which his
Englishman lived; and a groom, bringing a dog-cart home from the Club,
made him quite sure. It remained only to identify his man, and Kim
slipped through the garden hedge and hid in a clump of plumed grass
close to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants moved
about tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth
came an Englishman, dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It was
too dark to see his face, so Kim, beggar-wise, tried an old experiment.

'Protector of the Poor!'

The man backed towards the voice.

'Mahbub Ali says--'

'Hah! What says Mahbub Ali?' He made no attempt to look for the
speaker, and that showed Kim that he knew.

'The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established.'

'What proof is there?' The Englishman switched at the rose-hedge in
the side of the drive.

'Mahbub Ali has given me this proof.' Kim flipped the wad of folded
paper into the air, and it fell in the path beside the man, who put his
foot on it as a gardener came round the corner. When the servant passed
he picked it up, dropped a rupee--Kim could hear the clink--and strode
into the house, never turning round. Swiftly Kim took up the money;
but for all his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver
the least part of any game. What he desired was the visible effect of
action; so, instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass and
wormed nearer to the house.

He saw--Indian bungalows are open through and through--the Englishman
return to a small dressing-room, in a comer of the veranda, that was
half office, littered with papers and despatch-boxes, and sit down to
study Mahbub Ali's message. His face, by the full ray of the kerosene
lamp, changed and darkened, and Kim, used as every beggar must be to
watching countenances, took good note.

'Will! Will, dear!' called a woman's voice. 'You ought to be in the
drawing-room. They'll be here in a minute.'

The man still read intently.

'Will!' said the voice, five minutes later. 'He's come. I can hear
the troopers in the drive.'

The man dashed out bareheaded as a big landau with four native troopers
behind it halted at the veranda, and a tall, black haired man, erect as
an arrow, swung out, preceded by a young officer who laughed pleasantly.

Flat on his belly lay Kim, almost touching the high wheels. His man
and the black stranger exchanged two sentences.

'Certainly, sir,' said the youn