“Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my chela should find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?”
Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village greybeards.
“The meaning of my Star is War,” he replied pompously.
Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have lain down, Kim’s white blood set him upon his feet.
“Ay, War,” he answered.
“That is a sure prophecy,” rumbled a deep voice. “For there is always war along the Border—as I know.”
It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and though the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded officers on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence. English officials—Deputy Commissioners even—turned aside from the main road to visit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod.
“But this shall be a great war—a war of eight thousand.” Kim’s voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself.
“Redcoats or our own regiments?” the old man snapped, as though he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim.
“Redcoats,” said Kim at a venture. “Redcoats and guns.”