"I am like a d.a.m.ned hen with a chalk circle drawn round it!" Cuxson had exclaimed when he tried over and over again to pa.s.s the invisible line; and he cursed aloud as he felt the deep sleep creeping upon him at various hours of the day and night, and from which there was no escape, try as he would to keep awake.

But upon the day when he heard the tinkle of silver anklets and the bleating of the goat, something, just as curiously incomprehensible, had urged him to walk to the ruined ma.s.s of stones which hid the priest's entrance and exit; and he had walked across the sun-stricken court without let or hindrance, or covering to his head, and had found on the other side a low doorway almost choked with jungle growth.

He had not paused to think nor plan; he had merely bent his tall figure and crept through and down the narrow, decaying pa.s.sage, along which, dotted irregularly here and there, shone little lights in tiny earthenware saucers. He had paused once or twice, sickened by the sight of offerings of which a description is not necessary, and shivered, strong man though he was, when he had met the eyes of G.o.ds leering, or glaring at him from little hewn-out shrines in the crumbling masonry.

His feet made no sound, for the narrow way was choked with the dust of ages, and he gave no thought to what might lurk in the shadows in the shape of beast or reptile, so intent was he on reaching the place which held the woman, and which had seemed near when she had laughed, and unaccountably far away as he stole stealthily forward.

The pa.s.sage twisted at every few yards, and once he had found himself at a dead end in what he thought must be the priest's living room, as far as he could make out by the dim light coming through a tiny aperture high up in the wall. He had dimly seen a bed of leaves, a single covering, and an earthenware platter and jug, before he turned quickly and retreated when something hissed softly and rustled among the leaves.

Having got back into the pa.s.sage and made some considerable headway, he was almost choked, when on turning a corner he had been enveloped in a sickly sweet smell of many flowers, allied to some sickening odour to which he could give no name; and then he had stopped dead, and flattened himself against the wall as he realised that he had come out by the side of the altar into the temple itself.

Arranged neatly on each side of the doorway were glittering bra.s.s vessels, bra.s.s trays, and little piles of tiny earthenware saucers; to his left was tethered a black kid, which lay contentedly upon a heap of dying flowers; near it was what appeared to be a miniature guillotine stained almost black; and above his head, in front of him and hanging from a hook in a huge, upstanding block of granite, glittered, a short, needle-pointed knife.

One knife?

Nay! two, three, a dozen, scores, thousands, thousands of glittering knives whirled around his head; and hundreds of goats grinned from corners and capered about his feet, and millions of evil eyes winked at him from the dusky shadows; and voices rose in choirs, male and female voices, whispering, laughing, singing. Louder, still louder, rising like some all-conquering flood, while silver anklets clashed until the brain was nigh to splitting with the din.

He must see, he _must_ see, and watch the women who laughed shrilly and often; he must see the front of that great block of stone which barred his way to Leonie. Yes! Of course that was it, just that one great block of stone which kept him from his love.

Jan Cuxson made a mighty effort to move his heathen foot over the inch of threshold which separated him from the holy place. His breath came in gasps, and the veins stood out in knots upon his forehead as he pushed with both hands at the empty air; he fought like a mad dog to overcome that mighty force arrayed against him which neither advanced nor retreated, but was just _there_.

Then as something out of the void struck him cruelly between the eyes he gave a mighty shout which made no sound at all, and fell with a crash, scattering the bra.s.s vessels and tiny earthenware saucers to the four corners of the s.p.a.ce around the altar.

Sunstroke?--well, _hardly_.

Because the next morning, when he awoke with the hide thongs fastening him by the wrist and the waist to the ring in the wall, he felt fit, and fresh, and extremely wide awake.

Perhaps it was that the blow, or whatever had struck Jan Cuxson down on the threshold of the temple, had served to sharpen his wits; anyway, for some unknown reason, words uttered by the priest on the first day of his imprisonment began to repeat themselves over and over again in his brain, as he sat uncomfortably with his back to the wall and his eyes fixed with a certain crafty understanding upon a piece of rusty metal half hidden under a fallen brick.

Wherefore he wheedled and cajoled when the priest came to visit him until the thongs were unfastened and his somewhat prescribed liberty restored.

"Only until the shadows fall, sahib," the old man said as he gathered the hide thongs in his hands. "Tonight is the night of the full moon and the white woman is even now approaching."

"Leonie---I mean the mem-sahib--is in the _jungle_--with whom?"

"Verily, sahib, with the man who loves her!"

"Oh, my _G.o.d_!" said Cuxson slowly. "How do you know?"

"_We_ need no wires or poles to carry us news, sahib! We have a surer way, aye, and a quicker one. Struggle not to-night, sahib, when I tie you to the ring in the wall. Bound you must be, for the Black One has spoken; and it is her pleasure that I shall lift my will from you, even as I did by mischance yesterday. India has suffered through this white woman; my people have been tormented by her, and Kali, the Black One, has commanded that the sufferings of the land shall be wiped out in the white woman's blood, and the torments of the people in your torments."

It has been said that Jan Cuxson was plodding to a degree akin to slowness.

He was! But you may be sure that if an idea came to him even at the eleventh hour it would be a good idea and would be developed until it reached an advanced stage of perfection.

Some time after the priest had departed he drew the piece of metal, which proved to be the broken blade of a knife, from under the fallen stone, slipped it into his pocket, and was as well content as his hara.s.sed mind and overwrought imagination would allow him to be.

CHAPTER XLV

"Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, thou art fair!"--_S. of Solomon_.

"Yea! he is altogether lovely."--_S. of Solomon_.

With her bearer's hand to balance her, Leonie stepped off the gangway into the rocking, canoe-shaped boat, made in the dim past by digging out the interior of some tree trunk, and in the bows of which were huddled the coolies with her luggage.

Two bronze-hued rowers, nude save for the loin cloth, paddled the boat round the bends of the narrow creek with a dexterity due to habit; and then by chance or misfortune wedged her firmly into a glutinous mud-bank from out of which it took the five men two hours and every ounce of their united strength to push her.

It is not wise to wade waist or knee deep in a Sunderbunds creek, and clear a boat with a yo-heave-ho, for fear of some festive mugger, which means alligator, lurking in the mud.

She had therefore no option but to pa.s.s the night well above the jungle perils in the _suapattah_ hut, like a c.o.c.katoo screeching defiance at a cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and with about as much grace as a monkey manipulating a stick.

There was a sharp tussle of wills after the dinner of which Leonie partook on the small platform which comes between the top of the ladder and the low door of the hut.

Having arranged her bedding and mosquito curtains as best he could, and seen to it that one of the low caste coolies negotiated the ladder with a gourd of water upon his head and placed it upon the floor in the mem-sahib's bed-chamber, her bearer, when Leonie retired for the night, drew up the ladder and curled himself up in a corner.

Almost stifled by the heat of the interior she came out again in search of fresh air, and stared in amazement at the white figure as he sprang to his feet perilously near the edge of the platform.

No! nothing would move him from his post during the night, nothing.

"But I am perfectly safe up here," remonstrated Leonie, "when you have gone to the other hut I can quite easily pull the ladder up!"

"Even so, mem-sahib," quietly replied the man, "but the mem-sahib is not accustomed to these heights; there are no railings to the platform, and one false step would send her crashing to the ground."

"But I am going to _bed_," Leonie persisted. "Besides, if I did move I can see quite plainly, it's almost full moon!"

There was a barely perceptible pause and then;

"Yes, mem-sahib, it is the full moon!"

Leonie, stricken dumb in the belief that the story of her mental plight had reached even to the bazaar, turned back and re-entered her so-called bedroom, drawing a purdah made of _golaputtah_ leaves across the door, and leaving her bearer to his own devices and thoughts.

Which were utterly of her as he divested himself of his outer raiment, and nude save for the loin cloth, sat like a bronze statue in the overpowering heat of the night; and even as "the eagle flying forth beats down his wings upon the earth," his thoughts beat down so forcibly upon her mind that at midnight she arose in her sleep and lifting the purdah walked out on to the platform.

She walked straight forward, too far from the man for him to pull her back; and in too deep a trance for him to have stopped her with safety to her brain. His face was that of one tortured as he rose to his feet and threw out his hands; and the sweat came out in great beads upon his forehead under the supreme effort of will, which pulled her up within an inch of certain death.

For one long moment she stood with arms upstretched to the moon shining in all its glory, then swung round and crossed to where he stood against the hut.

"Yes?" she said gently. "You called me!"

The man drew his breath quickly as he looked at her, and forgot his G.o.ds in his love, and his pa.s.sions in the innate n.o.bility of his soul.

She looked for all the world like a mere schoolgirl in her over-long, kimono-shaped, diaphanous night garment, with her hair hanging in two great plaits, and her eyes and mouth lit by the suspicion of a smile.

"Sit down!" he said gently, and she sank to the ground as easily and with all the graceful suppleness of a native woman.