'Flies go to carrion,' said the Oorya, in an abstracted voice.

'For the sick cow a crow; for the sick man a Brahmin.' Kim breathed
the proverb impersonally to the shadow-tops of the trees overhead.

The Oorya grunted and held his peace.

'So then we go with her, Holy One?'

'Is there any reason against? I can still step aside and try all
the rivers that the road overpasses. She desires that I should
come. She very greatly desires it.'

Kim stifled a laugh in the quilt. When once that imperious old lady
had recovered from her natural awe of a lama he thought it probable
that she would be worth listening to.

He was nearly asleep when the lama suddenly quoted a proverb: 'The
husbands of the talkative have a great reward hereafter.' Then Kim
heard him snuff thrice, and dozed off, still laughing.

The diamond-bright dawn woke men and crows and bullocks together.
Kim sat up and yawned, shook himself, and thrilled with delight.
This was seeing the world in real truth; this was life as he would
have it - bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and beating
of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting of fires and cooking
of food, and new sights at every turn of the approving eye. The
morning mist swept off in a whorl of silver, the parrots shot away
to some distant river in shrieking green hosts: all the well-wheels