“We of the Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our names are blotted from the book. That is all. At Bandakui, where lives one of Us, I thought to slip the scent by changing my face, and so made me a Mahratta. Then I came to Agra, and would have turned back to Chitor to recover the letter. So sure I was I had slipped them. Therefore I did not send a tar [telegram] to any one saying where the letter lay. I wished the credit of it all.” Kim nodded. He understood that feeling well. “But at Agra, walking in the streets, a man cried a debt against me, and approaching with many witnesses, would hale me to the courts then and there. Oh, they are clever in the South! He recognized me as his agent for cotton. May he burn in Hell for it!” “And wast thou?” “O fool! I was the man they sought for the matter of the letter! I ran into the Fleshers’ Ward and came out by the House of the Jew, who feared a riot and pushed me forth. I came afoot to Somna Road—I had only money for my _tikkut_ to Delhi—and there, while I lay in a ditch with a fever, one sprang out of the bushes and beat me and cut me and searched me from head to foot. Within earshot of the _te-rain_ it was!” “Why did he not slay thee out of hand?” “They are not so foolish. If I am taken in Delhi at the instance of lawyers, upon a proven charge of murder, my body is handed over to the State that desires it. I go back guarded, and then—I die slowly for an example to the rest of Us. The South is not my country. I run in circles—like a goat with one eye. I have not eaten for two days. I am marked”—he touched the filthy bandage on his leg—“so that they will know me at Delhi.” “Thou art safe in the _te-rain_, at least.” “Live a year at the Great Game and tell me that again! The wires will be out against me at Delhi, describing every tear and rag upon me. Twenty—a hundred, if need be—will have seen me slay that boy. And thou art useless!” Kim knew enough of native methods of attack not to doubt that the case would be deadly complete—even to the corpse. The Mahratta twitched his fingers with pain from time to time. The Kamboh in his corner glared sullenly; the lama was busy over his beads; and Kim, fumbling doctor-fashion at the man’s neck, thought out his plan between invocations. “Hast thou a charm to change my shape? Else I am dead. Five—ten minutes alone, if I had not been so pressed, and I might—” “Is he cured yet, miracle-worker?” said the Kamboh jealously. “Thou hast chanted long enough.” “Nay. There is no cure for his hurts, as I see, except he sit for three days in the habit of a _bairagi_.” This is a common penance, often imposed on a fat trader by his spiritual teacher. “One priest always goes about to make another priest,” was the retort. Like most grossly superstitious folk, the Kamboh could not keep his tongue from deriding his Church. “Will thy son be a priest, then? It is time he took more of my quinine.”