Leonie of the Jungle Part 35

For had he not looked upon the unveiled face of his master's woman.

Slowly Madhu Krishnaghar led Leonie up the marble steps and stopped.

"Thou dog," he said gently, "thou low-caste dog!"

Then he drew Leonie into his arms and covered her completely with the heavy coat.

But the man, submitting to fate with the terrible resignation of the East, let fly one last poisoned arrow.

"The dog goes to his death," he cried. "But behold, the shame of the lord is great, for have not the eyes of the low-caste dog rested upon the woman's face."

"_Usko marro_! Kill quickly!" thundered the son of princes, and turned indifferently away.

But even as the elephant threw the man upon the ground, and placing his foot upon his head, tore him in twain, Leonie wrenched herself free, and flinging up her arms to the moon, laughed and laughed until the night echoed and re-echoed with the horrible sound, stopping only when the smothering folds of the cloak were thrown about her.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

"And thou shalt grope at noonday."--_The Bible_.

Jan Cuxson, hurt to the quick at Leonie's refusal to marry him, also at her rejection of his offer to accompany her upon her travels, shut his hurt away, and set his mind to the completion of his task.

His suspicions had been aroused by the finding of that orange and silver sc.r.a.p of _sari_ near the temple, when the ayah had presumably been left miles behind on the launch; and fully realising the futility of employing the methods of the West against the subtlety of the East he decided to pit native craft against native cunning.

The only result of the investigation, however, was that Leonie's present ayah had been traced back via the Ranee's house to the days when she had been in the service of the Colonel-Sahib Hetth, V.C., but beyond that was a blank wall.

She had suddenly left the Ranee's service to become body-woman to Leonie; without a single reference to the time when she had been nurse to Leonie as a baby.

Who was keeping her silent, and why? And what was she doing, and who was she with in the deserted temple in the jungle?

Whose tool was she?

Certainly not the Ranee's. She was wrapped up in her duties toward the fast ageing Rajah, and her only son, who seemed much the same as other sons of princes.

Having finally decided that the answer to the problem lay in the temple, to the temple he decided to go, more with the intention of having a look round than with any definite plan.

The decision was made with the fixed though unspoken determination that if the solving of the problem should involve a sojourn of ten years in India, for ten years he would remain.

He hired a guide and a coolie, both of whom looked exactly like any other guide and coolie, and having much to think out, and sure thinking being anything but a rapid process with him, also because he did not wish to draw too much attention to his movements, he chose as a means of conveyance the ugly flat-bottomed public paddle-boat which floats unconcernedly down the Hoogli from Calcutta, through the bigger creeks of the Sunderbunds, and up the Pusaka River to Kulna.

If you want a few days' rest, or time in which to unravel a knot, pray take that means of locomotion; you can be dropped anywhere into a _nukur_ or native boat which will deposit you for a few annas on any island you choose, but don't do it if you are in a hurry, or are filled with a desire to see the lesser creeks, and the quite small ones, where tigers are supposed to sit in rows upon the water's edge, monkeys to swing across the water by means of the creepers interlacing the dark and dismal trees, and crocodiles to lie in tumbled ma.s.ses waiting to be turned into portmanteau, dressing-case, or shoes.

Cuxson's method and brain were rather like his gait; as he had said in Rockham cove, he was _slow_! He could not and never had, even at Harrow, been able to run a hundred yards without becoming most uncomfortably blown; but he could walk anyone to death at a set plodding steady tramp, accomplishing twenty miles without turning a hair; while after a series of terrific spurts, and enforced periods of rest, his companions would give up dishevelled, sweating, and unpleasantly mortified miles away from the desired goal.

Problems, mathematical or medical, were treated in just the same way.

The more brilliant of his fellow-students would seize upon a pen, fill reams of paper and slap the result down triumphantly at the end of an hour, to find themselves later, and again with mortification at the bottom of the list, or not on it at all; whereas Cuxson, after hours of searching here and there in the convolutions of his grey matter, would light on a thread, a grain or a speck of dust which he would proceed to turn inside out, or tear to pieces; the outcome of which process would be printed at length in the _Lancet_ or some such-enlivening journal.

So he lay on the long chair in the corner reserved for sahibs, and was not too uncomfortable, nor in any way uneasy as to the result of his investigations, although all that he had to build his hopes upon was the word of a native, and a piece of orange silk picked out in silver with the dust of a sundri breather adhering, which lay in his pocketbook with a ring of seaweed, and some glistening strands of tawny hair.

The serang, meanwhile, parleyed with certain gatherers of _golaputtah_ which is a special palm leaf growing in the Sunderbunds for the express purpose of thatching boats and _suapatti_ huts; and having discussed the ins and outs, and pros and cons of the situation with every male upon the boat, had transferred the sahib with his guide and coolie to a native boat, after a gratifying give and take in silver rupees which are so much nicer to handle than dirty notes.

And an old priest made sacrifice of a black kid unto his G.o.d, having been apprised in the mysterious native way of the approaching arrival of the last person on earth he wished to see.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

"What hath night to do with sleep?"--_Milton_.

"What a nuisance!"

Leonie turned on her bed and frowned through the chick at the two girls who had ensconced themselves in long chairs on the verandah outside her bedroom.

Broad-minded and big-hearted, she had tried to overcome the intense irritation which the Eurasian manner of speech invariably aroused in her. Some get accustomed in time to the parrot-like monotony; some don't; and to the end of his days the young, immaculately groomed and turned-out a.s.sistant in Hamilton's will wonder why the beautiful girl with gold-flecked eyes had suddenly frowned, and placing the trifle intended for a wedding present upon the gla.s.s counter, had left the shop with an appallingly inadequate excuse.

Fortunately for him the pukka European has not been endowed with the gift of hearing himself speak as others hear him.

Like the broken flight of maimed birds over a lawn in the process of being mown is the Eurasian speech and intonation; with the inevitable dip in the middle, the rise at the end of each sentence, and the ceaseless clipping of syllables.

And Leonie frowned as she lay under the mosquito netting awaiting the warning of the dressing bell, and even felt thankful to a crow which suddenly perched itself on the top twig of a fir tree, and shrieked its condemnation of the sunset, the star just above its head, and the chatterers in the chairs.

In an effort to break through the overpowering lethargy which lately had fallen upon her at odd moments of the day, she lifted herself on to her elbow, only to sink listlessly back on the very hard bed. After all, why worry over problems to which there seemed no answer? Why fret over the silence of the man she loved when she had curtly refused his offer of companionship; for there always comes a time when mere man, subjected to the unsatisfactory daily menu of snubs and refusals, tense moods, and moody silences, will refuse it, and clear for a diet, which, although somewhat lacking in salt and spice, will have the advantage of being substantial, therefore satisfying.

Also there was no doubt about it the social ostracism of Calcutta had followed her to Benares; she had not failed to notice that the people packing the hotel looked at her furtively, smiling spasmodically when caught in the act, and seemed ill at ease when left alone with her.

Another thing which annoyed her intensely was the habit she had developed of peering into the shadows of the compound at odd moments, and listening for a sound she could not even describe to herself, and which she never heard; while through the blazing hours of the day, and the stifling hours of the night, like a black thread woven into a tissue of gold, ran the ghastly fear which had been with her since the day when a schoolgirl had taunted her, and to which she had given voice near the poinsettia bush to Jan Cuxson.

She had _done_ Benares en tourist.

She had watched the worshippers thronging the Praying Steps at dawn from the deck of a boat rowed slowly up and down the holy river; had enticed the monkeys with gram from the niches in the Doorga Kond, the world-famed Monkey Temple; gazed fascinated and with reverence at the firing of the pyres about the dead bodies shrouded in white or red according to their s.e.x upon the Burning Ghats; averted her eyes steadfastly from the bloated bodies in process of being torn to pieces by crows or vultures as they floated on the soft bosom of Mother Ganges to everlasting peace; and had pa.s.sed restful hours in the wonderful ruins of the Buddhist temple some miles outside the city.

She had done all that others have done and will do, and still she waited, doing absolutely nothing and with no excuse for loitering in the hotel with its long broad verandah; learning much of the city's history from the charming manager who walks with a stick, and has the blue-green-brown shadow of the peat bog in his eyes.

"Shoo, you brute!" said one, of the girls on the verandah, and continued speaking when the crow had flown farther afield. "Well, the manager says we are not to go to the bazaar to-night on any account!"

"Why ever not?"

"Says there's a row or something brewing--something to do with the natives and their religion!"

The girl with the reddish-brown hair put a final polish to the nails, which d.a.m.ned her everlastingly, as she spoke condescendingly of one half of her forbears; while the other, a _bona fide_ blonde as to hair, half opened the long sleepy brown eyes, which, combined with the shape of her silken-hosed leg from ankle to knee branded her even before she uttered a word.

"Don't believe it," the latter replied. "It's a do on the part of the guide to get more backsheesh; you simply can't trust these natives a yard. I'll tell you what, though," she sat up with an energy surprising in one of her kind, "let's ask Lady Hickle. She's _such_ a pet, and there's _nothing_ she doesn't know about the place, she's been here a whole month."