I cannot read." And then?' Kim peered at Mahbub under his eyebrows.
'Then thou wouldst have drunk water twice—perhaps thrice, afterwards. I do not think more than thrice,' said Mahbub simply.
'It is true. I thought of that a little, but most I thought that I loved thee, Mahbub. Therefore I went to Umballa, as thou knowest, but (and this thou dost not know) I lay hid in the garden grass waiting to see what Colonel Creighton Sahib might do upon reading the white stallion's pedigree.'
'And what did he?' for Kim had bitten off the conversation.
'Dost thou give news for love, or dost thou sell it?' Kim asked.
'I sell and—I buy.' Mahbub took a four-anna piece out of his belt and held it up.
'Eight,' said Kim, mechanically following the huckster instinct of the East.
Mahbub laughed, and put away the coin. 'It is too easy to deal in that market, Friend of all the World. Tell me for love. Our lives lie in each other's hand.'
'Very good. I saw the Jang-i-Lat Sahib come to a big dinner. I saw him in Creighton Sahib's office. I saw the two read the white stallion's pedigree. I heard the very orders given for the opening of a great war.'
'Hah!' Mahbub nodded with deepest eyes afire. 'The game is well played. That war is done now, and the evil nipped before the flower—thanks to me—and thee. And what didst thou do later?'
'I made the news as it were a hook to catch me victual and honour among the villagers in a village whose priest drugged my lama. But I bore away the old man's purse, and the Brahmin
