"Yes, Memsahib. But I think she will get well," the girl added hastily as she saw the lady"s anxiety. "I am sure she will get well, for I--I--prayed," she faltered.
"And I gave an offering to the G.o.ds," said the man servant in a pleased tone to himself, for he was listening interestedly, having followed the girl to the door.
"Get my topi, boy, and order the gari quickly," the memsahib called to her bearer. "I must go to Old Sarah at once. Where did you find her, child?"
So while the memsahib waited for her topi and the gari, Jessa told her the story of how Old Sarah had gone to the village to her friends for help but how they had fled from her and left her to die; how one of the frightened people had come to the village of which her father was head man and had told them; and how she herself, because she loved Old Sarah on account of the loving teaching she had received from her, how she had taken her servant and cart and gone to save the old woman"s life. She told the lady, too, of the condition in which she had found Old Sarah, of the journey to the city, and of the reception at the hospital. As she finished telling her story, she repeated her a.s.surance that the old woman would live because she, Jessa, had prayed to G.o.d.
The memsahib praised the girl for her bravery and thanked her for her kindness to Old Sarah who was very dear to the English lady"s heart. And as the gari came up just then she urged them to remain until her return from the hospital, but the girl felt that she must hurry back, since she knew that Old Sarah would be all right now. So they said good-bye and Jessa, having climbed into the cart, was trundled away by the faithful bullocks and the still more faithful Nado, whose gentle prodding of the bullocks was essential to their progress.
Meantime the memsahib had entered her gari and was being driven as fast as the ponies could take her to the hospital. There she was met by a nurse who said that she knew nothing of the case that the lady spoke of. Another nurse was called who knew nothing of such a woman as Old Sarah. The lady, however, would not be turned aside; the records must be searched. And searched they were. The nurses discovered that a cholera case had been brought in late the evening before, that the woman had died towards morning, and that already her body had been for some time in the hospital morgue.
"You must get her out at once," said the lady, "for she is not dead."
The nurses who had been uninterested until that moment then looked at the English lady in mild amazement, for how could a person who had been in the dead-house for several hours be still alive? But the lady was well known to them by reputation and they yielded to her wishes. At her demand they called the head nurse who, because she, too, knew much about this lady, revoked all hospital rules and permitted her to enter the morgue with them.
There lay Old Sarah"s form, covered with a sheet, upon the floor with other corpses. The familiar gray hair drew the memsahib"s eyes at once. She pulled back the sheet and felt for the heart.
"We"ll work over her. I do not think she is dead."
With incredulity not only in their hearts but written plainly upon their faces, the nurses had the body removed to an empty room. And then, because the little memsahib was a woman of such mighty spirit, they fell to work.
Old Sarah was not dead, although she had been for several hours numbered among the dead. Gradually circulation was restored. When the signs of life became unmistakable the nurses worked zealously to make up for the awful wrong that had almost been done. In a big, busy hospital, especially during times of stress, things sometimes are done in a hurry and mistakes are sometimes made.
The memsahib did not leave for several hours. When the dear old eyes opened at last, they looked around in wonder until they rested upon the memsahib"s face. Then a glad light shone from them and an eager voice whispered: "Oh, Memsahib, is this heaven?"
"No, Sarah, this is not heaven. You are still on earth with me, thank G.o.d!"
"I didn"t think it looked exactly like heaven," the old woman added a little later as she looked around at the bare walls, "but with Jesus and you, Memsahib, it would be heaven in any kind of place.
"I thought I was dead," she kept murmuring, evidently unable to get the idea out of her head.
"No, Sarah," the memsahib finally a.s.sured her, "you are very much alive and just to convince you I will scold you a little. Why, oh, why, Sarah, did you not come to me when you were taken ill?"
"Memsahib, Old Sarah knew she had the cholera and she could not expose the memsahib and the dear, little orphan children to it; so she just took her burial clothes and went away, thinking that her friends at Yenna, for whom she had travelled so many, many miles in her old age to tell them about Jesus, would take her in. But they ran away and left Old Sarah to die all alone."
"Were you not sorry then that you had not told me?" urged her mistress.
"No, Memsahib, not even then, for it was better that Old Sarah should die all alone than that the memsahib and the dear, orphan children should die too."
"You precious old woman!" The memsahib, sinking on her knees by the bed with her arms around the thin, brown shoulders, implanted a kiss upon the gray hair. "That is more than a white person would have done!" she said under her breath.
And as the English woman looked upon Old Sarah"s happy face and remembered the happy, trustful face of the young girl who had saved this life and declared that the old woman would live because of prayer, the memsahib realized that no hearts in the world were whiter before G.o.d than those of these brown people who loved Him well enough to be willing to lay down their lives for others. In beauty of form and feature these brown people often surpa.s.s the white races and she felt that with the love of the true G.o.d in their hearts they might surpa.s.s the white races, also, in the beauty of their lives and of their love.
IV
A Son of the Law
On an afternoon in the early days of the British occupancy of India, Blackmore-Sahib sat alone at the big desk in his study, in his hand a report which had just reached him from one of his districts. At his elbow the tea tray was untouched, although at this hour of the afternoon he was usually stretched out in a rattan chair in the living-room with the punkah swinging over him, the latest magazine, three months old at that, in his hand, and the tea tray already replaced on the small table beside his chair by the cigar service holding cigarettes all neatly rolled ready for his match. It was not because the report was urgent that he had forsaken his accustomed ease to prove it up; nor was it that he was particularly interested in the task, for apparently he was forcing himself to go over the lines of type and up and down the columns of figures. As his pencil reached the bottom of a column it would almost drop from his listless fingers until, with a start, he would begin upon the next row as if in great haste.
The bearer, entering the room noiselessly, saw the untouched tea tray standing just as he had left it a half hour before and looked anxiously at his master"s face. But without disturbing his master he removed it and turned to the side table where stood the tobacco service. Not a cigarette was rolled! He clumsily attempted to prepare some but none of his efforts were really successful.
However, he put several bulky ones in a saucer and placed them near his master"s hand. Still in silence but with many backward glances at the man bending over the slowly-moving pencil, the boy left the room.
As the boy closed the door, the man dropped the pencil upon the desk, put his hand to his head for a second, and then arose. He walked to the door into the living-room and seemed to listen for an instant; then he went back to the desk.
The servant, evidently having heard his master"s step, entered with fresh tea and toast.
"Is she better?"
As the boy set the tray down he replied hesitatingly, "No, Sahib, she is still groaning."
"You fool, don"t you suppose I can hear that? She has groaned incessantly since last night."
"What can I do?" The man asked the question of himself as he turned half around towards the veranda door.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "It was only a glimpse"]
"Won"t the Sahib have some tea?" suggested the boy timidly, for like every native-born this man feared his stalwart English master.
Blackmore-Sahib held out his hand without turning back from the door. "Yes, I will take a cup. Perhaps it will steady me a bit."
"Poor little Nona!" he sighed as he took the cup.
He gulped down the tea hurriedly and reached for a cigarette. But as his eyes fell on the clumsy ones in the saucer, they filled with tears and he walked quickly out upon the veranda without taking one.
Up and down he paced unheeding the streaks of sunshine which found their way in through the vines and fell upon his unprotected head.
"Poor Nona! Poor little girl!" he groaned. How skillfully she had always rolled his cigarettes, just to his taste! how daintily she had served his cup of tea! and how quietly she had sat every afternoon beside him, never disturbing his nap or reading! "Poor little Nona!" he sighed, for she might never sit beside him again.
He could hear her groans now from the bedroom at the other side of the great living-room. Pitiable, heart-breaking little groans they were! He could not trust himself even to go to the door and look in upon her.
And yet he did not really love her. Nona had made Blackmore-Sahib"s life very comfortable for the last ten years and he could not bear to think that she was suffering and probably would die. He did not want to lose his little Indian wife and her affectionate care for him, though of course she was his "wife" only according to the customs of many white men in dark lands. As he paced up and down he remembered how, when he had been sent by the government to this city in the heart of India away from every European a.s.sociation, he had rebelled until, seeing a pair of black eyes peeping from the doorway of a certain mud house, he had become very much interested in that section of the city although it belonged to a low caste of Hindus.
He remembered how for several evenings he had taken his evening walk in that locality and furtively watched that house door in which he again saw framed for a second a beautiful Indian face and a slender, lithe Indian figure in a red sari. After a few more visits he had several conversations with the men of the neighbourhood and had learned that the man who lived in that house was, as they all were, of low caste and desperately poor. Finally he had met the man himself whom he heard loudly lamenting because he could not afford to marry off his beautiful daughters. "Why, a wedding costs many rupees nowadays!" he had heard him say.
So the sahib by a little courteous inquiry had learned that the man had three unmarried daughters. By further courteous and diplomatic conversation he had conveyed to the father the idea that if he, the sahib, could have his choice of the three girls he would pay a dowry for one of them. After several evenings of discussion and bargaining the old man slowly and cautiously had consented, but the matter of giving the sahib his choice had been a trifle difficult even among the low caste. But, finally, having bidden the sahib stand at the other corner of the street where he could see without being particularly noticeable, on the evening the bargain was sealed, the old man had called his daughters one at a time to the door of the house on some trifling pretext. It had been only a glimpse, but as the third girl disappeared from the doorway, Blackmore-Sahib had been satisfied. On the very next evening, having promised to pay a sufficient number of rupees to marry off both of the other daughters, the Englishman had had the satisfaction of seeing a little draped figure enter a covered ekka and be driven away towards his bungalow.
He could remember, even after ten years, how the ekka had driven up to his door and how he, having reached the door before her arrival, would not pay the promised money until the girl"s veil had been lifted and he had seen for himself that no trickery had been played upon him and that this was the one of his choice. She had been very young, very timid, and very beautiful. He remembered that, cross, burly chap though he was, he had delighted to tease her out of her shyness and teach her the little ways by which she could make him happy and his bungalow a home. She had been an ignorant native girl, as the majority of Indian girls are, but she had soon learned to love him and she had always been beautiful to look upon.
They had not been married. That was not necessary in those days in the East. He had given her a good home and in doing that he had done his whole duty. Yet he had never mentioned her in his letters to England, for "they would not understand." Indeed, he had half expected until the last two years to go back to England and marry a fine girl whom he had known in boyhood. But when the time had drawn near he had decided to stay here as he was;--for what would become of Nona? He could not keep her, too, for even he did not think that way of living right. He sometimes longed for the green meadows and the hawthorne bush and the skylark, nevertheless he remained in India, for he could not take Nona and he could not leave her.
But now it seemed as if Nona were going to leave him. If she should die, he would be free to go to England to marry his childhood friend, for a recent letter from his brother had told him that Elizabeth was still unmarried and mistress of her own estate. But now, of a sudden, he did not want to go; he did not want to marry.
Indeed, he did not want anything but to stay here with Nona. He wanted Nona! She must not die! He needed her.
"Sahib!" A soft voice arrested his step and Nona"s ayah besought him: "Sahib, she is no better. May I get the memsahib? I think she can help her."
"What memsahib?" he asked, his voice gruff with emotion.