About ten o’clock John came up and made, with difficulty, his frightened way to my side.
“Master say you want something? Please he like come bring you down. It is very late.”
“All right, I’ll come down with you, John,” I said.
“Oh no, memsahib, please not,” cried John, “Master be very angry. It want two gentlemen help you this bad night.”
Some imp of contrariness possessed me. I was cross at having to go down at all; and I answered John roughly. “Bring the rugs,” I said, “and I’ll come by myself, if you are afraid to help me.” Poor John, he was afraid to help himself; and, in sooth, we had a very staggery time of it between the steamer chair and the gangway. But we grasped the brass rod at last and went slowly, and, as I thought, surely down. How often we are most in danger when we think that danger is over! I was on the last step when a lurch more tremendous than all the tremendous others tore the brass rod from my hand, and I lay across the saloon doorway, a rather mangled mass of wilful woman.
I had interrupted a game of whist. I was rather badly hurt, but they were all very good to me; even the Captain and the long-suffering husband, both of whom I had defied by staying on deck, through the storm, and both of whom I had disobeyed by coming below without their help.
There was a young army surgeon on board; I forget his name, but I shall always remember him. He had been invalided home from Mandalay. He was seriously ill; but he left his state-room and came to mine. I shall never forget how very ill he looked as he bent over my rather badly cut eye. I am sure that he was far worse than I was, but he saved me from the full consequences of my folly; and he looked so very white and spent that I forgot to moan, and let my fancy wander to a score of battlefields where unselfish medicos have won their Victoria Crosses; and before my mind had quite come back my eye was mended.
Our second season in Calcutta was delightful, but warm. “Cinch, cinch,” was our constant cry; which meant that we wanted the punkah-wallahs to pull harder.
Punkahs are the puissant antidotes of the Indian climate. They are not always needed, nor everywhere; but when they are needed, they are needed badly! There are two kinds of punkahs—hand punkahs, and the long canvas punkahs that hang from the ceiling and are pulled by the coolies, who sit in the hall or in an outer room. The hand punkahs are huge fans, made of palm leaves, and swung near your face, by the tireless arms of indefatigable punkah-wallahs.
Some of the hand punkahs are very beautiful. In Calcutta, at the theatre, I was kept cool by the breath of a big Egyptian-shaped thing that was inlaid with bits of brilliantly-hued glass. In Rawal Pindi I was cooled by the breeze of a square of scented grass. In Patiala the servants of the Maharajah fanned me with wire-outlined, leaf-fringed, sandalwood-sprinkled ovals of crimson silk.