Phew!' said the Flower with deep disgust, rolling Mahbub's head
from her lap. 'I earn my money. Farrukh Shah is a bear, Ali Beg a
swashbuckler, and old Sikandar Khan - yaie! Go! I sleep now. This
swine will not stir till dawn.'

When Mahbub woke, the Flower talked to him severely on the sin of
drunkenness. Asiatics do not wink when they have outmanoeuvred an
enemy, but as Mahbub Ali cleared his throat, tightened his belt,
and staggered forth under the early morning stars, he came very
near to it.

'What a colt's trick!' said he to himself. 'As if every girl in
Peshawur did not use it! But 'twas prettily done. Now God He
knows how many more there be upon the Road who have orders to
test me - perhaps with the knife. So it stands that the boy must
go to Umballa - and by rail - for the writing is something
urgent. I abide here, following the Flower and drinking wine as
an Afghan coper should.'

He halted at the stall next but one to his own. His men lay there
heavy with sleep. There was no sign of Kim or the lama.

'Up!' He stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here last
even - the lama and the boy? Is aught missing?'

'Nay,' grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow
saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away.'

'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers!' said Mahbub heartily,