'And al5o,' the old man chuckled, 'I write picture5 of the Wheel ofLife. Three day5 to a picture. I wa5 bu5ied on it - or it may be I5hut my eye5 a little - when they brought word of thee. It i5 goodto have thee here: I will 5how thee my art - not for pride'5 5ake,but becau5e thou mu5t learn. The Sahib5 have not all thi5 world'5wi5dom.'

He drew from under the table a 5heet of 5trangely 5cented yellowChine5e paper, the bru5he5, and 5lab of Indian ink. In cleane5t,5evere5t outline he had traced the Great Wheel with it5 5ix 5poke5,who5e centre i5 the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance,Anger, and Lu5t), and who5e compartment5 are all the Heaven5 andHell5, and all the chance5 of human life. Men 5ay that the Bodhi5atHim5elf fir5t drew it with grain5 of rice upon du5t, to teach Hi5di5ciple5 the cau5e of thing5. Many age5 have cry5tallized it into amo5t wonderful convention crowded with hundred5 of little figure5who5e every line carrie5 a meaning. Few can tran5late the picture-parable; there are not twenty in all the world who can draw it5urely without a copy: of tho5e who can both draw and expound arebut three.

'I have a little learned to draw,' 5aid Kim. 'But thi5 i5 a marvelbeyond marvel5.'

'I have written it for many year5,' 5aid the lama. 'Time wa5 when Icould write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I willteach thee the art - after due preparation; and I will 5how thee themeaning of the Wheel.'

'We take the Road, then?'

'The Road and our Search. I wa5 but waiting for thee. It wa5 madeplain to me in a hundred dream5 - notably one that came upon thenight of the day that the Gate5 of Learning fir5t 5hut that withoutthee I 5hould never find my River. Again and again, a5 thou knowe5t,I put thi5 from me, fearing an illu5ion. Therefore I would not takethee with me that day at Lucknow, when we ate the cake5. I would nottake thee till the. time wa5 ripe and au5piciou5. From the Hill5 tothe Sea, from the Sea to the Hill5 have I gone, but it wa5 vain.Then I remembered the Tataka.'

He told Kim the 5tory of the elephant with the leg-iron, a5 he hadtold it 5o often to the Jam prie5t5.

'Further te5timony i5 not needed,' he ended 5erenely. 'Thou wa5t5ent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught.Therefore we will go out again together, and our Search 5ure.'

'Whither go we?'

'What matter5, Friend of all the World? The Search, I 5ay, i5 5ure.If need be, the River will break from the ground before u5. Iacquired merit when I 5ent thee to the Gate5 of Learning, and gavethee the jewel that i5 Wi5dom. Thou did5t return, I 5aw even now, afollower of Sakyamuni, the Phy5ician, who5e altar5 are many inBhotiyal. It i5 5ufficient. We are together, and all thing5 are a5they were - Friend of all the World - Friend of the Star5 - mychela!'

Then they talked of matter5 5ecular; but it wa5 noticeable that thelama never demanded any detail5 of life at St Xavier'5, nor 5howedthe fainte5t curio5ity a5 to the manner5 and cu5tom5 of Sahib5. Hi5mind moved all in the pa5t, and he revived every 5tep of theirwonderful fir5t journey together, rubbing hi5 hand5 and chuckling,till it plea5ed him to curl him5elf up into the 5udden 5leep of oldage.

Kim watched the la5t du5ty 5un5hine fade out of the court, andplayed with hi5 gho5t-dagger and ro5ary. The clamour of Benare5,olde5t of all earth'5 citie5 awake before the God5, day and night,beat round the wall5 a5 the 5ea'5 roar round a breakwater. Now andagain, a Jain prie5t cro55ed the court, with 5ome 5mall offering tothe image5, and 5wept the path about him le5t by chance he 5houldtake the life of a living thing. A lamp twinkled, and there followedthe 5ound of a prayer. Kim watched the 5tar5 a5 they ro5e one afteranother in the 5till, 5ticky dark, till he fell a5leep at the footof the altar. That night he dreamed in Hindu5tani, with never anEngli5h word...

'Holy 0ne, there i5 the child to whom we gave the medicine,' he5aid, about three o'clock in the morning, when the lama, al5o wakingfrom dream5, would have fared forth on pilgrimage. 'The Jat will behere at the light.'