ame in as one assured that thou
wouldst not soon return. My eye was against a knot-hole in the plank.
He searched as it were for something--not a rug, not stirrups, nor a
bridle, nor brass pots--something little and most carefully hid. Else
why did he prick with an iron between the soles of thy slippers?'

'Ha!' Mahbub Ali smiled gently. 'And seeing these things, what tale
didst thou fashion to thyself, Well of the Truth?'

'None. I put my hand upon my amulet, which lies always next to my
skin, and, remembering the pedigree of a white stallion that I had
bitten out of a piece of Mussalmani bread, I went away to Umballa
perceiving that a heavy trust was laid upon me. At that hour, had I
chosen, thy head was forfeit. It needed only to say to that man, "I
have here a paper concerning a horse which I cannot read." And then?'
Kim peered at Mahbub under his eyebrows.

'Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice--perhaps thrice, afterwards.
I do not think more than thrice,' said Mahbub simply.

'It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I
loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but
(and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden-grass to see what
Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion's
pedigree.'

'And what did he?' for Kim had bitten off the conversation.

'Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?' Kim asked.

'I sell and--I buy.' Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and
held it up.

'Eight!' said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the
East.

Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. 'It is too easy to deal in that
market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in
each other's hand.'

'Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib [the Commander-in-Chief] come
to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw the two
read the white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders given for
the opening of a great war.'

'Hah!' Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. 'The game is well
played. That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before the
flower--thanks to me--and thee. What didst thou later?'

'I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among
the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I bore
away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So next
morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also use