'What is that - "Rishti"?'

'Eye-rishti - that was the Regiment - my father's.'

'Irish - oh, I see.'

'Yess. That was how my father told me. My father, he has lived.'

'Has lived where?'

'Has lived. Of course he is dead - gone-out.'

'Oh! That's your abrupt way of putting it, is it?'

Bennett interrupted. 'It is possible I have done the boy an
injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am
sure I must have bruised him. I do not think spirits -'

'Get him a glass of sherry, then, and let him squat on the cot.
Now, Kim,' continued Father Victor, 'no one is going to hurt you.
Drink that down and tell us about yourself. The truth, if you've no
objection.'

Kim coughed a little as he put down the empty glass, and
considered. This seemed a time for caution and fancy. Small boys
who prowl about camps are generally turned out after a whipping.
But he had received no stripes; the amulet was evidently working in
his favour, and it looked as though the Umballa horoscope and the
few words that he could remember of his father's maunderings fitted
in most miraculously. Else why did the fat padre seem so impressed,