"Dona praesentis cape laetus horae, ac
Lingue severa."--_Horace_.
Leonie's first long-distance journey was just like other people's first
long-distance journey in India.
And being of the type which revels in the new and unknown, she loved it.
Who wouldn't!
The seething masses of dusky humanity enchanted her; she delighted in
the glaring colouring, the clank of the holy man's chains, the
incessant call of the water carrier and sweetmeat vendor, and the clang
of iron on iron which announces the train's departure.
She absolutely thrilled on disrobing the first night in the little
bathroom while her ayah spread her sheets and pillows and blankets upon
the lower berth; and when her bodywoman disappeared through the door
leading to the servants' compartment, she lay for a time watching the
stars, and the glimmer of passing mosque, or temple, or tomb.
Then she laughed aloud in sheer content, wedged Jan Cuxson's box of
chocolate biscuits safely into the side of the bunk, and turned to the
side table to look for light literature in the shape of a magazine.
Having acquired the pernicious habit of eating biscuits and reading
before going to sleep, she frowned upon the discovery that her ayah
appeared to have left the books upon Howrah Station; and had stretched
her arm to rap upon the wall to summon the woman, when her eye caught
sight of a paper volume lying under the opposite bunk.
India is certainly a most dusty land, but a traveller can keep his
railway compartment and boots spotless by distributing a few _pice_ to
the dusky, cheery youngsters, who, salaaming, solicit the favour of
using boot polish, or floor brush, to the mutual benefit of self and
the sahib. Leonie, therefore, felt no repugnance when, clutching the
table with her left hand, she made a long arm and secured the book,
which proved to be a guide to India's most famous beauty spots.
She turned the leaves casually and laughed.
"Why! I'd completely forgotten it," she said aloud, turning the book
sideways to look at an illustration. "The wonderful tomb Guy Dean
insisted upon my visiting if I ever went to Benares. How beautiful!
Must be the tomb of some ancestor of that young prince he was talking
about. Oh! how beautiful, and--oh! how helpful! I suppose some
Englishman must have left the book in the train by mistake."
She had picked up a bit of paper which had fallen from the book; a
rough time-table with directions in English as to the best means of
getting to the world-famed monument.
"That decides it," she said sleepily as she switched off the light,
pulled a miniature mosquito net, deftly arranged by the ayah, over her
head, and the sheet up to her neck. "We get to the station
to-morrow--sometime--disembark--put luggage into cloak-room--find
elephant and--and dâk bungalow--and--oh! almost full moon--how--_how_
delicious---ride out and see the--the----"
She slept, oblivious of the fact that she was carrying out implicitly
the programme mapped out for her.
Travelling in India is real sport when the train doors are likely to
swing open at no given spot, soft-footed natives to enter
surreptitiously and disappear as quietly upon sight of your open eyes;
and guards to clamour for your ticket, while a mob collects outside
your door at the junction to look at the pretty unveiled mem-sahib
awakened from her slumber by a dignified bearer with his offering of
_chotar hazri_, which means the thrice blessed early tea-tray.
Her restless spirit was soothed by the rush of the train through the
endless plain; strange scenes, strange sights wrenched her mind from
the terrible question everlastingly throbbing in her brain; and her eye
was not quick enough to distinguish one delicate oval face from
another, or to notice that at each stopping place her ayah meandered
down the length of the train to a compartment where, in consequence of
his high caste and rank, a man sat utterly alone--unconcerned and
totally oblivious of the screaming, chattering crowd upon the platform,
of beggars, pilgrims, and _bonâ fide_ native travellers.
True, for one moment at the station where she alighted for the
world-famed tomb, she glanced back hurriedly at a native who placed
himself between her and an unsightly epileptic; and she looked back
once again as her intuition rapped out a message she did not grasp, and
her ayah suddenly besought her help with the coolies.
A dilapidated tonga, drawn by a pony of the same description, took her
and her servant to the dâk bungalow, built on a concrete platform in a
jungle clearing about two miles outside the village.
There she gave carte blanche for the arrangement of the evening trip to
the guide who materialised serenely, all smiles and extreme deference.
Bathed, and fed, she had her hair brushed for half an hour by her ayah;
refused the offer of massage, which process she abhorred, and turned in
and slept the afternoon away upon her own bedding spread on a charpoy.
Later she bathed again, attired herself in a simple low-cut, white silk
dress, dined, and wrapping herself in a heavy white Bedouin cloak,
wedding present from Jill Wetherbourne, who had got it from her
godmother in Egypt, seated herself on the verandah to await the arrival
of whatever means of locomotion the guide had chosen to take her to the
tomb.
And down the jungle path loomed the shape of a great elephant, moving
at a gentle shuffle but an almost incredible speed.
Without audible instructions it stopped in front of the verandah, threw
back its trunk, twined it gently about the middle of the _mahout_ or
driver, lifted him from his seat behind its ears and placed him on the
ground; then on a word, trumpeted shrilly in greeting to Leonie.
"Oh!" said she as she almost sprang from her chair in delight. "Oh!"
The _mahout_ salaamed, standing in the moonlight at the animal's head.
He made a vivid eastern picture, dressed as he was from head to foot in
white, with two pleated side-pieces to the turban, hanging in suchwise
as to conceal half the face; and the guide, who had been squatting on
the edge of the path, also salaamed, smiling in glee at the mem-sahib's
delight.
"Behold, mem-sahib," he said, "is the elephant even Rama, the pearl of
the prince's stables." His English was not quite as intelligible as
these printed words, but Leonie made shift to understand.
"I have never seen such a beautiful elephant," she said, walking up to
the great beast, followed by the guide, the ayah and the bungalow
factotum.
The mem's statement was quite within the range of possibility seeing
that her elephant lore had been gathered from the Zoo and other
low-caste specimens with their straight backs, mean tails, and long
stringy legs.
"Does the--the _mahout_ speak English, because my Hindustani is not
very good. I would like to have the--the beauty of the animal
explained to me, and why it has its face and body painted; and why does
he, the _mahout_, I mean, wear those side pieces to the turban, they
are very unusual."
A moment's pause, during which the _mahout_ stood like a rock, and then
the guide, shuffling his feet, answered to the effect that the driver
could not speak English, but that her humble servant would translate if
the mem-sahib would deign to listen to his mean speech; that the man
was the prince's best beloved--_mahout_, he added after a second's
pause, and that the side pieces were part of the uniform worn by the
prince's head-mahouts.
Not a bit of which information was true, _mais que voulez vous_?
So they all walked round Rama the beautiful, the guide translating the
soft Hindustani into lamentable English.
Rama, it seemed, was a _koomeriah_, a royal or high-caste elephant, and
still a youth, being but forty years of age, _vide_ his ears. His
height was ten feet at the shoulder, and would the mem-sahib note the
perfect slope of the back down to the beautiful, long, feathery tail.
Also the massive chest and head, with the prominent lump between the
eyes so bright and kind, and full of knowledge. Notice also the deep
barrel, and short, so very short, hind legs, the heaviness of the
trunk, the plump cheeks which would indeed grace a comely elephant
maiden; count the eighteen nails upon the lovely feet, and place her
hand upon the soft skin which fell in folds about the tail.
Leonie did as she was bid and ran her hand also down the nearest
magnificent tusk, with tip cut off and ringed about the middle with
bands of gold inlaid with precious stones.
"Perfect ivory," continued the guide, "five feet in length with tip,
curving upwards with the curve of the sickle moon, and sloping slightly
from each other as though in anger."
Leonie smiled at the guide's verbal imagery, and put her hand upon a
cream coloured mark near the base of the broad trunk.
"Why, I thought it was paint!" she said, speaking over her shoulder to
the _mahout_, who, unperceived, held a fold of her white cloak in his
hand. "This is paint, surely," she added, running a finger-tip down
the vermilion and white lines which covered the great beast's face and
sides.
It seemed that the yellowy-white blotches raised the animal's value
above that of sacksful of rubies, and the painting of the face and
sides served two purposes; one to render it easier for the animal to
find favour in the eyes of the gods, the other to bring about the same
result in the eyes of man; even as does woman when she accentuates the
night blackness of her eyes with antimony; and the slenderness of her
finger-tips with henna.
In state procession it seemed that Rama the perfect carried a gold and
jewel encrusted howdah upon his beautiful sloping back; that what was
left uncovered of his anatomy was hung with a net of silver, with
tassels of pearls; that strings of seed pearls were entwined in the
glorious meshes of hair in the beautiful tail; and that his nails were
manicured, bracelets of golden bells hung about the ankles, and buckets
of perfume poured into his bath.
"The _mahout_ has placed the humble cushioned seat this night upon the
back, mem-sahib, so that nothing shall be between the mem-sahib and the
light of the moon."
Leonie gave orders that a succulent cake full of currants and flavour
should be brought forthwith from her hamper, and having pushed it as
far back into the mouth as possible, where it was demolished to the
accompaniment of the most disgusting masticatory noises, laughed aloud
when the elephant stood on its short hind legs to show its
appreciation, and said thank you by means of a soft purring sound in
the throat.
The process of getting to the knees reminded Leonie somewhat of a
sailing vessel she had seen rolling in a rough sea, but she settled
herself comfortably in the cushioned seat and waited with glee for the
_mahout_ to get into position upon the animal's neck and order it to
rise.
"What is he waiting for?" she asked, as he made no movement.
"He wishes to know where the ayah is to sit," answered the guide.
"_Ayah_!" said Leonie, and laughed gently. "But I am going alone!"
The _mahout_ said something swiftly.
"The way is many miles through the jungle, mem-sahib; there is no dâk
bungalow, no people, the mem-Sahibs and also the sahibs go always
accompanied."
"I am going alone," said Leonie quietly. "Tell the _mahout_ to get up."
Upon a word of command the elephant got to its feet, and raised one
knee; the _mahout_ placed one foot upon it and swung himself up to his
seat upon the short neck, said something to the elephant, who moved off
up the jungle path, while the servants salaamed deeply to Leonie, and
again even more deeply in the direction of the elephant's head.