The cracked voice sank suddenly as her child's face softened and relaxed, but the dark hand passed to and fro ceaselessly above the eyes and down behind the ears.
"It walks so softly, ayah—it's—it's in that—corner now—look! can't you see—its—its eyes—and the small—light—and she is—she is calling—calling—just as she—has—has—always——"
The tawny head fell backwards on to the white sari picked out in coloured silk, pulling it away from the head, and the marriage dower of thirteen silver earrings in the left ear, and the turquoise studded nose ring which shone dully in the dim light.
"And it's dark—it's—quite——"
Leonie slept, and her neighbours in the dining-room went through certain anatomical gymnastics such as lifting the eyebrows, shrugging the shoulders, and pursing the lips, all of which are supposed to denote suspicion; while the native woman kept guard behind the reed blind through which she watched a figure clothed in spotless white flitting among the shadows of the trees.
When those shadows marked the hour of midnight she sprang quickly to her feet.
With one violent uncontrollable movement, Leonie had risen to her knees with the tips of the fingers of one hand against her lips and her eyes slanting sideways towards the window near her bed.
"Hush!" she whispered. "Listen!"
Very softly, very sweetly there fell upon the night air the single stroke of a temple bell.
Once it fell, and twice, and yet again. And as it stopped the night was filled with the dull faint throbbing of many drums.