Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  "Some little talk awhile of me and thee There seem'd--and then no more of thee and me."--_Omar Khayyam_.

  The elephant trumpeted before the gate.

  The two halves of the door opened from within, clanged against thesides, and the _durwans_ in scarlet and silver bent almost double asthey salaamed before the white woman who passed under the red-stone,centuries-old gate upon the back of Rama the Great and Perfect.

  The elephant knelt and Leonie stepped on to the marble pavement,placing her hand for one instant upon the _mahout's_ arm to steadyherself.

  She looked up and down the double line of cypress trees and gave alittle cry, which was almost one of pain, at the sight of the glorybefore her; and pressing her hands above her thudding heart, longedwith all her soul for the man she loved and had denied.

  For a moment she stood absolutely still, the heavy cloak swinginggently in the slight breeze, then walked down the steps, and like someghost passed noiselessly beside the lily strewn water tanks towards themarble, wondrous Tomb. Madhu Krishnaghar, waiting until she was wellout of earshot, spoke to the elephant, bringing it to its feet, andgave a sharp order to the keepers of the door, which caused them tospeed from the scene as fast as their feet would carry them towards thevillage where they had been commanded to stay until sunrise, leavingthe girl, a prey probably to that inexplicably sensuous feeling whichthe desolation, and beauty, and pity of this place arouses in _some_,alone with the man who loved her as men love in the East.

  He followed her slowly beside the water tanks, and absorbed in his loveand the joy of being alone with her, failed to catch the sharp call ofapprehension when Rama, as faithful as a dog, and far more intelligentthan many humans, rapped the ground smartly with the end of his trunk.

  Having been told by his beloved master to stand where he was until hisreturn, and being obedient even unto death, he did not move; but heeyed the form which had slipped in through the gates with dislike, andshuffled his feet in distrust as the man disappeared behind the cypresstrees.

  It was only a foolish curiosity-bitten _shudra_; a wretched member ofthe lowest and most servile class, who, passing on his way to hismiserable hovel, had noticed the gate open at the untoward hour ofmidnight, and the absence of the ferocious _durwans_.

  His low caste, which is the least of all, had prevented him, up to thisday, from entering what he thought must surely be paradise; and now hetook the risk and slipped in, not only stricken with curiosity, butobsessed with a desire to tell a wonderful tale to his patient wife andfour sons, who, because they were _his_ sons, were doomed to remain ofthe lowest servile caste; as would be their sons far, oh! far beyondthe third and fourth generation.

  How was he to know that a woman with unveiled face was visiting thetomb at midnight, or that she was beloved by his master whose word waslife, or death, to those who served him.

  Leonie passed through the silver gates into the tomb, and stood besidethe marble, flower-strewn sarcophagi, which lie side by side, and overwhich, day and night, hangs a lighted lamp.

  She did not move when a whispered golden sound fell gently through theshadows. Like a cobweb thread, so fine it was; like a thread of gold,so sweet it was; rising and falling, to rise again in one throbbing cryof love, pleading, insisting, despairing.

  The echoes caught and held it in the dim corners of the marble cupola,and answered cry with cry until the place seemed full of the sobbing oflost souls. Back and forth, at the girl's feet and around her head,surging over the dead lovers, beating against the walls and roof, todie away, sobbing, sobbing like a weary child.

  Leonie, transfixed with ecstasy, stretched out her hands to catch thedying notes; and for that infinitesimal fraction of a second, when thegolden sound crossed the boundary of human sense, felt as though shestood upon the edge of eternity.

  She turned to see the driver of elephants standing like a bronze statueoutside the doorway; but speak she could not in that dim place fragrantwith the loves of the past, neither could she support the divine painalone, and picking up a rose and a sprig of bay from the marble, tuckedthem into the V of her bodice and walked out.

  But she did speak, to remonstrate, in the sweetest, most imperfectHindustani in the world, when the man followed her at a quiterespectful distance.

  "It is not safe for the mem-sahib to go alone," he answered. "A wildanimal, a man, a snake, might be in hiding. The mem-sahib should havebeen accompanied by her guide."

  Thus spoke Madhu Krishnaghar, who had not one evil thought about, norintent towards her, and who, having pushed the mandates of his religioninto the background for this one night, was living in the intoxicationof the actual moment.

  Leonie walked round the outside of the marble dream bathed inmoonlight, occasionally stopping to ask a question of the man whofollowed.

  "Is it the tomb of an ancestor of the present prince?" she inquiredhaltingly.

  "No! mem-sahib! look at the lettering in black marble inset in thewhite; right round the tomb run those verses from the Koran. AMohammedan emperor built it--_I_ am a Hindu," the pause was scarcelynoticeable as he added quietly, "as is everyone upon the prince'sestates."

  She stopped in front of one of the four towers which stand at eachcorner of the marble terrace, and looked upwards.

  "I am going up," she said.

  "Nay! mem-sahib. These towers are climbed only with a guide and alamp. They are not clean, they are not safe. A snake, a pariah dog, aman might be on the stairs which wind round and round, and are as blackas a night of storm."

  Leonie had climbed the few outer steps and was standing inside thedoor. Not once had the untowardness of the whole proceeding struckher, nor had she given a thought to the fact that the man with her wasa low-caste elephant driver, not fit to touch her shoe-string.

  She made no reply, and disappeared into the darkness. You can seefairly well up to one half of the tower, then pitch blackness surroundsyou, and you begin to feel cautiously with hands and feet for thatreason; also because just about here your head begins to whirl owing tothe stifling atmosphere, and the architect's corkscrew design.

  She had no idea that the man, alarmed for her safety, was followingher, and she stopped and gasped near the top, wondering how muchfarther she had to go, and almost wishing that she had not started; andso black was it that she did not even see the white turban which was ona level with the step upon which she stood.

  Then there was a glimmer of light and more. Presently it grew quitelight and she staggered up the last few steps, and reeled on to thesmall round cupola of the tower unprotected by rails.

  Well for her was it that Madhu, divining the danger, raced up the laststeps in one bound, reached her as she stood swaying on the edge, anddrew her quickly, roughly back into his arms, where, forgetting hisrole of servant, his religion, caste and colour, he held her safe andcrushed against his heart.

  She, with her eyes shut and her head spinning, remained there withoutunderstanding one word of what the man was saying.

  "And having held thee in my arms, how am I to let thee go," hewhispered, with his mouth near the scented masses of her hair. "Nay, Icannot, thou white, wonderful flower in a land of drought. Behind thepurdah will I place thee, hidden from all eyes but mine. Thybody-woman shall not touch thee, for _I_ will be thy servant, and _my_hands will draw the lace from about thy bosom, and _my_ hands willperfume thee, and my love shall encompass thee until thou swoon uponthe ground even at _my_ feet. Waiting for thee I have known no woman,and I will have no wife but thee, and many sons shalt thou bear me.Yea! each year shall see thee bowed beneath the fruit of love, for Iwill not spare thee. And thou shalt be honoured before all men; a highestate shall be thine, and a flood of jewels and gold and grain shallflow at thy small feet which I shall kiss. And thou _shalt_ veil thyface, for I would kill him, _torture_ him who looked upon thee."

  Leonie opened her eyes and stared at the shimmering whiteness of thetomb, and she smiled and did not move, for the witch
ery of the fullmoon had fallen upon her.

  "Red!" she whispered, pointing to the dull glow of dead bodies burningsomewhere near, and laughing till her teeth flashed between her scarletlips.

  The man searched with one hand and found a small flat jewelled case inthe folds of his turban, and opening it, with the long, deft fingerstook out two pellets.

  He watched her as she lay upon his arm, and suddenly forced the pelletsbetween her teeth, and himself laughed, as she grimaced at the bittertaste but swallowed them.

  He had not the slightest intention of doing her any harm, but with thewhole of his vividly mature brain and virgin body, he delighted in theeffect of the drug upon the woman he loved.

  There was no doubt about it that she suddenly awoke to the passion ofthe man looking down upon her, and responded to it.

  Wave after wave swept her from head to foot, causing her body,untrammelled by whalebone, to tremble against his, and he loosened thewhite cloak and let it fall, holding her pressed to him in her thinsilk dress, laughing down at her, delighting in her eyes, her mouth,her throat.

  Handsome men are an everyday sight in India, but this man was as thegods, and Leonie, beautiful, drugged Leonie, looked at him from thecorner of her eyes as looks the wanton, and laughed.

  "I will not kiss thee," he whispered, watching the colour sweep herface at his words, and smiling at the thudding of the heart beneath hishand. "Nay, I will not bruise thee nor cause thee blemish until thepurdah hangs between us and the world. Look not at me thus-wise, andlift not the glory of thy lips, for I will not seize thee as a beggarseizes upon the _pice_. I am thy king and thy slave, and I will carrythee to the gate. Nay, move not thy body for fear I throw thee uponthe ground and set my seal upon thee. Lie still! and yet--why not, why_not_! perchance _has_ the hour struck."

  The man was crazed with love, and the girl intoxicated with the drug,and they were perched up there above the world alone, in the stillnessof the Indian night.

  He hastily wrapped her in the cloak, and taking her into his arms, hidher face against his shoulder, and stood for a moment staring outtowards the spot from whence had come the ill-omened jackal cry.

  "Not yet," he whispered. "Not yet!"

  Sure-footed as a goat he carried her down the winding stairs out intothe moonlight, and across the terrace, and up the marble steps, andplaced her upon the wide marble seat, and sat sideways upon it behindher, unwitting of the miserable wretch who watched from between thecypress trees.

  Leonie sat quite still until the mystery of the place, or whatever itis, entered into the innermost recesses of her being; and she held outher arms to the light burning day and night above the dead lovers, andsobbed.

  Madhu Krishnaghar laid his hand upon hers on the cold marble of theseat, and lost himself in ecstasy at the tears which welled into thestrange gold-green eyes and fell, then opening the collar of the whitelinen coat, he lifted a necklace of priceless pearls over his turbanand passed it over the girl's head, holding it lightly until one endhad slid down into the scented laces of her bosom where lay a cat's-eyeon a golden chain.

  "Thou white doe," he said, "thou virgin snow," and added fiercely,"give me the rose from above thy heart, that I may press it to mycouch."

  Obediently Leonie gave it, faded and warm, and looked at him with astrange little gleam of anger in her eyes; and he, understanding thatthe effect of the drug was passing, and that wrath maybe would followlove, led her by the hand down through the double row of cypress treestowards the gate.

  Alas! a twig cracked under the wretched _shudra's_ foot, snapping withthe report of a pistol in the stillness of the night; and the man,feeling the hands of his gods upon him, fled like a hunted hare towardsthe gate.

  Madhu Krishnaghar, with his face one blaze of fury, stood still andcalled.

  "Rama," he called. "Rama, hold," and as the wretched creature,forgetting the animal in his fear, sped past him, Rama curled his trunkswiftly about him and jerked him to a standstill.

  Useless to strive against that strength; useless to fight against thegods or raise his voice in shrieking prayer.

  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 theheavy coat.

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

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

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

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