Part 3

"Oh, most great God, most great of all the gods," said the girl. "Let Old Sarah live. She is a good woman. Never has she harmed any one. Her whole life has been given to helping others. Save Old Sarah's life, I pray. I will bring Thee an offering of the best I have, if Thou wilt spare her life and let her live. Take the awful pain away from her. Let her sleep and let her rest and do, oh God, let her live. I will bring Thee cocoanuts and sweets, rice and a young kid, if Thou wilt spare her life. For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!"

The girl, unconscious of the absurd way that she had mixed the ideas of her old heathenism with the words and thoughts of the new religion she had learned from the old woman, unclasped her hands and with a smile looked down upon the face in her lap. Already it seemed to her that her prayer was being answered, for the sick woman's breath seemed to come more easily and the moaning had ceased. As the girl was absorbed in watching the effect of her prayer, the man took a handful of rice from the bag, without attracting attention, and slipped to the side of the road where under a tree stood a wayside shrine. Pouring out the rice before the ugly image and bowing three times in front of it, he hurriedly muttered some unintelligible words and climbed back into the wagon. There was a gleam of satisfaction on his face as he started the bullocks again, for he had done what he could to save the life of the old woman whom he, as a respected servant in the family of the chief, had seen often about their home but to whose preaching he had never had time to listen.

To the city and then through the city to the hospital was a long ride in the lumbering ox-cart but it was not a particularly hard ride to any of the three, for native Indians prefer hard seats and hard beds to springs and cushions. And already the old woman was resting so quietly that the girl thought her prayer had been answered and the man felt that his offering had been accepted.

At the hospital a nurse took charge of the sick woman but she would not let the girl enter. So the latter quietly placed a kiss upon the old woman's forehead and turned away, confident that in a short time she would see Old Sarah again in her own village, for she had prayed.

As it was night and the oxen were tired, the girl could not return to her village at once. Besides there was one thing more that she must do in the city. Therefore they turned aside to the marketplace where the farmers slept under their carts. There they made themselves comfortable for the night, after the driver had cooked them a little meal at a fire of twigs and dung-cakes. The girl kept in the cart with her sari drawn up over her face, for such was her custom in the big city. But later, when she was rolled up in the blankets, she felt very secure with Nado asleep under the pole of the cart and the bullocks chewing their cuds beside him.

When morning came, when the bullocks had been yoked up again and all things were ready for the start, she said:

"Nado, we must tell Old Sarah's mistress. I don't know where she is but we must find her. She lives in a big house and takes care of a lot of little orphan children, for Sarah has often told me about them and her."

It was strange, but in only a few minutes they had found the place where the little orphan children lived, for the natives seemed to know the compound well. And a few minutes later Jessa stood before a sweet-faced English woman, but so embarrassed by the memsahib's presence that she scarcely dared raise her eyes. Only thoughts of Old Sarah and her love for this white lady gave her courage.

"Memsahib," she said in a timid voice, "Old Sarah is very ill with the cholera. We have taken her to the hospital."

"Old Sarah ill with cholera!" the English woman exclaimed in amazement. "She has been gone since day before yesterday. She never was gone so long alone before and we have been worried; but I did not dream of cholera! She is in the hospital?"

"Yes, Memsahib. But I think she will get well," the girl added hastily as she saw the lady's anxiety. "I am sure she will get well, for I--I--prayed," she faltered.

"And I gave an offering to the gods," said the man servant in a pleased tone to himself, for he was listening interestedly, having followed the girl to the door.

"Get my topi, boy, and order the gari quickly," the memsahib called to her bearer. "I must go to Old Sarah at once. Where did you find her, child?"

So while the memsahib waited for her topi and the gari, Jessa told her the story of how Old Sarah had gone to the village to her friends for help but how they had fled from her and left her to die; how one of the frightened people had come to the village of which her father was head man and had told them; and how she herself, because she loved Old Sarah on account of the loving teaching she had received from her, how she had taken her servant and cart and gone to save the old woman's life. She told the lady, too, of the condition in which she had found Old Sarah, of the journey to the city, and of the reception at the hospital. As she finished telling her story, she repeated her assurance that the old woman would live because she, Jessa, had prayed to God.

The memsahib praised the girl for her bravery and thanked her for her kindness to Old Sarah who was very dear to the English lady's heart. And as the gari came up just then she urged them to remain until her return from the hospital, but the girl felt that she must hurry back, since she knew that Old Sarah would be all right now. So they said good-bye and Jessa, having climbed into the cart, was trundled away by the faithful bullocks and the still more faithful Nado, whose gentle prodding of the bullocks was essential to their progress.

Meantime the memsahib had entered her gari and was being driven as fast as the ponies could take her to the hospital. There she was met by a nurse who said that she knew nothing of the case that the lady spoke of. Another nurse was called who knew nothing of such a woman as Old Sarah. The lady, however, would not be turned aside; the records must be searched. And searched they were. The nurses discovered that a cholera case had been brought in late the evening before, that the woman had died towards morning, and that already her body had been for some time in the hospital morgue.

"You must get her out at once," said the lady, "for she is not dead."

The nurses who had been uninterested until that moment then looked at the English lady in mild amazement, for how could a person who had been in the dead-house for several hours be still alive? But the lady was well known to them by reputation and they yielded to her wishes. At her demand they called the head nurse who, because she, too, knew much about this lady, revoked all hospital rules and permitted her to enter the morgue with them.

There lay Old Sarah's form, covered with a sheet, upon the floor with other corpses. The familiar gray hair drew the memsahib's eyes at once. She pulled back the sheet and felt for the heart.

"We'll work over her. I do not think she is dead."

With incredulity not only in their hearts but written plainly upon their faces, the nurses had the body removed to an empty room. And then, because the little memsahib was a woman of such mighty spirit, they fell to work.

Old Sarah was not dead, although she had been for several hours numbered among the dead. Gradually circulation was restored. When the signs of life became unmistakable the nurses worked zealously to make up for the awful wrong that had almost been done. In a big, busy hospital, especially during times of stress, things sometimes are done in a hurry and mistakes are sometimes made.

The memsahib did not leave for several hours. When the dear old eyes opened at last, they looked around in wonder until they rested upon the memsahib's face. Then a glad light shone from them and an eager voice whispered: "Oh, Memsahib, is this heaven?"

"No, Sarah, this is not heaven. You are still on earth with me, thank God!"

"I didn't think it looked exactly like heaven," the old woman added a little later as she looked around at the bare walls, "but with Jesus and you, Memsahib, it would be heaven in any kind of place.

"I thought I was dead," she kept murmuring, evidently unable to get the idea out of her head.

"No, Sarah," the memsahib finally assured her, "you are very much alive and just to convince you I will scold you a little. Why, oh, why, Sarah, did you not come to me when you were taken ill?"

"Memsahib, Old Sarah knew she had the cholera and she could not expose the memsahib and the dear, little orphan children to it; so she just took her burial clothes and went away, thinking that her friends at Yenna, for whom she had travelled so many, many miles in her old age to tell them about Jesus, would take her in. But they ran away and left Old Sarah to die all alone."

"Were you not sorry then that you had not told me?" urged her mistress.

"No, Memsahib, not even then, for it was better that Old Sarah should die all alone than that the memsahib and the dear, orphan children should die too."

"You precious old woman!" The memsahib, sinking on her knees by the bed with her arms around the thin, brown shoulders, implanted a kiss upon the gray hair. "That is more than a white person would have done!" she said under her breath.

And as the English woman looked upon Old Sarah's happy face and remembered the happy, trustful face of the young girl who had saved this life and declared that the old woman would live because of prayer, the memsahib realized that no hearts in the world were whiter before God than those of these brown people who loved Him well enough to be willing to lay down their lives for others. In beauty of form and feature these brown people often surpass the white races and she felt that with the love of the true God in their hearts they might surpass the white races, also, in the beauty of their lives and of their love.

IV

A Son of the Law

On an afternoon in the early days of the British occupancy of India, Blackmore-Sahib sat alone at the big desk in his study, in his hand a report which had just reached him from one of his districts. At his elbow the tea tray was untouched, although at this hour of the afternoon he was usually stretched out in a rattan chair in the living-room with the punkah swinging over him, the latest magazine, three months old at that, in his hand, and the tea tray already replaced on the small table beside his chair by the cigar service holding cigarettes all neatly rolled ready for his match. It was not because the report was urgent that he had forsaken his accustomed ease to prove it up; nor was it that he was particularly interested in the task, for apparently he was forcing himself to go over the lines of type and up and down the columns of figures. As his pencil reached the bottom of a column it would almost drop from his listless fingers until, with a start, he would begin upon the next row as if in great haste.

The bearer, entering the room noiselessly, saw the untouched tea tray standing just as he had left it a half hour before and looked anxiously at his master's face. But without disturbing his master he removed it and turned to the side table where stood the tobacco service. Not a cigarette was rolled! He clumsily attempted to prepare some but none of his efforts were really successful. However, he put several bulky ones in a saucer and placed them near his master's hand. Still in silence but with many backward glances at the man bending over the slowly-moving pencil, the boy left the room.

As the boy closed the door, the man dropped the pencil upon the desk, put his hand to his head for a second, and then arose. He walked to the door into the living-room and seemed to listen for an instant; then he went back to the desk.

The servant, evidently having heard his master's step, entered with fresh tea and toast.

"Is she better?"

As the boy set the tray down he replied hesitatingly, "No, Sahib, she is still groaning."

"You fool, don't you suppose I can hear that? She has groaned incessantly since last night."

"What can I do?" The man asked the question of himself as he turned half around towards the veranda door.

"Won't the Sahib have some tea?" suggested the boy timidly, for like every native-born this man feared his stalwart English master.

Blackmore-Sahib held out his hand without turning back from the door. "Yes, I will take a cup. Perhaps it will steady me a bit."

"Poor little Nona!" he sighed as he took the cup.

He gulped down the tea hurriedly and reached for a cigarette. But as his eyes fell on the clumsy ones in the saucer, they filled with tears and he walked quickly out upon the veranda without taking one.

Up and down he paced unheeding the streaks of sunshine which found their way in through the vines and fell upon his unprotected head.

"Poor Nona! Poor little girl!" he groaned. How skillfully she had always rolled his cigarettes, just to his taste! how daintily she had served his cup of tea! and how quietly she had sat every afternoon beside him, never disturbing his nap or reading! "Poor little Nona!" he sighed, for she might never sit beside him again. He could hear her groans now from the bedroom at the other side of the great living-room. Pitiable, heart-breaking little groans they were! He could not trust himself even to go to the door and look in upon her.

And yet he did not really love her. Nona had made Blackmore-Sahib's life very comfortable for the last ten years and he could not bear to think that she was suffering and probably would die. He did not want to lose his little Indian wife and her affectionate care for him, though of course she was his "wife" only according to the customs of many white men in dark lands. As he paced up and down he remembered how, when he had been sent by the government to this city in the heart of India away from every European association, he had rebelled until, seeing a pair of black eyes peeping from the doorway of a certain mud house, he had become very much interested in that section of the city although it belonged to a low caste of Hindus. He remembered how for several evenings he had taken his evening walk in that locality and furtively watched that house door in which he again saw framed for a second a beautiful Indian face and a slender, lithe Indian figure in a red sari. After a few more visits he had several conversations with the men of the neighbourhood and had learned that the man who lived in that house was, as they all were, of low caste and desperately poor. Finally he had met the man himself whom he heard loudly lamenting because he could not afford to marry off his beautiful daughters. "Why, a wedding costs many rupees nowadays!" he had heard him say.

So the sahib by a little courteous inquiry had learned that the man had three unmarried daughters. By further courteous and diplomatic conversation he had conveyed to the father the idea that if he, the sahib, could have his choice of the three girls he would pay a dowry for one of them. After several evenings of discussion and bargaining the old man slowly and cautiously had consented, but the matter of giving the sahib his choice had been a trifle difficult even among the low caste. But, finally, having bidden the sahib stand at the other corner of the street where he could see without being particularly noticeable, on the evening the bargain was sealed, the old man had called his daughters one at a time to the door of the house on some trifling pretext. It had been only a glimpse, but as the third girl disappeared from the doorway, Blackmore-Sahib had been satisfied. On the very next evening, having promised to pay a sufficient number of rupees to marry off both of the other daughters, the Englishman had had the satisfaction of seeing a little draped figure enter a covered ekka and be driven away towards his bungalow.

He could remember, even after ten years, how the ekka had driven up to his door and how he, having reached the door before her arrival, would not pay the promised money until the girl's veil had been lifted and he had seen for himself that no trickery had been played upon him and that this was the one of his choice. She had been very young, very timid, and very beautiful. He remembered that, cross, burly chap though he was, he had delighted to tease her out of her shyness and teach her the little ways by which she could make him happy and his bungalow a home. She had been an ignorant native girl, as the majority of Indian girls are, but she had soon learned to love him and she had always been beautiful to look upon.

They had not been married. That was not necessary in those days in the East. He had given her a good home and in doing that he had done his whole duty. Yet he had never mentioned her in his letters to England, for "they would not understand." Indeed, he had half expected until the last two years to go back to England and marry a fine girl whom he had known in boyhood. But when the time had drawn near he had decided to stay here as he was;--for what would become of Nona? He could not keep her, too, for even he did not think that way of living right. He sometimes longed for the green meadows and the hawthorne bush and the skylark, nevertheless he remained in India, for he could not take Nona and he could not leave her.

But now it seemed as if Nona were going to leave him. If she should die, he would be free to go to England to marry his childhood friend, for a recent letter from his brother had told him that Elizabeth was still unmarried and mistress of her own estate. But now, of a sudden, he did not want to go; he did not want to marry. Indeed, he did not want anything but to stay here with Nona. He wanted Nona! She must not die! He needed her.

"Sahib!" A soft voice arrested his step and Nona's ayah besought him: "Sahib, she is no better. May I get the memsahib? I think she can help her."

"What memsahib?" he asked, his voice gruff with emotion.

"The missionary memsahib, master. Please let me get her."

"A missionary! Would a missionary come to my house?" he asked in scorn.

Blackmore-Sahib had seen the missionary lady often, for she was one of the very few Europeans in the city, but he never had spoken to her. He knew missionary principles and he felt that he and Nona in her eyes were worse than the Hindus "in their blindness." He had always avoided a missionary's path; now he would not ask for help! Even if he should humble his pride and do so, he felt that no Christian would come to him, for were not he and Nona without the law?

"No, she would not come," he said emphatically.

"Yes, master, she will come. I know she will come. See how ill my mistress is! Hear her moans!" and the faithful ayah wrung her hands in grief. "Oh, let me go to get her."

"Is she a doctor?" he asked. "Does she give medicine?" he went on, trying to make the native woman understand.

"No, she is not a doctor, but she gives medicines," the woman replied enigmatically.

There was no doctor within reach. If this woman could help Nona, had he any right to let his pride keep him from at least asking for her help? Blackmore-Sahib reasoned it out slowly. Although he was sure that she would not come, he must do all that he could to help the sick woman and so he must ask the missionary to come.

"Go!" he said finally to the ayah and as she sped down the road he continued his pacing and his thoughts. His thoughts turned strangely, after the interruption, to his boyhood home and his boyhood days when even a lie, a wrong word, or an unkind deed had hurt him almost as much as his mother. But his mother had died when he was only a lad and after that had come school and then India and--Nona.

The change from the rigid morality of a well-trained boy living under the eye of a law-abiding people, to the moral thoughtlessness and neglect of a man far away from the reign of aught but the law of the conqueror among an inferior people; the change from the conventional obedience to the social customs of a Christian land, to the unconventional disregard of all Christian customs in a heathen land, had come so gradually that Blackmore-Sahib had never before realized how different he was in moral integrity from what he had been in that boyhood home and how different he must be in reality from what his mother had imagined that he would be in her fond dreams about the future. Had India by her enervating climate, by the ease with which she gratifies the sensual side of man's nature, and by the intellectual loneliness in which she makes her foreign rulers live--had India by these means warped his moral sense? Or had his good life in Christian England been a foolish fanaticism and was his life here the true living of a free soul?

Blackmore-Sahib was startled at the presence of such questionings in a mind which heretofore had accepted his conduct and life unquestioned. But at that moment there stole upon him the memory of a sweet white face, drawn with pain and the sound of a low but earnest voice saying, "My boy, I am going away--to leave you alone. Be strong and brave and good." These memories as they mingled in his mind and ears with the picture of a beautiful, dark face full of suffering into which he had looked that very morning and the sound of sharp moans still coming through the half-closed bungalow door, worked strange havoc within him.

Although his thoughts had carried him far, only a few moments had actually passed when, hearing quick steps beyond the compound wall, he came to a halt and saw an English woman hurry in at the gate, followed by the panting ayah.

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Blackmore," spoke a pleasant English voice. "I am not a physician, but I'll do the best I can."

Blackmore-Sahib followed clumsily, as a man does in a house of illness, after the energetic little figure that went straight to Nona's room. There the missionary spent much time examining her patient and it was with anxious eyes that she finally looked at the man as he sat near the door.

"It is a serious case. I have seen just one like it before," she said. "But since it is impossible to get a real physician I will do the best I can. Will you kindly send me a couple more servants and order several tubs of hot water got ready? Then, please, go away for a gallop and do not come back for several hours. I don't believe you know much about sickness and a good ride will brace you up, for you will have to watch with her to-night, I think." The last was said with a smile as she started quickly and quietly about her preparations.

At the end of two hours he met her at the bedroom door.

"She is more comfortable, but it will be a hard fight. I shall stay here to-night. I don't dare trust the case to any one else yet."

In the morning, when at five o'clock he was wakened from a fitful sleep by a rap at his door, the same voice said, "She is resting now. Will you come and watch her while I go home for a short time? I cannot leave her alone with the servants, for they are either too tired or too stupid to obey instructions this morning."

About seven she returned and all day long, sometimes by turns, sometimes together, they watched and waited, doing all they could to help Nature bring back peace to the poor suffering body.