‘And what did he?’ for Kim had bitten off the conversation.

‘Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?’ Kim asked.

‘I sell and — I buy.’  Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and held it up.

‘Eight!’ said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the East.

Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin.  ’It is too easy to deal in that market, Friend of all the World.  Tell me for love.  Our lives lie in each other’s hand.’

’Very good.  I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief] come to a big dinner.  I saw him in Creighton Sahib’s office.  I saw the two read the white stallion’s pedigree.  I heard the very orders given for the opening of a great war.’

‘Hah!’ Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire.  ’The game is well played.  That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the flower — thanks to me — and thee.  What didst thou later?’

’I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama.  But I bore away the old man’s purse, and the Brahmin found nothing.  So next morning he was angry.  Ho!  Ho!  And I also used the news when I fell into the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!’

‘That was foolishness.’  Mahbub scowled.  ’News is not meant to be thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly — like bhang.’

’So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good.  But that was very long ago,’ he made as to brush it all away with a thin brown hand — ’and since then, and especially in the nights under the punkah at the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.’

’Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born’s thought might have led?’ said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his scarlet beard.

‘It is permitted,’ said Kim, and threw back the very tone.  ’They say at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made a fault.’

Mahbub’s hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a ’black man’ [kala admi] is a blood-insult.  Then he remembered and laughed.  ‘Speak, Sahib.  Thy black man hears.’

‘But,’ said Kim, ’I am not a Sahib, and I say I made a fault to curse thee, Mahbub Ali, on that day at Umballa when I thought I was betrayed by a Pathan.  I was senseless; for I was but newly caught, and I wished to kill that low-caste drummer-boy.  I say now, Hajji, that it was well done; and I see my road all clear before me to a good service.  I will stay in the madrissah till I am ripe.’

’Well said.  Especially are distances and numbers and the manner of using compasses to be learned in that game.  One waits in the Hills above to show thee.’

’I will learn their teaching upon a condition — that my time is given to me without question when the madrissah is shut.  Ask that for me of the Colonel.’

‘But why not ask the Colonel in the Sahibs’ tongue?’