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?"