The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly—a dry and blighting smile.
“Is there no priest, then, in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,” cried Kim.
“Ay—but—” the woman began.
“But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks.” The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the village. “It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calf to thine own priest, and, unless thy Gods are angry past recall, she will give milk within a month.”
“A master-beggar art thou,” purred the priest approvingly. “Not the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man rich?”
“A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,” Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious—“Does one grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn the road at least.”
He knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples.
“Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be treasure.”
“He is mad—many times mad. There is nothing else.”
Here the old soldier bobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the temple—at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one face to the other, and drew his own conclusions.