"If thou faintest in the day of adversity,
thy strength is small."--_The Bible_.
Jan Cuxson was walking round and round the ruined chamber, pausing at
the doors as he passed them to look out at the seemingly never-ending
jungle; he would have reminded any onlooker of some caged beast as he
went monotonously round and round.
He was rather a desperate sight, too, with harassed eyes in a gaunt
face, and his open shirt exposing a somewhat emaciated chest; not that
he had been starved, far from it; but eat you ever so heartily, fill
your interior with all the fatty substances, real or artificial, in the
world, worry will push in your cheek and temple, draw canals of woe
from your nose to your mouth, and force your cheek-bone, nose, and ribs
into high relief.
Of course he ought to have had a many days' growth of beard all over
the face; but, owing to one particular fad, he had not; and thank
goodness! for it would have been simply appalling to have had to end
the book with the hero looking like a woolly hearthrug.
His fad which saves the situation was that when travelling either for
hours or for days his safety razor invariably travelled in his pocket;
and the old priest had smiled when he caught him in the act of
lathering his face, less successfully, it is true, than more, with a
finger tip smeared in ghee, which is clarified fat; and had come back
later with a handful of stuff which looked for all the world and felt
almost as sticky as French almond rock, a certain vegetable root,
slightly acid of smell, which lathers beautifully in hot or cold water,
and which, in some districts, the natives use as soap.
He was simply in an agony of mind.
He had stormed, and threatened, and pleaded in turn, and offered the
whole of his kingdom in exchange for her safety--all of which had made
about as much impression upon the priest as a few snowflakes would upon
the Himalayas.
His one and only attempt at escape, which had taken place twenty-four
hours before, had been a dire failure.
Roaming around the courtyard outside his chamber, which seemed
curiously near, and yet cut off from the rest of the temple, he had
heard the tinkle of silver anklets, the sound of a native woman's
high-pitched laugh, and the bleating of a goat.
And the thought struck him that if a woman had come to seek counsel of
the priest she must have come through the jungle by some safe road
known to the native, and she would have to go back by the same road;
and if he could only find the way into the temple itself, and watch her
from the shadows, what would be easier than to follow her and reach
Leonie in time to save her from the disaster and death threatening her.
Although the thought of the death straight to which Leonie was coming,
blindfolded by the curse upon her, made his blood run cold and turned
his heart to stone at the knowledge of his own impotence, the picture
of what might happen to her at the hands of the native crazed with
religion and love well-nigh drove him frantic.
He was absolutely at the priest's mercy.
A stronger will than his own allowed him to wander so far and no
farther; indeed, he had been powerless even to reach the block of
stones from behind which the priest appeared when upon visiting bent,
and around which he disappeared when he went to worship before his god.
"I am like a damned hen with a chalk circle drawn round it!" Cuxson had
exclaimed when he tried over and over again to pass the invisible line;
and he cursed aloud as he felt the deep sleep creeping upon him at
various hours of the day and night, and from which there was no escape,
try as he would to keep awake.
But upon the day when he heard the tinkle of silver anklets and the
bleating of the goat, something, just as curiously incomprehensible,
had urged him to walk to the ruined mass of stones which hid the
priest's entrance and exit; and he had walked across the sun-stricken
court without let or hindrance, or covering to his head, and had found
on the other side a low doorway almost choked with jungle growth.
He had not paused to think nor plan; he had merely bent his tall figure
and crept through and down the narrow, decaying passage, along which,
dotted irregularly here and there, shone little lights in tiny
earthenware saucers. He had paused once or twice, sickened by the
sight of offerings of which a description is not necessary, and
shivered, strong man though he was, when he had met the eyes of gods
leering, or glaring at him from little hewn-out shrines in the
crumbling masonry.
His feet made no sound, for the narrow way was choked with the dust of
ages, and he gave no thought to what might lurk in the shadows in the
shape of beast or reptile, so intent was he on reaching the place which
held the woman, and which had seemed near when she had laughed, and
unaccountably far away as he stole stealthily forward.
The passage twisted at every few yards, and once he had found himself
at a dead end in what he thought must be the priest's living room, as
far as he could make out by the dim light coming through a tiny
aperture high up in the wall. He had dimly seen a bed of leaves, a
single covering, and an earthenware platter and jug, before he turned
quickly and retreated when something hissed softly and rustled among
the leaves.
Having got back into the passage and made some considerable headway, he
was almost choked, when on turning a corner he had been enveloped in a
sickly sweet smell of many flowers, allied to some sickening odour to
which he could give no name; and then he had stopped dead, and
flattened himself against the wall as he realised that he had come out
by the side of the altar into the temple itself.
Arranged neatly on each side of the doorway were glittering brass
vessels, brass trays, and little piles of tiny earthenware saucers; to
his left was tethered a black kid, which lay contentedly upon a heap of
dying flowers; near it was what appeared to be a miniature guillotine
stained almost black; and above his head, in front of him and hanging
from a hook in a huge, upstanding block of granite, glittered, a short,
needle-pointed knife.
One knife?
Nay! two, three, a dozen, scores, thousands, thousands of glittering
knives whirled around his head; and hundreds of goats grinned from
corners and capered about his feet, and millions of evil eyes winked at
him from the dusky shadows; and voices rose in choirs, male and female
voices, whispering, laughing, singing. Louder, still louder, rising
like some all-conquering flood, while silver anklets clashed until the
brain was nigh to splitting with the din.
He must see, he _must_ see, and watch the women who laughed shrilly and
often; he must see the front of that great block of stone which barred
his way to Leonie. Yes! Of course that was it, just that one great
block of stone which kept him from his love.
Jan Cuxson made a mighty effort to move his heathen foot over the inch
of threshold which separated him from the holy place. His breath came
in gasps, and the veins stood out in knots upon his forehead as he
pushed with both hands at the empty air; he fought like a mad dog to
overcome that mighty force arrayed against him which neither advanced
nor retreated, but was just _there_.
Then as something out of the void struck him cruelly between the eyes
he gave a mighty shout which made no sound at all, and fell with a
crash, scattering the brass vessels and tiny earthenware saucers to the
four corners of the space around the altar.
Sunstroke?--well, _hardly_.
Because the next morning, when he awoke with the hide thongs fastening
him by the wrist and the waist to the ring in the wall, he felt fit,
and fresh, and extremely wide awake.
Perhaps it was that the blow, or whatever had struck Jan Cuxson down on
the threshold of the temple, had served to sharpen his wits; anyway,
for some unknown reason, words uttered by the priest on the first day
of his imprisonment began to repeat themselves over and over again in
his brain, as he sat uncomfortably with his back to the wall and his
eyes fixed with a certain crafty understanding upon a piece of rusty
metal half hidden under a fallen brick.
Wherefore he wheedled and cajoled when the priest came to visit him
until the thongs were unfastened and his somewhat prescribed liberty
restored.
"Only until the shadows fall, sahib," the old man said as he gathered
the hide thongs in his hands. "Tonight is the night of the full moon
and the white woman is even now approaching."
"Leonie---I mean the mem-sahib--is in the _jungle_--with whom?"
"Verily, sahib, with the man who loves her!"
"Oh, my _God_!" said Cuxson slowly. "How do you know?"
"_We_ need no wires or poles to carry us news, sahib! We have a surer
way, aye, and a quicker one. Struggle not to-night, sahib, when I tie
you to the ring in the wall. Bound you must be, for the Black One has
spoken; and it is her pleasure that I shall lift my will from you, even
as I did by mischance yesterday. India has suffered through this white
woman; my people have been tormented by her, and Kali, the Black One,
has commanded that the sufferings of the land shall be wiped out in the
white woman's blood, and the torments of the people in your torments."
It has been said that Jan Cuxson was plodding to a degree akin to
slowness.
He was! But you may be sure that if an idea came to him even at the
eleventh hour it would be a good idea and would be developed until it
reached an advanced stage of perfection.
Some time after the priest had departed he drew the piece of metal,
which proved to be the broken blade of a knife, from under the fallen
stone, slipped it into his pocket, and was as well content as his
harassed mind and overwrought imagination would allow him to be.