Part 45 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+vered, 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