Mahbub was anything but asleep.It annoyed him vehemently that people outside his tribe and unaffected by his casual amours should pursue him for the life.His first and natural impulse was to cross the line lower down,work up again,and,catching his well-wishers from behind,summarily slay them.Here,he reflected with sorrow,another branch of the Government,totally unconnected with Colonel Creighton,might demand explanations which would be hard to supply;and he knew that south of the Border a perfectly ridiculous fuss is made about a corpse or so.He had not been troubled in this way since he sent Kim to Umballa with the message,and hoped that suspicion had been finally diverted.
Then a most brilliant notion struck him.
'The English do eternally tell the truth,'he said,'therefore we of this country are eternally made foolish.By Allah,I will tell the truth to an Englishman!Of what use is the Government police if a poor Kabuli be robbed of his horses in their very trucks.This is as bad as Peshawur!
I should lay a complaint at the station.Better still,some young Sahib on the Railway!They are zealous,and if they catch thieves it is remembered to their honour.'
He tied up his horse outside the station,and strode on to the platform.
'Hullo,Mahbub Ali!'said a young Assistant District Traffic Superintendent who was waiting to go down the line -a tall,tow-haired,horsey youth in dingy white linen.'What are you doing here?Selling weeds -eh?'
'No;I am not troubled for my horses.I come to look for Lutuf Ullah.
I have a truck-load up the line.Could anyone take them out without the Railway's knowledge?'
'Shouldn't think so,Mahbub.You can claim against us if they do.'
'I have seen two men crouching under the wheels of one of the trucks nearly all night.fakirs do not steal horses,so I gave them no more thought.I would find Lutuf Ullah,my partner.'
'The deuce you did?And you didn't bother your head about it?'Pon my word,it's just almost as well that I met you.What were they like,eh?'
'They were only fakirs .They will no more than take a little grain,perhaps,from one of the trucks.There are many up the line.The State will never miss the dole.I came here seeking for my partner,Lutuf Ullah -'
'Never mind your partner.Where are your horse-trucks?'
'A little to this side of the farthest place where they make lamps for the trains.'
'The signal-box!Yes.'
'And upon the rail nearest to the road upon the right-hand side -looking up the line thus.But as regards Lutuf Ullah -a tall man with a broken nose,and a Persian greyhound -Aie!'
The boy had hurried off to wake up a young and enthusiastic policeman;for,as he said,the Railway had suffered much from depredations in the goods-yard.Mahbub Ali chuckled in his dyed beard.
'They will walk in their boots,****** a noise,and then they will wonder why there are no fakirs .They are very clever boys -Barton Sahib and Young Sahib.'
He waited idly for a few minutes,expecting to see them hurry up the line girt for action.A light engine slid through the station,and he caught a glimpse of young Barton in the cab.
'I did that child an injustice.He is not altogether a fool,'said Mahbub Ali.'To take a fire-carriage for a thief is a new game!'
When Mahbub Ali came to his camp in the dawn,no one thought it worth while to tell him any news of the night.No one,at least,but one small horseboy,newly advanced to the great man's service,whom Mahbub called to his tiny tent to assist in some packing.
'It is all known to me,'whispered Kim,bending above saddlebags.'Two Sahibs came up on a te-train .I was running to and fro in the dark on this side of the trucks as the te-train moved up and down slowly.
They fell upon two men sitting under this truck -Hajji,what shall I do with this lump of tobacco?Wrap it in paper and put it under the salt-bag?
Yes -and struck them down.But one man struck at a Sahib with a fakir's buck's horn'(Kim meant the conjoined black-buck horns,which are a fakir's sole temporal weapon)-'the blood came.So the other Sahib,first smiting his own man senseless,smote the stabber with a short gun which had rolled from the first man's hand.They all raged as though mad together.'
Mahbub smiled with heavenly resignation.'No!That is not so much dewanee [madness,or a case for the civil court -the word can be punned upon both ways]as nizamut [a criminal case].A gun,sayest thou?Ten good years in jail.'
'Then they both lay still,but I think they were nearly dead when they were put on the te-train .Their heads moved thus.And there is much blood on the line.Come and see?'
'I have seen blood before.Jail is the sure place -and assuredly they will give false names,and assuredly no man will find them for a long time.
They were unfriends of mine.Thy fate and mine seem on one string.What a tale for the healer of pearls!Now swiftly with the saddle-bags and the cooking-platter.We will take out the horses and away to Simla.'
Swiftly -as Orientals understand speed -with long explanations,with abuse and windy talk,carelessly,amid a hundred checks for little things forgotten,the untidy camp broke up and led the half-dozen stiff and fretful horses along the Kalka road in the fresh of the rain-swept dawn.Kim,regarded as Mahbub Ali's favourite by all who wished to stand well with the Pathan,was not called upon to work.They strolled on by the easiest of stages,halting every few hours at a wayside shelter.Very many Sahibs travel along the Kalka road;and,as Mahbub Ali says,every young Sahib must needs esteem himself a judge of a horse,and,though he be over head in debt to the money-lender,must make as if to buy.That was the reason that Sahib after Sahib,rolling along in a stage-carriage,would stop and open talk.Some would even descend from their vehicles and feel the horses'legs;asking inane questions,or,through sheer ignorance of the vernacular,grossly insulting the imperturbable trader.
