d.

She had therefore no option but to pass the night well above the jungle
perils in the _suapattah_ hut, like a cockatoo screeching defiance at a
cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost
flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and
with about as much grace as a monkey manipulating a stick.

There was a sharp tussle of wills after the dinner of which Leonie
partook on the small platform which comes between the top of the ladder
and the low door of the hut.

Having arranged her bedding and mosquito curtains as best he could, and
seen to it that one of the low caste coolies negotiated the ladder with
a gourd of water upon his head and placed it upon the floor in the
mem-sahib's bed-chamber, her bearer, when Leonie retired for the night,
drew up the ladder and curled himself up in a corner.

Almost stifled by the heat of the interior she came out again in search
of fresh air, and stared in amazement at the white figure as he sprang
to his feet perilously near the edge of the platform.

No! nothing would move him from his post during the night, nothing.

"But I am perfectly safe up here," remonstrated Leonie, "when you have
gone to the other hut I can quite easily pull the ladder up!"

"Even so, mem-sahib," quietly replied the man, "but the mem-sahib is
not accustomed to these heights; there are no railings to the platform,
and one false step would send her crashing to the ground."

"But I am going to _bed_," Leonie persisted. "Besides, if I did move I
can see quite plainly, it's almost full moon!"

There was a barely perceptible pause and then;

"Yes, mem-sahib, it is the full moon!"

Leonie, stricken dumb in the belief that the story of her mental plight
had reached even to the bazaar, turned back and re-entered her
so-called bedroom, drawing a purdah made of _golaputtah_ leaves across
the door, and leaving her bearer to his own devices and thoughts.

Which were utterly of her as he divested himself of his outer raiment,
and nude save for the loin cloth, sat like a bronze statue in the
overpowering heat of the night; and even as "the eagle flying forth
beats down his wings upon the earth," his thoughts beat down so
forcibly upon her mind that at midnight she arose in her sleep and
lifting the purdah walked out on to the platform.

She walked straight forward, too far from the man for him to pull her
back; and in too deep a trance for him to have stopped