Leonie of the Jungle Part 36

Followed a short spell of peace in which Leonie raised her hand to summon her ayah squatting on the dressing-room matting, and put an end to the incessant chattering.

But bolts do not wait upon the clapping of hands before they crash down upon your defenceless head from out the blue, and the one destined for her from all time hurled itself at her from out a wispy cloud of Eurasian gossip.

"Oh! but we can't do that!" announced the peevish high-pitched voice.

"Why not?"

"Ma says we're not to be with her alone. There's all sorts of weird tales going round about her. Thought you knew. They say she killed her first husband, and tried to stab someone in Calcutta with that dagger she wears in her hair; that she lives on the q.t. with a native--he gave her that gorgeous necklace of pink pearls; has been seen with him in the compound after dark--Ma watched--and she's positively dotty at the full moon. Fact! Mrs. Oswald told Ma that there's no doubt that she's quite mad at times."

The blonde slid her slightly bowed, silken-hosed limbs to the ground, her face the colour of greenish putty through the superst.i.tions of one half of her forbears.

"Let's go and find your ma!" said she. "It's full moon to-night."

And after their departure Leonie sat very still on the edge of the bed, with one foot tucked under her, and the other bare and very perfect stretched down to the matting; the netting fell in folds behind her, and her eyes stared into the corner where a one time nameless, unshaped spook, having taken form and name at last, stood mouthing at her from the shadows.

She started violently and looked down when her body-woman touched the arched instep with her wrinkled, dusky hand.

Keenly intuitive, as are all the peoples of India, she had crept noiselessly across the matting and crouched at Leonie's feet in her desire to be near the beloved child in her distress.

There was a heaven of love and a world of indecision in the monkey eyes, but not a trace of fear when the beloved child suddenly twisted the _sari_ from about the sleek head and pock-marked face and shook her violently by the shoulder. Instead she rocked herself gently to and fro, crooning in the toneless cracked voice of the native woman who tends a white child and loves it.

"Missy--baba, it's ayah!" went the tuneless song, "it's ayah--it's ayah--be not afraid, baba--baba--it's ayah--ayah--ayah."

Over and over again she repeated the words with her eyes on the terror-stricken face above her.

"Why!" said Leonie, frowning till her straight brows met as she pressed the palms against her temples, "why, you used to sing that in--in--you used to call me--in the name of all the G.o.ds, woman, tell me--help me, oh! help me to understand!"

Great tears stood in the native woman's eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, then turned her head slightly and looked towards the chick which had rustled; scowled, and bowing her head ever so little placed the palm of her hand against her forehead for an instant.

"Won't you or _can't_ you speak?" said Leonie almost roughly, her voice ending on a sharp note which changed to a little bubbling uncanny laugh as she sat back on the bed holding her ayah at arm's length.

She took no notice of the dressing-bell when it clanged throughout the building, nor of the swish of the water as it was heaved into the tin bath in the bathroom, but sat on with the plaits of her hair coiled like snakes on each side of her, and the whiteness of her bare arms and shoulders shining in the light from the bathroom.

"Ayah! ayah!" she said in a dull sing-song sort of way, "do you know what they say? Do you know what they think? They think, they say I'm _mad_! And do you know I think I am. Sometimes there's the sound of drums in my brain, great big drums beaten by giants, and sometimes the sound of bells. And the sound of the bells is hot, it burns great scars on--on--and there are hours for which I can't account, and cuts and bruises on my feet and--and----"

Very quietly the native woman rose, and pa.s.sing one arm behind the bare shoulder drew a hand across the low broad forehead, singing in her own tongue so softly as to be almost inaudible.

"I dream of blood, ayah," went on Leonie, "so often--so often--it is warm to the fingers and drops so--so slowly--and----"

The ayah pressed her fingers a little as she drew them behind the ears to the nape of the neck, and raised her voice ever so slightly in the Vega chant she had learnt as a lullaby.

"The women," she crooned, "that are lying on a bench, lying on a couch, lying in a litter; the women that--are--of--pure odour--all--of them we--make--sleep!"

The cracked voice sank suddenly as her child's face softened and relaxed, but the dark hand pa.s.sed to and fro ceaselessly above the eyes and down behind the ears.

"It walks so softly, ayah--it's--it's in that--corner now--look! can't you see--its--its eyes--and the small--light--and she is--she is calling--calling--just as she--has--has--always----"

The tawny head fell backwards on to the white _sari_ picked out in coloured silk, pulling it away from the head, and the marriage dower of thirteen silver earrings in the left ear, and the turquoise studded nose ring which shone dully in the dim light.

"And it's dark--it's--quite----"

Leonie slept, and her neighbours in the dining-room went through certain anatomical gymnastics such as lifting the eyebrows, shrugging the shoulders, and pursing the lips, all of which are supposed to denote suspicion; while the native woman kept guard behind the reed blind through which she watched a figure clothed in spotless white flitting among the shadows of the trees.

When those shadows marked the hour of midnight she sprang quickly to her feet.

With one violent uncontrollable movement, Leonie had risen to her knees with the tips of the fingers of one hand against her lips and her eyes slanting sideways towards the window near her bed.

"Hush!" she whispered. "Listen!"

Very softly, very sweetly there fell upon the night air the single stroke of a temple bell.

Once it fell, and twice, and yet again. And as it stopped the night was filled with the dull faint throbbing of many drums.

Calling! calling! calling!

Hidden in the shadows close to the reed blind, Madhu Krishnaghar watched the girl with intent half-shut eyes as, outlined against the dim light from the dressing-room, she twisted the heavy plaits of hair about her head, pinning them with the diamond hilted dagger; then stripping her flimsy garment from her, lifted the sheet from the bed, and twisted it deftly about her waist; watched her as she mechanically took a white _sari_ embroidered in silver from the ayah, and without hesitation folded it in true native fashion about her body and small head.

The light of his religion flared into a flame of love and pa.s.sion almost uncontrolled when Leonie, lifting the chick, stood by his side in the full light of the moon, with a smile of welcome on her lips, and the light of unholy knowledge in her eyes.

Quite close to him she stood with one hand upon his arm, as he hung garlands of scented flowers about her neck, and then with a little beckoning gesture was gone; and the ayah crouching on the floor, beat her withered breast with her withered hand, a world of doubt in her monkey eyes.

Like two white moths they flitted through the gloom and the hanging ropes of the banyan trees, down the narrow native path, and on through strangely empty streets and deserted bazaar to the Praying Ghats.

The air beat about them with the incessant throbbing of many drums, calling to prayer--calling to sacrifice.

Calling! calling! calling!

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

"Let us pa.s.s our lives at Benares, living by the banks of the divine river, clad only in a single garment, and with our hands uplifted over our heads."--_The Vairagya Sataka_.

The Praying Ghats or Steps lay desolate in the light of the full moon.

Hundreds of small lights twinkled and flickered before the countless temples; hundreds of fading flower garlands, hung about the temple doors or festooned about the G.o.ds--some of which are quite indescribable--perfumed the night air; and to the right and to the left the smouldering bodies on the Burning Ghats cast a crimson glow on the slow, silvery waters of India's most holy river.

Of worshippers there was not one.

Of the countless priests who crowd the steps at dawn there was but one.

The mad priest.

Naked save for a loin cloth, he stood as he always stands from dawn to dawn with feet wide apart and hands upraised to the heavens, outlined against some one of the Rajah's palaces which crown the top and stretch the length of the terraces like a mighty rampart between the holiness of the place, and the fret and traffic of the outer world.

The holy man's arms, his legs, his emaciated body are covered with a fine ash powder, his long hair is matted with cinders and cow-dung, his mad eyes stare across the river into the infinite, at that which _we_ cannot see, as he stands shouting unintelligible, maybe mad words, maybe not, to the glory of his G.o.ddess, Kali the Terrible.