"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?"