e--'I have heard--'

'What hast thou heard?' she snapped, rapping with the finger.

'Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars, which is
doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs--small Hill Rajahs--'

'But none the less of good Rajput blood.'

'Assuredly of good blood. That these even sell the more comely of
their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them--to zemindars and
such--all of Oudh.'

If there be one thing in the world that the small Hill Rajahs deny it
is just this charge; but it happens to be one thing that the bazars
believe, when they discuss the mysterious slave-traffics of India. The
old lady explained to Kim, in a tense, indignant whisper, precisely
what manner and fashion of malignant liar he was. Had Kim hinted this
when she was a girl, he would have been pommelled to death that same
evening by an elephant. This was perfectly true.

'Ahai! I am only a beggar's brat, as the Eye of Beauty has said,' he
wailed in extravagant terror.

'Eye of Beauty, forsooth! Who am I that thou shouldst fling
beggar-endearments at me?' And yet she laughed at the long-forgotten
word. 'Forty years ago that might have been said, and not without
truth. Ay. thirty years ago. But it is the fault of this gadding up
and down Hind that a king's widow must jostle all the scum of the land,
and be made a mock by beggars.'

'Great Queen,' said Kim promptly, for he heard her shaking with
indignation, 'I am even what the Great Queen says I am; but none the
less is my master holy. He has not yet heard the Great Queen's order
that--'

'Order? I order a Holy One--a Teacher of the Law--to come and speak to
a woman? Never!'

'Pity my stupidity. I thought it was given as an order--'

'It was not. It was a petition. Does this make all clear?'

A silver coin clicked on the edge of the cart. Kim took it and
salaamed profoundly. The old lady recognized that, as the eyes and the
ears of the lama, he was to be propitiated.

'I am but the Holy One's disciple. When he has eaten perhaps he will
come.'

'Oh, villain and shameless rogue!' The jewelled forefinger shook
itself at him reprovingly; but he could hear the old lady's chuckle.

'Nay, what is it?' he said, dropping into his most caressing and
confidential tone--the one, he well knew, that few could resist.
'Is--is there any need of a son in thy family? Speak freely, for we
priests--' That last was a direct plagiarism from a fakir by the
T