'I saw no smoke' - Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the
wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man
to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He standing in
a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I
spoken truth?'

'It is He. Past all doubt it is He.'

The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the
old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple
twilight.

'Said I not - said I not he was from the other world?' cried the
lama proudly. 'He is the Friend of all the World. He is the
Friend of the Stars!'

'At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young
soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a
red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know -'

'Or I care,' said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with thy
cattle.'

'Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a
buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she
recover?'

Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the
play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the
fakirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing