the Rissaldar's door.
Here was like to have been a grave misunderstanding, for the old
soldier asked him why the Friend of the Stars had gone that way only
six days before.

'That may not be,' said the lama. 'He has gone back to his own people.'

'He sat in that corner telling a hundred merry tales five nights ago,'
his host insisted. 'True, he vanished somewhat suddenly in the dawn
after foolish talk with my granddaughter. He grows apace, but he is
the same Friend of the Stars as brought me true word of the war. Have
ye parted?'

'Yes--and no,' the lama replied. 'We--we have not altogether parted,
but the time is not ripe that we should take the Road together. He
acquires wisdom in another place. We must wait.'

'All one--but if it were not the boy how did he come to speak so
continually of thee?'

'And what said he?' asked the lama eagerly.

'Sweet words--an hundred thousand--that thou art his father and mother
and such all. Pity that he does not take the Qpeen's service. He is
fearless.'

This news amazed the lama, who did not then know how religiously Kim
kept to the contract made with Mahbub Ali, and perforce ratified by
Colonel Creighton...

'There is no holding the young pony from the game,' said the
horse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India
in holiday time was absurd. 'If permission be refused to go and come
as he chooses, he will make light of the refusal. Then who is to catch
him? Colonel Sahib, only once in a thousand years is a horse born so
well fitted for the game as this our colt. And we need men.'

Chapter 10

Your tiercel's too long at hack, Sire. He's no eyass
But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,
Dangerously free o' the air. Faith! were he mine
(As mine's the glove he binds to for his tirings)
I'd fly him with a make-hawk. He's in yarak
Plumed to the very point--so manned, so weathered...
Give him the firmament God made him for,
And what shall take the air of him?

Gow's Watch

Lurgan Sahib did not use as direct speech, but his advice tallied with
Mahbub's; and the upshot was good for Kim. He knew better now than to
leave Lucknow city in native garb, and if Mahbub were anywhere within
reach of a letter, it was to Mahbub's camp he headed, and made his
change under the Pathan's wary eye. Could the little Survey paint-box
that he used for map-tinting in term-time have found a tongue to tell
of holida