CHAPTER XLVI
"Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh."--_The Bible_.
One thing after another happened to prevent Leonie from continuing whatremained of the journey during the cooler hours of sunrise.
One coolie strayed and was not retrieved until the other two men werehoarse from shouting, then another ran something into his foot, whichwas only extracted after a mighty fuss, and something akin to a majoroperation, skilfully performed with the bearer's knife and a few thornsplucked from the bush.
Last but not least, as they were on the point of starting, a snakeabout two yards long had blithely wriggled its shining length acrosstheir very path; and nothing short of hours of prayer and offerings totheir gods would move the coolies along that path after such a sign ofill omen; no! rather than budge an inch they would have laid down intheir tracks and died of snake-bite, or a marauding tiger; and Leoniewas far too wise a traveller to lose sight of her luggage for onesecond--in India.
Although she had no idea why she was in such haste, she inwardlyfretted at the hours lost, but passed them with outward patience in theshade of the jungle trees; eating what was brought her, and sleepingaway the afternoon stretched on a rug; unconscious of the fact that herbearer sat behind her head, fanning her face gently, and with thelightest and deftest of fingers removing the various insects, long andshort, fat and thin, smooth or horny, which seemed to have takenunlimited return tickets for the journey over her body.
They had been for some time on the way, the coolies trapesing behind tothe tune of some monotonous chant; and the moon was beginning to flinghandsful of silver out of her heavenly mint when Leonie, overcome by amost unromantic craving for tea, gave the order to halt.
"How much farther is it?" she asked, as she busied herself with aspirit lamp and a tin of evaporated milk.
Her bearer looked up at the moon.
"Another half-hour, mem-sahib, and we reach the outer walls of thetemple--ah! allow me----"
Leonie had dropped a teaspoon and was bending to pick it up, butinstead, straightening herself with the kind of snap an over-strungviolin string gives when it breaks, took one step forward and fixed hereyes on her servant's face.
"Of course," she said, speaking half to herself, "of course--no wonderI thought I knew you--I saw you in London once--and it was you I saw onthe station--and your voice----" she clasped her hands together andtook a step quickly backwards--"you were the guide in the tiger hunt,you--you have been following me--you are dogging me--hunting medown--why--tell me why? What harm have I done you?--tell me?"
Her eyes, which were shining strangely in the quickly falling night,swept the man before her from head to foot, and she instinctively threwout her hands and took another step backwards as she realised at lasthis extraordinary beauty.
"Why is the mem-sahib _afraid_? What has her servant done to causetrouble to her soul? He meant but to lighten her load, and make smoothher path."
Leonie, with the desire common among women to hide the tell-taleexpression of their faces by the movement of their hands, knelt andbegan fiddling among the tea things.
"Sit down," she said abruptly, pointing to-the ground on the other sideof the earthy tea-table, "and tell me everything."
"Nay, mem-sahib! A humble native may not sit in the presence of awhite woman."
Leonie lifted her head.
"Sit down," she said simply.
And there in the heart of the jungle, by the side of the fire that hadbeen lighted to scare off any animal, they sat, those two splendidspecimens of two splendid races divided by custom and colour, while hetold her the strange story of the night on which they had both beendedicated to the Goddess of Destruction, and the happenings thereafter.
"Do you mean to tell me that you willed me to come to you in the museumthat day in London?"
He looked straight into her perplexed eyes as he answered slowly:
"I felt that if I could draw you through the ebb and flow and thefloods of London traffic, I could do as I would with you on the plainsof India. I did not know you--_then_!"
"And the priest has made me come to the temple--against my will?"
"Even so."
"And what is to happen to me there to-night?"
"A danger threatens you, beautiful white woman, a great dangerthreatens you from which I alone can save you, yea! and will in spiteof all the gods!"
"_You_ will save _me_--_you_--and why?"
"Because I love you!"
The words were out, and Leonie, springing to her feet, drew back as theman rose and stood motionless in the dancing shadows thrown by the fire.
"What do you mean? Oh, how dare you----"
"How dare I--_dare_ I--tell you that I love you and want you for wife?Why should I not love you from your beautiful head to your perfectfeet? Why should you not be my wife? Because I am what you call_black_? because of this colouring of my skin which, outside my ownland, damns me to eternity, and bars me from all that I desire? Nay,you _shall_ listen, and you _shall_ answer! You _will_, will you not?"
The voice had dropped from the pitch of fierce denunciation to thesound as of a deep river flowing in pleasant places, and Leonie noddedmutely, succumbing, as is the way of woman, to the entrancing pastimeof playing with fire.
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly together when theman, stepping across the barriers of interracial convention, came andstood just behind her shoulder without touching her withal, and spokein his own tongue.
"Ah, woman, I would call thee wife. Behold, I have much to offer: agreat name, vast wealth, palaces, broad lands, jewels, elephants,villages; the esteem of my people, the love of my father and of mymother, of whom I am the only son. All of which is nothing, nothingcompared with my love for thee. A love as virgin as the snow upon theEverlasting Hills, swifter than Mother Ganges, deeper than the IndianOcean, and higher than the vault of heaven. What matter custom, orlaw, or regulation, or colour, when such a love as mine is offered?Thou as my wife, _thou_, and thy children my only children. Am I notbeautiful? even as beautiful a male as thou art a female? Would notthe days and the nights, the months and the years be asheaven--together? _Love me_--nay! say but that I may call thee wife.Give me thy promise and I will save thee!"
"Save me?--from what?"
Leonie turned and faced this splendid lover, shivering slightly as alow moaning wind rustled the leaves of the trees and stirred theundergrowth.
"Even from death!"
"Death?" she said quietly, looking straight into the man's eyes."_Death_--for _me_? Why I thought I was being willed to the temple tomake sacrifice to your god?"
"To-night thou must surely die unless I save thee."
"Oh! you are mistaken," came the quick, decisive reply. "Why, if I wasmurdered, the whole Empire would be up in arms."
"The British Raj would not know," was the quiet answer.
"Oh! but----"
"You have not seen the Fort of Agra, the sad, dead palace. There, inthe dungeons, is a beam stretched across the hidden wells and markedwith the fret of a rope. Many a beautiful woman has swung from thatbeam by neck, or feet, or wrists, and her body dropped through the wellinto the Holy Jumna without the knowledge of any save her master andher executioner."
"Oh!--oh! don't----"
"Twice," continued the quiet voice relentlessly, "the sacrifice hasbeen averted, but _now_ the hour has come. Thou art here alone, noneknowing, and I--I _alone_ can save thee. And will not Kali, ourmother, raise her hands in blessing upon us united, even as we wereunited when babes, and being appeased, lift the curse from off theland. She is soft and gentle, treading lightly upon life's stonypaths, Uma so sweet, Parvati, daughter of the eternal snows. Oh!woman, say that thou wilt be my wife, for behold, are we not markedwith the same mark which----"
"Mark? _What_ mark?" Leonie questioned abruptly, looking back over hershoulder, her mouth perilously near to his as he bent his head slightlytowards her; and there fell a little
silence in which the thudding ofhis heart could be felt against the silk thread of her jersey.
"Between thy breasts, thou white dove, hast thou no mark?"
Leonie tried to speak, and failing, nodded her russet head.
"Even so, it is the mark of Kali which the priest cut upon thee and me,uniting us all those moons ago in the Mother."
She turned completely round and faced the man with a little look ofwonder in her eyes.
"I have so often wondered about the--the little mark," she said. "Butyou see--how could I marry you--I could not, do not--love you!"
"Love," he said quietly. "_Love_! Thou wilt love me, aye! thou wiltlove me in thy waking hours, even as thou wouldst have loved me in thysleep if--if the gods had not intervened."
"You--have--been with me--in--my--sleep?" she whispered.
"When thou didst walk in thy sleep!"
CHAPTER XLVII
"For jealousy is the rage of a man; therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance."--_The Bible_.
Suddenly she was struck with the full horror of those lost nights inwhich the man beside her had been her companion. She stretched out herhands and turned them over this way and that, scrutinising them withhorrified eyes. She touched her mouth with her finger-tips and drewthem with a shudder down her neck, and her breast, and her waist, asshe looked upon the beauty of the man before her with his passionatemouth and gleaming eyes.
"You--you have been with me when I have walked, unconscious in mysleep; you have----"
He interrupted her hastily, divining her thoughts.
"Yea!" he said, "I have been with thee when, under the influence of_my_ god, thou hast walked in thy sleep. I have watched over thee andhelped thy cut and bleeding feet over the roughness of the roads, as Iwould help them over the perilous road of life. I have not touched thyhand save in support; I have not touched the glory of thy mouth with mymouth, because thou couldst not give me thy _consent_ so to do!
"Dost think it has been a child's task to keep my hands and my kissesfrom thee? Behold, I had but to make a sign, and thou, in thyunconsciousness, would have come unto my intent! Oh, thou bud ofinnocent fragrance; thou fruit ready to the plucking of loving hands!Aye, thou wert, thou art in my power; and even have I seen thee in----"
"Ah!" said Leonie sharply as her hand slid to her shoulder and thewords came through her closed teeth--"You _lie_!"
"Lie!"
"Yes, _lie_! You have not touched me you say; neither have you kissedme, but _you_, and _only_ you, can tell me what the mark is on myshoulder--a mark I shall carry to my grave."
The man threw back his turbaned head and was about to make reply, when,with those shrill cries which betray great fear, a troop of monkeyspassed them, chattering as they ran swiftly on all fours, or swung evenmore swiftly from tree to tree; and the native looked after them, andup to the sky, and over his shoulder along the narrow path by whichthey had come, showing black and white in the alternate lights andshadowings of the moon.
"Answer me!" said Leonie more sharply than she knew, and with a woman'ssuperb indifference to any event or signs of approaching event outsideher own love orbit.
"Nay, answer thou me!" replied the man who, expert in the knowledge ofjungle signs, yet put aside all thought save of his love for the woman."Tell me that thou wilt be my wife and the mother of my sons, thoubeautiful woman! Tell me that thou wilt come unto me this night,wedded to _me_, by yon old priest; and that, within the arms of Uma sosweet, of Parvati who steppeth so lightly, I may set my seal upon thee.
"Lifting from thee, as I and the priest _only_ may lift, that whichthou callest the curse from about thee, bringing thee to happiness inthe shadow of the temple."
But something had happened to Leonie, bringing her to a pitch ofexcitement foreign to her in her waking hours. She looked swiftly toright and left, and over her shoulder, and up the narrow path they mustgo to the temple; and up to the sky she could see faintly through thetrees, and into the eyes of the man watching her intently. Then sheclasped her hands tightly and moved close to him, her face as white asdeath.
"And the sahib, the white man, where is he?"
The native of India weaves and fashions the cloth of his cloak of loveout of many colours. Gorgeous colours, blinding, dazzling, in whichpredominate the scarlet of passion and the emerald of the suprememale's jealousy. And all, from the sweeper to the highest of birth andcaste, wear this wondrous garment in India, though not one out of theteeming millions fashions his cloak upon the pattern of his neighbour's.
Madhu Krishnaghar, the son of princes, with eyes dimmed by thebrilliance of his own particular garment, failed to perceive thatLeonie, too, was wrapped in a love mantle.
The occidental mantle, made of honest homespun, uniform in colour, andwith a wide hem to allow for shrinkage; but guaranteed to stand allweathers and to last a lifetime.
He might have been flicking a fly from his sleeve, so indifferent washis answer in his blindness.
"The white man? He is bound to the temple walls, awaiting the woman heallows to walk unveiled and alone throughout India."
"Ah!" said Leonie, with that little hush in her voice which is heard inthe mother's when she first sees her new-born babe. "I am sorry," shecontinued quietly, "so sorry I have not been honest with you. I cannotmarry you because----"
She stopped and turned as with a sound like the tearing of silk a flockof birds suddenly flew from the tree tops and whirled away into thenight.
"Because? _Because_, woman?"
For a moment Leonie unconsciously watched the flight of the birds, thenswung round, arms stretched wide, eyes shining, and her face aglow.
"Because I love the white man in the temple who is tied to the wall,_that_ is why!"
Her voice rang clear and true under the sky, and she stepped backquickly and threw out her hands as the man spoke. For the banked-downfires of his passion and his love, and the hurt to his race, and hisown sudden-born agony flared in one half-second into a mighty, awfulconflagration. The flame of his words licked at her feet and the hemof her garments, blazed across her hands with which she hid her face,and swept right over her from head to heels, and yet he did not touchher nor raise his voice one half tone.
"Thou _woman_! Then shall no man have thee, for I will drive my daggerthrough the white man's heart before thine eyes, and watch thee, thoubeautiful thing, wed him in the shadow of death."
And Leonie, catching the look in his eyes and the set of the mouth,knew that he meant what he said; and she laid her hand on his arm, sothat his agony was increased a thousandfold as he looked down upon herwhom he had lost.
"You would not, could not do _that_?" she whispered.
"Could not kill the _feringhee_?" and the hate in the old mutiny wordwas terrible to hear. "What else should I do to him who has stolen thesun from my sky, the fragrance from my rose?"
The man seized her by the wrist, and, pulling her to him, bent down,whispering soft, passionate words.
"Shall I tell thee, love flower, what love is? It is the gold of noon,and the silver of night, the might of the lion, and the soft cooing ofthe gentle dove. As the slender vine around the straight palm, so willmy love twine around thy heart. Yea, and even as the banyan tree sendsout branches to draw dew from the rounded breast of earth, my loveshall yearn towards thee. Day and her lover, Night, with the Dawn andthe Sunset their children; the stag and the gentle doe, with theirfierce horned offspring, and their offspring as round and smooth evenas thy throat. So will our union be, for behold, my love for thee isso surpassing that our sons could but be of the most perfect manhood,and our daughter, why, she will be after thine own fashioning."
The man's eyes shone as he felt the trembling of the girl, and hepressed her, tempting her, revelling after the strange way of the Eastin the agony of the defeat his victory would bring him.
"And to save the life of the white man, thou opening bud of the passionflower, wilt thou not come unto such a love as mine; to the shadowed
corners of my palaces, to the fragrance of my courts, wilt thou not?"
Then a strange thing happened, unheeded by the two sorely tormentedsouls.
A great form crashed across the path behind them, followed by thebounding passage of a herd of deer; and from all around came the soundsof animals fleeing in panic, as Leonie lifted her face to the man'swith a desperate resolve in her stricken eyes.
And the man, reading the answer, bowed his head to her stone cold handsand crushed them to his heart.
"Thou wilt marry _me_--_to-night_?"
"For the sake of the man I love," came the steady answer; "to save hislife I will be--your--your wife. No, wait! On these conditions. Thathe is set free and shown a way to safety--that I follow him insecret--and see that he is safe--and that you tell him that I am dead.Swear that to me before your gods and I will keep my promise; swearthat you will tell him that I am dead."
And Madhu, the son of princes, put both hands to his forehead and bowedbefore the woman; then stood erect, with hands upraised to heaven,silent, wrestling with temptation; and having won, he spoke, his facetransfigured, his eyes half closed in agony.
"Thou star of heaven! Thou highest point of the Everlasting Hills,behold hast thy great love triumphed. I love thee, but my heart couldhold no wife who loved another as thou hast shown thou lovest this man.I----"
But, alas! Leonie, swept off her balance in her great relief, brokeacross his words.
"Let us hasten quickly, quickly. You will tell the priest; you willhelp me to set him--the man I love--free. Oh, come quickly, quickly!"
In her callous but uncalculated desire to use this man as a leverwherewith to heave aside the mountain of trouble which threatened tooverwhelm Jan Cuxson; and, with the inexplicable cruelty of the womanwho loves, and will blissfully put a whole community to torture as longas her beloved is saved a single hurt, she asked the one impossiblething.
He moved so quickly, fiercely, closely to her that she backed until shestood in a patch of moonlight which shone upon her face.
Higher she raised her face, and still higher, as she looked backstraight into the eyes intent on hers.
And Madhu Krishnaghar laughed savagely as he looked down upon her.
"Go!" he commanded; "go up the path to the temple gate to meet thyfate. The Mother claims thee, and may thy blood and the blood of thewhite man who has stolen thee from me flow upon her altar before sheshakes the earth in the fury of her displeasure."
Tortured, his soul sought relief in the fanaticism of his religionwhich flared in his eyes; consumed with love, he called her back as sheturned to do the bidding of a stronger will than her own.
"Come!"
She stopped and turned, gave a vacant little laugh, and crept into hisarms when he held them out, and closed them about her without touchingher.
"Ah!" he whispered, "now that thou comest to me unknowingly I will havenone of thee. I love thee, love thee, love thee! Go to thy death thatmy task may be well finished, and that everlasting torment may befastened upon the soul of him who stole thee from me! Go, beloved ofmy soul, rose of the morning, delight of my heart! Ah, my love, mylove, go to thy death----!"
And he opened wide his arms and pointed up the path, and Leonie wentwhere he pointed; and never once looked back at the man standing withhis arms stretched out towards her, whilst monkeys chattered, andparrots screamed, and the jungle teemed with flying, frightened shapes.
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