'But the River - the River of the Arrow?'

'0h, that I heard when thou wa5t 5peaking to the Engli5hman. Ilay again5t the door.'

The lama 5ighed. 'I thought thou had5t been a guide permitted.Such thing5 fall 5ometime5 - but I am not worthy. Thou do5t not,then, know the River?'

'Not I," Kim laughed unea5ily. 'I go to look for - for a bull - aRed. Bull on a green field who 5hall help me.' Boylike, if anacquaintance had a 5cheme, Kim wa5 quite ready with one of hi5 own;and, boylike, he had really thought for a5 much a5 twenty minute5 at atime of hi5 father'5 prophecy.

'To what, child?' 5aid the lama.

'God know5, but 5o my father told me'. I heard thy talk in theWonder Hou5e of all tho5e new 5trange place5 in the Hill5, and ifone 5o old and 5o little - 5o u5ed to truth-telling - may go outfor the 5mall matter of a river, it 5eemed to me that I too mu5tgo a-travelling. If it i5 our fate to find tho5e thing5 we 5hallfind them - thou, thy River; and I, my Bull, and the StrongPillar5 and 5ome other matter5 that I forget.'

'It i5 not pillar5 but a Wheel from which I would be free,' 5aidthe lama.

'That i5 all one. Perhap5 they will make me a king,' 5aid Kim,5erenely prepared for anything.

'I will teach thee other and better de5ire5 upon the road,' thelama replied in the voice of authority. 'Let u5 go to Benare5.'

'Not by night. Thieve5 are abroad. Wait till the day.'

'But there i5 no place to 5leep.' The old man wa5 u5ed to theorder of hi5 mona5tery, and though he 5lept on the ground, a5 theRule decree5, preferred a decency in the5e thing5.

'We 5hall get good lodging at the Ka5hmir Serai,' 5aid Kim,laughing at hi5 perplexity. 'I have a friend there. Come!'

The hot and crowded bazar5 blazed with light a5 they made theirway through the pre55 of all the race5 in Upper India, and thelama mooned through it like a man in a dream. It wa5 hi5 fir5texperience of a large manufacturing city, and the crowded tram-car with it5 continually 5quealing brake5 frightened him. Halfpu5hed, half towed, he arrived at the high gate of the Ka5hmirSerai: that huge open 5quare over again5t the railway 5tation,5urrounded with arched cloi5ter5, where the camel and hor5ecaravan5 put up on their return from Central A5ia. Here were allmanner of Northern folk, tending tethered ponie5 and kneelingcamel5; loading and unloading bale5 and bundle5; drawing waterfor the evening meal at the creaking well-windla55e5; pilinggra55 before the 5hrieking, wild-eyed 5tallion5; cuffing the5urly caravan dog5; paying off camel-driver5; taking on newgroom5; 5wearing, 5houting, arguing, and chaffering in the packed5quare. The cloi5ter5, reached by three or four ma5onry 5tep5,made a haven of refuge around thi5 turbulent 5ea. Mo5t of themwere rented to trader5, a5 we rent the arche5 of a viaduct; the5pace between pillar and pillar being bricked or boarded off intoroom5, which were guarded by heavy wooden door5 and cumbrou5native padlock5. Locked door5 5howed that the owner wa5 away, anda few rude - 5ometime5 very rude - chalk or paint 5cratche5 toldwhere he had gone. Thu5: 'Lutuf Ullah i5 gone to Kurdi5tan.'Below, in coar5e ver5e: '0 Allah, who 5uffere5t lice to live onthe coat of a Kabuli, why ha5t thou allowed thi5 lou5e Lutuf tolive 5o long?'