"And unto wizards that peep and that mutter."--_The Bible_.
Like some infuriated bull he had fought and tugged at his chains and
shouted for deliverance, until clouds of birds flew skywards in fright,
and blood had spurted from his finger-tips and stained the shirt about
his middle.
Thongs of hide sound inadequate against the strength of a man, but
steel chains are weak compared with them for resistance, and to strive
against them simply results in pure agony if they have been thoroughly
soaked by the Indian dew which almost amounts to rain, and dried by the
Indian sun which almost amounts to a furnace.
Of course, in a properly constructed novel he would have been left in a
position which would have enabled him to gnaw the hide with his strong
white teeth, or rub it until it wore through against some sharp stone.
But this he could not do because his wrists were bound behind, leaving
the space of a foot or two between his waist and the wall; and when he
leant back he had the tragic outline of a modern Prometheus bound; when
he strained forward, that of one of Muller's pupils undergoing
treatment for the development of the chest.
Neither could he, contort himself as he might, have brought his teeth
within gnawing distance of deliverance; moreover, ruins exposed for
centuries to the soft manipulation of a jungle climate, show no sharp
stones; they are rounded and polished by the passage of time, soft
feet, and that which crawls upon its belly.
At length, however, peace quite strangely fell upon him, and though he
could not move, the agony of his hands and lacerated waist vanished
entirely; such perfect peace that he leant back against the wall and
idly tried to count the myriad tiny dainty hoof marks in the dust
between the doorway facing him, and the ruined archway on his left.
He did not think it strange when turning his head he discovered an
ancient priest seated against the wall with his mahogany coloured old
body outlined against the dull blues and reds of the painted stones;
and his eyes, bright with religious fervour, fixed through the
crumbling arch, beyond the delicate sun-dried leaves, the blazing sun,
and the steel blue heavens, upon Eternity.
The fine old man had no intention of torturing the white man, he had
merely bound him to the ring until his goddess should inspire him, her
servant, with her wishes concerning this stranger who was intimately
connected with the white woman in the care of his beloved disciple,
even Madhu Krishnaghar.
Neither did he intend to starve the white man nor bring him to the
point of madness from thirst; but accustomed to hours and days of
self-subjection in which he neither ate, drank nor felt the need of
material sustenance, he failed to take into account the inner cravings
of a man when he had been tied for two nights to a ring in the wall.
And he sprang to his feet and crossed the floor when Cuxson, after an
interval of forty-eight hours during which he had neither eaten nor
drunk, tortured by cramp from his waist to his feet caused by the
strangling hold of the hide thong, with his heart pounding the blood
against his brain until it shook, and his arms feeling like burning
staves ending in blocks of ice, suddenly scrambled somehow to his
knees, shouted, and fell forward with the soles of his feet against the
wall, and the whole weight of his heavy body hanging upon the wrists.
It was but the work of an instant and a flashing knife and he lay face
down upon the floor at the feet of the priest who passed swiftly
through the doorway out into the jungle, and returning as swiftly,
bound great green shining leaves about the wounds, and squatting on his
heels gently massaged the black and swollen arms.
A holy man! a Hindu priest touching the contaminating flesh of an
infidel! Impossible!
There are many methods of purification from contamination, but the main
point in the priest's mental process of self-extenuation _was_ that an
infidel awaiting the verdict of the Great Mother should not be allowed
to _die_.
Therefore more green and glistening leaves were placed upon the floor,
and food, and water in coarse earthenware, set upon them, until Cuxson
had revived sufficiently to eat, and enter into conversation with the
priest, who, seeing no reason to withhold the information sought, and
secure in the knowledge that the spreading jungle tied the sahib to the
temple even more securely than the thongs of hide, gradually unfolded
to him the dark history of the girl he loved.
"Eighteen years," began the tranquil voice of the old man, "as the
sahibs count the passing of the moons, have gone since a high caste
woman knelt at full moon in this temple at the foot of the altar of
Kali, the Goddess of Destruction.
"Kali the Black One; daughter of the Himalayas, wife of Siva! Durga
the inaccessible, Uma so sweet!
"Chandika the fierce, Parvati who steppeth lightly upon the mountains.
"Bhairavi the terrible, Kali of death, Kali! Kali!"
The old priest, who had leapt to his feet under the exaltation of his
worship, sank down again upon the floor, and continued his tale in the
Indian tongue.
"The high caste woman, chief wife of a great prince of Northern India,
held in her arms her first, her only son, a weakling, a sickly babe
nigh unto death. Thrice had she been shamed by the birth of a woman
child, and now her crown, her glory, her great gift unto her lord was
like to die.
"Followed only by her body servant she had sped from her palace in the
shadows of the Everlasting Hills, even unto the southernmost limits of
Bengal, a pilgrim to this holy, secret temple where I pass my last days
in sacrifice and worship; I, even I, foremost _guru_, once teacher of
the Thugs, those beloved servants of Kali--before the law of the white
man forbade their sacrifices unto the goddess."
Jan Cuxson, knowing of the sacrifices both human and animal offered in
bygone days to the terrible goddess, shivered as the horror of the
place seemed to close in upon him.
"The high caste woman demanding from the Goddess of Death the boon of
life for her son, cast her jewels upon the altar and made promise of
cattle and grain and her three daughters as handmaidens in the secret
places of the temple. And I, aforetime great among the Thugs, lamented
that I had but a coal black kid to offer as a sacrifice, for behold,
Kali demands _life for life_, and _will not be denied_.
"Flowers flung by the woman, O white man, strewed the stone floor upon
which I have worn a path during the passing of the years; hundreds of
small lights flickered in every corner, causing the shadows to dance
about these weary feet and the eyes of the great gods to shine from the
corners of the roof; and without I heard against the wall the rubbing
of the great tiger as it waited for the blood sacrifice which it
nightly devoured before the dawn, the striped cat upon which Kali rides
forth at night on her journeyings through the jungle.
"Even as I plunged the sacrificial knife into the neck of the unworthy
sacrifice, I heard footsteps as of one running swiftly; and behold,
there came a low caste, pock-marked woman up the middle of the temple,
who flung herself at the feet of Kali, laying a sleeping babe upon the
altar steps."
"Ah!" barely whispered Jan Cuxson with his eyes fixed upon the
fanatical old face.
"And behold, the low caste woman was ayah in the services of one, even
a great colonel-sahib, who, being raised above his fellows, was
hastening back across the Black Water to his own land, taking with him
his one wife, and the one child of their union.
"Loving the white girl child with the great strange love of the servant
of India for the offspring of the _feringhee_, the ayah had secretly
brought the babe in the absence of the mem-sahib upon visits of
farewell, that I might dedicate her to the goddess, binding her in
spirit for ever to the land of her birth."
The white man sat in silence when the old man sprang to his feet,
standing relentless and formidable in the light of the one lamp.
"See'st thou? See'st thou, sahib, my sin? The sacrifice was within my
hands, and yet I spared the child because of the woman's beseechings.
I hesitated, yea! I even asked a sign. Aye! and the sign was good,
twice pleasing to the Goddess of Death, for behold the owl hooted not,
neither was the voice of the jackal uplifted as the doe, coming from
the _right_, looked through the open door.
"With the high caste woman I made covenant, that her male child in
return for his life should be a servant of the Black One, obeying in
all things the mandates of her priests.
"And I held those sleeping babes upon my arm, and within the lips of
the girl child I placed the _goor_, the sacred sugar, and around her
neck the _roomal_, the noose of sacrifice. And I cut the sign of Kali
between the breasts of the man child and between the breasts of the
woman child, and marked him between the brows with her blood, and
marked her upon the forehead with his blood, so that his mind should be
her mind. And her will I bent to _my_ will, that her eyes should open
in sleep at the light of the full moon, and that she should go forth
upon the mission of the Black One, making sacrifice to the spouse of
Siva.
"And yet, though she be bound to the secret temple and to Kali, and to
the son of princes until death shall release her, the Great Mother is
not pleased, nay, her wrath is terrible at the averted sacrifice, and
India, my land, has suffered through my fault."
The priest stood motionless, staring down unseeingly upon the man at
his feet who spoke softly.
"And what became of the white child?"
"The white child, the infant _feringhee_? She lay asleep in my arms
with eyes wide open, and the high caste woman, picking up a jewel, even
one of the colour and shape of cat's eye, smeared it with the blood of
the kid, placed it above the heart of Kali, and then hung it by a
slender golden chain about the neck of the woman child. And the women,
content, departed, bearing with them the united babes, but since that
ill-begotten night my land has travailed in agony, stricken with plague
and pestilence and famine!"
"And?" Cuxson scarcely breathed the word.
The light of the moon slipped over the ruined wall, drawing a nimbus
round the old white head as the tall thin figure in the snow-white
garments swayed slightly.
"I waited for the command of Kali, and after many years I sent my
beloved disciple, the son of princes, across the Black Water to bring
the white woman by the force of his will back to the land of her birth
and up to the altar steps. And now I wait--I wait--for a little,
little while."
The old voice rose to a thin shout of triumph which lapsed into silence
as, totally oblivious of his prisoner, he sank to the ground, lost,
quite suddenly, in that wonderful abstraction of the East in which the
native can find escape from the trials of life at odd moments, and in
unaccountably odd places.
During the long silence that followed, Jan Cuxson sat patiently puffing
at his pipe and trying to piece the strange tale together, until at an
advanced hour of the night he once more felt the hawk-like eyes fixed
upon his face.
Eagerly he picked up the thread of the story as though there had been
no lapse.
"You mesmerised her, you say, eighteen years ago, and you pretend you
can still bend her to your will?"
"Nay, Sahib! Through me Kali the Terrible imprinted her will upon the
babe's tender mind those many moons ago!"
Cuxson shook his head.
"You can't make me believe _that_--it's rubbish--like the mango tree
and rope trick--it's impossible, simply _impossible_ to make
strong-minded, level-headed people do things against their will."
In such wise does the westerner account to his own satisfaction for the
mysterious workings of the East.
The old man said no word, but looked steadily between the young man's
eyes.
"If the sahib will look to his right hand!"
Cuxson turned his head and started.
Eyes glaring, tail thrashing the ground, and ears flattened to the
great head, a tiger half crouched.
"The devil!" he ejaculated, as the mouth of the great animal twisted
spasmodically. "Here's a fix."
"The sahib will place his hand upon the tiger's head."
"Not much!"
"The sahib is afraid!"
The quiet scorn of the words struck Cuxson like a whip, and he
stretched out his hand impulsively towards the smooth head with
flattened ears and glaring eyes.
There was not a sound, though the tail swished the ground, and the huge
mouth opened slowly, showing the splendid ivories.
"The sahib, if he is not afraid, will close his hand firmly upon the
throat!"
Cuxson's hand closed gently upon the striped skin; then he exclaimed
sharply on perceiving that the only thing his hand grasped was air.
"Why--what--how the----!"
The old man nodded his head gently, and answered without a smile. "It
was the will of the Black One that the sahib should see the steed upon
which she roams the jungle at night!"
But Cuxson was British, and would not be convinced.
"I don't believe it," he said shortly. "That was a tame animal, which
strays in and out of the temple like a tame cat."
"Will the sahib look at the dust upon the ground. Is there sign of
feet, marks of the body, or the lashing of the tail upon the dust?"
Truly the dust, save for the deer marks, was undisturbed, but Cuxson
shook his head stoutly, and refused to believe the evidence of his own
eyes.
"The sahib will not believe! Then will I make her, the white woman,
see thee, the man she desires as husband, a prisoner in the House of
Kali, covered in blood, and she will hasten forthwith to thee--and to
me!"
Cuxson sprang to his feet with murder in his eyes, but stopped and
flung out his hands as though to thrust aside some obstacle.
The priest laughed softly.
"O babe in wisdom! Behold, thou shalt not be bound, yet shalt thou not
stir beyond yon temple wall until she come, and with her the son of
princes who yearns for her; then shall I lift my will from thee and tie
thee to the wall that thou mayst behold the double sacrifice of _love_
and _life_ made to Kali the Terrible."
The priest was gone, and Jan Cuxson sat down upon a fallen block of
masonry, covering his face with his wounded hands; and faintly from the
temple echoed the voice of the priest as he prayed to his god before
projecting his will across the space that divided him from the white
woman.
Only for a little moment of despondency, and then he sat back and shook
his great shoulders with the light of battle in his eyes, and grim
determination in every line of the powerful jaw.
How he was going to circumvent the priest and save his beloved he did
not know--he had no plan, but--he was going to pull it off.
"The son of princes," he said, addressing a monkey which had flung a
stick at him from the top of the wall, "why I'd trust my dear,
bewitched or not, with a thousand sons of princes. I love her and she
loves me, you gibbering bit of fur, and d'you think _anything_ could
stand against _that_. Let her come! Just let her be within reach of
my arms, _then_ you'll see what you will see. Let the priest play into
my hands, and bring her here, the sooner the better, for _that_ is
exactly what _I_ want."
And he laughed as he refilled his pipe, blessing the old priest for his
consideration in annexing naught but his rifle and revolver.
Which is just about the simplest way of starting to get out of a tight
corner.
Ignoring all obstacles, owning to no defeat. The splendid heritage of
the English speaking race.