come to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw
the two read the white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders
given for the opening of a great war.'

'Hah!' Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. 'The game is well
played. That war is done now, and the evil, we hope, nipped before
the flower - thanks to me - and thee. What didst thou later?'

'I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour
among the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But
I bore away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin found nothing. So
next morning he was angry. Ho! Ho! And I also used the news when I
fell into the hands of that white Regiment with their Bull!'

'That was foolishness.' Mahbub scowled. 'News is not meant to be
thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly - like bhang.'

'So I think now, and moreover, it did me no sort of good. But that
was very long ago,' he made as to brush it all away with a thin
brown hand - 'and since then, and especially in the nights under
the punkah at the madrissah, I have thought very greatly.'

'Is it permitted to ask whither the Heaven-born's thought might
have led?' said Mahbub, with an elaborate sarcasm, smoothing his
scarlet beard.

'It is permitted,' said Kim, and threw back the very tone. 'They
say at Nucklao that no Sahib must tell a black man that he has made
a fault.'