United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it, for not only has the lama given them blessings, but his disciple good money full one-third Sahibs' prices. Twelve miles a day has the dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, and by roads that few Sahibs use.
Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust filled every fold of the impassive lama's drapery; between the black horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of the wild goats through the clouds; pitching and strained on the shale below; hard-held between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati; swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the descent into the Valley of the Waters; pressed along the steamy levels of that locked valley; up, up and out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath; set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly oak-forests; passed from village to village in dawn-chill, when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men; or by torchlight, when the least fearful think of ghosts the dooli has reached her last stage.
Shall I show thee how the Sahibs render thanks? and her hard eyes softened. 'I am but a wandering priest, said Kim, his eyes lighting in answer. 'Thou needest neither my blessings nor my curses. 'Nay. But for one little moment thou canst overtake the dooli in ten strides if thou wast a Sahib, shall I show thee what thou wouldst do?
I am the Woman of Shamlegh. She hailed hoarsely, and there came out of a cow-pen her two husbands and three others with a dooli, the rude native litter of the Hills, that they use for carrying the sick and for visits of state. 'These cattle' she did not condescend to look at them 'are thine for so long as thou shalt need. 'But we will not go Simla-way.
I buy myself my drug-box, and I am very good doctor really. I go to Akrola of the Ford, and hear all about you, and I talk here and talk there. All the common people know what you do. I knew when the hospitable old lady sent the dooli. They have great recollections of the old lama's visits here. I know old ladies cannot keep their hands from medicines. So I am a doctor, and you hear my talk?
The men pick up the dooli and swing out of sight between the scrub clumps. The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas. 'Not with you, O blessed among all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord! And never shall I breathe your airs again! 'But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air, says Kim, for to his wearied soul appeal the well-cropped, kindly Plains.
He squatted by the white wall, the mind rummaging among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was removed, his own self-pity, of which, like the sick, he had great store. The unnerved brain edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once rowelled, sidles from the spur.
'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen; 'E's chawin' up the ground, An' 'e's kickin' all around: "For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!" 'E carried me away To where a dooli lay, An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean. 'E put me safe inside, An' just before 'e died: "I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Din.
Word Of The Day