But it is hard to meditate when -- ' ` All women are thus . ' Kim spoke as might have Solomon . ` Before the lamassery was a broad platform , ' the lama muttered , looping up the well-worn rosary , ` of stone . On that I have left the marks of my feet -- pacing to and fro with these . ' He clicked the beads , and began the ` Om mane pudme hum 's of his devotion ; grateful for the cool , the quiet , and the absence of dust . One thing after another drew Kim 's idle eye across the plain . There was no purpose in his wanderings , except that the build of the huts near by seemed new , and he wished to investigate . They came out on a broad tract of grazing-ground , brown and purple in the afternoon light , with a heavy clump of mangoes in the centre . It struck Kim as curious that no shrine stood in so eligible a spot : the boy was observing as any priest for these things . Far across the plain walked side by side four men , made small by the distance . He looked intently under his curved palms and caught the sheen of brass . ` Soldiers . White soldiers ! ' said he . ` Let us see . ' ` It is always soldiers when thou and I go out alone together . But I have never seen the white soldiers . ' ` They do no harm except when they are drunk . Keep behind this tree . ' They stepped behind the thick trunks in the cool dark of the mango-tope .
Two little figures halted ; the other two XXXXX forward uncertainly .
began came looked made meditate observing see seen spoke struck