Part 49 (1/2)
”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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+rt, and the back of his head b.u.mped the wall.
”Something like a slight----”