boat does not start for three days, mem-sahib."

"I can hire a private launch, can I not? Money is no object, only
speed."

"Easily, mem-sahib. Consider it arranged!"

Leonie lifted her head for half a second, showing her face deathly
white, the crimson line of her beautiful mouth and the shadow-encircled
eyes emphasised by the dark green silk lining of her topee.

She glanced quickly at the dignified figure beside her on the pavement
and looked away.

You do not, as a rule, recognise people you have met in your sleep;
neither had her memory been impressed with the passing glimpses she had
caught of the handsome face in the British Museum and during the
_chotar shikar_.

No, in spite of the tugging of her memory, there was nothing to link
this person in the spotless white turban and full-skirted coat of the
bearer to her fastidious self.

Neither did that strange anonymous gift of glorious pearls which was
round her neck even then, or an unaccounted for mark upon her shoulder,
help her in any way.

She leaned back listlessly as her newly acquired bearer arranged the
newly bought suit-case and the various packages.

It was an absurd way of starting out on a jungle trip, picking up a car
any old how out of the streets, and a bearer from the labyrinths of the
bazaar without even glancing at his chits, which, even it she had,
would probably have been forgeries.

She had certainly had the sense to put on her knee-high boots and
knee-length skirt, a low collared shirt waist and sports coat, also a
topee; but, wishing to leave no clue as to her future movements at the
hotel, she had slung everything else pell-mell into her trunks, locked
and left them to be fetched and stored at her bank.

It had obviated the calling of a car and the giving of an address to
the hall porter, but it had forced her to buy everything she might be
likely to require for a day or two's sojourn in the waste places of an
Indian jungle.

She had thought of everything with one exception, and that, of course,
the one item which should have been the most important on the list.

Of weapons of defence she had none.

But then, what was she to know of the workings of the mind of the man
sitting with his back to her as the car turned and sped swiftly down
the streets, which seem to stretch endlessly, until you strike the
heavenly tree-lined road which leads you through Dum Dum and other
well-known places to the river edge.

CHAPTER X