They were alone in the jungle, and his will was hers; she was as a bit of wax upon which he might imprint his seal; there was no one to say him nay if he should draw her unto his intent.
And he loved her.
Yes! he loved her, and because of the overpowering strength of this love he knelt beside her and placed his fingers upon her temples.
"Sleep, beloved," he whispered, "sleep—the women that are of pure odour—all of them—we—make—sleep."
And Leonie slept peacefully and undisturbed until the dawn, because Madhu Krishnaghar, with his face buried in his arms, who lay across the threshold of her bedroom, was one of the splendid type that India breeds—an Indian nobleman.
CHAPTER XLVI
"Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh."—The Bible.
One thing after another happened to prevent Leonie from continuing what remained of the journey during the cooler hours of sunrise.
One coolie strayed and was not retrieved until the other two men were hoarse from shouting, then another ran something into his foot, which was only extracted after a mighty fuss, and something akin to a major operation, skilfully performed with the bearer's knife and a few thorns plucked from the bush.
Last but not least, as they were on the point of starting, a snake about two yards long had blithely wriggled its shining length across their very path; and nothing short of hours of prayer and offerings to their gods would move the coolies along that path after such a sign of ill omen; no! rather than budge an inch they would have laid down in their tracks and died of snake-bite, or a marauding tiger; and Leonie was far too wise a traveller to lose sight of her luggage for one second—in India.