CHAPTER XXVI
"But when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life."--_The Bible_.
The first-class passengers, leastways the passengers travelling firstclass, lay stretched out side by side, one sex to starboard, t'other toport, divided, however, more by the fear of the eyes of the other sex,than by any hatch piled with chairs, or ship rule pinned upon thenotice-board, and signed by the chief.
Surely the hours of the tropical nights passed in sleep on deck arethose in which we should return thanks for lacking the gift of seeingourselves as the officer going on, or coming off watch, the fugitiveapprentice, or some stray passenger see us.
Human chrysalis, wrapt in the cocoon of sheet or unsightly nightattire, with starboard boudoir cap awry, exposing the steel cracker orthe lanky lock; unsightly pedal extremities peeping from the unfemininepyjama; ruby lips, uncarmined, ajar; whilst to port like rocks from theocean, unshaven chins rise unrebuked from blanket billows, and pyjamabutton and buttonhole play touch across the unseemly, unrestrained andunconfined masculine torso.
It was one of those insufferably hot nights you get sometimes as youturn into the Hoogli, when the smell of the land comes in sickeningwafts, and the enchantment of the East is considerably lessened in youropinion by the oppression of the atmosphere.
You are going up the Hoogli! you are passing the Sunderbunds! you canalmost see the tigers squatting in rows at the water's edge! it is theEast! it is India!--also it is infernally hot, and having retired toyour cabin to disrobe, you anathemise your stable companion who hasbeen likewise inspired; curse your overworked cabin steward who hasheaved your bedding on to the wrong site; re-arrange everything and beddown.
Everyone was asleep when the light of the full moon caused a subduedlustre under the awnings, and a greenish light in Leonie's wide-open,staring eyes, as she suddenly swung herself over the side of her bunkand slid unhurt to the floor.
She made an arresting picture as she stood listening intently, herflimsy garment falling away from her shoulders, leaving the slenderwhite back bare to the waist, while she held handfuls of thetransparent stuff crushed against her breast, upon which lay a jewelhung from a gold chain.
Her feet were bare, her arms were bare, and her tawny mass of hair hungin two thick scented plaits to her dimpled knees; and she repeated somewords over and over again like one insane or delirious.
"_Ham abhi ate hai--ham abhi ate hai_."
Which being translated means "I come--I come."
Without the slightest hesitation she opened the door of No. 1state-room, which she had had to herself after Port Said, and which, asanyone who has travelled on this particular boat will know, gives on tothe dining saloon; passed swiftly along the narrow passage past thenotice board and the head steward's cabin, and stood among the humancocoons on deck.
For a moment she paused irresolute, turned, and swiftly mounted thecompanion-way to the bridge deck, her bare feet making no sound, herbeautiful body shining like ivory through the flimsy garment she heldgathered to her breast.
Oh! well for her was it that the ship slept, and that the awnings madeit almost impossible for those on the bridge to see what took place onthe deck.
Though a report of sleep-walking on board would only have served tobroaden the lines of laughter in the chief officer's mercurial soul,and deepen the lines of cynicism around the second officer's cynicalmouth when the one relieved the other on the bridge at the matutinalhour of four a.m.
And very well for Leonie was it that the captain had forbidden sleepingon his deck, and that the high caste native who had come aboard atColombo was sitting on the port side as she approached.
Owing to his high caste, and the purity of his habits, the young nativehad passed the days apart from his fellow-passengers since he had comeaboard; and the days left were too few for the white folk to show anycuriosity concerning the handsome man.
You don't feel curious about anything after almost five weeksseafaring; you feel kind of stunned.
Leonie, therefore, had not noticed him particularly as he sat apartwith his delicate oval face behind a book when she approached, orpassed his chair; neither had she felt the gentle luminous eyes restingupon her from the nape of her sunkissed neck to her slim ankle.
Nor did he now, long after midnight, make any sign when, withouttouching the rails, she came swiftly up the companion-ladder, bendingher bronze head to miss the edge of the awning; and he made no movementas she sped past him, crossed the deck to the starboard rail, andputting both hands upon it, swung her body back as you do when you aregoing to vault clear.
No movement of his body, but he gave a jerk of his will-power whichbrought the veins out like whipcord upon his forehead, and drove thenails deep into the palms of his hands.
And in response, Leonie's arms slackened. She stood quite still,staring out to where the Sunderbunds lay hidden under mist; then sheput one bare foot upon the lower rail, and swinging herself up, satsideways, leaning far over; in such a position that the slightest lurchof the ship would have sent her headlong into the water.
The native's eyes narrowed to slits, and his nostrils dilated strangelyas he pitted his will against the force which was impelling her.
He dared not speak, he dared not touch her. For he knew that onemoment of recognition, one breath of scandal touching himself and thewoman he trailed, meant the crumbling of the altar he was buildingstone by stone to his god.
For that reason he had taken the mail instead of the slow boat she hadchosen, and had thought long before deciding to come aboard, even atColombo.
He was afraid because of the evening she had answered when he calledher across London to his side, by the image of Kali the Terrible in aglass case; afraid that she might recognise him and be on her guard,undoing all that he had done in the last year in obedience to themandate of the old priest.
Sleeping Leonie, having descended from her perilous seat, stood for amoment with outflung arms, looking across the waters; then turned andwalked swiftly and softly like a cat, straight up to the man who rose.Sweetly she laughed up into his face as she laid one little hand uponthe great white cloak which swung from his shoulders, unaware that inmoving her hand her own garment had slipped, and that her beauty layexposed like a lotus bud before his eyes.
She came so close that her bare shoulder touched the fine white linen,and the curves of her scarlet lips wet but a fraction of an inch fromhis own; and her whimpered words in the eastern tongue were as a flameto an oil well.
"This plant," she murmured, with the light of unholiness in hergleaming eyes, "this plant is honey born--at the tip of my tonguehoney--mayest thou come unto my intent!"
He answered softly in the same sonorous tongue and she swayed towardshim like a flower.
"About thee with an encompassing sugar-cane have I gone, in order toabsence of mutual hatred; that thou mayest be one loving me, that thoumayest be one not going away from me!"
Where is the dividing line?
What is it that causes the saint suddenly to fling aside his holinessand hurl himself headlong to perdition? or the sinner to hurl aside hisevilness and fling himself headlong into a monastery?
The jogging of memory, mostly, I think.
For what resolutions can not be conceived, and accomplished, or brokenby the scent of a flower, the touch of a hand, or the feel of a pieceof stuff.
Love, sudden, overpowering oriental love consumed the man, passionscorched his soul, and desire shook him from his dark head to theslender feet.
He was awake and the girl was asleep, and craving to set his seal uponher in her unconsciousness, he bent towards her until the fierceness ofhis breath disturbed the lacey frill about her breast, bringing to viewthe jewel suspended from a golden chain.
Instantly his joined hands were raised towards his face mechanically inprayer, his eyes burned with the fanaticism of his creed, and his facebecame old in knowledge.
The dividing line? the lifted veil? Nay! nothing but a jewel with theform and the colo
uring of a cat's-eye, which had cunningly winked up athim from the secret places of the girl's bosom; so that she returned toher cabin with her body unscathed, and her soul on the edge of theprecipice.
And the most razor-tongued, detested colonel mem-sahib of the line inIndia thanked her stars that the mosquitoes had roused her frantically,but just in time, to see the trailing edge of Leonie's indecorous nightattire disappear through the door.
Aloofness, allied to perfect shoes and silken hose, will find a womanmore enemies on board than all the pretty faces and frocks in theworld; and if, in addition, she _can_ heap on such items as a seductiveface and figure; and if gossip via the newspapers can and _does_ supplyinformation as to the contents of her pass-book, plus savoury rumoursconcerning mysterious incidents in her past; well! 'twere better forthat woman to stop at home, bob her hair, and take to that field ofliterature which is not bound on any side by the hedge of convention.
So it came about that her friends, after stumbling up the gangway atthe Kidderpore Docks, with handkerchiefs held against their noses toprotect them from the effluvia wafted from Garden Reach, lifted theireyebrows slightly at the frostiness of the adieux between their guestand her fellow-passengers.
And no one in the scramble and flurry noticed the elderly pock-markedayah who had been engaged as Leonie's bodywoman as she lifted the hemof the mem-sahib's skirt and laid it against her forehead, and touchedthe instep of the high caste native when he passed behind the girl anddisappeared in the crowd of his countrymen which opened up a way beforehim.
An ayah, who, to the utter astonishment of her friends, had given upthe high position of head body-woman to a Ranee of the North, in orderto accept the humble post of ayah to a mem-sahib.
A post she had gained by the baffling methods of the East which bindeach man's work to that of his neighbour with an unbreakable,untraceable chain; and gained too, over the sleek heads of many of hersister ayahs, who, armed with countless and phenomenally laudatorychits, had squatted patiently for hours in the servants' quarters ofthe bungalow at Alipore.
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