He built his fire as close to the cart as he dared, waiting for one of the escort to order him away.  The lama dropped wearily to the ground, much as a heavy fruit-eating bat cowers, and returned to his rosary.

‘Stand farther off, beggar!’ The order was shouted in broken Hindustani by one of the hillmen.

‘Huh!  It is only a pahari [a hillman]’, said Kim over his shoulder.  ‘Since when have the hill-asses owned all Hindustan?’

The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim’s pedigree for three generations.

‘Ah!’ Kim’s voice was sweeter than ever, as he broke the dung-cake into fit pieces.  ‘In my country we call that the beginning of love-talk.’

A harsh, thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on his mettle for a second shot.

‘Not so bad — not so bad,’ said Kim with calm.  ’But have a care, my brother, lest we — we, I say — be minded to give a curse or so in return.  And our curses have the knack of biting home.’

The Ooryas laughed; the hillman sprang forward threateningly.  The lama suddenly raised his head, bringing his huge tam-o’-shanter hat into the full light of Kim’s new-started fire.

‘What is it?’ said he.

The man halted as though struck to stone.  ’I — I — am saved from a great sin,’ he stammered.

‘The foreigner has found him a priest at last,’ whispered one of the Ooryas.

‘Hai!  Why is that beggar-brat not well beaten?’ the old woman cried.

The hillman drew back to the cart and whispered something to the curtain.  There was dead silence, then a muttering.

‘This goes well,’ thought Kim, pretending neither to see nor hear.

‘When — when — he has eaten’ — the hillman fawned on Kim — ’it — it is requested that the Holy One will do the honour to talk to one who would speak to him.’

‘After he has eaten he will sleep,’ Kim returned loftily.  He could not quite see what new turn the game had taken, but stood resolute to profit by it.  ‘Now I will get him his food.’  The last sentence, spoken loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness.

’I — I myself and the others of my people will look to that — if it is permitted.’

‘It is permitted,’ said Kim, more loftily than ever.  ’Holy One, these people will bring us food.’

’The land is good.  All the country of the South is good — a great and a terrible world,’ mumbled the lama drowsily.

‘Let him sleep,’ said Kim, ’but look to it that we are well fed when he wakes.  He is a very holy man.’

Again one of the Ooryas said something contemptuously.

‘He is not a fakir.  He is not a down-country beggar,’ Kim went on severely, addressing the stars.  ’He is the most holy of holy men.  He is above all castes.  I am his chela.’

‘Come here!’ said the flat thin voice behind the curtain; and Kim came, conscious that eyes he could not see were staring at him.  One skinny brown finger heavy with rings lay on the edge of the cart, and the talk went this way: