the road - an hundred miles from Lahore already.'

'Yea - and farther from my monastery. Alas! It is a great and
terrible world.'

Kim stole out and away, as unremarkable a figure as ever carried
his own and a few score thousand other folk's fate slung round
his neck. Mahbub Ali's directions left him little doubt of the
house in which his Englishman lived; and a groom, bringing a dog-
cart home from the Club, made him quite sure. It remained only to
identify his man, and Kim slipped through the garden hedge and
hid in a clump of plumed grass close to the veranda. The house
blazed with lights, and servants moved about tables dressed with
flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth came an Englishman,
dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It was too dark to
see his face, so Kim, beggar-wise, tried an old experiment.

'Protector of the Poor!'

The man backed towards the voice.

'Mahbub Ali says -'

'Hah! What says Mahbub Ali?' He made no attempt to look for the
speaker, and that showed Kim that he knew.

'The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established.'

'What proof is there?' The Englishman switched at the rose-hedge
in the side of the drive.