It was night before Helen again woke, and her first thought was of
escape; but as she softly rose to a sitting posture, she felt that one
of the girls was by her side, and as she listened to her regular
breathing, and tried in the darkness to collect her thoughts and to
recall exactly where the door and window lay, the black night seemed a
little less black just in one particular part of the room, and she
realised that the window must lie there.
"If I could get past that window!" thought Helen, with throbbing brain.
"I know it would be hard, but still I might make my way to the river and
find someone who would be my friend. There must be paths through the
jungle."
Then with a strange aching sense of misery she thought of how little she
had done since she had been out there. No one could be more ignorant of
the nature of the jungle than she. She remembered that someone had
called it impenetrable; but she knew that Dr Bolter went on expeditions
to discover gold, and that the Reverend Arthur Rosebury sometimes
wandered there.
"Poor Mr Rosebury?" she said, half aloud. "What he could do sorely I
could," and then the blood in her veins seemed to freeze, and a shudder
ran through her, for from out of the darkness came a deep, hoarse,
snarling roar that she recognised at once as that of some tiger on the
prowl.
She was very ignorant of the jungle and its dangers, but she knew that
if she should attempt to leave the building where she was imprisoned
now, the result would be that she would encounter a foe of whose savage
nature the station was full of tales.
The stories of her childhood came back to her then, and she laughed
bitterly as she recalled the faith she had once had in the legend of Una
and the lion, and familiar histories of how the helpless had been
befriended by the savage creatures of the forest. Then, as she thought
of her defenceless state, she once more shuddered, and asked herself
whether it would not be better to trust herself to the jungle than stay
where she was, to encounter one whom she dreaded far more than the
creature whose cry she had just heard.
In a fit of desperate energy as her thoughts were fixed upon Murad and
the possibility that he might at any time now present himself, Helen
softly glided from her couch and began to cross the uneven floor,
stepping cautiously from bamboo lath to lath, and shivering as one gave
a crack from time to time.
It seemed darker now, and for guide towards the window there was nothing
but the faintly-felt sensation of the dank jungle air coming cool
against her cheek; but she kept on, thinking nothing of the way she
should turn or how she should escape; all that animated her now was the
one great idea that she must steal away beyond the power of these two
Malay women to recall her. If she could now do that, the rest might
prove easy. Something would no doubt offer itself.
"I must, I will escape," she half wailed, in a whisper that startled her
as it fell upon her ear, so full was it of helpless misery and despair.
She paused to listen, for one of the girls had moved, and then, as she
stood in the darkness, there was a very faint rustling noise, and Helen
felt that her gaoler had risen and was cautiously stealing towards her.
So sure was she of this, that she held up one hand to keep her enemy at
a distance; but though the sound continued, no one touched her, and the
soft rustling came no nearer to where she stood.
She uttered a sigh of misery at her own dread and overwrought
imagination, as she now realised the fact that the soft rustling was
that of leaves as the night wind stirred them when it passed, for the
soft, heavy breathing of the sleepers came regularly to her ear.
It was very strange and confusing, though, for now in that intense
darkness she seemed to have lost herself, and she could not tell exactly
from which side the heavy breathing came.
Once, as she listened intently, it seemed to grow so loud that it struck
her it was the breathing of some monster of the jungle that had stopped
by the open window; but soon she recovered herself sufficiently to feel
that she was wrong; it was but the regular sleep of her companions, and
laying her hand upon her breast to stay the throbbings of her heart, she
gathered up the loose sarong that interfered with her progress, and
stepped on cautiously towards where she believed the door to be.
Once more the yielding bamboos bent beneath her weight, creaking loudly,
and as they cracked at every step the more loudly now that she was
walking beyond the rugs, the sounds were so plain in the still night
that she tremblingly wondered why her companions did not wake.
At last one gave so loud a crack that she stood perfectly still, afraid
to either advance or recede; but to her great comfort the regular
breathing of the two Malay girls rose and fell, as it were, like the
pulses of the intensely hot night.
With the feeling that any attempt at haste must result in failure, Helen
stood there listening as the low hum of the night-flying insects reached
her ear; and somehow, in spite of the peril in which she stood, thoughts
of the past came back, and the hot-breathed gloom seemed to suggest
those summer nights at the Miss Twettenham's when the sun-scorched air
lingered in the dormitories, and they used to sit by the open windows,
enjoying the sweetness of the soft night, reluctant to go to bed. Those
were the times when, filled with romantic thoughts, they listened to the
nightingales answering each challenge from copse to copse, and making
the listeners think of subjects the Misses Twettenham never taught--
subjects relating to love, with serenades, cavaliers, elopements, and
other horrors, such as would have made the thin hair of those amiable
elderly ladies stand on end. For there was something _very_ witching in
those soft summer nights, an atmosphere that set young hearts dream of
romantic futures. Helen Perowne had perhaps had the wildest imagination
of any dreamer there, but in her most exalted times she had never
dreamed so wild a life-romance as that of which she had become the
heroine; and as she stood there with her throat parched, listening to
the hum of mosquitoes and the breathing of her companions, everything
seemed so unreal that she was ready to ask herself whether she slept--
whether she did not dream still--and would awake to find herself back in
the conventual seclusion of the old school.
Then once more came the shudder-engendering roar of the prowling tiger,
apparently close at hand, and in its deep, strange tones seeming to make
the building vibrate.
Helen shivered, and the cold, damp perspiration gathered on her face, as
she felt now the propinquity of the tiger to such an extent that she was
ready to sink down helpless upon the floor.
There it was again--that low, deep, muttering roar, ending in a growling
snarl, and so close below the window that she trembled, knowing as she
did that there were only a few frail bamboo laths between her and the
most savage creature that roamed the jungle.
Was it real, she asked herself once more, that she, Helen Perowne, was
here in this wild forest, surrounded by beasts of prey, and none of her
friends at hand; or had she lost her senses, and would she awaken some
day calm and cool at home, with a faint, misty recollection of having
suffered from some fever that had attacked her brain.
Yes, it was real; she was alone and helpless in that terrible place, and
there, in the pulsating furnace-like heat of the dark night, was the cry
of the tiger once again.
There was no doubt of its being one of these huge catlike creatures, for
she had heard it frequently by night in the neighbourhood of the
settlement, where during the past few years more than one unfortunate
Chinese servant had been carried off. But when she had listened to the
low, muttered, guttural roar, ending in an angry snarl, she had been at
the window of her own home, surrounded by protectors; and awesome as the
sound had seemed, it had never inspired her with such dread as now when
she had determined to risk everything in her attempt to escape, and
expose herself to the tender mercies of such creatures as this now
wandering about the place.
Again and again came the cry, now seemingly distant, now close at hand,
till at last Helen's knees refused to support her, and she sank down
trembling, for the creature's breathing could be plainly heard beneath
where she stood, the lightly-built house being, like all in the Malay
jungle, raised upon stout bamboo or palm posts for protection from wild
beasts and flood.
Singularly enough, as the first horror passed away, Helen felt her
courage return.
"It will not hurt me," she said, hysterically; but she crouched there
trembling as she listened to the snuffling noise beneath her, and then
there was a dull thud as of a heavy leap.
Helen shuddered as she listened, and by some strange mental process
began to compare the feline monster, excited by the scent of human
beings close at hand, to Murad; and after listening till all seemed
still once more--till the muffled cry of the tiger arose now some
distance away, she rose cautiously, and made her way towards the door.
A kind of nervous energy had seized upon her now, and she stepped
forward lightly to touch the woven walls.
Sweeping her hand over them, she recognised her position now by the
hangings, and the darkness-engendered confusion to some extent passed
away. She found the door, and the great curtain rustled as she drew it
aside to get at the fastening, her hands feeling wet and cold, while her
face was burning, and her heart kept up a heavy, dull beat.
There was a faint sound apparently from behind her now, and she stood
listening, but it was not repeated. The low hum of the nocturnal
insects rose and fell, and once more the soft rustling of the leaves
stirred by the night wind came through the window close at hand, and
from very far off now, and so faint as to be hardly perceptible, there
was the tiger's growl. There was nothing more but the heat, which
seemed in its intensity to throb and beat upon her brain.
But still Helen dared not move for a time, trembling the while lest the
first touch she gave the door should awaken her gaolers. At last,
though, she nerved herself once more, and tried to find out how the door
was fastened. There was no lock, no bolt, such as those to which she
was accustomed, and though she passed her hands over it in every
direction it was without result.
The time was gliding on, and in her ignorance of how long she might have
slept, she felt that morning would at any time be there; so with a weary
sigh of misery she left her futile task and crept cautiously to the
window.
It did not seem so dark now, or else her eyes were more accustomed to
the want of light, for she found the window directly; and as she took
hold of the bamboo bars, the hot night air came in a heavy puff against
her face, fierce and glowing, as if it were some watching monster's
breath.
She listened as she stood there, and the breathing of the two girls
seemed to have ceased. There was the tiger's cry once more, but
sounding now like a distant wail, and her spirits rose as she felt that
one of the perils likely to assail her was passing away.
Again she listened, and once more the breathing of her companions
reached her ear, the Malay girls seeming to be sleeping heavily, as with
nervous fingers Helen now strove to move one of the bars, or to loosen
it so that it could be thrust up or down, but without avail; then she
strove to draw one of them sufficiently aside to allow her to pass
through, but her efforts were entirely in vain, although she kept on
striving, in total ignorance of the fact that it would have taken a
strong man armed with an axe to have done the work she adventured with
her tender fingers alone.
Just as she let her aching arms fall to her side and a weary sigh of
disappointment escaped her breast, she felt herself caught tightly by
the wrist, and with a sensation of horror so great as to threaten the
overthrow of her reason, she snatched herself away, and clung to the
bars of the window with all her remaining strength.