"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.
CHAPTER XLII
"A good name is better than precious ointment."—The Bible.
"And in its light the Star of Love aglow,
Shone with her beacon fire, a guide
and guardian still."—Dante's Inferno.
In the middle of the night Leonie lay face downwards upon her bed in the great Eastern Hotel.
All the luggage she had brought with her from England was stacked around the small room, and even in the dressing-room; in fact, there was that unfinished, unpacked air about the whole place which is inseparable from anyone in India who is in the throes of going home.
She had returned on the wings of panic from Benares, only to find that the gossip which had been circulated about her had arrived well in advance; and that, like crows after a dust cart, what remained of the city's female population was busy pulling her to a thousand pieces with claws and beaks sharpened by the million irritations of the hot weather.