Leonie of the Jungle Part 41

"I waited for the command of Kali, and after many years I sent my beloved disciple, the son of princes, across the Black Water to bring the white woman by the force of his will back to the land of her birth and up to the altar steps. And now I wait--I wait--for a little, little while."

The old voice rose to a thin shout of triumph which lapsed into silence as, totally oblivious of his prisoner, he sank to the ground, lost, quite suddenly, in that wonderful abstraction of the East in which the native can find escape from the trials of life at odd moments, and in unaccountably odd places.

During the long silence that followed, Jan Cuxson sat patiently puffing at his pipe and trying to piece the strange tale together, until at an advanced hour of the night he once more felt the hawk-like eyes fixed upon his face.

Eagerly he picked up the thread of the story as though there had been no lapse.

"You mesmerised her, you say, eighteen years ago, and you pretend you can still bend her to your will?"

"Nay, Sahib! Through me Kali the Terrible imprinted her will upon the babe's tender mind those many moons ago!"

Cuxson shook his head.

"You can't make me believe _that_--it's rubbish--like the mango tree and rope trick--it's impossible, simply _impossible_ to make strong-minded, level-headed people do things against their will."

In such wise does the westerner account to his own satisfaction for the mysterious workings of the East.

The old man said no word, but looked steadily between the young man's eyes.

"If the sahib will look to his right hand!"

Cuxson turned his head and started.

Eyes glaring, tail thras.h.i.+ng the ground, and ears flattened to the great head, a tiger half crouched.

"The devil!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as the mouth of the great animal twisted spasmodically. "Here's a fix."

"The sahib will place his hand upon the tiger's head."

"Not much!"

"The sahib is afraid!"

The quiet scorn of the words struck Cuxson like a whip, and he stretched out his hand impulsively towards the smooth head with flattened ears and glaring eyes.

There was not a sound, though the tail swished the ground, and the huge mouth opened slowly, showing the splendid ivories.

"The sahib, if he is not afraid, will close his hand firmly upon the throat!"

Cuxson's hand closed gently upon the striped skin; then he exclaimed sharply on perceiving that the only thing his hand grasped was air.

"Why--what--how the----!"

The old man nodded his head gently, and answered without a smile. "It was the will of the Black One that the sahib should see the steed upon which she roams the jungle at night!"

But Cuxson was British, and would not be convinced.

"I don't believe it," he said shortly. "That was a tame animal, which strays in and out of the temple like a tame cat."

"Will the sahib look at the dust upon the ground. Is there sign of feet, marks of the body, or the las.h.i.+ng of the tail upon the dust?"

Truly the dust, save for the deer marks, was undisturbed, but Cuxson shook his head stoutly, and refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes.

"The sahib will not believe! Then will I make her, the white woman, see thee, the man she desires as husband, a prisoner in the House of Kali, covered in blood, and she will hasten forthwith to thee--and to me!"

Cuxson sprang to his feet with murder in his eyes, but stopped and flung out his hands as though to thrust aside some obstacle.

The priest laughed softly.

"O babe in wisdom! Behold, thou shalt not be bound, yet shalt thou not stir beyond yon temple wall until she come, and with her the son of princes who yearns for her; then shall I lift my will from thee and tie thee to the wall that thou mayst behold the double sacrifice of _love_ and _life_ made to Kali the Terrible."

The priest was gone, and Jan Cuxson sat down upon a fallen block of masonry, covering his face with his wounded hands; and faintly from the temple echoed the voice of the priest as he prayed to his G.o.d before projecting his will across the s.p.a.ce that divided him from the white woman.

Only for a little moment of despondency, and then he sat back and shook his great shoulders with the light of battle in his eyes, and grim determination in every line of the powerful jaw.

How he was going to circ.u.mvent the priest and save his beloved he did not know--he had no plan, but--he was going to pull it off.

"The son of princes," he said, addressing a monkey which had flung a stick at him from the top of the wall, "why I'd trust my dear, bewitched or not, with a thousand sons of princes. I love her and she loves me, you gibbering bit of fur, and d'you think _anything_ could stand against _that_. Let her come! Just let her be within reach of my arms, _then_ you'll see what you will see. Let the priest play into my hands, and bring her here, the sooner the better, for _that_ is exactly what _I_ want."

And he laughed as he refilled his pipe, blessing the old priest for his consideration in annexing naught but his rifle and revolver.

Which is just about the simplest way of starting to get out of a tight corner.

Ignoring all obstacles, owning to no defeat. The splendid heritage of the English speaking race.

CHAPTER XLII

"A good name is better than precious ointment."--_The Bible_.

"And in its light the Star of Love aglow, Shone with her beacon fire, a guide and guardian still."--_Dante's Inferno_.

In the middle of the night Leonie lay face downwards upon her bed in the great Eastern Hotel.

All the luggage she had brought with her from England was stacked around the small room, and even in the dressing-room; in fact, there was that unfinished, unpacked air about the whole place which is inseparable from anyone in India who is in the throes of going home.

She had returned on the wings of panic from Benares, only to find that the gossip which had been circulated about her had arrived well in advance; and that, like crows after a dust cart, what remained of the city's female population was busy pulling her to a thousand pieces with claws and beaks sharpened by the million irritations of the hot weather.

A dignified bearer had salaamed gravely, and handed her a chit upon her arrival at the bungalow, where her friend was braving the pestilence of the hot weather in comrades.h.i.+p with her husband, who, in the secret places of his heart, wished to goodness she had gone to the hills with the rest of 'em.

Her luggage, the letter stated, had been s.h.i.+fted to the hotel, where a room had been taken for her, and there would, it seemed, be plenty of accommodation on the _City of Sparta_ which would be sailing in three weeks' time for home.

And that was all!

It is wise in the hot weather to pull the purdah, which is the Indian way of saying to shut the door, in the face of a young and unattached girl with a tawny head and opalescent eyes; especially if the dust has long been undisturbed upon the threshold of the secret places of the male heart supposed to be entirely in your keeping.

For days she had remained in her room, not daring to face the curious glances, and subdued whispers, of the few visitors to be met with in the marble desolation of the front hall; and not for worlds would she have used the telephone for fear of the direct snub the wire would surely have transmitted.

Food she hardly touched; sleep she did, heavily, waking dull and unrefreshed; and for hours she would sit and stare into the corners, or peer over her shoulder into the stifling shadows, or study her face in the mirror, wondering if her strange eyes were the eyes of a mad woman.