



Produced by Don Lainson and Charles Aldarondo. HTML version
by Al Haines.











THE STORY OF SONNY SAHIB


By

MRS. EVERARD COTES


(SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN)



1894






CHAPTER I


'Ayah,' the doctor-sahib said in the vernacular, standing beside
the bed, 'the fever of the mistress is like fire.  Without doubt
it cannot go on thus, but all that is in your hand to do you have
done.  It is necessary now only to be very watchful.  And it will
be to dress the mistress, and to make everything ready for a
journey.  Two hours later all the sahib-folk go from this place in
boats, by the river, to Allahabad.  I will send an ox-cart to take
the mistress and the baby and you to the bathing ghat.'

'Jeldi karo!' he added, which meant 'Quickly do!'--a thing people
say a great many times a day in India.

The ayah looked at him stupidly.  She was terribly frightened; she
had never been so frightened before.  Her eyes wandered from the
doctor's face to the ruined south wall of the hut, where the sun of
July, when it happens to shine on the plains of India, was beating
fiercely upon the mud floor.  That ruin had happened only an hour
ago, with a terrible noise just outside, such a near and terrible
noise that she, Tooni, had scrambled under the bed the mistress was
lying on, and had hidden there until the doctor-sahib came and
pulled her forth by the foot, and called her a poor sort of person.
Then Tooni had lain down at the doctor-sahib's feet, and tried to
place one of them upon her head, and said that indeed she was not a
worthless one, but that she was very old and she feared the guns;
so many of the sahibs had died from the guns!  She, Tooni, did not
wish to die from a gun, and would the Presence, in the great mercy
of his heart, tell her whether there would be any more shooting?
There would be no more shooting, the Presence had said; and then he
had given her a bottle and directions, and the news about going
down the river in a boat.  Tooni's mind did not even record the
directions, but it managed to retain the words about going away in
a boat, and as she stood twisting the bottle round and round in the
folds of her ragged red petticoat it made a desperate effort to
extract their meaning.

'There will be no more shooting,' said the doctor again, 'and there
is a man outside with a goat.  He will give you two pounds of milk
for the baby for five rupees.'

'Rupia!  I have not even one!' said the ayah, looking toward the
bed; 'the captain-sahib has not come these thirty days as he
promised.  The colonel-sahib has sent the food.  The memsahib is
for three days without a pice.'

'I'll pay,' said the doctor shortly, and turned hurriedly to go.
Other huts were crying out for him; he could hear the voice of some
of them through their mud partitions.  As he passed out he caught a
glimpse of himself in a little square looking-glass that hung on a
nail on the wall, and it made him start nervously and then smile
grimly.  He saw the face of a man who had not slept three hours in
as many days and nights--a haggard, unshaven face, drawn as much
with the pain of others as with its own weariness.  His hair stood
up in long tufts, his eyes had black circles under them.  He wore
neither coat nor waistcoat, and his regimental trousers were tied
round the waist by a bit of rope.  On the sleeve of his collarless
shirt were three dark dry splashes; he noticed them as he raised
his arm to put on his pith helmet.  The words did not reach his
lips, but his heart cried out within him for a boy of the 32nd.

The ayah caught up her brass cooking-pot and followed him.  Since
the doctor-sahib was to pay, the doctor-sahib would arrange that
good measure should be given in the matter of the milk.  And upon
second thought the doctor-sahib decided that precautions were
necessary.  He told the man with the goat, therefore, that when the
ayah received two pounds of milk she would pay him the five rupees.
As he put the money into Tooni's hand she stayed him gently.

'We are to go without, beyond the walls, to the ghat?' she asked in
her own tongue.

'Yes,' said the doctor, 'in two hours.  I have spoken.'

'Hazur![1] the Nana Sahib--'



[1] 'Honoured one.'



'The Nana Sahib has written it.  Bus!'[2] the doctor replied
impatiently.  Put the memsahib into her clothes.  Pack everything
there is, and hasten.  Do