"What have you done?" he roared, furious with rage."I will tell you.You have by magic possessed the mind of my wife.Your name, your cursed name is ever upon her lips! My entreaties, my supplications are answered by nothing else.Even in her sleep she starts up and calls foryou.You have cast a spell upon her.Day by day she droops and withers like a lotus-flower whose root is severed; yet ever and always, is your cursed name upon her lips, goading me to madness, until at last I have registered a sacred oath to kill you, and remove the accursed spell you have thrown upon her."Had he advanced upon me at this moment he would have found me as helpless as a child, so overcome was I by the sudden joy which seized upon me, and seemed to turn my melancholy inside out.Those words of hatred had been as a torch illumining the gloom of my despair, for they had shown me that my existence was not altogether barren and unproductive.The life which has known the heaven of true love cannot be called a failure.There is no wall so high, no distance so great, no separation so complete as to defy the ineffable commerce of two loving hearts! Lona, then, was still mine, despite all obstacles.What a change this knowledge made! In an instant life became an inexpressible benefaction, for it permitted me to realise I was beloved, - and death was dowered with a new horror - the fear that I should cease to know it.
I was roughly aroused from my reflections by Rama Ragobah.
"Come, Sahib," he said, as his thick lips curled sneeringly, "suppose you try your spells upon me? You will never have a better chance than now to show your power," and again he made a slight movement toward me with the gleaming knife.The moon, low down upon the horizon, sent a broad beam of light into the entrance of the cave and over the head and shoulders of the Indian.Its cold light shimmered along the blade which was now held threateningly toward me.The crisis had been reached.
In times of such great urgency one has frequently an inspiration - instantaneous, disconnected, unbidden - which no amount of quiet, peaceful thought would suggest.Such extraordinary flashes are the result of reasoning too rapid for consciousness to note.The Indian had already laid bare his right arm to the elbow before I had determined upon the desperate course I would pursue, and upon which I must hazard all.As he advanced upon me I seized the large, white sola hat from my head, and hurled it full in his face.It was a schoolboy trick, yet upon its success depended my life.Instinctively, and in spite of himself, Ragobahdodged, closed his eyes, and raised his right hand, knife and all, to shield his face.I sprang upon him at the same instant I threw my hat, and so was able to reach him before he opened his eyes.I had well calculated his movements, and had made no mistake.As I reached him his head was bent downward and forward to let the hat pass over him.His position could not have been better for my purpose.I "swung on him," as we used to say at the gymnasium, catching him under his protruded jaw, not far from the region of the carotid artery.The blow was well placed, and desperation lent me phenomenal strength.It raised him bodily off his feet, and hurled him backward out of the cave, where he lay motionless.He was now in my power.I seized his knife and bent over him.Words cannot express the hatred, the loathing I felt for him then and always.Between me and the light of my happiness he had ever stood, an impenetrable black mass.Twice had he sought my life, yet now, when he was in my power, I could not plunge his weapon into his heart.Would it not be just, I thought, to drag him into the cave, and hurl him down the abyss he had intended for me? Yes; he certainly merited it; yet I could not do that either.I wished the snake a thousand times dead, yet I could not stamp it into the earth.
He was beginning to slightly move now, and something must be done.It was useless to run, for the way was long, and he could easily overtake me.You may wonder why I did not take to the thicket, but if you had ever had any experience with Indian jungles you would know that, without the use of fire and axe, they are practically impenetrable.Professor Haeckel, botanising near that same spot, spent an hour in an endeavour to force his way into one of these jungles, but only succeeded in advancing a few steps into the thicket, when, stung by mosquitoes, bitten by ants, his clothing torn from his bleeding arms and legs, wounded by the thousands of sharp thorns of the calamus, hibiscus, euphorbias, lantanas, and myriad other jungle plants, he was obliged, utterly discomfited, to desist.If this were the result of his efforts, made in broad daylight, and with deliberation, what might I expect rushing into the thicket at night, as a refuge from a pursuer far my superior in physical strength and fleetness of foot, and who, moreover, had known the jungle from his boyhood? Once overtaken bymy enemy, the long knife in my hands would be of no avail against a stick in his.I saw all this clearly, and realised that he must be prevented from following me.
