’I am but the Holy One’s disciple.  When he has eaten perhaps he will come.’

‘Oh, villain and shameless rogue!’ The jewelled forefinger shook itself at him reprovingly; but he could hear the old lady’s chuckle.

‘Nay, what is it?’ he said, dropping into his most caressing and confidential tone — the one, he well knew, that few could resist.  ’Is — is there any need of a son in thy family?  Speak freely, for we priests -’ That last was a direct plagiarism from a fakir by the Taksali Gate.

‘We priests!  Thou art not yet old enough to -’ She checked the joke with another laugh.  ’Believe me, now and again, we women, O priest, think of other matters than sons.  Moreover, my daughter has borne her man-child.’

’Two arrows in the quiver are better than one; and three are better still.’  Kim quoted the proverb with a meditative cough, looking discreetly earthward.

’True — oh, true.  But perhaps that will come.  Certainly those down-country Brahmins are utterly useless.  I sent gifts and monies and gifts again to them, and they prophesied.’

‘Ah,’ drawled Kim, with infinite contempt, ‘they prophesied!’ A professional could have done no better.

’And it was not till I remembered my own Gods that my prayers were heard.  I chose an auspicious hour, and — perhaps thy Holy One has heard of the Abbot of the Lung-Cho lamassery.  It was to him I put the matter, and behold in the due time all came about as I desired.  The Brahmin in the house of the father of my daughter’s son has since said that it was through his prayers — which is a little error that I will explain to him when we reach our journey’s end.  And so afterwards I go to Buddh Gaya, to make shraddha for the father of my children.’

‘Thither go we.’

‘Doubly auspicious,’ chirruped the old lady.  ’A second son at least!’

‘O Friend of all the World!’ The lama had waked, and, simply as a child bewildered in a strange bed, called for Kim.

‘I come!  I come, Holy One!’ He dashed to the fire, where he found the lama already surrounded by dishes of food, the hillmen visibly adoring him and the Southerners looking sourly.

‘Go back!  Withdraw!’ Kim cried.  ‘Do we eat publicly like dogs?’ They finished the meal in silence, each turned a little from the other, and Kim topped it with a native-made cigarette.

’Have I not said an hundred times that the South is a good land?  Here is a virtuous and high-born widow of a Hill Rajah on pilgrimage, she says, to Buddha Gay.  She it is sends us those dishes; and when thou art well rested she would speak to thee.’

‘Is this also thy work?’ The lama dipped deep into his snuff-gourd.

‘Who else watched over thee since our wonderful journey began?’ Kim’s eyes danced in his head as he blew the rank smoke through his nostrils and stretched him on the dusty ground.  ’Have I failed to oversee thy comforts, Holy One?’