s of old Red Hat.
And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game myself! But the
madman is fond of the boy; and I must be very reasonably mad too.'

'What is the prayer?' said the lama, as the rough Pushtu rumbled into
the red beard.

'No matter at all; but now I understand that the boy, sure of Paradise,
can yet enter Government service, my mind is easier. I must get to my
horses. It grows dark. Do not wake him. I have no wish to hear him
call thee master.'

'But he is my disciple. What else?'

'He has told me.' Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose
laughing. 'I am not altogether of thy faith, Red Hat--if so small a
matter concern thee.'

'It is nothing,' said the lama.

'I thought not. Therefore it will not move thee, sinless, new-washed
and three parts drowned to boot, when I call thee a good man--a very
good man. We have talked together some four or five evenings now, and
for all I am a horse-coper I can still, as the saying is, see holiness
beyond the legs of a horse. Yea, can see, too, how our Friend of all
the World put his hand in thine at the first. Use him well, and suffer
him to return to the world as a teacher, when thou hast--bathed his
legs, if that be the proper medicine for the colt.'

'Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy?'

Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the demand,
which across the Border he would have paid with more than a blow. Then
the humour of it touched his worldly soul.

'Softly--softly--one foot at a time, as the lame gelding went over the
Umballa jumps. I may come to Paradise later--I have workings that
way--great motions--and I owe them to thy simplicity. Thou hast never
lied?'

'What need?'

'O Allah, hear him! "What need" in this Thy world! Nor ever harmed a
man?'

'Once--with a pencase--before I was wise.'

'So? I think the better of thee. Thy teachings are good. Thou hast
turned one man that I know from the path of strife.' He laughed
immensely. 'He came here open-minded to commit a dacoity [a
house-robbery with violence]. Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry off
what he desired.'

'A great foolishness!'

'Oh! black shame too. So he thought after he had seen thee--and a few
others, male and female. So he abandoned it; and now he goes to beat a
big fat Babu man.'

'I do not understand.'

'Allah forbid it! Some men are strong in knowledge, Red Hat. Thy
strength is stronger still. K