Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

  CHAPTER XLI

  "And unto wizards that peep and that mutter."--_The Bible_.

  Like some infuriated bull he had fought and tugged at his chains andshouted for deliverance, until clouds of birds flew skywards in fright,and blood had spurted from his finger-tips and stained the shirt abouthis middle.

  Thongs of hide sound inadequate against the strength of a man, butsteel chains are weak compared with them for resistance, and to striveagainst them simply results in pure agony if they have been thoroughlysoaked by the Indian dew which almost amounts to rain, and dried by theIndian sun which almost amounts to a furnace.

  Of course, in a properly constructed novel he would have been left in aposition which would have enabled him to gnaw the hide with his strongwhite teeth, or rub it until it wore through against some sharp stone.

  But this he could not do because his wrists were bound behind, leavingthe space of a foot or two between his waist and the wall; and when heleant back he had the tragic outline of a modern Prometheus bound; whenhe strained forward, that of one of Muller's pupils undergoingtreatment for the development of the chest.

  Neither could he, contort himself as he might, have brought his teethwithin gnawing distance of deliverance; moreover, ruins exposed forcenturies to the soft manipulation of a jungle climate, show no sharpstones; they are rounded and polished by the passage of time, softfeet, and that which crawls upon its belly.

  At length, however, peace quite strangely fell upon him, and though hecould not move, the agony of his hands and lacerated waist vanishedentirely; such perfect peace that he leant back against the wall andidly tried to count the myriad tiny dainty hoof marks in the dustbetween the doorway facing him, and the ruined archway on his left.

  He did not think it strange when turning his head he discovered anancient priest seated against the wall with his mahogany coloured oldbody outlined against the dull blues and reds of the painted stones;and his eyes, bright with religious fervour, fixed through thecrumbling arch, beyond the delicate sun-dried leaves, the blazing sun,and the steel blue heavens, upon Eternity.

  The fine old man had no intention of torturing the white man, he hadmerely bound him to the ring until his goddess should inspire him, herservant, with her wishes concerning this stranger who was intimatelyconnected with the white woman in the care of his beloved disciple,even Madhu Krishnaghar.

  Neither did he intend to starve the white man nor bring him to thepoint of madness from thirst; but accustomed to hours and days ofself-subjection in which he neither ate, drank nor felt the need ofmaterial sustenance, he failed to take into account the inner cravingsof a man when he had been tied for two nights to a ring in the wall.

  And he sprang to his feet and crossed the floor when Cuxson, after aninterval of forty-eight hours during which he had neither eaten nordrunk, tortured by cramp from his waist to his feet caused by thestrangling hold of the hide thong, with his heart pounding the bloodagainst his brain until it shook, and his arms feeling like burningstaves ending in blocks of ice, suddenly scrambled somehow to hisknees, shouted, and fell forward with the soles of his feet against thewall, and the whole weight of his heavy body hanging upon the wrists.

  It was but the work of an instant and a flashing knife and he lay facedown upon the floor at the feet of the priest who passed swiftlythrough the doorway out into the jungle, and returning as swiftly,bound great green shining leaves about the wounds, and squatting on hisheels gently massaged the black and swollen arms.

  A holy man! a Hindu priest touching the contaminating flesh of aninfidel! Impossible!

  There are many methods of purification from contamination, but the mainpoint in the priest's mental process of self-extenuation _was_ that aninfidel awaiting the verdict of the Great Mother should not be allowedto _die_.

  Therefore more green and glistening leaves were placed upon the floor,and food, and water in coarse earthenware, set upon them, until Cuxsonhad revived sufficiently to eat, and enter into conversation with thepriest, who, seeing no reason to withhold the information sought, andsecure in the knowledge that the spreading jungle tied the sahib to thetemple even more securely than the thongs of hide, gradually unfoldedto him the dark history of the girl he loved.

  "Eighteen years," began the tranquil voice of the old man, "as thesahibs count the passing of the moons, have gone since a high castewoman knelt at full moon in this temple at the foot of the altar ofKali, the Goddess of Destruction.

  "Kali the Black One; daughter of the Himalayas, wife of Siva! Durgathe inaccessible, Uma so sweet!

  "Chandika the fierce, Parvati who steppeth lightly upon the mountains.

  "Bhairavi the terrible, Kali of death, Kali! Kali!"

  The old priest, who had leapt to his feet under the exaltation of hisworship, sank down again upon the floor, and continued his tale in theIndian tongue.

  "The high caste woman, chief wife of a great prince of Northern India,held in her arms her first, her only son, a weakling, a sickly babenigh unto death. Thrice had she been shamed by the birth of a womanchild, and now her crown, her glory, her great gift unto her lord waslike to die.

  "Followed only by her body servant she had sped from her palace in theshadows of the Everlasting Hills, even unto the southernmost limits ofBengal, a pilgrim to this holy, secret temple where I pass my last daysin sacrifice and worship; I, even I, foremost _guru_, once teacher ofthe Thugs, those beloved servants of Kali--before the law of the whiteman forbade their sacrifices unto the goddess."

  Jan Cuxson, knowing of the sacrifices both human and animal offered inbygone days to the terrible goddess, shivered as the horror of theplace seemed to close in upon him.

  "The high caste woman demanding from the Goddess of Death the boon oflife for her son, cast her jewels upon the altar and made promise ofcattle and grain and her three daughters as handmaidens in the secretplaces of the temple. And I, aforetime great among the Thugs, lamentedthat I had but a coal black kid to offer as a sacrifice, for behold,Kali demands _life for life_, and _will not be denied_.

  "Flowers flung by the woman, O white man, strewed the stone floor uponwhich I have worn a path during the passing of the years; hundreds ofsmall lights flickered in every corner, causing the shadows to danceabout these weary feet and the eyes of the great gods to shine from thecorners of the roof; and without I heard against the wall the rubbingof the great tiger as it waited for the blood sacrifice which itnightly devoured before the dawn, the striped cat upon which Kali ridesforth at night on her journeyings through the jungle.

  "Even as I plunged the sacrificial knife into the neck of the unworthysacrifice, I heard footsteps as of one running swiftly; and behold,there came a low caste, pock-marked woman up the middle of the temple,who flung herself at the feet of Kali, laying a sleeping babe upon thealtar steps."

  "Ah!" barely whispered Jan Cuxson with his eyes fixed upon thefanatical old face.

  "And behold, the low caste woman was ayah in the services of one, evena great colonel-sahib, who, being raised above his fellows, washastening back across the Black Water to his own land, taking with himhis one wife, and the one child of their union.

  "Loving the white girl child with the great strange love of the servantof India for the offspring of the _feringhee_, the ayah had secretlybrought the babe in the absence of the mem-sahib upon visits offarewell, that I might dedicate her to the goddess, binding her inspirit for ever to the land of her birth."

  The white man sat in silence when the old man sprang to his feet,standing relentless and formidable in the light of the one lamp.

  "See'st thou? See'st thou, sahib, my sin? The sacrifice was within myhands, and yet I spared the child because of the woman's beseechings.I hesitated, yea! I even asked a sign. Aye! and the sign was good,twice pleasing to the Goddess of Death, for behold the owl hooted not,neither was the voice of the jackal uplifted as the doe, coming fromthe _right_, looked through the open door.

  "With the high caste woman I made covenant, that her male child in
return for his life should be a servant of the Black One, obeying inall things the mandates of her priests.

  "And I held those sleeping babes upon my arm, and within the lips ofthe girl child I placed the _goor_, the sacred sugar, and around herneck the _roomal_, the noose of sacrifice. And I cut the sign of Kalibetween the breasts of the man child and between the breasts of thewoman child, and marked him between the brows with her blood, andmarked her upon the forehead with his blood, so that his mind should beher mind. And her will I bent to _my_ will, that her eyes should openin sleep at the light of the full moon, and that she should go forthupon the mission of the Black One, making sacrifice to the spouse ofSiva.

  "And yet, though she be bound to the secret temple and to Kali, and tothe son of princes until death shall release her, the Great Mother isnot pleased, nay, her wrath is terrible at the averted sacrifice, andIndia, my land, has suffered through my fault."

  The priest stood motionless, staring down unseeingly upon the man athis feet who spoke softly.

  "And what became of the white child?"

  "The white child, the infant _feringhee_? She lay asleep in my armswith eyes wide open, and the high caste woman, picking up a jewel, evenone of the colour and shape of cat's eye, smeared it with the blood ofthe kid, placed it above the heart of Kali, and then hung it by aslender golden chain about the neck of the woman child. And the women,content, departed, bearing with them the united babes, but since thatill-begotten night my land has travailed in agony, stricken with plagueand pestilence and famine!"

  "And?" Cuxson scarcely breathed the word.

  The light of the moon slipped over the ruined wall, drawing a nimbusround the old white head as the tall thin figure in the snow-whitegarments swayed slightly.

  "I waited for the command of Kali, and after many years I sent mybeloved disciple, the son of princes, across the Black Water to bringthe white woman by the force of his will back to the land of her birthand up to the altar steps. And now I wait--I wait--for a little,little while."

  The old voice rose to a thin shout of triumph which lapsed into silenceas, totally oblivious of his prisoner, he sank to the ground, lost,quite suddenly, in that wonderful abstraction of the East in which thenative can find escape from the trials of life at odd moments, and inunaccountably odd places.

  During the long silence that followed, Jan Cuxson sat patiently puffingat his pipe and trying to piece the strange tale together, until at anadvanced hour of the night he once more felt the hawk-like eyes fixedupon his face.

  Eagerly he picked up the thread of the story as though there had beenno lapse.

  "You mesmerised her, you say, eighteen years ago, and you pretend youcan still bend her to your will?"

  "Nay, Sahib! Through me Kali the Terrible imprinted her will upon thebabe's tender mind those many moons ago!"

  Cuxson shook his head.

  "You can't make me believe _that_--it's rubbish--like the mango treeand rope trick--it's impossible, simply _impossible_ to makestrong-minded, level-headed people do things against their will."

  In such wise does the westerner account to his own satisfaction for themysterious workings of the East.

  The old man said no word, but looked steadily between the young man'seyes.

  "If the sahib will look to his right hand!"

  Cuxson turned his head and started.

  Eyes glaring, tail thrashing the ground, and ears flattened to thegreat head, a tiger half crouched.

  "The devil!" he ejaculated, as the mouth of the great animal twistedspasmodically. "Here's a fix."

  "The sahib will place his hand upon the tiger's head."

  "Not much!"

  "The sahib is afraid!"

  The quiet scorn of the words struck Cuxson like a whip, and hestretched out his hand impulsively towards the smooth head withflattened ears and glaring eyes.

  There was not a sound, though the tail swished the ground, and the hugemouth opened slowly, showing the splendid ivories.

  "The sahib, if he is not afraid, will close his hand firmly upon thethroat!"

  Cuxson's hand closed gently upon the striped skin; then he exclaimedsharply on perceiving that the only thing his hand grasped was air.

  "Why--what--how the----!"

  The old man nodded his head gently, and answered without a smile. "Itwas the will of the Black One that the sahib should see the steed uponwhich she roams the jungle at night!"

  But Cuxson was British, and would not be convinced.

  "I don't believe it," he said shortly. "That was a tame animal, whichstrays in and out of the temple like a tame cat."

  "Will the sahib look at the dust upon the ground. Is there sign offeet, marks of the body, or the lashing of the tail upon the dust?"

  Truly the dust, save for the deer marks, was undisturbed, but Cuxsonshook his head stoutly, and refused to believe the evidence of his owneyes.

  "The sahib will not believe! Then will I make her, the white woman,see thee, the man she desires as husband, a prisoner in the House ofKali, covered in blood, and she will hasten forthwith to thee--and tome!"

  Cuxson sprang to his feet with murder in his eyes, but stopped andflung out his hands as though to thrust aside some obstacle.

  The priest laughed softly.

  "O babe in wisdom! Behold, thou shalt not be bound, yet shalt thou notstir beyond yon temple wall until she come, and with her the son ofprinces who yearns for her; then shall I lift my will from thee and tiethee to the wall that thou mayst behold the double sacrifice of _love_and _life_ made to Kali the Terrible."

  The priest was gone, and Jan Cuxson sat down upon a fallen block ofmasonry, covering his face with his wounded hands; and faintly from thetemple echoed the voice of the priest as he prayed to his god beforeprojecting his will across the space that divided him from the whitewoman.

  Only for a little moment of despondency, and then he sat back and shookhis great shoulders with the light of battle in his eyes, and grimdetermination in every line of the powerful jaw.

  How he was going to circumvent the priest and save his beloved he didnot know--he had no plan, but--he was going to pull it off.

  "The son of princes," he said, addressing a monkey which had flung astick at him from the top of the wall, "why I'd trust my dear,bewitched or not, with a thousand sons of princes. I love her and sheloves me, you gibbering bit of fur, and d'you think _anything_ couldstand against _that_. Let her come! Just let her be within reach ofmy arms, _then_ you'll see what you will see. Let the priest play intomy hands, and bring her here, the sooner the better, for _that_ isexactly what _I_ want."

  And he laughed as he refilled his pipe, blessing the old priest for hisconsideration in annexing naught but his rifle and revolver.

  Which is just about the simplest way of starting to get out of a tightcorner.

  Ignoring all obstacles, owning to no defeat. The splendid heritage ofthe English speaking race.

  CHAPTER XLII

  "A good name is better than precious ointment."--_The Bible_.

  "And in its light the Star of Love aglow, Shone with her beacon fire, a guide and guardian still."--_Dante's Inferno_.

  In the middle of the night Leonie lay face downwards upon her bed inthe great Eastern Hotel.

  All the luggage she had brought with her from England was stackedaround the small room, and even in the dressing-room; in fact, therewas that unfinished, unpacked air about the whole place which isinseparable from anyone in India who is in the throes of going home.

  She had returned on the wings of panic from Benares, only to find thatthe gossip which had been circulated about her had arrived well inadvance; and that, like crows after a dust cart, what remained of thecity's female population was busy pulling her to a thousand pieces withclaws and beaks sharpened by the million irritations of the hot weather.

  A dignified bearer had salaamed gravely, and handed her a chit upon herarrival at the bungalow, where her friend was braving the pestilence ofthe hot weathe
r in comradeship with her husband, who, in the secretplaces of his heart, wished to goodness she had gone to the hills withthe rest of 'em.

  Her luggage, the letter stated, had been shifted to the hotel, where aroom had been taken for her, and there would, it seemed, be plenty ofaccommodation on the _City of Sparta_ which would be sailing in threeweeks' time for home.

  And that was all!

  It is wise in the hot weather to pull the purdah, which is the Indianway of saying to shut the door, in the face of a young and unattachedgirl with a tawny head and opalescent eyes; especially if the dust haslong been undisturbed upon the threshold of the secret places of themale heart supposed to be entirely in your keeping.

  For days she had remained in her room, not daring to face the curiousglances, and subdued whispers, of the few visitors to be met with inthe marble desolation of the front hall; and not for worlds would shehave used the telephone for fear of the direct snub the wire wouldsurely have transmitted.

  Food she hardly touched; sleep she did, heavily, waking dull andunrefreshed; and for hours she would sit and stare into the corners, orpeer over her shoulder into the stifling shadows, or study her face inthe mirror, wondering if her strange eyes were the eyes of a mad woman.

  The bearer had caused her long moments of worry.

  The morning after her arrival at the hotel, instead of the little,dusky, nimble, monkey-eyed man of the night before, there had enteredone, tall and dignified, who had cleared a space on the table besideher bed, deposited a bunch of flowers and the _chotar hazri_, or earlytea, and raising his hand to his turban had departed.

  Quite a usual procedure! But wakeful Leonie, who had indifferentlywatched him through the mosquito curtain and from under the pillowfrill into which she had burrowed her head, frowned when somethingfamiliar in the man or his movements had particularly attracted herattention.

  Most natives look alike to the newcomer in India, but she frowned againas she chewed the crust of buttered toast and racked her brainfruitlessly for a clue.

  One by one she went over each city and place she had visited, eachrailway journey she had made, each hotel she had stayed in. Then hadpoured out a cup of tea and given it up.

  Having fruitlessly worried over this seemingly insignificant detail ofan Indian day's routine, she had impatiently countermanded the earlytea for the following mornings, and had indifferently left the reallylovely flowers which came up regularly on every tray, to the fantasticarranging of the little dusky man who looked at her like a wistfulmonkey, and slipped nimbly about the room in her service; and who,likewise, rejoiced greatly over certain backsheesch which he, with thejoy the native has in all intrigue, imagined to be the outcome of love.

  I wonder if Europeans in India know with what interest their bearers orayahs watch, and what detailed accounts they could and do give of theirmasters' or mistresses' love affairs, great and small, legitimate andillegitimate.

  It is to be surmised that they do _not_!

  They were not the eyes of the nimble little bearer that were watchingfrom the bathroom on this particular night, when Leonie very quietlyraised herself in her sleep and, flinging back the netting, sat staringsilently into the corner nearest the door.

  She half knelt, half sat, with a faint look of surprise on her face,which changed slowly to absolute amazement, then to the faintestsuspicion of love and happiness, during which transition her smilereflected the glorious lights of the seventh heaven.

  "Oh, beloved!" she exclaimed, and laughed softly, the sound fallingeerily in the absolute stillness of the night, the shadows dancingeerily upon the plaster walls as she threw out her arms.

  She flung them out in a beautiful abandonment of love, and the hiddeneyes glistened as they watched the fingers slowly curl and clench as alook of horror crept gradually over the whole face, blotting out itssweetness and light, changing it into a veritable mask of terror.

  A horrible dream! A nightmare!

  If you like! The label of casual explanation, tied by the string ofignorance, never did much harm to any psychological package.

  Leonie was apparently asleep and evidently seeing things, so perforceshe must have been dreaming, for what else _could_ she have been doing!

  Anyway her heavy, unrefreshing sleep, induced by fatigue, mentalweariness, or a super-will, was very gradually being turned into athing of moving shapes.

  The shadows in the corner had lightened and darkened and lightenedagain, lifting at last to show a half-ruined, roofless room and abanyan tree outside an almost perfect archway.

  A wick in a coarse earthenware saucer flickered feebly in one corner,two deer pattered swiftly across the flags and out of the door, andvery slowly a man jerked himself on to his knees and twisted hisdeath-white face towards the coming dawn.

  Jan Cuxson suffering the tortures of the damned, chained by hisrashness and his love to a ring in the wall with thongs of raw hide,which were drawing blood from his wrists and staining his shirt abouthis waist.

  This way and that he wrenched and tore, then stopped quite stillglaring into the shadows.

  This way and that again, hurling himself back, against the wall,flinging himself forward until the agony of the thongs seemed to bebeyond all human endurance.

  Just for one ghastly instant, one second, he stopped, staring straightinto the eyes of his beloved, seeming to call insistently for help, hisface distorted until it lost all human semblance; then pitched forward,hanging unconscious upon the thongs just as a priest, thin and gaunt,with knife gleaming in his hand, rushed towards him; and Leonie, with apiercing shriek, sprang straight out of bed, flung herself violentlyagainst the wall, and woke up with her hands feebly groping over thecoloured plaster.

  And next evening the news that Lady Hickle had left the hotel withouther luggage, destination unknown, streaked like lightning through thealmost deserted Chowringhee, the Strand Road, the Maidan, and clubs andbungalows.

  What a godsend is a bit of gossip in the hot weather, when yourneighbour's looks, wardrobe, and morals have been threshed bare; whenthe mail has not arrived; and the hill news has only served to upsetyour temperamental digestion; in fact there were little whirlpools ofexcitement in the Saturday Club's stifling atmosphere, serving to add apassing zest to the heat-stricken evening hours and pegs which noamount of ice seemed to cool.

  Every man, high or low caste, white or not, who met Leonie,figuratively cast himself at her slender feet.

  Men ran to do her service, they smiled in doing it, they mopped theirheated brows and cheered up, even at one hundred and two in the shade,when she happened along to ask some good office with a smile on her redmouth.

  She had paid her outrageous bill, left orders concerning her outrageousluggage, and walked out of the hotel almost unnoticed, because of thewitchery of her most gracious manner which served to make her patheasy--where men were concerned of course; and without let or hindranceshe had cashed an outrageous cheque at her bank which left a few rupeesto her credit, and had walked through the building to give orders as toher mail, and ask advice of the fair-haired, courteous young Englishmanwho rose from his table as she turned away with the sweetest words ofthanks for the trouble he had taken in finding out for her how to getquickly to the Sunderbunds.

  "I wonder why she's going there, of all places, in this infernal heat,and in such a desperate hurry, and I wonder if she's going alone!" hesaid half aloud as he drew beetles on his blotting-paper, and frownedas somebody, breathless from heat, sank heavily into the chair on theother side and slapped some documents on to the table.

  Leonie was acting quite subconsciously in all she did on that blazingmorning.

  Which does not mean that she was still walking in her sleep with hereyes wide open, or that she was not aware of her own movements.

  Not at all. She was wide awake with a fixed determination to get tothe temple in the Sunderbunds as quickly as she could.

  Why?--well, who knows?

  As far as the dream was concerned her mind had been a per
fect blankwhen she had awakened the previous night groping over the plasteredwalls; but branded across it, in letters of blood, had been the oneword Sunderbunds, standing out clearly against the fog which surroundedsomething terrible she could not understand. No, she did notunderstand, but she knew that everywhere she looked she saw thelettering; and that every sound she heard, the soft slur of the lift,the throb of the motor engine, the call of the indefatigable kite,cried the one word aloud; and that in some inexplicable way theresistless summons was connected with the man she loved.

  What was she to know of the working of an eastern mind in the secretplaces of a Hindu temple?

  Neither did it strike her as strange that a taxi, with its flag up forhire, should be standing opposite the bank door, blocking the way forarriving vehicles; or that, having persistently refused many iratewould-be hirers, and patiently listened to the asperity of theirremarks, the driver should have opened the door and held it back as shewalked straight across the pavement, got in, and, without hesitatinggave the address of the Whiteway Laidlaw Company.

  It might have seemed odd to a stranger; still more odd would it haveappeared to any chance passer-by if they had overheard the followingshort conversation as Leonie got out at the shop.

  "Can you drive me afterwards to Kulna?" she asked in her best butinefficient Hindustani.

  "Even so, mem-sahib," promptly replied the lithe, good-looking son ofthe East as he salaamed. "If the mem-sahib will pardon her servant hewould advise driving to Jessore and resting the night there at the dakbungalow, that is if the mem-sahib is not in too great haste!"

  Leonie frowned, only understanding half of what was said.

  "Don't you speak English?"

  "No, mem-sahib; but my brother, who lives near the New Market but aminute's drive from here, speaks the mem-sahib's language. Also, he isa good bearer, having travelled widely. If the mem-sahib permits, Iwill call him to accompany her on her journey to Jessore."

  "Very well!" said Leonie, beckoning to a boy, who sprang towards herwith a huge basket which, for a few annas, he would carry round theentire building after her, and into which she would throw her purchasesof all sizes and shapes.

  He emerged some time later jubilantly staggering with basket and handsfull.

  What a priceless mem-sahib who had not once complained about the price!

  The brother had materialised! Oh, those brothers and fathers, andmothers and sisters, and all those relations who are always sostrangely near at hand in India!

  "If I may offer a suggestion," said the soft voice in the delightfullychoice English of the educated native of India who has sojourned inEngland, "it would be that we drive only to Jessore, stopping atBongong dak bungalow for tiffin. If the mem-sahib is sight-seeing, Iwill arrange everything in the most convenient and pleasant manner forher. From here to Kulna in one day would be a long and wearisomejourney in this great heat."

  Leonie half turned with the slightest frown as she passed her hand overher eyes.

  Once again had come that suggestion of something familiar--a suggestiontoo fleeting to be caught.

  "You can do exactly as you think best as long as I start for theSunderbunds to-morrow morning."

  "The public boat does not start for three days, mem-sahib."

  "I can hire a private launch, can I not? Money is no object, onlyspeed."

  "Easily, mem-sahib. Consider it arranged!"

  Leonie lifted her head for half a second, showing her face deathlywhite, the crimson line of her beautiful mouth and the shadow-encircledeyes emphasised by the dark green silk lining of her topee.

  She glanced quickly at the dignified figure beside her on the pavementand looked away.

  You do not, as a rule, recognise people you have met in your sleep;neither had her memory been impressed with the passing glimpses she hadcaught of the handsome face in the British Museum and during the_chotar shikar_.

  No, in spite of the tugging of her memory, there was nothing to linkthis person in the spotless white turban and full-skirted coat of thebearer to her fastidious self.

  Neither did that strange anonymous gift of glorious pearls which wasround her neck even then, or an unaccounted for mark upon her shoulder,help her in any way.

  She leaned back listlessly as her newly acquired bearer arranged thenewly bought suit-case and the various packages.

  It was an absurd way of starting out on a jungle trip, picking up a carany old how out of the streets, and a bearer from the labyrinths of thebazaar without even glancing at his chits, which, even it she had,would probably have been forgeries.

  She had certainly had the sense to put on her knee-high boots andknee-length skirt, a low collared shirt waist and sports coat, also atopee; but, wishing to leave no clue as to her future movements at thehotel, she had slung everything else pell-mell into her trunks, lockedand left them to be fetched and stored at her bank.

  It had obviated the calling of a car and the giving of an address tothe hall porter, but it had forced her to buy everything she might belikely to require for a day or two's sojourn in the waste places of anIndian jungle.

  She had thought of everything with one exception, and that, of course,the one item which should have been the most important on the list.

  Of weapons of defence she had none.

  But then, what was she to know of the workings of the mind of the mansitting with his back to her as the car turned and sped swiftly downthe streets, which seem to stretch endlessly, until you strike theheavenly tree-lined road which leads you through Dum Dum and otherwell-known places to the river edge.