“Thou art from the North?” he asked, shouldering through the press of the narrow, stinking streets much like his own pet bull at home.
“Ay, I know the Punjab. My mother was a pahareen, but my father came from Amritzar—by Jandiala,” said Kim, oiling his ready tongue for the needs of the Road.
“Jandiala—Jullundur? Oho! Then we be neighbours in some sort, as it were.” He nodded tenderly to the wailing child in his arms. “Whom dost thou serve?”
“A most holy man at the Temple of the Tirthankers.”
“They are all most holy and—most greedy,” said the Jat with bitterness. “I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed, and the child is no whit better. And the mother being sick too ... Hush, then, little one ... We changed his name when the fever came. We put him into girl’s clothes. There was nothing we did not do, except—I said to his mother when she bundled me off to Benares—she should have come with me—I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan would serve us best. We know His generosity, but these down-country Gods are strangers.”
The child turned on the cushion of the huge corded arms and looked at Kim through heavy eyelids.
“And was it all worthless?” Kim asked, with easy interest.
“All worthless—all worthless,” said the child, lips cracking with fever.
“The Gods have given him a good mind, at least” said the father proudly. “To think he should have listened so cleverly. Yonder is thy Temple. Now I am a poor man—many priests have dealt with me—but my son is my son, and if a gift to thy master can cure him—I am at my very wits’ end.”
Kim considered for a while, tingling with pride. Three years ago he would have made prompt profit on the situation and gone his way without a thought; but now, the very respect the Jat paid him proved that he was a man. Moreover, he had tasted fever once or twice already, and knew enough to recognize starvation when he saw it.