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Page 27
She raised some few objections to my plan and expressed some
misgivings, but she loved me and I was able to reason away the
one and kiss away the other, and with our souls upon our lips we
parted for the night. The last thing I had said to her,--I
remember it as if it all happened yesterday,--was: "Think of
it, dear heart, there will be no more such partings between us
after to-night!" and she had replied by silently nestling closer
to me and twining her arms about my neck. And so we parted on
that never-to-be-forgotten night more than a score of years
ago.
The twenty-four hours intervening between this parting and our
next meeting may be passed over in silence, as nothing occurred
during that time at all essential to the purpose this narrative
subserves. The longed-for time came at last and, with a depth of
happiness I had never known before--a peace passing all
understanding--I set out for Malabar Hill. The night was perfect
and the moonlight so bright I could distinctly see the air-roots
of our trysting tree when more than a quarter of a mile away. I
thought at the time how this tree, with its crown of luxuriant
foliage and its writhing roots, might well pass for some gigantic
Medusa-head with its streaming serpent-hair. As I neared the tree
Lona stepped from behind it and awaited my approach. She was even
more impatient than I, I thought, and my heart beat more wildly
than ever. "Sweet saint, have I kept you waiting?" I asked, as
I came within speaking distance of her. She stood motionless
against the tree and apparently did not hear me. I waited till I
was within ten feet of her and repeated the question, but, although
she fixed her unfathomable eyes full upon mine, she made no reply,
and gave no evidence of having heard me. I stood as if petrified.
A nameless dread was settling upon me, paralysing my faculties.
She had always before sprung forward at sight of me and thrown
herself with a bewitching little pirouette into my arms, now she
stood coldly aloof, silent and motionless, on this, our wedding
night! I waited for some word of explanation, but none came. The
suspense became unbearable--I could endure it no longer!
"For God's sake, what has happened?" I cried, rushing forward to
seize her in my arms. She raised her right hand above her head
and, as I had almost reached her, threw something full in my face!
Instinctively I struck at it with my walking-stick, and it fell
in the grass at my feet,--it was a young Indian cobra--Naja
tripudians--a serpent of the deadliest sort. I did not pause to
reason how this sweet angel had been so quickly changed into a
venomous fiend, although the thought that somehow she had been led
to think me false to her, and that this act was the swift vengeance
of her hot Eastern blood, flashed momentarily through my mind,--all
that could be explained as soon as I had her nestling in my arms.
I reached forward to embrace her, but she struck me in the face and
fled! For an instant my heart stood still. It seemed to me it
would never start, but it soon began to throb again like a thing
of lead, and the blood it pumped was cold, for the winter had
closed in upon it. The elasticity of my life, that ineffable
resiliency of the soul which makes us more than beasts of burden,
was gone forever. An automaton, informed only with the material
life, remained,--the spirit followed that fleeting figure down
the hill. More than twenty years have passed and still the
unrewarded chase continues!
But it is to facts I have to call your attention, rather than to
their effects. A flutter of white muslin in the moonlit distance
was all that was visible of the retreating girl when I started
mechanically, and without any particular purpose in view, in pursuit
of her. My path lay by the banyan tree under which we had so often
sat, but every air-root seemed changed to a writhing serpent. As I
threaded my way among them, a man stepped from behind the trunk
and disputed my passage. His gigantic form was silhouetted against
the mass of rock forming the entrance to the little cave. The bright
moonlight did what it could to illumine that sinister face. It was
Rama Ragobah! For fully a minute we stood silently face to face,
each expecting the assault of the other. It was Ragobah who spoke
first. "She is mine, body and soul; and the English cur may find
a mate in his own kennel!" He bent toward me and hissed these words
in my very face. His hot breath seemed to poison me. It made me
beside myself. I knew he meant to take advantage of his physical
superiority and attack me, by the narrow watch he kept upon the
heavy walking-stick I still carried in my right hand. He had
expected I would attempt to strike with this, but my constant
practice at boxing had made my fists the more natural weapon. I
was so enraged I did not notice he was too close to use my stick to
advantage. I simply acted without any thought whatever. His
attitude was such, as he hissed his venom into my face, as to enable
me to give him a powerful "upper cut" under the jaw. This, as I
was so much lighter than he, was the most effective blow I could
deliver; yet, although it took him off his feet, it did not disable
him. I had not succeeded in placing it as I had intended, and it
had only the effect of rendering him demoniacal. In an instant he
was again upon his feet, and unsheathing a long knife. I knew it
meant death for me if he were able to close with me. It was useless
for me to call for help, for in those days this part of Malabar Hill
was as deserted as a wilderness. Now, the very spot on which we
stood is highly cultivated, and forms a part of the garden of the
Blasehek villa. There, early in the eighties, as the guest of the
hospitable Herr Blasehek, Professor Ernst Haeckel botanised a week,
on his way to Ceylon. Now, in response to a cry from his intended
victim, an assassin might be frustrated by assistance from a dozen
bungalows, but at the time of which I write, the victim, if he were
wise, saved his breath for the struggle which he knew he must make
unaided.
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