In Kali's Country: Tales from Sunny India

by Emily Churchill Thompson Sheets

"Yes, Sahib, I got her. She's a doctor-memsahib, master."

"Boy, did you run away and leave me?" Caldwell continued, remembering the words of the woman to the boy and making his tone as sepulchral as possible in order to frighten the man still more.

"I ran to get the doctor-memsahib, master," shivered out the unhappy fellow, ignoring in his reply his later entire disappearance while the doctor-memsahib was left for five hours to struggle alone for Caldwell-Sahib's life.

But Caldwell-Sahib, although suspecting the truth, was in no state just then either by chastisement or preaching to teach the beauty of courage and self-sacrifice. So he sank back upon his pillow and gave himself to thought.

During the next few days, while his strength was returning, Caldwell-Sahib had plenty of time to think and, for the first time in his bachelor life, his thoughts centred about a woman—for he knew cholera and he knew that the doctor-memsahib had saved his life.

The boy, emboldened by feeling no symptoms of the dread disease in his own system, gradually took up his accustomed duties and cared for his master's wants in the quick, noiseless, and perfect way of the well-trained Indian servant that soothes a man's soul. So for several days with the punkah swinging over him the convalescent lay stretched out upon his steamer chair, the very picture of comfort and pleasant dreams. To have one's life saved by a woman and a good-looking one, too, touches even a crusty heart. But to find that this was the very woman whom for a whole month he had thought of only with contempt and disgust broke clear through the crustiness of Caldwell-Sahib's heart and added a little pleasurable anxiety to the tenderness engendered within.

One month before this time very suddenly the government had sent him up to Baihar to look after some matters which would consume about a year's time. So having taken possession of the bungalow built by the government for such official visits and having moved up enough of his belongings to be comfortable, Caldwell-Sahib had settled down for a "dead" year such as so many government officials live through in parts of India, as in duty bound. Baihar, a city of about ten thousand inhabitants, is a purely religious city, where no business is transacted but religious business and where no pleasures are indulged in but those of religion; those of the Hindu religion being so vile that "Baihar" is almost another name for Hell. Caldwell had expected to be the only European in that whole city of blackest Hinduism; so the prospects of a year alone in such a place had been, indeed, anything but inviting to an Englishman who despised the natives and who could find no pleasure in Indian life apart from the sports of a large cantonment or the resources of a well-stocked library.

However, after he had been in Baihar but a few days, he had heard that there was another European in the city, a woman, an American missionary, who for six years had lived alone in that horrible place in order to bring Christian, medical help to the poor women of that city, especially to the four thousand Hindu widows devoted to temple worship and the lusts of the priests. To say that Caldwell-Sahib had been horrified at the thought of a lone woman in that place would have put it too strongly, for he was simply disgusted. He said that she must be mad, certainly far beyond the realm of sense, let alone common sense, to have undertaken such a thing. This woman's presence in Baihar would not make any difference with the beastly dullness of the life ahead of him, that was certain, for he would have nothing to do with her and he did not even want to see her; for he hated women in general and this one must be an especially objectionable specimen of the species.

But now Caldwell-Sahib had seen her and she was sweet and wholesome to look upon. Now this very woman had saved his life. If she had not been there engaged in her foolish work, he would have died. Therefore, he was full of regret for his former unkind thoughts and he was, moreover, exceedingly grateful, for he put considerable value on his life, did Caldwell-Sahib, and to be less than grateful to her who had saved it would be to prove himself less than a man.