The old formula fell on my ears--though I had been waiting for it--with a sense of sickening failure, and unable to reply, I turned away from the figure which lay so still and lifeless despite all my care. As I did so I noticed Shivdeo listening with eyes and ears at the door. For the last three days the man had been strangely restless, and more than once I had discovered odd things disposed about the room, and even on poor Terence's pillow--things used as talismans to keep away the evil eye, such as I had seen in Hairan-wallah when the bhut-baby was born; and I had smiled--good heavens, how ignorant we are in India!--smiled at the silly superstition which evidently lingered in Shivdeo's mind. He came to me when the doctor left to ask if he had understood rightly that the great hour of hope or dread drew nigh. I told him we should know by dawn, and that till then all must be quiet as the grave. His face startled me by its intensity, as standing at the foot of the bed he fixed his eyes on the unconscious face of his master and salaamed to it with all the reverence he would have given to a god. But he spoke calmly to me, saying that as I would doubtless be loth to leave the room he would order the servants to bring me something to eat there. He presently appeared, bearing the tray himself, giving as a reason for this unusual service his desire to avoid any disturbance. It was just upon twelve o'clock when, with Shivdeo's help, I gave Terence, who was quite unconscious, a few drops of stimulant before sitting down with a sinking heart to my anxious watch. It was early April, and the doors, set wide open to let in the cool air, showed a stretch of moonlit grass where shadows from the unseen trees above quivered and shifted as the night-wind stirred the leaves. In the breathless silence I could hear even the faint respiration of the sick man, and found myself counting its rise and fall, until the last thing I remembered was Shivdeo's immovable figure with the moonlight streaming full in his face.
When I awoke the rapid Eastern dawn had come. The sparrows were twittering in the verandah, and Shivdeo stood by his master's bed holding his finger to his lips. "Hush!" he whispered, as my eyes met his; "the light has brought life to the Giver of Light."
It must have been the sound of wheels which woke me, for ere I had time to reply the doctor entered the room, and after a glance at his patient shook me silently by the hand. "I believe he's through," he said, when he had cautiously examined the sleeping man; "fever gone, pulse stronger. I scarcely dared to hope for it even with his splendid constitution. Hullo! what's that?" It was only a tiny spot of blood on the forehead just where the trident of Shiva is painted by his worshippers, but it showed vividly against the pallor of the skin.
"There is a little spot by the Light-giver's feet also," remarked Shivdeo quietly. "I noticed it yesterday just after the Presence cut his hand with the soda-water bottle." And sure enough there was one.
"I can't think how I came to fall asleep," I said to him after the doctor had gone; "just at the critical time, too, when I was most wanted."
The man smiled. "We do not always guess aright when we are wanted, Huzoor. You slept and the Light-giver got better. It is God's way; He has refreshed you both."
"Refreshed!" I retorted crossly. "I feel as if I had been pounded in a mortar. I had the most frightful dreams, but I can't recall what they were."
"It is not well to try," replied Shivdeo, with rather an odd look. "If I were the Presence I would forget them. There is enough evil to come without recalling what is past and over for ever."
Perhaps involuntarily I followed his suggestion, for, though I chased the fleeting memory more than once through my brain, I never overtook it.
Terence O'Reilly made a quick recovery; but in view of the fast approaching hot weather, the doctors put him on board ship as soon as it could be done with safety. Hurry was the order of the day, so it was not until my return from seeing him to Bombay that I found time for outside affairs. Then it was that Shivdeo informed me of poor little Boots' death in the interval. As the Presence was aware, he said, it had been thought advisable when perfect quiet was necessary to the Light-bringer to send the child away from the compound, because of the difficulty experienced in keeping it out of the house. So it had gone with its nurse to the cantonment-sweeper's hut, where it had caught fresh cold and died. By the advice of the native doctor who had seen it, he had kept the death secret at first, from fear of the news delaying his master's recovery. I made every inquiry, but found nothing of any kind to give rise to suspicion of foul play. The native doctor had sent medicine three days running as for bronchitis, and on the fourth he had seen the child's dead body. It had died, he thought, of croup.