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 pass the night well above the jungle perils in the suapattah hut, like a cockatoo 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 gods in his love, and his passions in the innate nobility 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.
"Yes!" she repeated. "You called me! What is it you desire?"
She made a little gesture inviting him to sit beside her, and he sank to the ground, lying prone at her knees with his chin in his hands, staring straight into the green eyes which shone strangely, and looked at him unblinkingly.
"Tell me what you think of me," he said, speaking in the merest whisper out of the depth of his love. "Tell me, and I will tell you what I think of you—thou lotus bud," he finished desperately in his own tongue.
Leonie answered in the sweetest, purest Hindustani, using the beautiful strange metaphors of India to describe the human body.
"Thou art," she said. "Thou art—how can I tell thee I——"
She stopped, laughing down at him as she put both hands out on a level with her chin, palm upwards, towards him, in a little supplicating gesture.
"Tell me!"
"Behold," she said softly as she passed the tips of her fingers from his forehead to his chin. "Behold is thy face softly rounded like the egg of a bird, and thy brow is even as a tautened bow——"
A great tremor shook the man at the touch of her hand, but he made no movement as he broke across her words.
"And thy face so fair, so dear, is even like the pan leaf, and thy dark brows like the neem leaf disturbed by the wind, when thou art displeased with him who so loveth thee. Yet when thou art not angry, are thy drooping lids like the water-lily in their sweet repose. Thy ears, those can I not see—ah!"
Leonie laughed softly as the very tips of her fingers passed down the side of his face.
"And thine are like vultures with drooping head, and thy nose——"
"Thine," he interrupted, twisting his head to evade the exquisite agony of her touch, "is like a sesame flower, and thy nostrils even unto the seed of the barbarti, and thy lips—oh! thy lips are the bandihuli flower."
He raised his face with agony in his eyes, closing them as she lightly touched his mouth.
"Thy mouth is even as the bimba fruit, which is warm and soft, and thy chin is like a mango stone, and thy neck like unto a conch shell which I encircle with both hands."
She spanned his neck with the outspread thumbs and little fingers of both hands, and laughed as he pulled them apart and buried his face in his arms.
"Dost fear?" she said. "Dost fear that I shall strangle thee? Dost fear?" she repeated with a certain sharp note in the voice which caused the man to look up quickly and straight into her eyes, upon which she laughed quietly.
"Tell me," he insisted gently, "tell me what thou thinkest of me!"
"Ah!" she whispered, "thy shoulders are like the head of an elephant and thy long arms are as the trunk, and the strength of thy breast is even as that of a fastened door—which love perchance may open," the heavy lids half-closed over her eyes as she slowly drew the finger-tips of both hands down towards the slim waist, and the man's teeth drew blood from his under lip.
"Thy middle is like a lion's, so slender is it, and——"
He stopped her fiercely as he twisted on to his right elbow and seized both her hands in his left.
"And the suppleness of thy arms, and the softness of thy limbs are like the young plaintain tree, and thy fingers are the buds of the champaka flower." He spoke rapidly, crushing her hands cruelly. "The bone of thy knee showing whitely through thy garment is shaped even as the shell of a crab, and the whiteness of the bone from thy knee to thy slender ankle is like a full-roed fish——"
"And thy feet and thy hands, O Lord, are as the young leaves of plants!"
To which he replied through the teeth that were closed.
"And thine so small, so dear, are as lotus buds—lotus buds swaying at dawn in the wind of love."
She smiled divinely as she stretched one perfect bare foot from under her garment, and bent her head to catch the words as he passionately whispered the Vega hymn.
"Want thou the body of me, the feet; want thou the eyes; want the thighs; let the eyes, the hair of thee, desiring me, dry up in love.
"I make thee cling to my arm, cling to my heart; that thou mayest be in my power, come unto my intent.
"They——"
He stopped, convulsed with passion, and bending kissed her feet.
"Ah! thy hands, thy feet, are like lotus buds—lotus buds which I love, even if they be drenched in blood."
He leapt to his feet and caught Leonie's wrist in the vice of his hand as she sprang upright in one movement, laughing as she pointed at his mouth.
"Blood," she whispered, "blood—it is warm—it drops slowly—slowly——"
She ran her fingers across his mouth, and shook with hideous silent laughter as she showed him the tips stained red.
"Come," she said, "come—she is calling—calling——" and she struck at the hand which gripped her shoulder, and tried to shake herself free.
"Come!" said the man, looking straight into her eyes, "come with me."
She slid her hand into his, and followed him docilely as he lifted the reed purdah and entered her bedroom.
"Lie down!"
He lifted the netting and pointed to the bed.
As he towered above her the scarlet mouth in the uplifted face was on a level with his shoulder, as she smiled distractingly and raised her hands palm upwards in a little supplicating gesture.
"My Lord!" she whispered. "My Lord!"
The temptations of all the ages, and the overpowering passion of his own glowing East rose about him like a flood; he shook from head to foot as she laid herself down and drawing the sheet about her whispered again, "My Lord!"
They were alone in the jungle, and his will was hers; she was as a bit of wax upon which he might imprint his seal; there was no one to say him nay if he should draw her unto his intent.
And he loved her.
Yes! he loved her, and because of the overpowering strength of this love he knelt beside her and placed his fingers upon her temples.
"Sleep, beloved," he whispered, "sleep—the women that are of pure odour—all of them—we—make—sleep."
And Leonie slept peacefully and undisturbed until the dawn, because Madhu Krishnaghar, with his face buried in his arms, who lay across the threshold of her bedroom, was one of the splendid type that India breeds—an Indian nobleman.
CHAPTER XLVI
"Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh."—The Bible.
One thing after another happened to prevent Leonie from continuing what remained of the journey during the cooler hours of sunrise.
One coolie strayed and was not retrieved until the other two men were hoarse from shouting, then another ran something into his foot, which was only extracted after a mighty fuss, and something akin to a major operation, skilfully performed with the bearer's knife and a few thorns plucked from the bush.
Last but not least, as they were on the point of starting, a snake about two yards long had blithely wriggled its shining length across their very path; and nothing short of hours of prayer and offerings to their gods would move the coolies along that path after such a sign of ill omen; no! rather than budge an inch they would have laid down in their tracks and died of snake-bite, or a marauding tiger; and Leonie was far too wise a traveller to lose sight of her luggage for one second—in India.
Although she had no idea why she was in such haste, she inwardly fretted at the hours lost, but passed them with outward patience in the shade of the jungle trees; eating what was brought her, and sleeping away the afternoon stretched on a rug; unconscious of the fact that her bearer sat behind her head, fanning her face gently, and with the lightest and deftest of fingers removing the various insects, long and short, fat and thin, smooth or horny, which seemed to have taken unlimited return tickets for the journey over her body.
They had been for some time on the way, the coolies trapesing behind to the tune of some monotonous chant; and the moon was beginning to fling handsful of silver out of her heavenly mint when Leonie, overcome by a most unromantic craving for tea, gave the order to halt.
"How much farther is it?" she asked, as she busied herself with a spirit 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 the temple—ah! allow me——"
Leonie had dropped a teaspoon and was bending to pick it up, but instead, straightening herself with the kind of snap an over-strung violin string gives when it breaks, took one step forward and fixed her eyes on her servant's face.
"Of course," she said, speaking half to herself, "of course—no wonder I thought I knew you—I saw you in London once—and it was you I saw on the station—and your voice——" she clasped her hands together and took a step quickly backwards—"you were the guide in the tiger hunt, you—you have been following me—you are dogging me—hunting me down—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 threw out her hands and took another step backwards as she realised at last his extraordinary beauty.
"Why is the mem-sahib afraid? What has her servant done to cause trouble to her soul? He meant but to lighten her load, and make smooth her path."
Leonie, with the desire common among women to hide the tell-tale expression of their faces by the movement of their hands, knelt and began fiddling among the tea things.
"Sit down," she said abruptly, pointing to-the ground on the other side of the earthy tea-table, "and tell me everything."
"Nay, mem-sahib! A humble native may not sit in the presence of a white 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 had been lighted to scare off any animal, they sat, those two splendid specimens of two splendid races divided by custom and colour, while he told her the strange story of the night on which they had both been dedicated 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 museum that 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 the floods of London traffic, I could do as I would with you on the plains of 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 danger threatens you from which I alone can save you, yea! and will in spite of 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 the man 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 perfect feet? Why should you not be my wife? Because I am what you call black? because of this colouring of my skin which, outside my own land, 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 the sound as of a deep river flowing in pleasant places, and Leonie nodded mutely, succumbing, as is the way of woman, to the entrancing pastime of playing with fire.
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly together when the man, stepping across the barriers of interracial convention, came and stood just behind her shoulder without touching her withal, and spoke in his own tongue.
"Ah, woman, I would call thee wife. Behold, I have much to offer: a great name, vast wealth, palaces, broad lands, jewels, elephants, villages; the esteem of my people, the love of my father and of my mother, of whom I am the only son. All of which is nothing, nothing compared with my love for thee. A love as virgin as the snow upon the Everlasting Hills, swifter than Mother Ganges, deeper than the Indian Ocean, and higher than the vault of heaven. What matter custom, or law, 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 not beautiful? even as beautiful a male as thou art a female? Would not the days and the nights, the months and the years be as heaven—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 a low moaning wind rustled the leaves of the trees and stirred the undergrowth.
"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 to make 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 was murdered, 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, in the dungeons, is a beam stretched across the hidden wells and marked with the fret of a rope. Many a beautiful woman has swung from that beam by neck, or feet, or wrists, and her body dropped through the well into the Holy Jumna without the knowledge of any save her master and her executioner."
"Oh!—oh! don't——"
"Twice," continued the quiet voice relentlessly, "the sacrifice has been averted, but now the hour has come. Thou art here alone, none knowing, and I—I alone can save thee. And will not Kali, our mother, raise her hands in blessing upon us united, even as we were united when babes, and being appeased, lift the curse from off the land. She is soft and gentle, treading lightly upon life's stony paths, Uma so sweet, Parvati, daughter of the eternal snows. Oh! woman, say that thou wilt be my wife, for behold, are we not marked with the same mark which——"
"Mark? What mark?" Leonie questioned abruptly, looking back over her shoulder, her mouth perilously near to his as he bent his head slightly towards her; and there fell a little silence in which the thudding of his 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 of wonder in her eyes.
"I have so often wondered about the—the little mark," she said. "But you see—how could I marry you—I could not, do not—love you!"
"Love," he said quietly. "Love! Thou wilt love me, aye! thou wilt love me in thy waking hours, even as thou wouldst have loved me in thy sleep 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 in which the man beside her had been her companion. She stretched out her hands and turned them over this way and that, scrutinising them with horrified eyes. She touched her mouth with her finger-tips and drew them with a shudder down her neck, and her breast, and her waist, as she looked upon the beauty of the man before her with his passionate mouth and gleaming eyes.
"You—you have been with me when I have walked, unconscious in my sleep; 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 and helped thy cut and bleeding feet over the roughness of the roads, as I would help them over the perilous road of life. I have not touched thy hand save in support; I have not touched the glory of thy mouth with my mouth, 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 kisses from thee? Behold, I had but to make a sign, and thou, in thy unconsciousness, would have come unto my intent! Oh, thou bud of innocent 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 the words came through her closed teeth—"You lie!"
"Lie!"
"Yes, lie! You have not touched me you say; neither have you kissed me, but you, and only you, can tell me what the mark is on my shoulder—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 monkeys passed them, chattering as they ran swiftly on all fours, or swung even more swiftly from tree to tree; and the native looked after them, and up to the sky, and over his shoulder along the narrow path by which they had come, showing black and white in the alternate lights and shadowings of the moon.
"Answer me!" said Leonie more sharply than she knew, and with a woman's superb indifference to any event or signs of approaching event outside her own love orbit.
"Nay, answer thou me!" replied the man who, expert in the knowledge of jungle 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, thou beautiful 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 so sweet, 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 which thou callest the curse from about thee, bringing thee to happiness in the shadow of the temple."
But something had happened to Leonie, bringing her to a pitch of excitement foreign to her in her waking hours. She looked swiftly to right and left, and over her shoulder, and up the narrow path they must go to the temple; and up to the sky she could see faintly through the trees, and into the eyes of the man watching her intently. Then she clasped her hands tightly and moved close to him, her face as white as death.
"And the sahib, the white man, where is he?"
The native of India weaves and fashions the cloth of his cloak of love out of many colours. Gorgeous colours, blinding, dazzling, in which predominate the scarlet of passion and the emerald of the supreme male's jealousy. And all, from the sweeper to the highest of birth and caste, wear this wondrous garment in India, though not one out of the teeming millions fashions his cloak upon the pattern of his neighbour's.
Madhu Krishnaghar, the son of princes, with eyes dimmed by the brilliance of his own particular garment, failed to perceive that Leonie, too, was wrapped in a love mantle.
The occidental mantle, made of honest homespun, uniform in colour, and with a wide hem to allow for shrinkage; but guaranteed to stand all weathers and to last a lifetime.
He might have been flicking a fly from his sleeve, so indifferent was his answer in his blindness.
"The white man? He is bound to the temple walls, awaiting the woman he allows to walk unveiled and alone throughout India."
"Ah!" said Leonie, with that little hush in her voice which is heard in the mother's when she first sees her new-born babe. "I am sorry," she continued quietly, "so sorry I have not been honest with you. I cannot marry you because——"
She stopped and turned as with a sound like the tearing of silk a flock of birds suddenly flew from the tree tops and whirled away into the night.
"Because? Because, woman?"
For a moment Leonie unconsciously watched the flight of the birds, then swung 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 back quickly and threw out her hands as the man spoke. For the banked-down fires of his passion and his love, and the hurt to his race, and his own sudden-born agony flared in one half-second into a mighty, awful conflagration. The flame of his words licked at her feet and the hem of 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 touch her nor raise his voice one half tone.
"Thou woman! Then shall no man have thee, for I will drive my dagger through the white man's heart before thine eyes, and watch thee, thou beautiful 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, so that his agony was increased a thousandfold as he looked down upon her whom he had lost.
"You would not, could not do that?" she whispered.
"Could not kill the feringhee?" and the hate in the old mutiny word was terrible to hear. "What else should I do to him who has stolen the sun 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 of the gentle dove. As the slender vine around the straight palm, so will my love twine around thy heart. Yea, and even as the banyan tree sends out branches to draw dew from the rounded breast of earth, my love shall yearn towards thee. Day and her lover, Night, with the Dawn and the Sunset their children; the stag and the gentle doe, with their fierce horned offspring, and their offspring as round and smooth even as thy throat. So will our union be, for behold, my love for thee is so 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 he pressed her, tempting her, revelling after the strange way of the East in the agony of the defeat his victory would bring him.
"And to save the life of the white man, thou opening bud of the passion flower, 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 tormented souls.
A great form crashed across the path behind them, followed by the bounding passage of a herd of deer; and from all around came the sounds of animals fleeing in panic, as Leonie lifted her face to the man's with a desperate resolve in her stricken eyes.
And the man, reading the answer, bowed his head to her stone cold hands and 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 his life I will be—your—your wife. No, wait! On these conditions. That he is set free and shown a way to safety—that I follow him in secret—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; swear that you will tell him that I am dead."
And Madhu, the son of princes, put both hands to his forehead and bowed before the woman; then stood erect, with hands upraised to heaven, silent, wrestling with temptation; and having won, he spoke, his face transfigured, 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 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 hell."—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 God! 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 bumped the wall.
"Something like a slight——"
"Haste, sahib! I must away to placate Kali, the Goddess 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 mass 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:
"Hell!"
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 space the two feet of raw hide allowed him, the slow, sure, desperate man with a mute appeal to his God, 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 god, 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 God 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 passed 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, brass 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 Goddess 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 gods 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 passage 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.
"Leonie," he called gently, "Leonie, come to me, come here to me!"
Her eyelids suddenly closed upon the staring gold-flecked eyes; her mouth quivered in a little smile as she let fall the flowers about her bloodstained feet and ran swiftly across to Jan; kneeling she touched his face gently with her finger-tips, and stretched her hands across his shoulders towards the thongs which bound him to the ring in the wall.
Her hair fell upon him as she leaned towards him, and a memory of the day he had found her in Rockham Cove flashed across his mind; her mouth, her beautiful scarlet virgin mouth had almost touched his when the priest's power, closing down, jerked her back into the horrible travesty of her sweet, gentle self.
She sat back upon her heels and laughed, and said one word in Hindustani which is best translated as dog, although it means infinitely more and worse; and having uttered it she smote him across the mouth with the flat of her hand and rose to her feet.
She stood for a moment laughing silently, looking down upon him, and turning, ran swiftly across the flags to the block of fallen stones. There she paused and glanced at the white man bound to the wall with the light of battle in his eyes, before she disappeared, beckoning to the priest who followed as she ran down the passage of the gods, making obeisance before them as she passed.
CHAPTER XLIX
"The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for, and to be buried in."—Lowell.
Leonie lay motionless on the stained stone before the altar; her hair, pulled back clear from her neck, swept behind her head like a cascade of rust-coloured water to the floor; her hands were clasped between her breasts, and her great unfathomable eyes stared up into those of the stone woman who looked down at her and seemed to laugh with joy at her long coveted prize.
In every corner black shapes danced; advancing, retreating, springing towards the roof and vanishing utterly. The place seemed infested with goblins, or devils, things of untold evilness and vice, although, in reality, they were but the shadows thrown by the little lights which were like tongues licking the lips of darkness in sensuous anticipation of the coming feast of blood.
The old priest stood looking up at his god with perplexity in his sunken eyes.
Arrayed in snow-white garment, with long hair hanging down, he held the knife of sacrifice in one hand, and in the other the sacred roomal.
The terrible picture shone softly in the light of the full moon which struck straight down upon the altar through a hole in the ruined roof.
"Tell thy servant thy pleasure, O Black One!" prayed the priest, swaying slightly to and fro. "Make him understand it the roomal shall be knotted about the neck of this white sacrifice, or if the knife shall draw a necklace of red about the white neck and upon the white breast. Give me an answer, O Mother, that I may right the wrong of many moons ago. A sign, a sign, O Mother!"
As he spoke; and for no apparent reason, Leonie's hands unclasped, her arms opened and fell towards her sides, leaving the beautiful breast bare with the jewel in shape and colour of a cat's eye winking craftily with the cunning and knowledge of the sins of all ages, just above the heart.
The priest shouted in worship, and his words, caught, echoed and re-echoed from the dome, drowned the sound of footsteps running at high speed across the flower-strewn floor.
Madhu Krishnaghar, naked save for the turban which bound his handsome head and the loin cloth which girt the slender middle, sped like the wind to the rescue of his beloved.
In the black shades of the jungle, understanding at last that for him there could be no life outside the life of the white woman he loved, and no happiness outside her happiness, he had raced Time down the jungle path, through the outer gates and temple door, pausing not for the fraction of a second; realising, as he ran, that upon his speed alone depended the life of his beloved. And even as the priest flung back his arm with a scream of ecstasy, the knife was wrenched out of his hand from behind.
O Madhu, you splendid heathen, who defied the anger of your strange gods for the love in your noble heart.
"Ha!" said the old man as he swung round in fury; then he smiled and opened wide his arms. "Thou! O my son! thou! Thou wouldst offer the great sacrifice thyself to our most gentle mother. And art thou not in the right? Thine has been the task and the toil, therefore is it meet that thou shouldst have the reward."
He laid his hands upon the shoulders of the youth, who straightway gripped the veined old wrists and raised the withered arms high up above their heads, while their eyes met in a sudden-born, subconscious enmity, and the knife lay glittering along the wrinkled brown skin.
Only for an instant, and Madhu let go his hold, and turning, stood looking down upon the jewel above the woman's heart. As he looked, the thing, catching the reflections of the lights, shone strangely bright upon the snow-white skin, and the lust of blood swept him from head to foot.
He longed to drive the dagger through the breast above the shining jewel; he craved to see the whiteness of the skin stained with red, to throw himself upon the still form and shut the dead mouth with kisses.
He was mad with passion, intoxicated with the heavy perfumed air, drunk with the atmosphere of his surroundings, and his slim body shook as he ran the needle-point of the dagger into his own breast.
He closed his eyes in the ecstasy of that pain which is twin to the ecstasy of desire fulfilled, and in their closing woke suddenly to the purity of his strange love. He turned with a snarl and hit up the old man's hand as it almost touched the nape of his neck, and stretching wide his arms made a shield of his body between Leonie and the intent he read in the priest's eyes, just as a brick fell and split to pieces at their feet.
"Linger not, my son," said the old priest fiercely. "Behold! the rites have been performed, the chants sung, and the offerings made. Drive the knife home, and give drink to thy mother of that which she loves. Hasten! for she is angry at thy slowness, and the very earth trembles at her wrath."
But Madhu Krishnaghar looked straight back into the fierce, suspicious old eyes, and moved quickly towards the priest who, taken by surprise, retreated hurriedly.
"Father!" came the words in the musical, steady voice. "O servant of the Black One, I cannot, nay, I will not, for I love yon white woman with a love passing all understanding. Nay, hearken! A sacrifice there must be this night, and there shall be one. Even me, O my Father. Let it suffice, for behold is my love so great, that she, the slender white flower, seems but one with me. Let her go, let her go, and lay me on the stone, warm with the life of her dear body, and drive the knife through my heart, that through my love peace may be made with thy god and my god!"
The whole world seemed bound in a great terrible silence as the two men stood staring at each other in the soft silver light of the moon; then the old man smiled gently, with the cunning of all time in his eyes, and creeping close to his pupil spoke in the merest whisper; tempting, as have always tempted, those who desire to gain their own ends, and who justify all means as long as that end is gained.
"Thou lovest her, my son. The infidel white woman, the sacrifice long dedicated to thy god. And why not, for thou are marked even with the mark which shows between the breasts like lotus buds. But thinkest thou, O son of princes, O descendant of the great, that thou art fit to mate with her. She is white, a daughter of the all-conquering race; thou—thou art black—a pariah—a dog—thou wouldst be whipped from her presence, thou high-born son of India."
The old man never moved his eyes from the young face, and neither the one nor the other saw the great striped terrified beast which slunk past them and disappeared into the shadows, seeking protection in its terror.
"But why shouldst thou let this woman, whom thou lovest, go? Why not make sacrifice of love as well as life to the great one? Behold is she soft and white and all-pleasing! Why, therefore, should she not come unto thy intent neath the eyes of the Sweet One, while I make offerings in the shadows towards thy well doing; so that the Black One will be twice pleased."
Of all the horrible temptations in that place of horror! And where in the name of all the gods did the native, unshackled by convention or code, find the strength to resist?
For while the priest whispered the young face was swept by a flood of conflicting emotions—which passed—leaving it as pure, as soul-stirring as the Taj Mahal at dawn.
"No! O Holy One! I will not—I love her—I love her—I will not!"
The words were firm and the young mouth like steel, and the eyes looked steadily back into those of the priest as the latter rushed upon him in mighty, inhuman wrath.
"And I say that thou shalt, thou begotten son of evil. I say that thou shalt encompass this woman with thy might, and then offer her in sacrifice to Kali, the Goddess of Death. I say that thou shalt."
It was a case of will pitted against will, for the old man knew that the younger would not dare raise hand against him for fear of everlasting damnation.
And Madhu Krishnaghar girded himself for the battle by putting his love for the white woman in the forefront of his mind.
And as they fought, desperately, with one last terrific pull which caused the hide to cut down to the wrist bone, Jan Cuxson wrenched the ring he had loosened from the wall, and stood swaying, sick with pain. Sweat poured down his face and bare chest, and blood flowed from his wrists while his burst finger-tips fumbled clumsily with the deep embedded thongs.
"I did it—I did it," he kept on repeating savagely, as his knees trembled and his body turned cold in agony. "I did it—I did it—God grant I am in time—in time."
Free at last, smothered in blood, dragging his heavily booted feet with difficulty, he sought and found the broken blade, staggered across the floor, stooped, and entered the passage of the gods where the imprint of his beloved's bare feet marked the dust of ages.
And Leonie lay quite still; to all appearance dead, with her open eyes turned back beneath the lids and her mouth half open showing her even teeth.
Not a word passed between the two men as they fought for her, one for her life, the other for her death. This way and that they moved; the one trying to escape from the direct range of the relentless will-power, and yet keep himself between the girl and the religious fanatic; the other striving to press his opponent back even to the altar stone.
Like iron to a magnet Madhu's hand was closed about the dagger hilt, and try as he would he could not relax the grasp nor fling the knife far back into the shadows; neither could he keep his footing, for strive as he would the priest's magnetic power, developed and trained through years and years of study and practice, drove him back inch by inch towards the god who looked down upon them with her fish-shaped eyes.
A glint of triumph shone in the eyes of the priest, and twisted the corner of his mouth as the heel of his enemy thudded against the stone upon which lay the white girl; and he concentrated every ounce of his strength for the last moment when, by sheer force of his will, the knife should be lifted and driven down, deep, even to the hilt. And the white man hastened as best he could, reeling at every step, with blood streaming from his wrists and spattering upon the stones beneath the leering eyes of the gods. Not one of the three heeded the low moaning of the wind as it swept past the temple and through the trees, to die away into a great, uncanny, unnatural silence, unbroken by sound of beast or bird.
Fate feeling for her shears, and peevish through want of sleep maybe, or mayhap irritated by their obstreperous behaviour, jerked the strings which bound those marionettes called humans to her palsied old fingers.
The old priest, misjudging the pull given to his string, in what he mistook to be his triumph, laughed.
It is better to laugh last indeed, but oft-times it is best not to laugh at all, for who can foresee the particle of dust which may enter your indecently and injudiciously wide open mouth to choke you in your ill-timed mirth.
Only for an instant did he triumph above his enemy, but for just that instant he loosened his will power; and Madhu Krishnaghar, sensing the relief, and whipped by the laugh to one final desperate effort of his failing powers, raised his hand and flung the knife far back to fall with a clatter in some distant corner.
It was done.
Youth had mocked at experience, life at death, love at opposition, as it has done since the beginning of time, and will do, let us hope, until the end.
For as the knife hurtled into the shadows, Madhu bent swiftly and lifted Leonie into his arms, holding her in this his last moment of heaven upon earth, tenderly and firmly, as he glared defiance over her head at the priest.
And he, understanding at last that he had failed, cast himself at the feet of his god who, in her fury, stamped with both her blood-stained feet.
CHAPTER L
"Greater love hath no man."—The Bible.
There was a shout from the doorway leading to the secret places of the temple as Cuxson, covered with blood and dust, half-crazed with horror, paused for a moment as he took in the awful picture before him.
Leonie, with her hair almost sweeping the ground, lay half clothed and seemingly dead in the arms of a native, whose face was a picture of triumphant love for all to see; and a wild-eyed priest beat his breast before the horrible image of the terrible, all powerful Goddess of Destruction.
He sprang forward with another shout, which was lost in the shriek and crash of the raging elements.
For even as he moved there was a terrific roar as of tons of exploding dynamite, and a shriek of wind as it tore through the building, blowing out the little flickering lights, leaving the place pitch black save for the steady light of the full moon.
Then he swayed like a drunken man as the floor rose in a great wave and yet another, heaving the flags this way and that, cracking and splitting in every direction as it subsided.
"Leonie!" he shouted, though no sound could be heard above the appalling din. "Leonie! Leonie!"
He saw her lying in a pool of moonlight as though asleep, and near her knelt the native, with arms outstretched above her, sheltering her.
There was a moment of complete dead silence, and then with a tearing, rending sound the dome and the temple walls split from top to base; and with a thundering crash the great block of stone upon which was carved the image of Kali the Terrible split in two, toppled over and fell upon the kneeling priest.
Herds of screaming beasts hurled themselves through the riven walls and fled across the temple floor, fighting blindly to escape. Monkeys in hundreds scrambled over the mounds of fallen bricks, chattering and calling like lost, frightened children; a tiger with one bound landed noiselessly a few feet from those two in the moonlight, half reared with a short coughing roar and bounded as noiselessly away. And God alone knows what saved the three from instant death among the tottering ruins.
The power of Love perchance.
The son of princes sheltering the girl slowly, oh! slowly straightened himself, when a prolonged silence seemed to indicate the end of the greatest earthquake that ever swept the Sunderbunds Jungle.
Blood streamed from the side of his head, battered in by a broken fragment of the high altar that had been hurled through the air; his left shoulder was in splinters, crushed by the collapse of the roof which must have killed Leonie if he had not covered her with his body; blood spouted from some great severed artery in the arm which seemed to hang by a thread from the splintered shoulder; yet was his face aglow with light and love, and his eyes afire with happiness as he raised a tawny tress of hair and pressed it to his lips.
He was dying, quickly, yet he turned his head and smiled at the sound of Jan Cuxson's boots scrambling over the impeding heaps of stone. For one second only the torture of the sacrifice required of him flared in the soft brown eyes; and then in the pride of his great race, and with an effort of will beyond all telling, he put his unbroken arm round the woman he loved so well, lifted her, got somehow to his feet, and walked, aye! walked steadily across the few yards which separated him from the white man.
Cuxson, not realising his terrible plight, with eyes only for the woman he loved, wrenched Leonie from his hold and swept her from head to foot with frantic eyes.
"What have you done to her?" he demanded fiercely. "Before the earthquake what did you do to her? Tell me—or by God I'll——"
He stopped the bitter words in time to save himself from everlasting remorse.
For Madhu Krishnaghar suddenly straightened his battered body, and looked the white man in the eyes.
"She is safe, O white man, safe and unharmed. Take her, keep her—carry her by the—the short road without the—the temple gates—to—happiness, I give her—to—you—because I—I love—her—for ever!"
There was a moment's terrible silence in which the two men stood divided, yet united, in their great love for the one woman.
The native of India put his hand to his forehead and salaamed before the woman for whom he had sacrificed all, then turned slowly around towards the place where the image of his god had so lately stood.
"Kali!" he called, and his young voice was as the clashing of golden bells at sunset. "Kali! Mother of all—I come!"
And unwitting of the great reward awaiting those who attain everlasting peace through the victory of the greater love, he crashed face downwards, dead, upon the flower-strewn floor, and passed for ever into the safe keeping of the one and only God.