I decided, at last, to say nothing about that dream of a marvellous moonlight ride on an elephant over half Wales. Twinges of conscience assailed me at times, but they were laid to rest for ever about Christmas-tide, when, going through a small town in the Midlands, I was met, in passing a new cottage hospital on its environs, by a glad cry-- "The very man I want! I've got a poor soul here who won't die. He ought really to have been at peace two days ago--but he goes on and on. You see, he's an Indian or something, and we can't speak the lingo--you can, I expect?"
I followed the doctor, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, into the ward, with a foreboding at my heart. I knew it was old Mahadeo, and that, indeed, he wanted me. And it was. He lay tucked up between clean sheets on an English bed with two English hospital nurses fadding about him, speechless, gasping, at the very point and spit of death, yet waiting--waiting ...
I knew what he wanted, and without a word, his dark eyes following me in dim gladness, I threw back the clothes and got a firm grip of the sheet at his head. He should at least die as a Hindu should die. "Now, doctor!" I said, "if you'll take the feet we will let him find freedom outside."
A nurse started forward. "But the case is pneumonia--double pneumonia----"
The doctor hesitated; they always are in the hands of the nurses.
"Look here, Jones," I cried, sharply. "This man doesn't want clinical thermometers, and draw-sheets, and caps. He wants freedom. He wants to die as his religion tells him he must die, on Mother Earth--aye--even if her bosom is white with snow."
And it was, for it was Christmas-tide.
So we lifted him out, the doctor and I, and laid him down on Heaven's white quilt. He just rolled over, face down, into the cool pillow.
"Râm-Râm--Sita-Râm," I whispered, kneeling beside him to give the last dying benediction of his race. Such a quaint one! Only the name of what to it, is superman and superwoman. A last appeal to the higher instincts of humanity.
There was one little sob. I thought I heard the beginning of the old refrain: