Some eighteen months afterwards, the doctor, being busy over that great hunt for the comma-shapedbacillus, which, as is told elsewhere, ended in a full stop for the seeker, saw a man come into his verandah with a note.
"The old swash-buckler, by all that's sinful," he said to himself. "Now, what can he want?" According to the superscription of the letter, it was a "Civil Surgeon"; according to a few almost illegible words inside, help for a suspected case of cholera in the European room of theserai.
Dr. Taylor, with grave doubts as to being able to supply either of these desires, went into the verandah.
"Is it Sonnybaba?" he asked.
Dhurm Singh's delight was boundless; since asahibto whom you have once spoken is not as othersahibs; just as asahibwhom you have once served becomes a demi-god--transfigured, immortal. Undoubtedly it was theBaba-sahib[11]--for unto this semi-religious title the old man had compounded his memories and his respect; who else was it likely to be, seeing that he, Dhurm Singh, had taken service with the master's son? Undoubtedly also he was ill, though, in the poor opinion of the dustlike one, it was not cholera--at least it need not have been if theBaba-sahibhad only taken the remedy proposed to him.
"Opium? hey!" asked Taylor, who in a huge pith hat which made him look like an animated mushroom, was by this time walking over to theserai, which was but a few hundred yards off.
The oldAkâligrinned from ear to ear, the massive curves of his lips stretching like india-rubber. "TheHuzoorknows the great gift of God in the bad places of mind and body. But theBaba-sahibwill not have it so. He understands not many things through being so young. But he learns, he learns!"
There was a cheerful content in the apology, suggestive of the possibility that Dhurm Singh had something to do with the teaching. If so, he had been an unsafe guide in one point; for it was cholera; cholera of the type which merges into a dreary convalescence of malarial fever, during which Dr. Taylor saw a good deal, necessarily and unnecessarily, of his old cabin companion; thus renewing a friendship which, like the majority of those struck up on board ship, would have been forgotten but for an accident--the accident of his doing civil duty for a colleague during ten days' leave.
"Civil Surgeon, indeed!" he would say, as he sat on the edge of the bed amusing Sonnybabawhen the latter began to pull round. "Deuce take me if I could be that to save my life! One of my patients the other day said I was the most uncivil person calling himself a gentleman she ever came across, just because I told her she couldn't expect her liver to act if she lived the life of a Strasburg goose. 'Liver!' she cried, 'why, doctor, it's all heart that is the matter with me.' Now, my dear boy, can you tell me why that unfortunate viscera, the liver, has got into such disrepute? You may tell a patient every other organ in the body is in a disgraceful state of disrepair, but if you hint at bile it's no use trying to be a popular physician. Stick to the heart! that's my advice to a youngster entering the lists. Both for the healer and the healed it is ennobling. Now you, for instance! you will put it all down to your ardent affection for your fellow-man; but what the devil have you done with your muscle, my dear fellow? Oh, I know! you have been doing thedâl-bhât[12]trick, in order to show your sympathy with the people, and to assimilate your wants to theirs, so that in some occult way they are to assimilate their religious beliefs to yours. Lordy, Lordy, what an odd creature man is! But you didn't get old Dhurm Singh to give up his kidpullao, I'll go bail. Now, he looks fit--more like your Church Militant business than you do."
"I've--I've given up the Army," said Sonnybabaafter an embarrassed pause.
And Dr. Taylor actually refrained from asking why, or from saying he was glad to hear it; for there was a puzzled, pained look in his patient's face, which, like any other unfavourable symptom, had to be attended to at once. In the verandah, however, he commented on the news to Dhurm Singh, who with his turban off and his long white hair coiled round the high wooden comb like any woman's, was putting an extra fine polish to his sword to while away the time.
"Huzoor!it is true. It did not suit us. I told theBaba-sahibso from the beginning. They were not of his caste. As the Protector may see, I did all in my power. I set aside the steel bracelets and the quoits. I refrained myself to humility and carried a tambourine, but to no purpose. It did not suit. So now, praise be to the Lord, we have taken 'pinson' again, and the Baba is to serve the BigLât-padre(bishop) according tohukm(orders), as all thepadre sahibsdo."
As he drove home, the doctor decided that he would gladly give a month's pay to know the history of the past year and a half. The very imagination of it made him smile. Yet there must have been more than mere laughter in his thoughts, for even when the lad grew strong enough to resume the arguments which had begun in the cabin, the doctor never tried to force his confidence. And Sonnybabawas reserved on some points. But the enthusiasm, and the fervour, and the faith were strong in him as ever, though the angelic voice now busied itself with Hymns Ancient and Modern; especially the Ancient. For, face to face with the Rig-Vedas, the advantages of unquestioned authority had begun to show themselves.
There is no need to repeat the arguments on either side; they are easily imagined, given the characters of the arguers. Nor is it difficult to imagine the grip of hands when they parted. One of them, no doubt, said something about the other not being far from a certain kingdom, and the saying was not resented, though, no doubt, the hearer laughed softly over the comma-shapedbacillusas he watched Sonnybabaand the old swash-buckler set off together to the wilderness again. The former to itinerate from village to village, learning the language and lives of the people he hoped by and by to convert; the latter, presumably, to complete the education he had begun. They were an odd couple.
"Ten to one on the swash-buckler," thought the doctor; "he is a fine old chap."
Christmas had come and gone ere Sonnybabareappeared in civilised society. When he did so he looked weather-beaten and yet spruce--the natural result on a healthy young Englishman of combined exposure to sunshine and a good washerman.
"Hullo!" cried the doctor cheerily, "back again in boiled shirts, I see! Find 'em a bit stiff, I expect, afterkurtasanddhotees. The natives know how to dress comfortably at any rate."
Sonnybabablushed under his bronze and hesitated. "The fact is," he said with an effort, "I did not, after all, adopt native costume as I intended, or perhaps"--here a faint smile obtruded itself--"I might say it wouldn't adopt me. You see, to enter into details, I couldn't exactly give up--a--a night shirt, or that sort of thing, you know--now could I? And what with being a very sound sleeper, and sleeping in public places--serai'sanddhurmsâlas--or out in the open--somehow my day clothes were always being stolen. As soon as ever I got a new outfit it disappeared, until at last Dhurm Singh said,--"
"Yes! what did Dhurm Singh say?"
"That it was very peculiar, and that as the thieves didn't seem to fancy my English clothes it might be--more economical--" Here a half-embarrassed laugh finally interrupted the sentence. "I don't think I was sorry," went on the speaker hastily; "I found out afterwards that the people don't understand it. One old fellow asked me why it was that though a native convert always had to wear trousers like thesahib-logue, the 'missen' people preferred to preach without them? Of course it was an exaggeration both ways, but the more I see of these people, the more necessary it seems to me that we should be ourselves armed at all points before beginning the attack. And then their poverty, their patience, the insanitary conditions--the needless suffering! Surely before we can touch their minds--"
"I know," broke in the doctor cynically. "Medical missions,et cetera; so it has come to that already, has it, old chap?"
"I don't know what you mean by its having come to that," retorted Sonny at a white heat; "but if you think it right to live in the lap of luxury while these brothers and sisters of ours--"
So the arguments began again, more fiercely than ever, for the two fought at closer quarters--so close that ofttimes the doctor had to retreat from his own position and seek another, because Sonnybabahad already entrenched himself therein; the which is a direful offence, rousing determined resistance in a real argufier.
Despite this, Sonnybabarented a room in the doctor's house, and shared the doctor's dinners and library and hospital after the easy Indian fashion, while Dhurm Singh swaggered about among the dispensary badge-wearers, explaining at full length why he did not wear a badge like the rest of them. Hissahibhad not yet settled which branch of the public service he would exalt by his presence. He was young, doubtless, as yet, but he made strides. Two years ago he had found him in a very poor "naukeri" (service), in which he paid all the rupees and no one gave him anything; a topsy-turvy arrangement: not that hissahibneeded thepaisas. He was rich as a nawab. Then he thought of being apadre sahib; now it wasdoctorédepartment, but in his, Dhurm Singh's opinion, that was not much either. Personally he would just as soon wear no badge, as one of those with "Charitable Dispensary" on it. But only God knew where theBaba-sahibmight end; at Simla, as "burra Lât sahib," no doubt. Till then it was more dignified to refrain from ignoble badges of which afterwards one might be ashamed.
And while he talked in this fashion he sat in the sunshine combing his long hair, and piously wondering how folk could defile their insides with tobacco. Then he would stroll off into the shadow and bring out the black lump of dreams. Yet if Sonnybabacame out into the verandah calling after the Indian fashion for some one, the broad northern accent was always ready with its "Huzoor!"
So the months passed in preparations, and the angelic voice might have been heard to sing "Lead, kindly Light" more often than any other hymn in the book. About this time, also, Sonnybabaspeaking of Dhurm Singh and his ways, used to quote in rather a patronising manner a certain text regarding those who might expect to be beaten with few stripes--a speech which roused the doctor to vigorous retort. He had observed, he said, that the remark held good about most honest, healthy men who could play singlestick.
The fact being, however, that Sonnybabawas beginning to get obstinate, as is only natural when a man passes five and twenty. It was time, he felt, to begin work in earnest; for the enthusiasm and the faith and the fervour were as hot as ever in him still. Looking back on the last three years he hardly understood why he had done so little.
"There seems so much to learn before one can even begin on the problem," he sighed, "and then, dear as the old man is, I really think Dhurm Singh is a drawback. I hoped when we left the Army--but indeed, Taylor, I think even you will allow that he is hardly the sort of man for a missionary's servant."
"Well, I don't know that I should classify him under that head; but then," he paused, thinking, perhaps, that when all was said and done the master was no more fit for the place than the servant.
"I'm glad you agree with me," put in Sonny eagerly, "for I've quite made up my mind to a change. You have no idea how the old fellow hectors over getting me a pint of milk or a couple of eggs. You would think I was about to loot a whole village. I must own that I invariably get what I want--that, too, without the least unpleasantness; but it is not edifying. Not the sort of thing that ought to go on. Then his habit of eating opium. It does not seem to hurt him, I own; but that again is not what it ought to be. It is bad enough to belong to a race who, while they go about with words of condemnation on their lips--"
"Pardon me," murmured the doctor, "I pass--"
"--on their lips, are at the same time battening on the proceeds of an infamous monopoly of a drug dealing death and disease to a whole continent."
"One-third of one per cent of the total population," murmured the doctor again.
"You forget the opium grown in China," put in Sonny with great heat.
"My dear fellow, isn't there a story somewhere about the Emperor of China's clothes? If I remember right he forgot to put 'em on, and then every one was afraid to tell him he was naked. It appears to me that in this opium business the good gentleman hasn't a rag of reason for complaint, but that you are all afraid to say so. If we can prevent our subjects from growing poppy except under supervision, why can't he? It isn't Jonah's gourd, but a three month crop."
Sonnybababegan to walk up and down the room excitedly. "It is perfectly inexplicable to me how a man like you--"
"Excuse me," interrupted the doctor. "I'll explain. I'm forty-four years of age. Two and twenty years of that I lived in a parish in Scotland where every decent, respectable body would have thought shame to himself if he didn't have more whisky than he could carry on market days. The other two and twenty I've spent in India. Out of cantonments, where they've learnt the trick from us, I only remember having met two drunken men in all those years, and though I see more of the natives than most people, I can only call to mind three who might be said to have suffered seriously from the effects of opium.[13]But it is a subject which it is quite useless to discuss. It turns on a question of heredity, like most things. The Indo-Germanic races never have taken and never will take to narcotics, so naturally they abuse them--and drink instead.Chacun à son gout."
"And mine is to give poor old Dhurm Singh an extra pension when I go itinerating, and send him back to end his days in peace in his village."
The doctor whistled. "Don't you wish you may get him to do it?"
"He must if he is a hindrance to the work--"
"And if your work is a hindrance to him? That's what it comes to all round. He was put in charge of you, and mark my words, Dhurm Singh will do itdhurm nâluntil he goes to settle the vexed question."
"What vexed question?"
"Whether his work or yours was the better."
"Dhurm Singh?"
"Huzoor."
After five and twenty years the same appeal--the same reply. But on that May night and July day neither the man nor the woman had any doubt as to what was to come next; the universe held no possibility save "themem sahib" or "SonnybabaBut the latter, now it came to his turn, hesitated; even while he was conscious that to a well-balanced mind capable of weighing advantage and disadvantage fairly, there ought to be no difficulty in telling any one that you had no further need for his services. The recollection of certain thin-lipped, dignified, self-respecting conversations overheard at home sprang to memory obtrusively. "Then, Mary Ann, it had better be this day month." "Yes, ma'am, this day month, if you please; and if you please, ma'am, Wednesdays and Saturdays from eleven till one, if convenient, for a character."
But things were different somehow in this heathen country, which was so backward in education, so ignorant of liberty, equality, and--ahem!
"Dhurm Singh," began Sonny once more rather hurriedly.
"Huzoor."
"I--I am going to make a complete change of plan, Dhurm Singh. I--I am going to begin work on a new principle. I--I am going to start in another part of the country where I shall not require--er--many things I have hitherto required." He paused, well satisfied at his plungein medias res.
Dhurm Singh, standing attention at the door, smiled approvingly. "It is a good word,Huzoor. So said theGurusalso. When do we start?"
Half an hour afterwards Sonnybabain rather a shamefaced manner, told the doctor that, after all, he had come to the conclusion it would be better not to dismiss Dhurm Singh. To begin with, the village children delighted in his tales, and then--it was a triviality, no doubt, perhaps in a measure a giving in to prejudice--the elders certainly set store by position; for instance, they were always more ready to listen to him if the old swash-buckler had had an opportunity of giving the family history, embellishments and all. In addition, Dhurm Singh had promised to amend his ways generally; to spend his days in compounding pills and potions instead of hectoring about. Finally, he had agreed to an allowance of opium, swearingdhurm nâlto take no more than was served out by the master.
"Of course," said Sonnybabaat this juncture, with a considerate superiority which raised every atom of the doctor's original sin, "I shall be careful, I shall not dock it too much at once; but in the course of a year or two I hope to break him entirely of this most pernicious habit."
"Which has never done him or his surroundings the least harm," growled Taylor savagely. "Upon my soul, I begin to wish I were five and twenty again, if only that I might be as cock-sure of being right about everything as you are. As it is, even thebacillus--" He wrinkled his eyes over the microscope once more, and did not finish his sentence.
After this Dhurm Singh might have been seen any day of the week in the dispensary verandah grinding away vigorously with pestle and mortar at unsavoury medicaments, rolling pills under his flexible brown fingers, or polishing up surgical instruments with all the fervour bestowed of yore on the old sword.
"Lo! if theBaba-sahibcares not for being a bigHâkm(magistrate, ruler), sure the next best thing is to be a bigHâkeem(doctor)," he would say, smiling simply at his own wit. "And doth not theGurusay, 'Fight with no weapon but the sword of the Spirit'? Besides, when I feel like fighting I can put an edge to the knives or pound harder with the pestle. God knows they may both do more damage than a sabre. Then the rolling of pills is ever the first step towards dream-getting. Thus in all ways, I, Dhurm Singh, Sikh, ex-duffadar,pinson-wallah, andAkâli, am consoled. But there! God is good to the Sikh. Know you that He never made an ugly one yet?"
This was a favourite boast of the old man's, backed always, should doubts be expressed, by a modest appeal to his own looks, joined to an assertion--which, by the way, was perfectly true--that he was the meanest looking of ten brothers.
So, in due season, the doctor once more watched the odd couple pass out together into the wilderness; and this time, noticing the change in Sonnybabaand remembering the raw lad who had been his cabin companion, he, so to speak, put his whole pile on Dhurm Singh--unless the boy killed him with philanthropy.
The rains, after an unusually heavy fall, had ceased early, the result being an epidemic of autumnal fever. Now the cholera may kill its thousands, but year by year, with every now and again a sort of jubilee over its own strength, malaria kills its tens of thousands quietly, unostentatiously; so quietly, that it is only when the officer in charge of a district finds himself during his cold weather camp deciding the rival claims to hereditary offices day after day in village after village, that even he realises how widely the archangel Azrael has spread his wings over the people. The doctor, however, judging simply by the weather, sent Sonny into the jungles well supplied with that carmine-tinted quinine which carries the fact of its being Government property in its colour: a useless attempt to prevent the sale of charity in a land where the regulation five grain powder is as much a part of the currency as a two anna bit. Well supplied, yet at the same time with cautions not to be over generous except in genuine cases. Let him stick to the country medicines as prophylactics. Opium and aconite were to be had for the buying; and if he did wander into the low jungles close to the hills, and if he could be tolerant and learn not to despise old wisdom, let him prescribe the former in preference to the latter--though perhaps that was too much to expect from a five-and-twenty-year old who was cock-sure he knew best.
"I know nothing of myself," replied Sonny in all seriousness. "The Eternal Right decides. There lies the difference between you and me--pardon me if I say between the Christian and the Unbeliever. You trust to your finite mind, I to Something which is and was, which cannot err."
And Dhurm Singh, gleefully employed in turning a cash transport mule with its fixings into a perambulating dispensary, was keeping up his character of devotee by repeating verses from theAdhee Grunt'h[14]in sing-song; his round, mellow voice echoing out through the sunshine--
"Remember, oh man, the primal truth--the Truth ere the world began.The Truth which is and the Truth which must remain.How can this Truth be told, save by doing the will of the Lord?"
"Remember, oh man, the primal truth--the Truth ere the world began.
The Truth which is and the Truth which must remain.
How can this Truth be told, save by doing the will of the Lord?"
"Listen!" said Taylor, and Sonnybabamoved uneasily in his chair.
When these same preparations were complete, the old man's delight was huge; and he drove the mule forth to the wilderness before him with much futile waving of the stick which had replaced the sword. Even over that abnegation he was cheerful.
"Lo! I am turned adhundi-wallah[15]in mine old age, as becomes the pious-minded.Ari!thou misbegotten offspring of a mixed race doomed to childless extinction, wilt stray from the beaten path! Wouldst steal the corn of others, when thy master is amissen sahib, and thy tender a devotee? May the uttermost--"
Then to Sonny's pained reproof he would reply, cheerfully as ever, that he had understood the refraining of his tongue from abuse was to be towards those born of Adam; and this was not even a God-created thing, but a nondescript invented by thesahib-logue.
Cheerful always; even when, as time went on, his daily pills of opium were mixed with quinine. He sat and compounded them himselfdhurm nâl, keeping no grain of the beloved dream-giver from the sacrilegious mixture, and telling the full tale of the "fiat pillulæ" into the master's locked medicine chest, whence they were doled out daily.
For the first month or more, everything went smoothly. Never before had Sonnybabahad such attentive listeners to the great truths he expounded as a preliminary to his other work; never before had he felt that he was really on the right tack, really had his opportunity of a fair hearing. The letters he wrote home to his aunt who, fond woman, had faithfully followed, as woman can do, every step in the career of her darling with unswerving confidence, filled that excellent creature with sheer, unalloyed delight. She told all her circle of friends that her nephew had fulfilled her dearest wishes in going in for the medical mission, which was undoubtedly the only way of getting at the poor, dear natives.
And Sonny, in less emotional fashion, felt this to be so true that he worked as he had never worked before. A sort of feverish desire to utilise every opportunity, to lose no occasion for preaching the great Gospel of Peace came over him, and he spared himself not at all, after the manner of his kind.
So that sometimes returning tired out in evening from some long tramp, it was a relief to find the old swash-buckler ready with kidpullaoor "rose chikken,"[16]and to see the tea-kettle swinging over a fire of twigs. Sometimes after they entered the tract of forest-land near the foot of the hills, the indefatigable old poacher would produce a stew of black partridge; and once Sonny, coming home to the tiny tent late at night, found his henchman keeping an eye on roast pork, and at the same time utilising the flame-light in giving a suspicious clean to the biggest surgical knife--a queer picture seen by the fire, leaping and dancing up into the shadows of a mango grove.
But one evening Sonny came home with no appetite for dinner, and half an hour afterwards he was blue and shivering in the cold fit of ague.
"If theHuzoorwould take some of my pills," said Dhurm Singh wistfully; "look at me! nothing touches me, and, lo! am I not three times as near the grave as theBaba-sahib?"
There is no need to describe the scorn which this suggestion met. As for the pills, where would the old sinner be but for the quinine contained therein? This was nothing but a chill, an isolated attack. He would take an extra dose of the specific and be done with it.
But the third day, suddenly, in the very middle of an eloquent appeal he felt goose skin going in thrills down his back, and five minutes after the only sound he could make was the chattering of his teeth.
"If theHuzoor," began Dhurm Singh, but was checked by the frown on the master's face; for the lad had grit and fire in him.
Neither of these, however, avail much against a tertian ague, and it was not long before Sonnybabain the half-querulous, half-hysterical stage before the hot fit merges into perspiration, confided with tears to the old swash-buckler that it was no use. He was an accursed being. From the very beginning had it not been so? And then he retailed garrulously many and many an incident of the past three years, forgotten by his retainer, in which something had occurred to mar the smooth working of good luck. Something as often as not, it struck the listener, to be referred to his own share in the business. To the speaker it was otherwise. He was not fit for the work; he was of no account, and now when at long last the time had come, when he felt that his hand was on the plough--
"It is time theBaba-sahibtook his quinine," remarked Dhurm Singh sagely, unsympathetically. "If theHuzoorwill give the keys of the chest, this dust-like one will bring the medicine--dhurm nâl." The last words came softly, half to himself, and an important, self-satisfied smile broadened the open face as he made his choice among the bottles. "Lo! there it is," he continued, laying two pills in the burning hand before passing his one arm under the burning body, "but theHuzoormust have faith. Without it medicine is but a bad taste in the mouth. He who believes shall be saved."
Perhaps Sonnybabatook his advice yet once again, perhaps the quinine got a fair hold of the enemy at last. Certain it is that from the time Dhurm Singh commenced to bring the pillsdhurm nâl, the ague began to abate. At the end of a week Sonnybabawas eating "rose chicken" once more with appetite. That evening, as the sun was setting red over the thick brakes of sugar-cane, the old man sat pounding diligently with pestle and mortar while he intoned away at theAdhee Grunt'h--
"God asks no man of his birth,He asks him what he has done,Since all are the seed of God,Lo! what is the world but clay,Tho' the pots are of many moulds."
"God asks no man of his birth,
He asks him what he has done,Since all are the seed of God,Lo! what is the world but clay,Tho' the pots are of many moulds."
And Sonnybabalying out in the shade blissfully conscious that he was getting better, nay, that he was better, raised himself on one arm and looked over with moist eyes to the old man.
"What are you doing, Dhurm Singh?"
"This slave makes pills. TheHuzoorhath eaten so many, and those of the dust-like one have given out also. Lo! I fill the bottles against the return of theBaba-sahibto his medicine chest."
"But, I say! are you sure you have made them right?"
"TheHuzoormay rest satisfied. Five grains of the blessed medicine for the master, and the other as before. It isdhurm nâl, Huzoor."
"So you call it a blessed medicine now, Dhurm Singh?"
"Wherefore not, since the master is better?"
"Well! the addition of that small quantity of ipecacuanha which I began--let me see--that day when I was so bad, certainly had a marvellous effect. I shall write and tell Taylor about it; he was inclined to sneer at the idea just because he didn't suggest it. Doctors are awfully jealous of each other. That's the worst of them."
These remarks were made mostly for his own benefit, as he lay comfortably watching the stars come out one by one as the daylight died.
It was that same night that Dhurm Singh had his first go of ague. It shook him as a sharp attack of malarious fever does shake a native past his prime, and Sonnybabaamid his regrets, could not avoid a certain elation.
"So much for opium," he said, and yet in his heart of hearts a fear gained ground that perhaps he might have been over rapid in diminishing the dose. Now that the old man was actually ill, it seemed unkind to deny him comfort; so an addition was made to the number of pills, thus increasing the amount both of opium and quinine.
It was more than a month later that a small procession of two men carrying a string bed on their heads, and one man driving a pack mule, turned into the dispensary compound.
"It is the old man," said Sonnybabato the doctor, "and I'm afraid--" he paused before the break in his own voice. "It was thatterailand. I was as bad as could be, and thought I should have to give up; but, under Providence, quinine and ipec. pulled me round to do the best work I have ever done in my life. But he--he would stick to the opium, and then I'm afraid that at first I hardly noticed--you see he went round as usual, bragging he was better. So I didn't think--the work was so absorbing, and I myself felt so fit. Otherwise, I might have gone to a healthier part, though, of course, the impression would not have been so good. Still--it came upon me quite by surprise three days ago--and--and I've brought him in by forced marches. You--" The voice failed again. Indeed, there was no need for more, the doctor being already on his knees by the bed, making his examination. Suddenly he looked up.
"Why the devil did you stop his opium, you young fool? Here, Boota Mull, the syringe and a disc of morphia--sharp. But, after all, what does anything matter so long as you save your own soul alive!"
Sonnybabalooking very white, drew himself up into dignity. "We can discuss that question by and by, Dr. Taylor. In the mean time, let me warn you, that the man has already had ten grains of opium in the last twenty-four hours."
The doctor's quick hands were at the closed eyelids. "Ten grains--bosh! But, as you say, those questions can be settled by and by--when he is dead, if you like."
Sonnybaba'sface had grown whiter still. "I tell you he has had the opium--I gave it to him myself--I was afraid--" he paused abruptly, and the doctor looking up shot a rapid glance of negation towards him.
"There's a mistake, or else-- It doesn't matter now, at any rate. The thing is done."
But Sonnybabadid not hear the latter words; he was beside the mule, fumbling hastily in the travelling dispensary, of which the old man had been so proud, for the medicine chest. His hands trembled as he brought it back; and Dr. Taylor, his face unseen, yet with its keenness shown in every movement of the capable hands busy over the morphia, heard an odd sound--something between a gasp and a cry--behind him. Then some one came and knelt down at the other side of the bed.
"Dhurm Singh!"
But there was no answer.
"Dhurm Singh, you can tell them it wasdhurm nâl, and that I killed you."
* * * * *
"Killed him--fudge! Though, upon my soul, it would serve you right if you had. So the old sinner changed the pills, and it wasn't the ipec. after all. Most reprehensible practice, and, upon my soul, it would serve him right if he did die. Now--don't be a fool, man! I tell you he shan't die--I won't let him die. Besides, he can't die--it's impossible--absolutely impossible."
Despite his despair and dejection, the young man gave a wan smile at the other's vehemence.
"And why?"
"Because of you, naturally. You don't suppose that you're fit to be trusted alone with a medicine chest, do you? Boota Mull, if you don't hurry up with that turpentine and the brandy mixture I'll report you. So it wasn't the ipec. after all! I'm glad of that."
In after years the young fellow used to deny strenuously that it had been the opium either. Plainly and palpably he had been cured of his fever "by faith." And as for Dhurm Singh? What the doctor said was true; he could not be spared as yet. How could he be spared when even now from the verandah came a woman's voice, soft, confident--
"Dhurm Singh, Sonnybaba."
"Huzoor! dhurm nâl."
And any one looking out might have seen a very old man, gorgeous in scarlet raiment, decked with golden lace and golden curls, as a child's head nestled up against a solitary arm, and a child's fingers played with the solitary medal, or tugged unavailingly at the hilt of the old sword.
"TheHuzooris too young," would come the broad, arrogant voice, "but he will learn--he will learn. Even a Sikh is made, not born. He must wait till the years bring the Sacred Steel. Let theHuzoorrest awhile peacefully, and old Dhurm will sing to him."
Then there would be a surreptitious swallowing of a pill before the drowsy chant began.
"He is of theKhâlsa[17]Who combats in the van,Who gives in charity,Who loves the Poor.He is of theKhâlsaWhose mind is set on God,Who never fears though often overcome,Knowing all men created of one God.He is of theKhâlsaWho lives in arms,Who combats with the wrong,Who keeps--the--faith--"
"He is of theKhâlsa[17]
Who combats in the van,Who gives in charity,Who loves the Poor.
He is of theKhâlsaWhose mind is set on God,Who never fears though often overcome,Knowing all men created of one God.
He is of theKhâlsaWho lives in arms,Who combats with the wrong,Who keeps--the--faith--"
So there would be a silence broken only by the even breathing of the old man and the child.
For Sonnybabaand his wife, watching the scene from within, only looked into each other's eyes and said nothing.
"According to established precedent it is reported, under section so and so, that one Buddha Singh of Kidderjana having died, his rightful heirs inherit." The court-reader's voice hurried the liquid Urdu syllables into long, sleepy cadences like the drone of a humble-bee entangled in the swaying punkah overhead. Backwards and forwards, rising and falling, the rhythm seemed to become part of me, until the colourless reports were a monotonous lullaby, and each wave of sound and motion bore me farther from earth, nearer to the land of dreams. Ah! if the right people always inherited, and my old uncle received ticket-of-leave from the gout, I might afford furlough, and stand once more on that big boulder at the foot of the One-stone pool waiting for a new ring of light to show on the dark eddy by the far side--a ring with a swirl and a gleam of silver scales in the centre, a tightening line under the finger, till the reel went whirr-rr-rr-rr! It was a lovely dream while it lasted.
"According to established precedent, the canal-officer reports, under section so-and-so, that certain rebellious persons in Chori-pani have opened the sluices of the cut, and taken water that did not belong to them." The heather-sweet breeze off the One-stone pool ceased to blow, and I was back, with the punkah, in the humanity-laden atmosphere of the court-house, where even the mosquitoes were glutted, and the lizards, hanging head downwards on the wall, looked as if they had congestion of the brain. Stealing water! Poor wretches, who could blame them with their crops withering in the June sun and the sluice-doors within reach? Even a juicy apple on a hot day is irresistible, despite Farmer Smith's big dog watching from below, while you sit on the lower branch, and Jerry sits on the upper, eating all the ripe fruit just to pass the time, and thanking Providence meanwhile for making you Christian children in a cider-country!
"According to established precedent it is reported, under section so-and-so, that the devil was born three days ago in village Hairan-wallah. Orders are requested. Meanwhile thechowkidar[watchman] remains watching the same." Startled into wakefulness, I looked sharply to see if the reader had not been nodding in his turn; but my alertness merely produced a respectful iteration of the paragraph, which showed all too clearly my subordinate's explanation of the sudden display of attention.
The suspicion of sleep is always irritating. "Sarishtadar!" [clerk of the Court] I began in English, "what, the devil?"
"Nossir," interrupted the reader suavely in the same language, "pardon the suggestion, sir, but the devil is somewhat free translation, sir. In Dictionarybhut(the word used, sir,) equals anindefinitedevil, thusadevil,afiend,aimp--pardon the indiscretion, sir! an imp."
A glow of proud humility at his own quick detection of these trivial errors filled up the pause which followed, while the punkah went on swinging, and I sat wondering if I were asleep or awake. Finally thesarishtadardipped his pen in the ink, fluttered the superfluous moisture on the carpet, and suggested deferentially that thechowkidarwas waiting for orders. A sudden curiosity as to what his self-complacent brain, surcharged with Western culture, would do with the situation made me reply curtly, "The usual orders."
I managed to forbear laughing in the grave face raised to mine in deprecating apology. "I am unable, sir," he said after a pause, "to recall, at the present moment, any section, penal or civil, suitable to occasion. Would you kindly jog memory, sir, by suggesting if it is under judicial or administrative heads? Or perhaps," he added, as a bright after-thought, "it is political job." Then, I regret to say, I went off into yells of unseemly mirth, as most Englishmen have to do at times over the portentous solemnity of the Aryan brother.
There was a stir in the verandah, a sudden waking to renewed effort on the part of the punkah coolie, resulting in a general breeziness. Or was it that Terence O'Reilly, our young Irish doctor, as he came into the darkened Court, brought with him a thought of fresh air, a remembrance of Nature in her sunniest, most lovable moods? He invariably suggested such things to me at any rate, and as he paused in astonishment at my indecorous occupation, I thought once more that it was a pleasure simply to look at him. His face sympathised promptly with the unknown joke. "Whwhat the divvle are ye laughing at--me?" he asked in a rich brogue as he seated himself astride a chair, in which equestrian position his dandy costume for polo showed to great advantage.
Nero fiddling over the flames of Rome is sympathy itself compared to the indifference with which we often speak the first lines of a coming tragedy in every-day life. So it was with a jest that I introduced Terence O'Reilly to the existence of thebhut-baby, and in so doing became instantly aware that he surpassed me in other things besides good looks. He could scarcely be said to become grave, for to lose brightness would have been to lose the essence of the man, but his expression grew to a still more vivid reflex of his mind. "'Twill be one of those poor little craytures that come into this worrld God knows why," he said with an infinite tenderness of voice. "Ten to wan 'tis better it should die, fifty to wan I can do nothing to help it, but I'll ride over and see annyhow."
Thesarishtadarlaid aside his pen somewhat mournfully, the practical being out of his line; while I, smitten by admiration into immediate regret at my own indifference, murmured something about having thought of going over next morning.
"There's no time loike the present, my dear fellow," he replied buoyantly. "The pony's at the door, and sure I'm got up for riding annyhow;" and as he spoke he stretched out his long legs, and surveyed their immaculate boots and breeches critically.
"And what will your team do without their best forward?" I asked, feeling a certain captiousness at his prompt decision.
"Get along with your blarney! Sure it's practising, and you can take my place at that anny day; indeed 'twas to fetch you I ventured into the dock, for whin I caught a glimpse of your face at the jail this morning I said to meself, 'Terence, me bhoy, that's a case of polo, or blue pill, for by the powers his liver's not acting.' So 'twas to hound you into exercise I came annyhow."
A feverish desire to amend and excuse my own lukewarmness shot up through the loophole his words afforded. "To tell the truth, Iwasfeeling a bit slack; but if you'll wait five minutes while I slip over to the bungalow and change my clothes, I'll ride with you to Hairan-wallah. It will be better for me than polo; I might get over-heated, you know."
"'Tis over-eating, not over-heatingthat's the matter with you, me bhoy," he replied coolly; "but I'm proud,--and by the powers!" he added, starting up in great excitement, "you shall ride my pony; I call him Blue Pill, for he's better than wan anny day; and while you're dressing I'll send mesyceround for the Lily of Killarney. I've a bet on her at thegymkhananext Monday, and we'll try her on the quiet against the stable."
Half an hour afterwards I was enjoying plenteous exercise, and it seemed to me, far behind, as if the Lily--a great black beast without a single white hair on her--was trying to buck Terence over into the saffron-coloured horizon, as she went along in a series of wild bounds. He came back to me, however, after a time, as fresh as paint; but the mare, with head down and heaving flanks, appeared to have had enough of it.
"'Tis a pity the faymale sex is so narvous," he said casually. "Ye can't hold 'em responsible for annything; but if it wasn't for hysteria they'd be angels entirely. She has the paces of wan, annyhow."
Fourteen miles of constant canal cuts, that were a perpetual joy to the doctor and a terror to me, brought us to Hairan-wallah, a large village standing among irrigated fields. Here cautious inquiries for the devil led us to a cluster of mud huts beyond the pale, where the low-caste servants of the community dwelt apart. Before reaching it we were joined by the head-men and their followers, all anxious to explain and excuse the calamity which had befallen their reputation; but as the fear of evil eye had prevented any of them from personally inspecting the fiend, the accounts of its appearance were wildly conflicting. The doctor, indeed, refused to listen to them, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and rode along affably discussing the crops with an aged patriarch. His manner changed, however, when we were requested to dismount, and he led the way into the enclosure where, guarded by the policechowkidar, the devil-baby lay awaiting Government orders. The courtyard was hung round with coloured thread, old iron, and other devices against witchcraft, and a group of low-caste men and women were huddled up dejectedly in one corner. So far the crowd followed us; but when some of the reputed relations showed us into a dark out-house at the further end, even curiosity failed to prevent a visible hanging-back. Blinded by the change from the glare outside, I could at first see nothing but my companion's tall form bending over a bundle of rags on a low stool, beside which a half-naked hag sat chanting a guttural charm; and before I regained clearer sight his voice rang out in tones of evident relief, "By the powers! 'tis only a black albino."
The bull was perfect, seeing that it conveyed succinctly a very accurate description. Thebhut-baby was a black, a very black albino, for the abnormal colouring was confined to its hair, which was unusally well developed, and grew in tight clustering curls over its head like a coachman's wig. The faint eyebrows and eyelashes were also white, and the result, if not devilish, was extremely startling. For the rest, it was as fine a man-child as ever came to gladden a mother's heart. I deemed it asleep till I saw the doctor bend closer, and then raise the eyelid in keen professional scrutiny.
"Where's the mother?" he cried, turning like lightning on the nearest male relative, and seizing him by the scruff of the neck in order to emphasise his words. "Bring her at once, or I'll go inside and fetch her myself. The child has been left to starve," he added rapidly in English, "and it's nigh dead of neglect. You're a magistrate! Make them bring the devil of a mother here at once, or it will die."
But they met my commands and remonstrances with frightened obstinacy, asserting after some hesitation that the mother was dead, had died virtuously of shame at bringing such disgrace to her people. I had every reason to believe this statement was a lie, but no means of proving it to be one, for of course the whole village favoured it.
Then there came to Terence O'Reilly's face a look that was good to see, but not to endure. "And if the poor little creature has lost its own mother," he cried in that strong, round voice of his, "are there no other women among you all with the milk of kindness in their breasts that will give it a drink for the sake of the time when they took suck themselves? Look at it! What are you all frightened of? 'Tis as fine a babe as a woman could bear. Only the white hair of it, and God knows we shall all come to that if we are spared. Look at it, I say! Handle it, and see for yourselves!"
Suiting the action to the word, he lifted the infant in his arms and carried it out to the lingering light of day, among the crowd which fell back in alarm from him and his burden. He did, indeed, look somewhat of an avenging angel with his face ablaze with indignant appeal. There was a scuttling from behind as some of the head-men tried to force a sweeper-woman to the front, but ere they succeeded she had promptly gone into hysterics, and so roused a murmur of disapprobation and dismay among the rest. Her shrieks brought Terence back to earth; and ceasing to hold the child at arm's length, as if offering it for acceptance, he turned to me once more. "At least your magistracy can make them bring me milk. If ye can't even do that, then God help the British rule!"
Stung by the sarcasm, I exerted myself to such an extent, that three separate head-men arrived breathless at the same moment with largelotahsfull of nourishment for the devil, or any one else on whom the Presence was foolish enough to bestow it. So much lay within their conceptions of duty.
The scene which followed will linger in my memory until memory itself ceases to be. Terence in polo-costume seated on a string bed under the darkening skies with the devil on his lap, feeding it methodically with the corner of his pocket-handkerchief moistened in the milk held by three tremblinglambadars. Beside him the Presence, with, thank God, sufficient vitality left for admiration. And round about a cloud of awestruck witnesses, wondering at his audacity, doubtful of its effect on the future.
"Sure 'tis the firrst toime I ever did dhry-nurse," he remarked after a long silence, during which I became absorbingly interested in the little imp's growing desire for life. "Hark to that, now! The ungrateful divvle's wanting to cry just because it's got something to digest, as if that wasn't the firrst duty of a human stomach. Great Moses! don't ye think it's time you stepped in as ripresentative of theKaiser-i-Hind, and took things in hand a bit? Ah, it's after having dill-water ye are now, is it? Whist, whist, whist now!"
He walked up and down, the crowd swaying from him, as he dandled the infant with what seemed to me marvellous skill, while I did my best to argue sense into the dull brains of the villagers. I was quite unsuccessful, of course, and after many words found myself, as before, with two courses open to me; either to leave thebhut-baby where it was, or give it in charge of the head-men--the one a swift, the other a more tardy certainty of death from that mysterious disease called "by the cause of not drinking milk properly," which figures so largely in the records of infant mortality in India; the former for choice, since, as Terence remarked, "It would save trouble to kill it at the beginning instead of the end of its life."
"So the magistracy can do nothing," he said at last; "thin I will.Chowkidar!take this baby to the headquarters' hospital. I'm master there, annyhow, and I'll make it anny case I please, and dye its hair, an' no man shall say me nay!"
So thechowkidarwas ordered to carry the devil to hospital to be cured of its devilry, and we rode home in frantic haste, because Terence was engaged to sing "Killaloe" that evening in barracks. Some of the relations ran about a mile after us yelling out blessings for having removed the curse from them.
Six weeks after I saw an atrocious hag nursing a white-haired infant in the doctor's own compound, and questioned him on the subject. "The fact is," he said ruefully, "it gave fits to the patients. I tried shaving its head, but it grew so fast and the white eyelashes of it betrayed the cloven hoof. And dye wouldn't stick on; so I've hired a harridan on two rupees a month to look after it under my own eye."
There was, no doubt, something of combativeness in this particular instance of Terence O'Reilly's charity; but thebhut-baby was by no means the only pensioner on his bounty. The row of mud houses beyond the cook-room was filled with the halt, the maimed, and the blind--especially the latter, for the fame of his infinite skill and patience as an eye-doctor was spreading far and wide. Besides, he had the secret, possessed by some Englishmen unconsciously, of inspiring the natives with absolutely unbounded devotion, and many of his patients would literally have laid down their lives for him; among others his bearer, a high-caste Brahman. The man, who had originally come to him for blindness of long standing, had, on recovery, made his way straight from hospital to the doctor's house, and announced his intention of serving him till death. "What are hands, and feet, or brain," he answered calmly to all objections, "if they have not eyes to guide them? Therefore are they all predestined since all time to be servants to my Lord the Light-bringer for ever and ever."
Treated at first as a joke, Shivdeo's determination had outlived opposition, and at the time of thebhut-baby's advent he had achieved his intention of becoming trusted personal attendant to the "Light of the World," for without some such allusion to the benefit he had received at his hands he never spoke of his master. The introduction of a baby, pariah to begin with and devil to follow, brought about a temporary disturbance of his office; for he was haughty, with all the pride of his race, and superstitious beyond belief. But after a week of dismissal consequent on failing to provide the harridan with proper milk for the bottle, Shivdeo, almost blind again with fruitless tears, crept back to the Light-giver's feet and swore a big oath to feed the low-caste demon himself if thereby he might return to the only life he could live. He kept his promise of strict neutrality to the letter, never by word or deed showing his aversion to the child; affecting indeed not to see it with those mild, short-sighted eyes of his. Yet, as it grew older, he must often have been brought into contact with the child, for it would crawl after the doctor like a dog. Despite the peculiarity of its silvery curls and pale blue eyes, it was really pretty, and by the time it was two years old had picked up such a variety of comical tricks and odd ways, that Boots, as we called it, became quite an institution with the doctor's friends. We used to send for it to the verandah and laugh at the silent agility with which it tumbled for sweetmeats, and the equally silent quickness of its mimicry; for to all intents and purposes the child was dumb. Beyond a very rare repetition of the feeble wail I had first heard from it in the doctor's arms at Hairan-wallah, it made no articulate sound whatever; but once or twice when we tired of it and forgot its presence, I have heard a purring noise like a cat, and looking down, found that the little creature was curled up with its silver curls resting on the doctor's foot in perfect content. He spent many hours in demonstrating its full possession of all five senses, and always declared it would speak in time; certainly if speech went by intelligence it would have been the most eloquent of babies. As it was, its unusual silence undoubtedly added to its uncanny appearance, and helped to strengthen the still lingering belief in its devilish origin. As long, however, as Terence O'Reilly's voice gave the orders for its well-being, not a soul in his compound or elsewhere would have dreamt of disobedience. Indeed, it often struck me that poor little Boots lived by virtue of his exuberant vitality, and by nothing else.
I remember one evening we had been screaming with laughter over the comical little creature's mimicry of Shivdeo's stately, short-sighted way of bringing in whisky and soda-water. The applause seemed to get into the baby's brain, and it took us off one after the other with such deadly truth that we nearly rolled off our chairs. Then some one suggested that we should ask it to imitate Terence, who happened to be absent; and when it failed to respond, a young subaltern, thinking it had not understood, came out with a fair copy of the doctor's round, rich brogue. We were all startled at the result; the child made for the speaker like a wild beast, stopped suddenly, then crept away with silent tears brimming up into its eyes. I think we all felt a bit ashamed, especially when Terence, coming in from a patient, found Boots curled up asleep in a damp corner by thetattie, and, with a mild rebuke that, "'Twas enough to give the poor little crayture fayver an' ague," lifted the child in his arms, and proceeded to carry it across the garden to its harridan. But he had hardly raised it before Shivdeo, gliding in like a ghost from heaven knows where, came forward and took the child from him with a rapid insistence that left me wondering. So, when the man brought me my parting cheroot, I questioned him on his interference. He looked startled for a moment; then replied gravely that it was not meet for the Light of the Universe to bear a sweeper's child in his bosom. "Nor is it meet for a Brahman either," I returned, feeling sure he had some other reason. The man's eyes flashed before they dropped submissively: "Nor is it meet for a Brahman to serve; but the Presence knows that this slave cares not if he wakes as a dog so that the Lord of Light remains to give sight to the blind."
Shortly after this Boots sickened for some childish complaint, in the course of which pneumonia developed, making it hover for a day or two between this world and the next. Once more Terence stood between thebhut-baby and the shadow of death, and had it been the heir of princes, the resources of modern science could not have been more diligently ransacked for its benefit. Indeed the doctor looked quite worn out when I met him one morning, going, as he said, to give himself a freshener by taking the Lily round the steeple-chase course.
"You're over-working, Terence," said I, noting his fine-drawn clearness of feature; "up all night after Boots (I'm glad to hear the little fellow's better, by the way), and Blue Pill waiting for you day after day till after dark at the hospital gates, to say nothing ofgymkhanas. It won't do for long; I'm serious about it, old chap."
"Are you? Well, it's kind of you to be that," he laughed; "though mayhap 'twould be more of a change for your friends if you were the t'other thing. Don't fret yourself about me, annyhow; I'm well enough. Maybe 'tis having done dhry-nurse to him at first that makes me feel Boots on me mind; but I think he's well through. And d'ye know! the little beggar wouldn't touch a thing unless I gave it him. 'Tis a queer place this worrld, annyhow."
His voice had a suspicion of a break in it, and his eyes were brighter than ever; whence I augured that he felt worse than he cared to confess. Next day he sent a note asking me to inspect the jail for him, as he was going to try conclusions with his liver; the day after I found him in bed, but lively. Then the deadly fever which kills so many fine young fellows in India laid fast hold on him, and for three long weeks we, who loved him, watched the struggle for life, helpless to do aught save keep up his strength as best we might against the coming crisis. It was as if a calamity had befallen the whole Station. Men when they met each other asked first of all howhewas; and women sent jellies and soups enough for a regiment to the bungalow where the young doctor, who had soothed so many of their troubles, lay bravely fighting out his own. Quite a crowd of natives gathered round the gate by early dawn, waiting for news of the past night; and, so far as I knew, Shivdeo never left the verandah during all those weary days. I could see him from my post by the bed, sitting like a bronze statue against a pillar, whence my slightest sign would rouse him. For I assumed the office of head-nurse after Terence, full of gratitude for the kindly offers of help showered upon him, had said with a wistful gleam of the old mischief, "But I loike your sober face best, old man; it makes me feel so pious." I sent in for leave that morning and never left him again. It was the twenty-sixth day, about ten o'clock in the evening, that the doctor in charge shook his head over my patient sorrowfully. "He is terribly weak, but while there's life-- We shall know by dawn."
The old formula fell on my ears--though I had been waiting for it--with a sense of sickening failure, and unable to reply, I turned away from the figure which lay so still and lifeless despite all my care. As I did so I noticed Shivdeo listening with eyes and ears at the door. For the last three days the man had been strangely restless, and more than once I had discovered odd things disposed about the room, and even on poor Terence's pillow--things used as talismans to keep away the evil eye, such as I had seen in Hairan-wallah when thebhut-baby was born; and I had smiled--good heavens, how ignorant we are in India!--smiled at the silly superstition which evidently lingered in Shivdeo's mind. He came to me when the doctor left to ask if he had understood rightly that the great hour of hope or dread drew nigh. I told him we should know by dawn, and that till then all must be quiet as the grave. His face startled me by its intensity, as standing at the foot of the bed he fixed his eyes on the unconscious face of his master andsalaamedto it with all the reverence he would have given to a god. But he spoke calmly to me, saying that as I would doubtless be loth to leave the room he would order the servants to bring me something to eat there. He presently appeared, bearing the tray himself, giving as a reason for this unusual service his desire to avoid any disturbance. It was just upon twelve o'clock when, with Shivdeo's help, I gave Terence, who was quite unconscious, a few drops of stimulant before sitting down with a sinking heart to my anxious watch. It was early April, and the doors, set wide open to let in the cool air, showed a stretch of moonlit grass where shadows from the unseen trees above quivered and shifted as the night-wind stirred the leaves. In the breathless silence I could hear even the faint respiration of the sick man, and found myself counting its rise and fall, until the last thing I remembered was Shivdeo's immovable figure with the moonlight streaming full in his face.
When I awoke the rapid Eastern dawn had come. The sparrows were twittering in the verandah, and Shivdeo stood by his master's bed holding his finger to his lips. "Hush!" he whispered, as my eyes met his; "the light has brought life to the Giver of Light."
It must have been the sound of wheels which woke me, for ere I had time to reply the doctor entered the room, and after a glance at his patient shook me silently by the hand. "I believe he's through," he said, when he had cautiously examined the sleeping man; "fever gone, pulse stronger. I scarcely dared to hope for it even with his splendid constitution. Hullo! what's that?" It was only a tiny spot of blood on the forehead just where the trident of Shiva is painted by his worshippers, but it showed vividly against the pallor of the skin.
"There is a little spot by the Light-giver's feet also," remarked Shivdeo quietly. "I noticed it yesterday just after the Presence cut his hand with the soda-water bottle." And sure enough there was one.
"I can't think how I came to fall asleep," I said to him after the doctor had gone; "just at the critical time, too, when I was most wanted."
The man smiled. "We do not always guess aright when we are wanted,Huzoor. You slept and the Light-giver got better. It is God's way; He has refreshed you both."
"Refreshed!" I retorted crossly. "I feel as if I had been pounded in a mortar. I had the most frightful dreams, but I can't recall what they were."
"It is not well to try," replied Shivdeo, with rather an odd look. "If I were the Presence I would forget them. There is enough evil to come without recalling what is past and over for ever."
Perhaps involuntarily I followed his suggestion, for, though I chased the fleeting memory more than once through my brain, I never overtook it.
Terence O'Reilly made a quick recovery; but in view of the fast approaching hot weather, the doctors put him on board ship as soon as it could be done with safety. Hurry was the order of the day, so it was not until my return from seeing him to Bombay that I found time for outside affairs. Then it was that Shivdeo informed me of poor little Boots' death in the interval. As the Presence was aware, he said, it had been thought advisable when perfect quiet was necessary to the Light-bringer to send the child away from the compound, because of the difficulty experienced in keeping it out of the house. So it had gone with its nurse to the cantonment-sweeper's hut, where it had caught fresh cold and died. By the advice of the native doctor who had seen it, he had kept the death secret at first, from fear of the news delaying his master's recovery. I made every inquiry, but found nothing of any kind to give rise to suspicion of foul play. The native doctor had sent medicine three days running as for bronchitis, and on the fourth he had seen the child's dead body. It had died, he thought, of croup.
"You will write and tell the Light-bringer?" asked Shivdeo, when the inquiry was over. "And you will say that I did my best, my very best, for my lord's interest?"
"Certainly," I replied; "but he will be sorry, the child was so fond of him."
"When people are beautiful as Krishna, like the Lord of Light, it is easy to be fond of them."
I did not see Shivdeo again for over three months; and the bungalow in the Civil Lines, which he kept swept and garnished against his master's return, gradually assumed the soulless, empty appearance peculiar to the dwelling-places of those who make holiday at the other side of the world. Then a message came to say that he was ill, and wished to see me on business. I found him, a mere wreck and shadow of his former self, propped up against his old pillar in the verandah. He shook his head over my suggestions of remedies. "I have taken many," he replied quietly, "for the native doctor is my caste-brother. The hand of Shiva is not to be turned aside, and am I not his sworn servant? What ails me? Nay, who can say what ails the heart when it ceases to beat? Men cannot live without the light, and it is night for me now. Perhaps that is it, who knows? Yonder old man is my father come to see me die; yet ere the last 'Ram-Ram' sounds in mine ears I want the Presence to understand something, else would I not have vexed his quiet. It will be hard for theHuzoorto understand, because he is not of our race."
He paused so long that I asked what he wished me to understand, thinking that in his weakness he had drifted away from his desire. "Something new and strange," he answered, "yet old and true. See! I sit here in the old place, and the Presence shall sit there as he used to do, because old memories return in the old places, making us see and remember things that are past or forgotten. Is it not so?"
Truly enough, as I humoured him by occupying the familiar chair, ready placed half-way between the bed and the window, it seemed to me as if I were once more watching Terence pass through the valley of the shadow.
"The Presence once slept in that chair," continued the weak voice, "and he dreamed a dream. Let him recall it now, if he can."
How or wherefore I know not, but as he spoke a sudden certainty as to what he wished me to know rushed in on me. "Great God," I cried, starting up and seizing him roughly by the shoulder, "you killed poor little Boots! You brought the child here! You killed it before his very eyes and mine! I know it! I think--I think I saw it done!"
He set my hand aside with unexpected force and a strange dignity. "I am the prisoner of Death,Huzoor!There is no need to hold me; I cannot escape him. For the rest, if I killed the child, what then? The Lord of Light lives, and that is enough for me. What is a Sudra or two more or less to the Brahman? But what if it was a devil sucking his heart's blood because of his beauty? Shall I not have honour for saving him? Thus both ways I am absolved; but not from my oath, the false oath which I swore to my lord for my own sake. When I wander through the shades waiting for Vishnu's decree, it will lead my blind steps to the body of a foul thing. So I speak that the Presence may judge and say if I were not justified, and confess that we people of the old knowledge are not always wrong.Huzoor!you have seen its eyes glisten, as its body clung to his beauty; you know he sickened after it had lain night and day in his arms; you know how it crept and crawled to get at him while he lay helpless. Now listen! One day he was better, brighter in all things, and bid you refresh yourself in the air. I sat here, and like you I fell asleep; and when I woke the thing was at him, close to his heart, its arms round his neck, its devilish lips at his throat, crooning away like an accursed cat! And he was in the death-sleep that lasted till the dawn came that you and I remember so well. Then I knew it must be, and that my oath was as a reed in the flood. Yet would I not be hasty. I took counsel with holy men, men of mighty wisdom, men with such tenderness for life that they bid God speed to the flea which keeps them wakeful; but they all said, 'Yea! one of the two must die.' Did I stop to ask which? Not I. So I fasted, and prayed, and made clean my heart, and waited patiently for the moment of fate; for so they bid me. Even then,Huzoor, the holy men would do naught by chance or without proof. It was a bright moonlight night, and the Presence slept by reason of our arts and drugs; and so we put the accursed creature we had brought from the sweeper's hut down at the gate, yonder by the flowering oleanders, and hiding ourselves among them, watched it. Straight, straight as a hawk or a bustard, until we found it there in the old place! Devil of Hell! we made it vomit back the blood, we--"
My hand was on his mouth, my one thought to stop the horrible words that somehow conjured up the still more horrible sight before my eyes. "I know,--there is no need for more,--I cannot bear it."
And indeed, the vision of poor dumb little Boots in their relentless hold froze my blood. As my hands fell away from him in sudden, shrinking horror, he looked at me compassionately. "The Presence does not understand aright. Let him remember the strange doctor's face when he came in the dawn, thinking to find hope had fled. One of the two had to die. If the Presence had thought as I did, as Iknew, what would he have done?"