“Say that again,” said Bennett. Kim obeyed, with amplifications.
“But this is gross blasphemy!” cried the Church of England.
“Tck! Tck!” said Father Victor sympathetically. “I’d give a good deal to be able to talk the vernacular. A river that washes away sin! And how long have you two been looking for it?”
“Oh, many days. Now we wish to go away and look for it again. It is not here, you see.”
“I see,” said Father Victor gravely. “But he can’t go on in that old man’s company. It would be different, Kim, if you were not a soldier’s son. Tell him that the Regiment will take care of you and make you as good a man as your—as good a man as can be. Tell him that if he believes in miracles he must believe that—”
“There is no need to play on his credulity,” Bennett interrupted.
“I’m doing no such thing. He must believe that the boy’s coming here—to his own Regiment—in search of his Red Bull is in the nature of a miracle. Consider the chances against it, Bennett. This one boy in all India, and our Regiment of all others on the line o’ march for him to meet with! It’s predestined on the face of it. Yes, tell him it’s Kismet. Kismet, mallum? (Do you understand?)”
He turned towards the lama, to whom he might as well have talked of Mesopotamia.
“They say,”—the old man’s eye lighted at Kim’s speech “they say that the meaning of my horoscope is now accomplished, and that being led back—though as thou knowest I went out of curiosity—to these people and their Red Bull I must needs go to a madrissah and be turned into a Sahib. Now I make pretence of agreement, for at the worst it will be but a few meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away and follow down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore, Holy One, keep with that Kulu woman—on no account stray far from her cart till I come again. Past question, my sign is of War and of armed men. See how they have given me wine to drink and set me upon a bed of honour! My father must have been some great person. So if they raise me to honour among them, good. If not, good again. However it goes, I will run back to thee when I am tired. But stay with the Rajputni, or I shall miss thy feet ... Oah yess,” said the boy, “I have told him everything you tell me to say.”
“And I cannot see any need why he should wait,” said Bennett, feeling in his trouser-pocket. “We can investigate the details later—and I will give him a ru—”