Leonie of the Jungle Part 44

"Does the serang know exactly where I want to go? And how quickly can he get there?"

She was having dinner, and quite a good one, in the front part of the living-room in Jessore's dak bungalow. This room can be divided into two by means of a curtain drawn across, and you can listen, in fact you are obliged to listen, if there is another party ensconced behind, either to the furtive love-whispers of those who should not be there, or the frank abuse of each other of the _bona fide_ couple suffering from intense heat and long years of matrimony.

Leonie spoke over her shoulder in the direction of the bedroom, where the bearer was arranging the mosquito net, her toilet things, and her new-bought dainty night attire.

It you are the right type or caste everything always goes smoothly for you in India; if you are not it most emphatically does _not_; so she had not given a thought to the extraordinary ease with which her wishes seemed to be carried out, in fact forestalled.

"It is the same serang who took the mem-sahib when she went on the _shikar_ and killed the man-eating tiger. The two coolies to carry the mem-sahib's luggage have been hired, and the boat will be moored to-morrow night!"

"To-morrow _night_," said Leonie, the light from the adjoining room throwing up her white face against the shadows of the quickly falling night. "But it took us _two_ nights to get there last time."

"We are going a shorter way, mem-sahib. The launch will be moored in a big creek on the front of the island at which the mem-sahib landed last time. A small boat will take us through the very narrow creek, which encircles the island, to the other side near which the temple stands.

There will not be much walking for the mem-sahib, she can proceed immediately to the temple in time to see the sunrise, or pa.s.s the night in a _suapattah_----"

"Oh! never _that_!" said Leonie most decidedly, thinking of her last experience.

"But this hut is clean, mem-sahib!"

Leonie turned right round in her chair.

"How do you know that the last hut was not?"

"All huts are dirty, mem-sahib."

There was not a sign of confusion on the calm well-bred face, and he stood like a statue as Leonie, unconsciously striving for light in the darkness, continued her questioning.

"How did you know I wanted to go to the same place--to the temple, I mean?"

"I did not know, the mem-sahib told the chauffeur!"

At the last word Leonie lifted her head, and her eyes rested intently upon the handsome face in the doorway between the two rooms.

"No! I did not!"

"The great heat of the day doubtless caused the mem-sahib to forget the order she gave to her servant."

Never argue with a native of India, because educated or not he will invariably, and with the utmost courtesy, make you feel at the end of the argument that, if not a born, you are at least an excellent temporary liar.

"Did your parents have you taught your remarkable English?"

"The mem-sahib is too kind to inquire."

In India you do not show curiosity about your servants' private affairs or their families, it is not expected, it is not understood; and at the silence which followed the answer Leonie, feeling herself rebuked, rose from the table, and walked out on to the verandah to hide the colour which swept her face from chin to brow.

In the middle of the night, when suddenly and unaccountably aroused from a restless doze, she spoke sharply as her eyes rested on a white figure p.r.o.ne upon the floor in the reflected light of the moon.

"_Bearer_!"

Her voice was indignant, and the man with one movement rose to his feet and salaamed.

"What _do_ you mean by sleeping in my room?"

Dear heaven, how he loved her as she sat like an image of wrath behind the mosquito net with the sheet pulled up to her neck.

"There are three doors to the mem-sahib's bedroom, and as the blinds fit badly, except for the presence of her servant, there is nothing to prevent a pariah dog, a jackal, or a thief from entering."

"Please leave my room and sleep somewhere else. I do not like it, and I am quite safe."

Leonie, feeling acutely the want of dignity in her bunched-up att.i.tude, did not know what to say when the man refused suavely, but point-blank, to leave her.

"I regret that I cannot obey, as the mem-sahib is in my care, and I am responsible for her safety; but until the day breaks I will keep watch at the foot of the bed where the mem-sahib's eyes cannot rest upon her servant!"

Oh! Leonie! Leonie! With that strange, angry, and unaccounted-for mark still upon your shoulder, if only you knew what a fuss you were making over nothing.

But she said thank you quite nicely when _chotar hazri_ was placed beside her bed in the early morning, to the refreshing sound of water being heaved into the tin bath in the dressing-room.

CHAPTER XLIV

"If thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small."--_The Bible_.

Jan Cuxson was walking round and round the ruined chamber, pausing at the doors as he pa.s.sed them to look out at the seemingly never-ending jungle; he would have reminded any onlooker of some caged beast as he went monotonously round and round.

He was rather a desperate sight, too, with hara.s.sed eyes in a gaunt face, and his open shirt exposing a somewhat emaciated chest; not that he had been starved, far from it; but eat you ever so heartily, fill your interior with all the fatty substances, real or artificial, in the world, worry will push in your cheek and temple, draw ca.n.a.ls of woe from your nose to your mouth, and force your cheek-bone, nose, and ribs into high relief.

Of course he ought to have had a many days' growth of beard all over the face; but, owing to one particular fad, he had not; and thank goodness! for it would have been simply appalling to have had to end the book with the hero looking like a woolly hearthrug.

His fad which saves the situation was that when travelling either for hours or for days his safety razor invariably travelled in his pocket; and the old priest had smiled when he caught him in the act of lathering his face, less successfully, it is true, than more, with a finger tip smeared in ghee, which is clarified fat; and had come back later with a handful of stuff which looked for all the world and felt almost as sticky as French almond rock, a certain vegetable root, slightly acid of smell, which lathers beautifully in hot or cold water, and which, in some districts, the natives use as soap.

He was simply in an agony of mind.

He had stormed, and threatened, and pleaded in turn, and offered the whole of his kingdom in exchange for her safety--all of which had made about as much impression upon the priest as a few snowflakes would upon the Himalayas.

His one and only attempt at escape, which had taken place twenty-four hours before, had been a dire failure.

Roaming around the courtyard outside his chamber, which seemed curiously near, and yet cut off from the rest of the temple, he had heard the tinkle of silver anklets, the sound of a native woman's high-pitched laugh, and the bleating of a goat.

And the thought struck him that if a woman had come to seek counsel of the priest she must have come through the jungle by some safe road known to the native, and she would have to go back by the same road; and if he could only find the way into the temple itself, and watch her from the shadows, what would be easier than to follow her and reach Leonie in time to save her from the disaster and death threatening her.

Although the thought of the death straight to which Leonie was coming, blindfolded by the curse upon her, made his blood run cold and turned his heart to stone at the knowledge of his own impotence, the picture of what might happen to her at the hands of the native crazed with religion and love well-nigh drove him frantic.

He was absolutely at the priest's mercy.

A stronger will than his own allowed him to wander so far and no farther; indeed, he had been powerless even to reach the block of stones from behind which the priest appeared when upon visiting bent, and around which he disappeared when he went to worship before his G.o.d.