"And thou shalt grope at noonday."--_The Bible_.
Jan Cuxson, hurt to the quick at Leonie's refusal to marry him, also at
her rejection of his offer to accompany her upon her travels, shut his
hurt away, and set his mind to the completion of his task.
His suspicions had been aroused by the finding of that orange and
silver scrap of _sari_ near the temple, when the ayah had presumably
been left miles behind on the launch; and fully realising the futility
of employing the methods of the West against the subtlety of the East
he decided to pit native craft against native cunning.
The only result of the investigation, however, was that Leonie's
present ayah had been traced back via the Ranee's house to the days
when she had been in the service of the Colonel-Sahib Hetth, V.C., but
beyond that was a blank wall.
She had suddenly left the Ranee's service to become body-woman to
Leonie; without a single reference to the time when she had been nurse
to Leonie as a baby.
Who was keeping her silent, and why? And what was she doing, and who
was she with in the deserted temple in the jungle?
Whose tool was she?
Certainly not the Ranee's. She was wrapped up in her duties toward the
fast ageing Rajah, and her only son, who seemed much the same as other
sons of princes.
Having finally decided that the answer to the problem lay in the
temple, to the temple he decided to go, more with the intention of
having a look round than with any definite plan.
The decision was made with the fixed though unspoken determination that
if the solving of the problem should involve a sojourn of ten years in
India, for ten years he would remain.
He hired a guide and a coolie, both of whom looked exactly like any
other guide and coolie, and having much to think out, and sure thinking
being anything but a rapid process with him, also because he did not
wish to draw too much attention to his movements, he chose as a means
of conveyance the ugly flat-bottomed public paddle-boat which floats
unconcernedly down the Hoogli from Calcutta, through the bigger creeks
of the Sunderbunds, and up the Pusaka River to Kulna.
If you want a few days' rest, or time in which to unravel a knot, pray
take that means of locomotion; you can be dropped anywhere into a
_nukur_ or native boat which will deposit you for a few annas on any
island you choose, but don't do it if you are in a hurry, or are filled
with a desire to see the lesser creeks, and the quite small ones, where
tigers are supposed to sit in rows upon the water's edge, monkeys to
swing across the water by means of the creepers interlacing the dark
and dismal trees, and crocodiles to lie in tumbled masses waiting to be
turned into portmanteau, dressing-case, or shoes.
Cuxson's method and brain were rather like his gait; as he had said in
Rockham cove, he was _slow_! He could not and never had, even at
Harrow, been able to run a hundred yards without becoming most
uncomfortably blown; but he could walk anyone to death at a set
plodding steady tramp, accomplishing twenty miles without turning a
hair; while after a series of terrific spurts, and enforced periods of
rest, his companions would give up dishevelled, sweating, and
unpleasantly mortified miles away from the desired goal.
Problems, mathematical or medical, were treated in just the same way.
The more brilliant of his fellow-students would seize upon a pen, fill
reams of paper and slap the result down triumphantly at the end of an
hour, to find themselves later, and again with mortification at the
bottom of the list, or not on it at all; whereas Cuxson, after hours of
searching here and there in the convolutions of his grey matter, would
light on a thread, a grain or a speck of dust which he would proceed to
turn inside out, or tear to pieces; the outcome of which process would
be printed at length in the _Lancet_ or some such-enlivening journal.
So he lay on the long chair in the corner reserved for sahibs, and was
not too uncomfortable, nor in any way uneasy as to the result of his
investigations, although all that he had to build his hopes upon was
the word of a native, and a piece of orange silk picked out in silver
with the dust of a sundri breather adhering, which lay in his
pocketbook with a ring of seaweed, and some glistening strands of tawny
hair.
The serang, meanwhile, parleyed with certain gatherers of _golaputtah_
which is a special palm leaf growing in the Sunderbunds for the express
purpose of thatching boats and _suapatti_ huts; and having discussed
the ins and outs, and pros and cons of the situation with every male
upon the boat, had transferred the sahib with his guide and coolie to a
native boat, after a gratifying give and take in silver rupees which
are so much nicer to handle than dirty notes.
And an old priest made sacrifice of a black kid unto his god, having
been apprised in the mysterious native way of the approaching arrival
of the last person on earth he wished to see.