Part 7 (1/2)

Was it not the wisdom of our Lord Ganesh?

I decided, at last, to say nothing about that dream of a marvellous moonlight ride on an elephant over half Wales. Twinges of conscience a.s.sailed 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 pa.s.sing 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.

”_Ram-Ram--Sita-Ram_,” 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:

”The wisdom of our Lord Ganesh----” Then he had found freedom.

”You seem to know their ways, sir,” said a horsey-looking man who had come in with us and who had evidently something to do with the show.

”So, if you could give us a 'elp with this pore fellar's beast, I'd be obliged. Hasn't touched food this ten days--never since the old man took worse, and a elephant, sir, is a dead loss to a show. The master lef' 'im here with me, but I'm blowed if I can do nothing with him.”

I found Ganesh happier than his master, for, no place being large enough for him, he lay in the open; but they had stretched a tarpaulin over him like a rick-cover, as a protection.

A glance told me he was far gone, though he lay crouched, not p.r.o.ne; his trunk--marvellous agent for good or ill--stretched out before him beyond shelter into the snow.

As I came up to him, I fancied I saw a flicker in his eyes, those eyes so small, so full of wisdom. Then I laid in front of him the old man's turban, ragged, worn, which I had begged of the prim nurses. In a second the whole, huge, inert ma.s.s of flesh became instinct with life.

He rose to his feet with incredible swiftness, and softly encircling the old ragged pugree, raised it gently and placed it in the master's seat. For a moment I doubted what would come next; but the instinct which is held in leviathan's small brain is great. He knew by some mysterious art that the master was dead, that the human mind which had been his guide was gone.

He took one step forward, threw up his trunk, and the echoes of the surrounding houses cracked with the roaring bellow of his trumpet as he swayed sideways and fell dead.

That was all the little smug provincial English town ever knew of the

”Wisdom of our Lord Ganesh.”

THE SON OF A KING

I

”Barring my pay,” he said, ruefully, ”I haven't a coin in the world.”

And for the moment, newly accepted lover as he was, his eyes actually left hers and wandered away to the reddening yellow of the sunset with a certain resentment at the limitations of his world.

”Father has plenty!” she put in joyously. And for the moment her hand actually touched his in a new-born sense of appropriation and right of re-a.s.surance which made her blush faintly. It also made his eyes return to hers, whereat she blushed furiously, and then tried to cover her confusion by a jest. ”Well! he has. Hasn't he the best collection of coins in India?”

”He wouldn't part with one of them, though, for love or money. And I doubt his parting with you--though I could pay a lot--in love.”