But the woman's malediction did not bring fear to the doctor who, stopping short in her walk, could scarcely restrain a shout of joy. For this man and woman were Shama Sahai's parents-in-law going home without her, believing that the priest had stolen the girl. Instead of going on to the river for her usual evening constitutional, the doctor-memsahib hastened to the station where she caught the last afternoon train for Mattera that she might tell Shama Sahai that she was safe.
III
Old Sarah
"Here comes Old Sarah!" A shrill voice shouted the news through the open door into the mud house where the small boy's mother squatted at work, with one long, rounded stone crushing the curry seeds upon another large, flat stone that stood on the mud floor. At the call the mother dropped the long stone from her hand and, springing to her feet, hastily followed her naked boy out upon the street of the village. Old Sarah was a new friend who recently had come often to the village, telling the people stories and singing songs to them. But she never had come oftener than twice a week and she had been there only the day before. So the woman wondered what could have brought her back so soon.
The boy, meantime, had been running up and down the short street, clapping his hands and shouting, "Old Sarah has come! Old Sarah has come!" as Old Sarah herself had taught him to do at her arrival so that the people might know at once that she had come and she might not have to wait for an audience.
"Where is she?" called the mother after the running child, for she had looked up and down the road and failed to see the old woman.
"Why, there she is!" said the boy coming up. "Don't you see her sitting there by the road?"
"That's not Old Sarah! I never saw her sitting by the road like that."