f 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.

Although she had no idea why she was in such haste, she inwardly
fretted at the hours lost, but passed them with outward patience in the
shade of the jungle trees; eating what was brought her, and sleeping
away the afternoon stretched on a rug; unconscious of the fact that her
bearer sat behind her head, fanning her face gently, and with the
lightest and deftest of fingers removing the various insects, long and
short, fat and thin, smooth or horny, which seemed to have taken
unlimited return tickets for the journey over her body.

They had been for some time on the way, the coolies trapesing behind to
the tune of some monotonous chant; and the moon was beginning to fling
handsful of silver out of her heavenly mint when Leonie, overcome by a
most unromantic craving for tea, gave the order to halt.

"How much farther is it?" she asked, as she busied herself with a
spirit lamp and a tin of evaporated milk.

Her bearer looked up at the moon.

"Another half-hour, mem-sahib, and we reach the outer walls of the
temple--ah! allow me----"

Leonie had dropped a teaspoon and was bending to pick it up, but
instead, straightening herself with the kind of snap an over-strung
violin string gives when it breaks, took one step forward and fixed her
eyes on her servant's face.

"Of course," she said, speaking half to herself, "of course--no wonder
I thought I knew you--I saw you in London once--and it was you I saw on
the station--and your voice----" she clasped her hands together and
took a step quickly backwards--"you were the guide in the tiger hunt,
you--you have been following me