot sunshine, a cooing of doves, and a sleepy drone of well-wheels across the fields.  Slowly and impressively the lama began.  At the end of ten minutes the old soldier slid from his pony, to hear better as he said, and sat with the reins round his wrist.  The lama’s voice faltered, the periods lengthened.  Kim was busy watching a grey squirrel.  When the little scolding bunch of fur, close pressed to the branch, disappeared, preacher and audience were fast asleep, the old officer’s strong-cut head pillowed on his arm, the lama’s thrown back against the tree-bole, where it showed like yellow ivory.  A naked child toddled up, stared, and, moved by some quick impulse of reverence, made a solemn little obeisance before the lama — only the child was so short and fat that it toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the sprawling, chubby legs.  The child, scared and indignant, yelled aloud.

‘Hai!  Hai!’ said the soldier, leaping to his feet.  ’What is it?  What orders? ...  It is ... a child!  I dreamed it was an alarm.  Little one — little one — do not cry.  Have I slept?  That was discourteous indeed!’

‘I fear!  I am afraid!’ roared the child.

’What is it to fear?  Two old men and a boy?  How wilt thou ever make a soldier, Princeling?’

The lama had waked too, but, taking no direct notice of the child, clicked his rosary.

‘What is that?’ said the child, stopping a yell midway.  ’I have never seen such things.  Give them me.’

‘Aha.’ said the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop of it on the grass: 

This is a handful of cardamoms,
This is a lump of ghi: 
This is millet and chillies and rice,
A supper for thee and me!

The child shrieked with joy, and snatched at the dark, glancing beads.

‘Oho!’ said the old soldier.  ’Whence hadst thou that song, despiser of this world?’

‘I learned it in Pathankot — sitting on a doorstep,’ said the lama shyly.  ‘It is good to be kind to babes.’

’As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst told me that marriage and bearing were darkeners of the true light, stumbling-blocks upon the Way.  Do children drop from Heaven in thy country?  Is it the Way to sing them songs?’