Kim was delighted, and the lama listened with deep interest.
'Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead--he died before Delhi! Lances of the North, take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the end, marking the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump.
'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent.

'It is long since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me.

See, Holy One--the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind.

For the most part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle road--all hard--takes the quick traffic.

In the days before rail-carriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds.