It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck the old man full on the face. Next instant he was rolling over and over downhill with Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every unknown Irish devil in the boy’s blood, and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest. The lama dropped to his knees, half-stunned; the coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run aross the level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion. A shower of cutting stones—hillmen are very straight shots—drove him away, and a coolie from Ao-chung snatched the lama into the stampede. All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness.
“They have taken the baggage and all the guns,” yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight.
“All right, sar! All right! Don’t shoot. I go to rescue,” and Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe’s head against a boulder.
“Go back to the coolies,” whispered the Babu in his ear. “They have the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but look through all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla (King’s letter). Go! The other man comes!”
Kim tore uphill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side, and he cowered partridge-wise.
“If you shoot,” shouted Hurree, “they will descend and annihilate us. I have rescued the gentleman, sar. This is particularly dangerous.”
“By Jove!” Kim was thinking hard in English. “This is dam’-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.” He felt in his bosom for Mahbub’s gift, and uncertainly—save for a few practice shots in the Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun—pulled the trigger.
“What did I say, sar!” The Babu seemed to be in tears. “Come down here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you.”
The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat—or a country-bred.
“Did they wound thee, chela?” called the lama above him.