'The Gods help us poor women if we may not speak. Oho! He is of
that sort which may not look at or reply to a woman.' For the
lama, constrained by his Rule, took not the faintest notice of
her. 'And his disciple is like him?'

'Nay, mother,' said Kim most promptly. 'Not when the woman is
well-looking and above all charitable to the hungry.'

'A beggar's answer,' said the Sikh, laughing. 'Thou hast brought
it on thyself, sister!' Kim's hands were crooked in supplication.

'And whither goest thou?' said the woman, handing him the half of
a cake from a greasy package.

'Even to Benares.'

'Jugglers belike?' the young soldier suggested. 'Have ye any
tricks to pass the time? Why does not that yellow man answer?'


'Because,' said Kim stoutly, 'he is holy, and thinks upon matters
hidden from thee.'

'That may be well. We of the Ludhiana Sikhs' - he rolled it out
sonorously -'do not trouble our heads with doctrine. We fight.'

'My sister's brother's son is naik (corporal] in that regiment,'
said the Sikh craftsman quietly. 'There are also some Dogra
companies there.' The soldier glared, for a Dogra is of other