'But the River - the River of the Arrow?'

'Oh, that I heard when thou wast speaking to the Englishman. I
lay against the door.'

The lama sighed. 'I thought thou hadst been a guide permitted.
Such things fall sometimes - but I am not worthy. Thou dost not,
then, know the River?'

'Not I," Kim laughed uneasily. 'I go to look for - for a bull - a
Red. Bull on a green field who shall help me.' Boylike, if an
acquaintance had a scheme, Kim was quite ready with one of his own;
and, boylike, he had really thought for as much as twenty minutes at a
time of his father's prophecy.

'To what, child?' said the lama.

'God knows, but so my father told me'. I heard thy talk in the
Wonder House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if
one so old and so little - so used to truth-telling - may go out
for the small matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must
go a-travelling. If it is our fate to find those things we shall
find them - thou, thy River; and I, my Bull, and the Strong
Pillars and some other matters that I forget.'

'It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,' said
the lama.

'That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king,' said Kim,