"Thou star of heaven! Thou highest point of the Everlasting Hills, behold hast thy great love triumphed. I love thee, but my heart could hold 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, broke across his words.

"Let us hasten quickly, quickly. You will tell the priest; you will help 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 lever wherewith to heave aside the mountain of trouble which threatened to overwhelm Jan Cuxson; and, with the inexplicable cruelty of the woman who loves, and will blissfully put a whole community to torture as long as her beloved is saved a single hurt, she asked the one impossible thing.

He moved so quickly, fiercely, closely to her that she backed until she stood in a patch of moonlight which shone upon her face.

Higher she raised her face, and still higher, as she looked back straight 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 thy fate. The Mother claims thee, and may thy blood and the blood of the white man who has stolen thee from me flow upon her altar before she shakes the earth in the fury of her displeasure."

Tortured, his soul sought relief in the fanaticism of his religion which flared in his eyes; consumed with love, he called her back as she turned to do the bidding of a stronger will than her own.

"Come!"

She stopped and turned, gave a vacant little laugh, and crept into his arms when he held them out, and closed them about her without touching her.

"Ah!" he whispered, "now that thou comest to me unknowingly I will have none of thee. I love thee, love thee, love thee! Go to thy death that my task may be well finished, and that everlasting torment may be fastened upon the soul of him who stole thee from me! Go, beloved of my soul, rose of the morning, delight of my heart! Ah, my love, my love, go to thy death----!"

And he opened wide his arms and pointed up the path, and Leonie went where he pointed; and never once looked back at the man standing with his arms stretched out towards her, whilst monkeys chattered, and parrots screamed, and the jungle teemed with flying, frightened shapes.

CHAPTER XLVIII

"A whirlpool of uncertainty, a prison of punishment, a basket of illusion, the open throat of h.e.l.l."--_The Spring Sataka_.

A brick and some plaster clattered about Jan Cuxson's feet as he crossed the temple chamber and stood looking out at the jungle, and the animals of all sizes and shapes which were hurtling through the undergrowth. For a minute he stood twirling the rusty knife blade between his fingers, then hid it carefully behind a block of broken masonry.

"Better so," he muttered, "not much good as a weapon of defence, but better than nothing; might put the old man on the track if he happened to find it on me when he comes to tie me up. My G.o.d! to think of it; I, strong and healthy and sane, at the mercy of that old priest, actually under his will--hypnotised, forced to do exactly what he tells me. Please heavens the ghee will hold the plaster together round the ring, and oh! I can't stand _much_ more of this suspense."

He had come to the end of his endurance.

Day had followed night, and night had followed day monotonously, without a change in the heartbreaking dreariness of their round.

During the day he had watched the jungle over the outer wall for hours, rewarded by an occasional glimpse of deer; once by a striped yellow shade which had slunk between the trees, causing him to yearn for his rifle; at night he had lain gazing at the stars, comfortable enough upon a thick bed of leaves, untroubled by the mosquito which, as he had learned, does not thrive in the Sunderbunds Jungle; and day and night over the wall, or up at the stars, he strove to look into the future and found a dreary blank.

But upon _this_ night he turned with a smile and a question on his lips when the priest suddenly emerged from behind the heap of stones and hurried across the flags towards him.

"Haste, sahib! The Mother is infuriated at the long waiting, and I go to make sacrifice to appease her. _Haste_, for it is not good for man if she stamps with both her holy feet. Come, and struggle not! Nay, look not at me in such fashion lest I lay the stress of my will upon you."

He looked so frail, that for an instant the white man had been tempted to fling himself upon him, and find deliverance for himself and his beloved by choking the wizened neck, or cracking the old pate against the stones.

But one is rather at a disadvantage when thoughts are liable to be read, and plans disclosed before they are even matured; and he walked submissively towards the ring in the wall, and seated himself abjectedly upon the floor, just as a handful of plaster inserted itself between his neck and the open collar of his shirt, and the back of his head b.u.mped the wall.

"Something like a slight----"

"Haste, sahib! I must away to placate Kali, the G.o.ddess of Destruction. There is not long now to wait for the great sacrifice for which she has waited all these weary years; and then, and only then, shall the plague, and the pestilence, and the famine be ended, and the people of India return to their old-time happiness."

He never once removed his eyes from those of the man beneath him, and Cuxson sighed with relief, well content that the glaring eyes should not move beyond his face.

Having knotted the thongs tightly, the old man straightened himself, and smiled up at the silvery heavens in the ecstasy of his worship.

"Such sacrifice, O Mother, as thou hast longed for, and which has long been forbidden thee through the might of the white man who rules us.

The temple is strewn with flowers, and the flames of hundreds of lights shine in thy fish-shaped eyes, thou daughter of the eternal snows." He looked down suddenly to Cuxson, and bending, whispered in his ear.

"The white woman approaches, O _feringhee_, even she who has caused this land to travail in agony all these years. And you shall see her, she shall come to you and know you not, and you shall hear her voice upraised in worship as she lies upon the altar at her Mother's feet while you are bound to the ring in the wall. She has done well in worship, even in sacrifice, but it is in her rich warm blood that Kali the Terrible would lave her hands. Struggle not, for behold, although I have lifted my will from you that you should be tormented even as my race has been tormented by a woman of your land, yet will the ring and the hide hold you fast."

Like some huge bird of prey he ran swiftly back across the flags and disappeared behind the ma.s.s of stones, and Cuxson, not daring to move for fear of tightening the thongs, sat almost numb with anxiety as he wondered if his luck would hold at the crucial moment.

Except for the crash of the frightened animals as they fought their way through the undergrowth, there was no sound whatever in the place, but as the moon took her seat above the exact centre of where once had been the temple roof, he moved, and leant forward as far as the two feet of raw hide would allow him, and from between his clenched teeth there came one word:

"_h.e.l.l_!"

For the silence had been suddenly broken by a girl's sharp, hysterical laugh, and though the sound was but a travesty, yet it was surely Leonie's laugh.

Twisting his arms in the s.p.a.ce the two feet of raw hide allowed him, the slow, sure, desperate man with a mute appeal to _his_ G.o.d, sought and caught the iron ring in his hands.

And in the jungle clearing where the fire smouldered dimly, and the coolies, flat on their faces from abject terror, refused to move, Madhu Krishnaghar sat, garbed as a servant, his brain in a whirl of religion and hate, and his heart filled with love of the white girl he had sent to certain death.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet, and tearing his raiment from him flung it wide, and stood nude save for the loin cloth about the slender middle, and the turban which outlined his tortured face, looking like some lost bronze statue in the deserted places of the jungle. He raised his hands to heaven and prayed.

"O Mother, spare her! O great G.o.d, have pity upon her," and the suddenly risen wind took up his words and lifted them above the tree tops, wafting them perhaps--and why not--to the G.o.d of Infinite Love.

Yet even as he prayed Leonie crept up to the doorway of the temple, staring unblinkingly at the far end of the interior illuminated by the flickering wicks of the hundreds of little lights. She inhaled deeply, and half closed her glaring eyes as the overpowering sickly perfume of flowers, and some other indescribably sickening odour went to her head like cheap wine.

"Yes?" she said questioningly, although no sound had broken the intense stillness, and stood quite still with her head a little on one side, then dropped to one knee and commenced to unlace her high boots, the slap of the laces pulled through the holes cutting the silence like a knife.

With her hands clasped to her breast, and walking on the tips of her bare toes, she moved through the shadows towards the light, alone and obedient to a will that had no pity. Flowers were strewn thick in every direction, and over them she pa.s.sed to her death, while the eyes of the priest never once left her face as he crouched in the opening which led to the secret places of the temple; he even smiled when she came to a standstill in front of the altar and swayed, slightly overcome by the heavy atmosphere even in her trance; and he nodded his head gently when she bent down and gathering handsful of the flowers, flung them up above her head and laughed the hysterical, crazy laugh which had reached the ears of the man she loved.

At her feet were _thalees_, bra.s.s plates laden with offerings of grain, of woven stuffs, of gold and silver; at her right hand a crimson silk _sari_ lay upon a heap of fallen stones, and upon it was a garland of white flowers; and the slanting mother-o'-pearl eyes of the G.o.ddess Kali looked down from out the black face at this girl who was to be sacrificed in atonement for the misery she had unwittingly brought upon the land of India and her people.

Leonie's hands moved mechanically to her hair, which she unfastened and shook out in all its glory; then they moved to the fastening of her jersey, and one by one her garments slipped to the floor, leaving her nude save for the covering of her hair.

Leaning down she lifted the _sari_, and with one quick movement twisted it about her waist and across her breast; slipped the garland of white flowers about her neck, and flinging back her hair raised her hands above her head and shouted.

She did not sing or cry aloud, she shouted with her mouth wide open, and her head thrust forward between her uplifted arms, a degrading picture of religious sensuality; and gathering up armsful of flowers from the floor, ran lightly over to the priest upon the tip of her bare toes which were stained a hideous red, and putting the palm of one hand against her forehead salaamed and said "Yes?" questioningly.

He laid no hand upon her, he made no sign and spoke no word, but she, as drugged by another's will as if she were under the bane of opium, followed him unhesitatingly into the secret places of the temple. Her bare feet made no sound on the dust of centuries; her eyes looked back unwaveringly into the eyes of the G.o.ds who leered down upon her; her hair caught around those others of which it is not seemly to write; and before them all she cast her flowers, and upon them all she laid her open palm.

And Jan Cuxson held his breath when she quietly sidled round the block of fallen masonry, and standing in a moonray glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. Hung with flowers, she looked like a bacchante, with one beautiful arm and shoulder showing bare through her mantle of tumbled hair.

And his eyes caught the shadow of the priest cast by the pa.s.sage lights on to the floor as he stood hidden by the fallen stones, and he kept still, but he called to his beloved, striving by his will to break her chains, and truly at the sound of the loved voice the frozen horrors of her face seemed to break like ice-floes before the sun in spring.