Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

  CHAPTER L

  "Greater love hath no man."--_The Bible_.

  There was a shout from the doorway leading to the secret places of thetemple as Cuxson, covered with blood and dust, half-crazed with horror,paused for a moment as he took in the awful picture before him.

  Leonie, with her hair almost sweeping the ground, lay half clothed andseemingly dead in the arms of a native, whose face was a picture oftriumphant love for all to see; and a wild-eyed priest beat his breastbefore the horrible image of the terrible, all powerful Goddess ofDestruction.

  He sprang forward with another shout, which was lost in the shriek andcrash of the raging elements.

  For even as he moved there was a terrific roar as of tons of explodingdynamite, and a shriek of wind as it tore through the building, blowingout the little flickering lights, leaving the place pitch black savefor the steady light of the full moon.

  Then he swayed like a drunken man as the floor rose in a great wave andyet another, heaving the flags this way and that, cracking andsplitting in every direction as it subsided.

  "Leonie!" he shouted, though no sound could be heard above theappalling din. "Leonie! Leonie!"

  He saw her lying in a pool of moonlight as though asleep, and near herknelt the native, with arms outstretched above her, sheltering her.

  There was a moment of complete dead silence, and then with a tearing,rending sound the dome and the temple walls split from top to base; andwith a thundering crash the great block of stone upon which was carvedthe image of Kali the Terrible split in two, toppled over and fell uponthe kneeling priest.

  Herds of screaming beasts hurled themselves through the riven walls andfled across the temple floor, fighting blindly to escape. Monkeys inhundreds scrambled over the mounds of fallen bricks, chattering andcalling like lost, frightened children; a tiger with one bound landednoiselessly a few feet from those two in the moonlight, half rearedwith a short coughing roar and bounded as noiselessly away. And Godalone knows what saved the three from instant death among the totteringruins.

  The power of Love perchance.

  The son of princes sheltering the girl slowly, oh! slowly straightenedhimself, when a prolonged silence seemed to indicate the end of thegreatest earthquake that ever swept the Sunderbunds Jungle.

  Blood streamed from the side of his head, battered in by a brokenfragment of the high altar that had been hurled through the air; hisleft shoulder was in splinters, crushed by the collapse of the roofwhich must have killed Leonie if he had not covered her with his body;blood spouted from some great severed artery in the arm which seemed tohang by a thread from the splintered shoulder; yet was his face aglowwith light and love, and his eyes afire with happiness as he raised atawny tress of hair and pressed it to his lips.

  He was dying, quickly, yet he turned his head and smiled at the soundof Jan Cuxson's boots scrambling over the impeding heaps of stone. Forone second only the torture of the sacrifice required of him flared inthe soft brown eyes; and then in the pride of his great race, and withan effort of will beyond all telling, he put his unbroken arm round thewoman he loved so well, lifted her, got somehow to his feet, andwalked, aye! walked steadily across the few yards which separated himfrom the white man.

  Cuxson, not realising his terrible plight, with eyes only for the woman_he_ loved, wrenched Leonie from his hold and swept her from head tofoot with frantic eyes.

  "What have you done to her?" he demanded fiercely. "Before theearthquake what did you do to her? Tell me--or by God I'll----"

  He stopped the bitter words in time to save himself from everlastingremorse.

  For Madhu Krishnaghar suddenly straightened his battered body, andlooked the white man in the eyes.

  "She is safe, O white man, safe and unharmed. Take her, keepher--carry her by the--the short road without the--the templegates--to--happiness, _I_ give _her_--to--you--because _I_--Ilove--her--for ever!"

  There was a moment's terrible silence in which the two men stooddivided, yet united, in their great love for the one woman.

  The native of India put his hand to his forehead and salaamed beforethe woman for whom he had sacrificed all, then turned slowly aroundtowards the place where the image of his god had so lately stood.

  "Kali!" he called, and his young voice was as the clashing of goldenbells at sunset. "Kali! Mother of all--I come!"

  And unwitting of the great reward awaiting those who attain everlastingpeace through the victory of the greater love, he crashed facedownwards, dead, upon the flower-strewn floor, and passed for ever intothe safe keeping of the one and only God.