Some eighteen months afterwards, the doctor, being busy over that great
hunt for the comma-shaped _bacillus_, 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
the _serai_.
Dr. Taylor, with grave doubts as to being able to supply either of
these desires, went into the verandah.
"Is it Sonny _baba?_" he asked.
Dhurm Singh's delight was boundless; since a _sahib_ to whom you have
once spoken is not as other _sahibs_; just as a _sahib_ whom you have
once served becomes a demi-god--transfigured, immortal. Undoubtedly it
was the _Baba-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 the
_Baba-sahib_ had 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 the
_serai_, which was but a few hundred yards off.
The old _Akali_ grinned from ear to ear, the massive curves of his lips
stretching like india-rubber. "The _Huzoor_ knows the great gift of God
in the bad places of mind and body. But the _Baba-sahib_ will 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 Sonny _baba_ when 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 the _dal-bhat_[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 kid _pullao_, 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 Sonny _baba_ after 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 the _Baba-sahib_ so
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 Big _Lat-padre_
(bishop) according to _hukm_ (orders), as all the _padre sahibs_ do."
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 Sonny _baba_ was 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-shaped _bacillus_ as he watched Sonny
_baba_ and 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 Sonny _baba_ reappeared 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, after _kurtas_ and _dhotees_. The
natives know how to dress comfortably at any rate."
Sonny _baba_ blushed 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's_ and _dhurmsalas_--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 the _sahib-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 Sonny _baba_
had already entrenched himself therein; the which is a direful offence,
rousing determined resistance in a real argufier.
Despite this, Sonny _baba_ rented 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. His _sahib_ had 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 his
_sahib_ needed the _paisas_. He was rich as a nawab. Then he thought of
being a _padre sahib_; now it was _doctore_ department, 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 the _Baba-sahib_ might end;
at Simla, as "_burra Lat 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 Sonny _baba_ came 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, Sonny _baba_ speaking 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 Sonny _baba_ was 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."
Sonny _baba_ began 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 a 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."