Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

  CHAPTER XL

  "Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face!"--_Shakespeare_.

  Leonie was sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for the _gharri_ totake her to the station; she had lunched and breakfasted in herbedroom, in fact she had lived there since her interview with themanager, which had been indescribably unpleasant for him, in that ithad been so distressing to the gentle girl as she had sat and noddedher head and looked at him out of agonised, forgiving eyes.

  The hotel _en masse_, at least the feminine portion of it, had had aprior interview with the manager which had been _superlatively_unpleasant for him.

  Coerced by a force which was closely allied to the brute; almostshouted down when he essayed to argue in favour of the hounded girl;threatened by the immediate transfer of the entire visiting list to thebooks of a rival hotel, he had ultimately owned to defeat; and Leoniesat on the edge of her bed, staring vacantly into the denudeddressing-room, while the native staff, yea! even unto him who had doneher no service, buzzed round in the vicinity of her door.

  Strange things had happened, things undefined, and therefore notcapable of bearing the light of honest dissection or discussion.

  What _had_ happened during the night of rioting--so-called--in thecity? What had been the meaning of those white-robed figures which hadfluttered near her door? And oh! why had her faithful ayah been foundon the edge of the river the morning after, stabbed through the heart?

  As if anyone in India with any sense at all _would_ make inquiriesabout the last event.

  All that and a lot more! and quite enough to slam the gates of heavenor the hotel upon any lovely woman on her own!

  Yes! but--did all _that_ really do the actual slamming?

  Not a bit of it!

  It was the most convenient excuse the womenfolk could find to hang uponthe peg of jealousy which had been knocked into the wall of feminineconceit and bad intent, by the hammer of Leonie's beauty, andirritating indifference to both men and women, especially the former.

  Let any woman lure to her side some other woman's own particular bit ofmasculine property; poach successfully upon her understocked malepreserves; and figuratively, maybe verbally, most assuredly positivelyif she live east of Blackfriars, the claws of jealousy will besharpened upon her; _but_--ignore the bit of masculine property, passit by on the other side, consider it as belonging to somebody else,leave the preserves severely alone, and vials of execration, anathema,and denunciation, which are all synonyms for the same thing, will bepoured upon her because of her lack of the appreciative faculty.

  Fact!

  Very few women can see the difference between joyfully hoarding genuineantique pewter, and wearing a second-hand neglige.

  So Leonie was fleeing home via Calcutta, and she sat without movement,hating herself and the world, even the man who, having taken her at herword, had left her alone to stumble as best she could along thecrooked, lonely road which would end, as far as she could see, in apadded cell.

  "How could you?" she suddenly cried aloud, and the natives madesurreptitious signs, and withdrew to a certain distance out of respectto the disorder of her mind. "How _could_ you leave me! Didn't you_know_ that it is because I love you so that I would rather _die_ thanlet you share my curse? But couldn't you have done _something_, triedto follow that clue, gone somewhere, oh! done _anything_ just to showthat----!"

  The rumble of wheels cut her agitation short, and drew the nativeelement closer to the door, in order that it should be quite near themem-sahib when she appeared--with her purse in her left hand.

  And while she sat on her bed, and later on in the train, striving tobreak the mental thongs which bound her to some intangible stake, JanCuxson was sitting in the secret places of the jungle temple, strivingto break the bonds of raw hide by which he had found himself fastenedto a ring in the wall.

  As he struggled he speculated savagely upon that insensate sense ofsecurity, common to most Britishers, which had caused him to try andfind the Hindu temple under the guidance of an unknown native.

  He mentally reviewed his journey from the boat to the temple, fightingthrough the tiger-grass, breaking through the delicate impedingbranches of the sundri trees, crushing the sundri breathers under hisheavy boots as he tramped behind the guide, having failed to notice,owing to the resemblance that exists between one ordinary native andthe next, that the guide and coolie of the jungle were not the guideand coolie of the paddle boat.

  He remembered that once he had stopped dead and laid a detaining handon the guide's shoulder, as through the darkening forest had come acry, eerie as it wailed through the shadows, to be taken up ahead ofthem, and echoed and re-echoed until it became faint in the distanceand died away altogether.

  "What's that?"

  The native had not hesitated.

  "The cry, O Sahib, Protector of the poor, of the jungle owl as it seeksits food!"

  Cuxson, unobservant for once, and anxious to get to the end of thetrail again failed to notice that it was still far too light for anymember of the owl family to be abroad.

  Also, when he sat down on a fallen tree trunk to readjust his bootstrap, he had mistaken for the booming of a huge jungle insectsomething which whizzed through the space where his head had been asecond before.

  It is true he had questioned the guide as to the route they weretaking, pointing out that it was not the one traversed in the _shikar_.

  To which the guide had replied that doubtless the _shikari_ had takenthe sahibs many miles out of their way to ensure a big toll to thesahibs' guns, and those of the mem-sahibs.

  Jan Cuxson had accepted every explanation.

  Extraordinary is this complacent sense of security of the British malewhen he butts into the paths and customs of countries of which he knowsliterally _nothing_; and he had arrived at the temple all in good time.

  Silence, intense and rather overwhelming, had hung about the forbiddingplace which allied to the abomination of desolation had disconcertedhim, and made him turn to the guide for further reference.

  He had frowned, and involuntarily recoiled towards the wall when hefound that his guide had disappeared, and that he stood alone in theheart of the jungle.

  But strangely enough, even as he stood staring at a white wall in frontof him, a sudden apathy had fallen upon him, also a strongdisinclination to move hand or foot; in fact, he remembered laughingstupidly, and pulling out his cigarette case with the intention ofsoothing a distinct sense of irritation aroused by something whichhammered incessantly upon his inner consciousness, warning him to be onthe look out.

  He remembered also looking once or twice in the direction of the templedoor with the feeling that someone was on the point of coming outtowards him, and then he had slipped contentedly to the ground, yawned,and gone to sleep.

  All the sounds of a jungle dawn had greeted him on his awaking: amonkey had swung itself up to the top of the ruined wall where it hadsat grimacing at him; an adjutant bird had clapped at his boot with itshuge bill as it stalked past him towards the door; and he had foundhimself bound by waist and wrists to a stout ring in a wall which stillheld traces of brilliant colouring.