Caldwell-Sahib, opening his eyes, let his head roll slowly over on
his pillow. As the veranda door came within his line of vision the
delicious drowsiness which had held him was suddenly disturbed, for
there stood, looking out across the rows of potted plants to the dry
lawn beyond, a woman whom he had never seen. For several moments he
simply stared in weakness. Then, trying to brush away the strange,
sickly haze which enveloped his brain, he let his eyes rove over the
room as far as he could without physical effort. There in the corner
was his desk. There, hanging above it, was the picture of the Taj
which he had bought when Parsons had paid him a flying visit from
England and they had gone to Agra together. Just to the right, out
of the edge of his eye, he could see the foot of his steamer chair
and, extending from beneath it, the hand-woven rug which he himself
had spent a week in buying from a native dealer in Delhi, holding
grimly to his first bid each day as he had passed the shop on his
constitutional until a bargain had been struck the very day his
train pulled out. Those things certainly belonged to him, but the
woman did not. Where had she come from? For there she was still as
his eyes again reached the door.
His strangely tired mind was just getting to the point of realizing
what she looked like--that she was tall and fair--when the woman
turned her face towards him and with a smile came to the bed.
"So you are awake and better. That's good! You will be all right
now. Let me feel your pulse, please," and pulling the omnipresent
mosquito netting aside, she laid a cool hand upon his wrist. "That
is all right too. Your pulse is normal. Isn't that splendid!
"Now, listen to me," she continued after a deft fluffing of his
pillows and a careful tucking in of the netting. "I'm sorry, but
you've got to be your own nurse now. Your boy is frightened to
death, but he'll stay with you and do your bidding. You'll be all
right. I must go. Take one teaspoonful of this every hour," and she
lifted a tumbler from the table. "At seven o'clock take half of this
in the cup here," and she brought a flowered teacup into view.
"Don't get up until you really feel strong enough to. Have your boy
give you broths to-morrow, an egg the next day, and so on, getting
back to your regular diet by degrees. I guess you are used to being
your own nurse."
She turned towards the door. "I'll get your boy in but you will have
to make him stay. I can't wait to do that."
She left the room, but soon returned followed slowly and reluctantly
by his "boy," only a boy in Anglo-Indian nomenclature, for he was a
tiny native man about forty years of age, who was bowing and
salaaming but keeping as near to the door as possible.
"Come," said the lady in a low but compelling tone. "Come. Come
along quickly," she added a trifle sharply as he lagged behind.
"Aren't you ashamed to have left your master when he was sick! Now,"
for he had reached the bed by this time, "lift the netting and take
hold of the sahib's hand."
"There!" she exclaimed as he touched the Englishman's hand and took
his own quickly away. "There! You see it didn't hurt you. You
haven't caught the cholera. Now, do as your master tells you; take
good care of him and behave as a boy should," and she was gone.
Ah! Cholera! That explained it all to Caldwell. So he had had the
cholera, he--Caldwell--who had served the government for fifteen
years in India, had taken every risk, and had considered himself
immune! That explained his extreme weakness, his befuddled brain,
and the unusual soreness of his muscles. That explained the terror
of his boy. But it did not explain the woman. Where had she come
from? Who was she?
For some time Caldwell thought over this interesting matter, for it
was easier just to think than to question the shivering boy who was
still crouching as close to the outside door as possible. Who was
she? She was tall and thin; her face was very fine-featured and
intelligent. And she was an American. He knew that last fact from
her speech and from her appearance, too, for although Caldwell never
had looked at ladies in his life, especially American ladies, except
when politeness absolutely compelled him to, yet even he could not
mistake the something in the appearance that marks every American
girl, and,--yes, secretly approve, although his English nature would
not let him acknowledge it. And she wasn't very old either!
Suddenly a thought struck him, so suddenly and such a thought that
he almost started up in spite of his weakness. There was only one
other European in Baihar besides himself and that was a missionary,
a woman,--a doctor, he had understood, and--an American.
"Boy," as strong a voice as a usually strong Englishman could
command after a fit of cholera demanded, "was that the missionary?"
"Yes, Sahib, I got her. She's a doctor-memsahib, master."
"Boy, did you run away and leave me?" Caldwell continued,
remembering the words of the woman to the boy and making his tone as
sepulchral as possible in order to frighten the man still more.
"I ran to get the doctor-memsahib, master," shivered out the unhappy
fellow, ignoring in his reply his later entire disappearance while
the doctor-memsahib was left for five hours to struggle alone for
Caldwell-Sahib's life.
But Caldwell-Sahib, although suspecting the truth, was in no state
just then either by chastisement or preaching to teach the beauty of
courage and self-sacrifice. So he sank back upon his pillow and gave
himself to thought.
During the next few days, while his strength was returning,
Caldwell-Sahib had plenty of time to think and, for the first time
in his bachelor life, his thoughts centred about a woman--for he
knew cholera and he knew that the doctor-memsahib had saved his
life.
The boy, emboldened by feeling no symptoms of the dread disease in
his own system, gradually took up his accustomed duties and cared
for his master's wants in the quick, noiseless, and perfect way of
the well-trained Indian servant that soothes a man's soul. So for
several days with the punkah swinging over him the convalescent lay
stretched out upon his steamer chair, the very picture of comfort
and pleasant dreams. To have one's life saved by a woman and a
good-looking one, too, touches even a crusty heart. But to find that
this was the very woman whom for a whole month he had thought of
only with contempt and disgust broke clear through the crustiness of
Caldwell-Sahib's heart and added a little pleasurable anxiety to the
tenderness engendered within.
One month before this time very suddenly the government had sent him
up to Baihar to look after some matters which would consume about a
year's time. So having taken possession of the bungalow built by the
government for such official visits and having moved up enough of
his belongings to be comfortable, Caldwell-Sahib had settled down
for a "dead" year such as so many government officials live through
in parts of India, as in duty bound. Baihar, a city of about ten
thousand inhabitants, is a purely religious city, where no business
is transacted but religious business and where no pleasures are
indulged in but those of religion; those of the Hindu religion being
so vile that "Baihar" is almost another name for Hell. Caldwell had
expected to be the only European in that whole city of blackest
Hinduism; so the prospects of a year alone in such a place had been,
indeed, anything but inviting to an Englishman who despised the
natives and who could find no pleasure in Indian life apart from the
sports of a large cantonment or the resources of a well-stocked
library.
However, after he had been in Baihar but a few days, he had heard
that there was another European in the city, a woman, an American
missionary, who for six years had lived alone in that horrible place
in order to bring Christian, medical help to the poor women of that
city, especially to the four thousand Hindu widows devoted to temple
worship and the lusts of the priests. To say that Caldwell-Sahib had
been horrified at the thought of a lone woman in that place would
have put it too strongly, for he was simply disgusted. He said that
she must be mad, certainly far beyond the realm of sense, let alone
common sense, to have undertaken such a thing. This woman's presence
in Baihar would not make any difference with the beastly dullness of
the life ahead of him, that was certain, for he would have nothing
to do with her and he did not even want to see her; for he hated
women in general and this one must be an especially objectionable
specimen of the species.
But now Caldwell-Sahib had seen her and she was sweet and wholesome
to look upon. Now this very woman had saved his life. If she had not
been there engaged in her foolish work, he would have died.
Therefore, he was full of regret for his former unkind thoughts and
he was, moreover, exceedingly grateful, for he put considerable
value on his life, did Caldwell-Sahib, and to be less than grateful
to her who had saved it would be to prove himself less than a man.
During the days of convalescence the Englishman's thoughts turned
often to the probable experiences of the six years that this sweet
American woman had spent alone in this "Hell." Even his stout
English heart recoiled at the mental pictures his mind conjured up.
He could see her threading her way alone through the crowded bazaars
where vile Hindu priests, dirty shopkeepers, men red-faced with
smallpox, or hideous lepers must again and again have jostled rudely
against her. He saw her, unattended, with difficulty passing the
frenzied religious processions which accompany the silver car of the
great god as it makes its sacred rounds, or being pushed to the wall
by a surging mass of religious devotees, eager to reach the sacred
river to bathe in its holy waters. But the worst picture to him was
of the nights of those six years when unprotected she must have
crouched within her chamber in fright at the awful and unholy
confusion of night in a Hindu city.
"My----!" He pulled himself up short. "I must not swear, for she is
a missionary, but by--by--by Oliver Cromwell, I'll save her from all
that."
The instinct of gratitude will assert itself and it is easy for
gratitude to pass over into affection and enduring devotion. When
the rescuer is a beautiful and capable woman, who can measure the
consequences? All of Caldwell-Sahib's philosophy of life was thrown
into confusion. His complex nature would no longer run according to
his will. Staid, cold, hard, matter-of-fact Englishman though he
was, his imagination played fantastic tricks with him and so through
all these days while his body was regaining its lost strength, her
face lived in his memory and the memory gave him a warm and
comforting sensation about the heart, a sensation intensified in its
delight by the thought that she was probably thinking about him, for
so the old romance has run since the beginning of the human drama.
As soon as Caldwell-Sahib was able to get out, he inquired his way
to her home. He had an easy time finding it, for everybody seemed to
know where she lived and every face brightened at her name. But when
he reached the compound and through the gate saw the plain but
comfortable bungalow within, his courage gave way and he turned back
home. However, he got into the habit of strolling around that way
towards nightfall and standing a few minutes at the point of the
wall nearest to what he thought her window and watching the people
who came and went from her compound; but never on these occasions
did he catch a glimpse of her. As a courageous and polite
Englishman, he should have gone in and thanked the good American
lady for having saved his life, but he had grown to feel that there
was only one way in which he wanted to thank her and he had not yet
reached the height of courage where he could tell her how she had
wrecked his philosophy of life. So he lingered around outside the
compound walls and watched the natives; "lucky beggars" he called
them to himself, as they came and went from a small, low building at
one side of the compound which he knew from appearance must be her
dispensary. Those who passed him were lame and halt and, yes, even
blind. But they were all "lucky" in his sight because they had been
in her presence and had been speaking to her.
He overheard their remarks occasionally and now it was: "It hurt
awfully but she put her hand on my head and took all the pain away;"
or "She gave me the worst medicine to take, but since she said
'Take it!' I will;" and even the blind man said as he passed, a
strange light in his face, "She says to come to-morrow and she will
cut something in my eyes and then she thinks I shall see again.
Since she says it will be all right, I am coming back to-morrow, but
I wouldn't believe any one else."
Caldwell-Sahib's heart ached for the sweet, clean American woman who
must touch, heal, and minister to such foul, dirty creatures. Every
night as he watched them he felt that he ought to go in and tell her
of his love and take her away from such a dreadful life at once.
Possibly she was wondering why he had not come. How cruel he was to
delay! But every night home he would go again and put off the visit,
bachelor-like, until the next day.
However fate took a hand in the affair at last. One day a couple of
months after his illness, as Caldwell-Sahib was standing in the
narrow bazaar with, for a wonder, very few people about, he saw a
lady's topi above some sari-covered heads turn into the street at
the corner.
Caldwell-Sahib could not conceal from himself that his heart was
beating with strangely quickened throbs. This sight of the woman who
had saved his life and for weeks had filled his thoughts now brought
to him an overwhelming consciousness that his bachelor dreams were
at an end, that his hour had come, the happiest of a man's life; for
when a man sees for the first time the light of love in the eyes of
the woman whom he loves, that is the happiest hour of life. She came
nearer. He could hear her voice, low in Hindustani, addressing a
young native girl at her side.
For a blissful moment he watched her approach, saw the grace of her
carriage, the pretty bend of her head as she talked with the girl,
the slender, strong hands which had ministered to him and saved his
life. He saw also, in anticipation, the light in her eyes and the
blush upon her cheek when she should see him.
He stammered a good-morning. Strange how his lips seemed to tremble!
She glanced up.
With unrecognizing eyes turned upon him, slightly bowing a greeting
in return, she passed on.
As Caldwell-Sahib stared stupidly after her, he heard the girl say:
"That was the Inspector-Sahib whose life you saved when he had the
cholera," for apparently the girl was astonished at the lady's
uninterested manner in the presence of such an important official.
Caldwell-Sahib did not hear the lady's reply, as she and the young
Hindu girl passed on.
"Oh, is that he? I had forgotten about him. I had such a good laugh
afterwards at the surprised expression on his face when he saw me in
his house the morning he regained consciousness that I ought to have
remembered him. We must turn here, my dear, for I must get back to
my work at once."
So the two turned down a side street which led to the doctor's
office where at least thirty dirty, but well-remembered and beloved
native patients were waiting for the tender treatments daily
administered by the missionary's skillful hands.
The Englishman still stared.
X