"Some little talk awhile of me and thee
There seem'd--and then no more of thee and me."--_Omar Khayyam_.
The elephant trumpeted before the gate.
The two halves of the door opened from within, clanged against the
sides, and the _durwans_ in scarlet and silver bent almost double as
they salaamed before the white woman who passed under the red-stone,
centuries-old gate upon the back of Rama the Great and Perfect.
The elephant knelt and Leonie stepped on to the marble pavement,
placing her hand for one instant upon the _mahout's_ arm to steady
herself.
She looked up and down the double line of cypress trees and gave a
little cry, which was almost one of pain, at the sight of the glory
before her; and pressing her hands above her thudding heart, longed
with all her soul for the man she loved and had denied.
For a moment she stood absolutely still, the heavy cloak swinging
gently in the slight breeze, then walked down the steps, and like some
ghost passed noiselessly beside the lily strewn water tanks towards the
marble, wondrous Tomb. Madhu Krishnaghar, waiting until she was well
out of earshot, spoke to the elephant, bringing it to its feet, and
gave a sharp order to the keepers of the door, which caused them to
speed from the scene as fast as their feet would carry them towards the
village where they had been commanded to stay until sunrise, leaving
the girl, a prey probably to that inexplicably sensuous feeling which
the desolation, and beauty, and pity of this place arouses in _some_,
alone with the man who loved her as men love in the East.
He followed her slowly beside the water tanks, and absorbed in his love
and the joy of being alone with her, failed to catch the sharp call of
apprehension when Rama, as faithful as a dog, and far more intelligent
than many humans, rapped the ground smartly with the end of his trunk.
Having been told by his beloved master to stand where he was until his
return, and being obedient even unto death, he did not move; but he
eyed the form which had slipped in through the gates with dislike, and
shuffled his feet in distrust as the man disappeared behind the cypress
trees.
It was only a foolish curiosity-bitten _shudra_; a wretched member of
the lowest and most servile class, who, passing on his way to his
miserable hovel, had noticed the gate open at the untoward hour of
midnight, and the absence of the ferocious _durwans_.
His low caste, which is the least of all, had prevented him, up to this
day, from entering what he thought must surely be paradise; and now he
took the risk and slipped in, not only stricken with curiosity, but
obsessed with a desire to tell a wonderful tale to his patient wife and
four sons, who, because they were _his_ sons, were doomed to remain of
the lowest servile caste; as would be their sons far, oh! far beyond
the third and fourth generation.
How was he to know that a woman with unveiled face was visiting the
tomb at midnight, or that she was beloved by his master whose word was
life, or death, to those who served him.
Leonie passed through the silver gates into the tomb, and stood beside
the marble, flower-strewn sarcophagi, which lie side by side, and over
which, day and night, hangs a lighted lamp.
She did not move when a whispered golden sound fell gently through the
shadows. Like a cobweb thread, so fine it was; like a thread of gold,
so sweet it was; rising and falling, to rise again in one throbbing cry
of love, pleading, insisting, despairing.
The echoes caught and held it in the dim corners of the marble cupola,
and answered cry with cry until the place seemed full of the sobbing of
lost souls. Back and forth, at the girl's feet and around her head,
surging over the dead lovers, beating against the walls and roof, to
die away, sobbing, sobbing like a weary child.
Leonie, transfixed with ecstasy, stretched out her hands to catch the
dying notes; and for that infinitesimal fraction of a second, when the
golden sound crossed the boundary of human sense, felt as though she
stood upon the edge of eternity.
She turned to see the driver of elephants standing like a bronze statue
outside the doorway; but speak she could not in that dim place fragrant
with the loves of the past, neither could she support the divine pain
alone, and picking up a rose and a sprig of bay from the marble, tucked
them into the V of her bodice and walked out.
But she did speak, to remonstrate, in the sweetest, most imperfect
Hindustani in the world, when the man followed her at a quite
respectful distance.
"It is not safe for the mem-sahib to go alone," he answered. "A wild
animal, a man, a snake, might be in hiding. The mem-sahib should have
been accompanied by her guide."
Thus spoke Madhu Krishnaghar, who had not one evil thought about, nor
intent towards her, and who, having pushed the mandates of his religion
into the background for this one night, was living in the intoxication
of the actual moment.
Leonie walked round the outside of the marble dream bathed in
moonlight, occasionally stopping to ask a question of the man who
followed.
"Is it the tomb of an ancestor of the present prince?" she inquired
haltingly.
"No! mem-sahib! look at the lettering in black marble inset in the
white; right round the tomb run those verses from the Koran. A
Mohammedan emperor built it--_I_ am a Hindu," the pause was scarcely
noticeable as he added quietly, "as is everyone upon the prince's
estates."
She stopped in front of one of the four towers which stand at each
corner of the marble terrace, and looked upwards.
"I am going up," she said.
"Nay! mem-sahib. These towers are climbed only with a guide and a
lamp. They are not clean, they are not safe. A snake, a pariah dog, a
man might be on the stairs which wind round and round, and are as black
as a night of storm."
Leonie had climbed the few outer steps and was standing inside the
door. Not once had the untowardness of the whole proceeding struck
her, nor had she given a thought to the fact that the man with her was
a low-caste elephant driver, not fit to touch her shoe-string.
She made no reply, and disappeared into the darkness. You can see
fairly well up to one half of the tower, then pitch blackness surrounds
you, and you begin to feel cautiously with hands and feet for that
reason; also because just about here your head begins to whirl owing to
the stifling atmosphere, and the architect's corkscrew design.
She had no idea that the man, alarmed for her safety, was following
her, and she stopped and gasped near the top, wondering how much
farther she had to go, and almost wishing that she had not started; and
so black was it that she did not even see the white turban which was on
a level with the step upon which she stood.
Then there was a glimmer of light and more. Presently it grew quite
light and she staggered up the last few steps, and reeled on to the
small round cupola of the tower unprotected by rails.
Well for her was it that Madhu, divining the danger, raced up the last
steps in one bound, reached her as she stood swaying on the edge, and
drew her quickly, roughly back into his arms, where, forgetting his
role of servant, his religion, caste and colour, he held her safe and
crushed against his heart.
She, with her eyes shut and her head spinning, remained there without
understanding one word of what the man was saying.
"And having held thee in my arms, how am I to let thee go," he
whispered, with his mouth near the scented masses of her hair. "Nay, I
cannot, thou white, wonderful flower in a land of drought. Behind the
purdah will I place thee, hidden from all eyes but mine. Thy
body-woman shall not touch thee, for _I_ will be thy servant, and _my_
hands will draw the lace from about thy bosom, and _my_ hands will
perfume thee, and my love shall encompass thee until thou swoon upon
the ground even at _my_ feet. Waiting for thee I have known no woman,
and I will have no wife but thee, and many sons shalt thou bear me.
Yea! each year shall see thee bowed beneath the fruit of love, for I
will not spare thee. And thou shalt be honoured before all men; a high
estate shall be thine, and a flood of jewels and gold and grain shall
flow at thy small feet which I shall kiss. And thou _shalt_ veil thy
face, for I would kill him, _torture_ him who looked upon thee."
Leonie opened her eyes and stared at the shimmering whiteness of the
tomb, and she smiled and did not move, for the witchery of the full
moon had fallen upon her.
"Red!" she whispered, pointing to the dull glow of dead bodies burning
somewhere near, and laughing till her teeth flashed between her scarlet
lips.
The man searched with one hand and found a small flat jewelled case in
the folds of his turban, and opening it, with the long, deft fingers
took out two pellets.
He watched her as she lay upon his arm, and suddenly forced the pellets
between her teeth, and himself laughed, as she grimaced at the bitter
taste but swallowed them.
He had not the slightest intention of doing her any harm, but with the
whole of his vividly mature brain and virgin body, he delighted in the
effect of the drug upon the woman he loved.
There was no doubt about it that she suddenly awoke to the passion of
the man looking down upon her, and responded to it.
Wave after wave swept her from head to foot, causing her body,
untrammelled by whalebone, to tremble against his, and he loosened the
white cloak and let it fall, holding her pressed to him in her thin
silk dress, laughing down at her, delighting in her eyes, her mouth,
her throat.
Handsome men are an everyday sight in India, but this man was as the
gods, and Leonie, beautiful, drugged Leonie, looked at him from the
corner of her eyes as looks the wanton, and laughed.
"I will not kiss thee," he whispered, watching the colour sweep her
face at his words, and smiling at the thudding of the heart beneath his
hand. "Nay, I will not bruise thee nor cause thee blemish until the
purdah hangs between us and the world. Look not at me thus-wise, and
lift not the glory of thy lips, for I will not seize thee as a beggar
seizes upon the _pice_. I am thy king and thy slave, and I will carry
thee to the gate. Nay, move not thy body for fear I throw thee upon
the ground and set my seal upon thee. Lie still! and yet--why not, why
_not_! perchance _has_ the hour struck."
The man was crazed with love, and the girl intoxicated with the drug,
and they were perched up there above the world alone, in the stillness
of the Indian night.
He hastily wrapped her in the cloak, and taking her into his arms, hid
her face against his shoulder, and stood for a moment staring out
towards the spot from whence had come the ill-omened jackal cry.
"Not yet," he whispered. "Not yet!"
Sure-footed as a goat he carried her down the winding stairs out into
the moonlight, and across the terrace, and up the marble steps, and
placed her upon the wide marble seat, and sat sideways upon it behind
her, unwitting of the miserable wretch who watched from between the
cypress trees.
Leonie sat quite still until the mystery of the place, or whatever it
is, entered into the innermost recesses of her being; and she held out
her arms to the light burning day and night above the dead lovers, and
sobbed.
Madhu Krishnaghar laid his hand upon hers on the cold marble of the
seat, and lost himself in ecstasy at the tears which welled into the
strange gold-green eyes and fell, then opening the collar of the white
linen coat, he lifted a necklace of priceless pearls over his turban
and passed it over the girl's head, holding it lightly until one end
had slid down into the scented laces of her bosom where lay a cat's-eye
on a golden chain.
"Thou white doe," he said, "thou virgin snow," and added fiercely,
"give me the rose from above thy heart, that I may press it to my
couch."
Obediently Leonie gave it, faded and warm, and looked at him with a
strange little gleam of anger in her eyes; and he, understanding that
the effect of the drug was passing, and that wrath maybe would follow
love, led her by the hand down through the double row of cypress trees
towards the gate.
Alas! a twig cracked under the wretched _shudra's_ foot, snapping with
the report of a pistol in the stillness of the night; and the man,
feeling the hands of his gods upon him, fled like a hunted hare towards
the gate.
Madhu Krishnaghar, with his face one blaze of fury, stood still and
called.
"Rama," he called. "Rama, hold," and as the wretched creature,
forgetting the animal in his fear, sped past him, Rama curled his trunk
swiftly about him and jerked him to a standstill.
Useless to strive against that strength; useless to fight against the
gods or raise his voice in shrieking prayer.
For had he not looked upon the unveiled face of his master's woman.
Slowly Madhu Krishnaghar led Leonie up the marble steps and stopped.
"Thou dog," he said gently, "thou low-caste dog!"
Then he drew Leonie into his arms and covered her completely with the
heavy coat.
But the man, submitting to fate with the terrible resignation of the
East, let fly one last poisoned arrow.
"The dog goes to his death," he cried. "But behold, the shame of the
lord is great, for have not the eyes of the low-caste dog rested upon
the woman's face."
"_Usko marro_! Kill quickly!" thundered the son of princes, and turned
indifferently away.
But even as the elephant threw the man upon the ground, and placing his
foot upon his head, tore him in twain, Leonie wrenched herself free,
and flinging up her arms to the moon, laughed and laughed until the
night echoed and re-echoed with the horrible sound, stopping only when
the smothering folds of the cloak were thrown about her.