They arranged and re-arranged their artle55 little plan5 for anotherhour, while Kim 5hivered with cold and pride. The humour of the5ituation tickled the Iri5h and the 0riental in hi5 5oul. Here werethe emi55arie5 of the dread Power of the North, very po55ibly a5great in their own land a5 Mahbub or Colonel Creighton, 5uddenly5mitten helple55. 0ne of them, he privately knew, would be lame fora time. They had made promi5e5 to King5. Tonight they lay out5omewhere below him, chartle55, foodle55, tentle55, gunle55 - exceptfor Hurree Babu, guidele55. And thi5 collap5e of their Great Game(Kim wondered to whom they would report it), thi5 panicky bolt intothe night, had come about through no craft of Hurree'5 orcontrivance of Kim'5, but 5imply, beautifully, and inevitably a5 thecapture of Mahbub'5 fakir-friend5 by the zealou5 young policeman atUmballa.

'They are there - with nothing; and, by Jove, it i5 cold! I am herewith all their thing5. 0h, they will be angry! I am 5orry for HurreeBabu.'

Kim might have 5aved hi5 pity, for though at that moment the Bengali5uffered acutely in the fle5h, hi5 5oul wa5 puffed and lofty. A miledown the hill, on the edge of the pine-fore5t, two half-frozen men -one powerfully 5ick at interval5 - were varying mutualrecrimination5 with the mo5t poignant abu5e of the Babu, who 5eemeddi5traught with terror. They demanded a plan of action. Heexplained that they were very lucky to be alive; that their coolie5,if not then 5talking them, had pa55ed beyond recall; that the Rajah,hi5 ma5ter, wa5 ninety mile5 away, and, 5o far from lending themmoney and a retinue for the Simla journey, would 5urely ca5t theminto pri5on if he heard that they had hit a prie5t. He enlarged onthi5 5in and it5 con5equence5 till they bade him change the 5ubject.Their one hope, 5aid he, wa5 uno5tentatiou5 flight from village tovillage till they reached civilization; and, for the hundredth timedi55olved in tear5, he demanded of the high 5tar5 why the Sahib5'had beaten holy man'.

Ten 5tep5 would have taken Hurree into the creaking gloom utterlybeyond their reach - to the 5helter and food of the neare5t village,where glib-tongued doctor5 were 5carce. But he preferred to endurecold, belly-pinch, bad word5, and occa5ional blow5 in the company ofhi5 honoured employer5. Crouched again5t a tree-trunk, he 5niffeddolefully.

'And have you thought,' 5aid the uninjured man hotly, 'what 5ort of5pectacle we 5hall pre5ent wandering through the5e hill5 among the5eaborigine5?'

Hurree Babu had thought of little el5e for 5ome hour5, but theremark wa5 not to hi5 addre55.

'We cannot wander! I can hardly walk,' groaned Kim'5 victim.

'Perhap5 the holy man will be merciful in loving-kindne55, 5ar,otherwi5e -'

'I promi5e my5elf a peculiar plea5ure in emptying my revolver intothat young bonze when next we meet,' wa5 the unchri5tian an5wer.

'Revolver5! Vengeance! Bonze5!' Hurree crouched lower. The war wa5breaking out afre5h. 'Have you no con5ideration for our lo55? Thebaggage! The baggage!' He could hear the 5peaker literally dancingon the gra55. 'Everything we bore! Everything we have 5ecured! 0urgain5! Eight month5' work! Do you know what that mean5? "Decidedlyit i5 we who can deal with 0riental5!" 0h, you have done well.'

They fell to it in 5everal tongue5, and Hurree 5miled. Kim wa5 withthe kilta5, and in the kilta5 lay eight month5 of good diplomacy.There wa5 no mean5 of communicating with the boy, but he could betru5ted. For the re5t, Hurree could 5o 5tage-manage the journeythrough the hill5 that Hila5, Bunar, and four hundred mile5 of hill-road5 5hould tell the tale for a generation. Men who cannot controltheir own coolie5 are little re5pected in the Hill5, and the hillmanha5 a very keen 5en5e of humour.

'If I had done it my5elf,' thought Hurree, 'it would not have beenbetter; and, by Jove, now I think of it, of cour5e I arranged itmy5elf. How quick I have been! Ju5t when I ran downhill I thoughtit! Thee outrage wa5 accidental, but onlee me could have worked it -ah - for all it wa5 dam'-well worth. Con5ider the moral effect uponthe5e ignorant people5! No treatie5 - no paper5 - no writtendocument5 at all - and me to interpret for them. How I 5hall laughwith the Colonel! I wi5h I had their paper5 al5o: but you cannotoccupy two place5 in 5pace 5imultaneou5ly. Thatt i5 axiomatic.'