CHAPTER XXXIX
"The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult of the soul."--_Wordsworth_.
"What a frightful row the natives are making in the city," was thefractious comment of one heat-distracted tourist to another through themosquito netting which divided the two beds.
"Disgraceful!" peevishly assented the other as she turned restlesslyupon the thin, hot mattress, and heaved the one thin sheet to the footof the hot bed.
A sharper note had topped the heavy murmur which, like the rumble of adistant sea, had beaten the air without ceasing throughout the night.
A film operator would have said that a crowd had woken up; a Londonpoliceman, that a crowd was turning nasty, as the sharp note wentcrescendo right along, until it took the definite tone of thousands ofhuman voices upraised in unrest of some kind.
This way and that surged the multitude, bowing unconsciously before thegusts of passion which swept from every quarter.
The fret of the thousands of feet upon the paving sounded a silkyaccompaniment to the strange throaty murmur of fast rising religioushysteria; sharp, uncontrollable cries stood out like steel pencillingagainst the velvet monotony of the throbbing drums; the never ceasingtinkle of rings, and clanking of bracelets and holy chains against theblare of the horns sounded as out of place as a child singing in athunder storm.
The high priest, with the face of Rome, with a beckoning gesture, drewtowards him other priests. Some also with the face of Rome, and somewith the face of the field labourer; some, gaunt and stern; some, jollyand rotund; well, just like any gathering of clergy, of any creed, youcan see any day, in any country of Europe.
The chiming of the silver bell had stopped when the worshippers, uponthe peremptory command of the priests, fled pell-mell out of the templeand down the steps to join the frenzied crowd; while from the directionof the Praying Ghats there arose a roar of voices as two slim figuressped swiftly up the narrow lane, which seemed to open of its own accordbefore them.
The woman, clad from the waist downwards in one linen piece, camerunning swiftly, lightly, undisturbed, almost hidden in the masses ofher hair blown before her by the rising wind.
Her naked body gleamed in the mixed lights; one hand, thrust outthrough the hair, held a dagger with diamond hilt; the other wasclasped in the hand of the man who ran evenly and steadily beside her.
There was not apparently an inch of space to spare in all those narrowstreets; but by the madness of religion which drove the packed humanityback against the walls, a way was made for her who appeared to themultitude as the long-promised earthly incarnation of the Goddess ofDeath.
When she had passed, those who were against the wall remained there,standing crushed to death, supported by the indifferent neighbours whohad helped to drive in their ribs; and those who had slipped to theirknees in religious fervour, or by reason of the state of the street,also remained prone upon the ground, the mass of people treadingindifferently upon their broken backs and necks, while the threateningheavens were rent with screams of physical agony and cries of sensuousdelight.
Straight up the steps ran Leonie, and into the interior of the temple,just as a priest, a lad, with his face twitching spasmodically, andcalling upon his god, fell dead at her feet, smitten by the force ofhis religion.
Leonie, throwing up her arms, laughed as she put her cut and bleedingfoot upon the boy's neck--laughed until the place pealed and echoedwith the unseemly clamour, causing the crowds outside, held only incheck by the mental force of the handful of priests, to strain againstthe invisible hypnotic barrier, and cry to high heaven for a sacrifice.
Then Leonie turned about and ran out on to the terrace, standing aghastly, beautiful figure before the multitude; and only a pair ofmonkey eyes, in a pock-marked face, hidden by the deep shadows of acorner inside the temple, saw the high priest with _roomal_ in hand,creep stealthily up behind the girl.
No one in the tumult heard the growling of the elements; no one noticedthe clouds bent on enveloping the moon; no one but the pock-markedwoman understood what was towards for the appeasing of the outraged god.
"Blood!" screamed the tight packed ranks; "a sacrifice of blood! Kaliis hungry! Kali is thirsty! Give unto the Black Mother that which shedemands!"
Leonie flung up both arms and laughed, even as the high priest drewback one step, scowling at the averted sacrifice.
"A sacrifice!" went up the cry from thousands of throats; "a sacrifice!a sacrifice!"
Again Leonie flung out both arms, and, just as the _roomal_ wasslipping over the small head, with the scream of a tigress whose cub isin danger, the ayah leapt straight at her beloved child, wrenching theknotted handkerchief from the priest's hand.
A horrible cry of disappointed blood lust shook the very earth; drumsbeat, horns screamed, daggers flashed in the dense mass, and fingersmet round many a throat.
They were mad indeed the people, but none so mad as Leonie as she stoodwith feet apart glaring down at the ayah's sleek head, which she heldby the hair, in one hand.
So mad was she that the priests drew back as from one divine; all butthe high-caste youth who stood unnoticed amongst them and who advancedone step as Leonie raised her face to the moon.
"She of the full moon," she chanted, "was the first worshipped one withdepths of days, of nights. They who, O worshipful one, gratify theewith offerings, those well doers are entered into thy firmament!"
To which the waiting multitude thundered a response.
"A sacrifice! A sacrifice! A sacrifice!"
Over and over again went up the cry as men and women and children fellfoaming to the ground, "and conches and kettledrums, tabors and drums,and cow-horns blared."
Then came a silence, deep, sinister, and foreboding; only for onesecond before it was broken by a gasp, the catching of the breath inecstasy of thousands of mankind.
And followed screams of pure delight as Leonie flung back her hand, inwhich gleamed the diamond hilted dagger, just as a terrific peal ofthunder crashed upon the searing flash of lightning, which flamed fromthe dense clouds as they swept over and blotted out the moon.
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