“Good reason,” quoth Kim. “I was then a scholar in the Gates of Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One,” he went on playfully. “I am still a Sahib—by thy favour.” “True. And a Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, _chela_.” “How is that known to thee?” The lama smiled. “First by means of letters from the kindly priest whom we met in the camp of armed men; but he is now gone to his own country, and I sent the money to his brother.” Colonel Creighton, who had succeeded to the trusteeship when Father Victor went to England with the Mavericks, was hardly the Chaplain’s brother. “But I do not well understand Sahibs’ letters. They must be interpreted to me. I chose a surer way. Many times when I returned from my Search to this Temple, which has always been a nest to me, there came one seeking Enlightenment—a man from Leh—that had been, he said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods.” The lama pointed to the Arhats. “A fat man?” said Kim, a twinkle in his eye. “Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given up to useless things—such as devils and charms and the form and fashion of our tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we initiated the novices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a friend of thine, _chela_. He told me that thou wast on the road to much honour as a scribe. And I see thou art a physician.” “Yes, that am I—a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside when I come as thy disciple. I have accomplished the years appointed for a Sahib.” “As it were a novice?” said the lama, nodding his head. “Art thou freed from the schools? I would not have thee unripe.” “I am all free. In due time I take service under the Government as a scribe—” “Not as a warrior. That is well.” “But first I come to wander with thee. Therefore I am here. Who begs for thee, these days?” he went on quickly. The ice was thin. “Very often I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom here, except when I come to look again at my disciple. From one end to another of Hind have I travelled afoot and in the _te-rain_. A great and a wonderful land! But here, when I put in, is as though I were in my own Bhotiyal.” He looked round the little clean cell complacently. A low cushion gave him a seat, on which he had disposed himself in the cross-legged attitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation; a black teak-wood table, not twenty inches high, set with copper tea-cups, was before him. In one corner stood a tiny altar, also of heavily carved teak, bearing a copper-gilt image of the seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp, an incense-holder, and a pair of copper flower-pots.