"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."