Part 47 (1/2)

”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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+ning length across their very path; and nothing short of hours of prayer and offerings to their G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed 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 h.o.r.n.y, 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 d.o.g.g.i.ng me--hunting me down--why--tell me why? What harm have I done you?--tell me?”

Her eyes, which were s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ds!”

”_You_ will save _me_--_you_--and why?”