“Ay; and he did not tell lies, or return me to captivity.”
“Small wonder the Padre does not know how to unravel the thread. How fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib!” Mahbub Ali chuckled. “By Allah!” the keen eyes swept the veranda for an Instant—“thy lama has sent what to me looks like a note of hand. I have had some few dealings in hoondies. The Colonel Sahib is looking at it.”
“What good is all this to me?” said Kim wearily. “Thou wilt go away, and they will return me to those empty rooms where there is no good place to sleep and where the boys beat me.”
“I do not think that. Have patience, child. All Pathans are not faithless—except in horseflesh.”
Five—ten—fifteen minutes passed, Father Victor talking energetically or asking questions which the Colonel answered.
“Now I’ve told you everything that I know about the boy from beginnin to end; and it’s a blessed relief to me. Did ye ever hear the like?”
“At any rate, the old man has sent the money. Gobind Sahai’s notes of hand are good from here to China,” said the Colonel. “The more one knows about natives the less can one say what they will or won’t do.”
“That’s consolin’—from the head of the Ethnological Survey. It’s this mixture of Red Bulls and Rivers of Healing (poor heathen, God help him!) an’ notes of hand and Masonic certificates. Are you a Mason, by any chance?”
“By Jove, I am, now I come to think of it. That’s an additional reason,” said the Colonel absently.
“I’m glad ye see a reason in it. But as I said, it’s the mixture o’ things that’s beyond me. An’ his prophesyin’ to our Colonel, sitting on my bed with his little shimmy torn open showing his white skin; an’ the prophecy comin’ true! They’ll cure all that nonsense at St Xavier’s, eh?”