Kim - Chapter One - 36

by Rudyard Kipling

'God knows, but so my father told me'. I heard thy talk in the Wonder House of all those new strange places in the Hills, and if one so old and so little--so used to truth-telling--may go out for the small
matter of a river, it seemed to me that I too must go a-travelling. If
it is our fate to find those things we shall find them--thou, thy
River; and I, my Bull, and the Strong Pillars and some other matters
that I forget.'

'It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,' said the
lama.

'That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king,' said Kim,
serenely prepared for anything.

'I will teach thee other and better desires upon the road,' the lama
replied in the voice of authority. 'Let us go to Benares.'

'Not by night. Thieves are abroad. Wait till the day.'

'But there is no place to sleep.' The old man was used to the order of
his monastery, and though he slept on the ground, as the Rule decrees,
preferred a decency in these things.

'We shall get good lodging at the Kashmir Serai,' said Kim, laughing at
his perplexity. 'I have a friend there. Come!'

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

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Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900. Illustration was done for the book by Kipling's father.

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