Read CHAPTER X of Leonie of the Jungle, free online book, by Joan Conquest, on ReadCentral.com.

And hath gone and served other gods.-The Bible.

Shriek upon shriek tore the peaceful stillness of the night, and in one second the sleeping house was transformed from a place of rest and quiet to the semblance of a disturbed rookery.

Deathly silence followed the horrible screams of fear and the sound of the girls calling one to the other, during which mistresses extricated themselves from the encumbering bedclothes to rush on to their respective landings; elder girls peered in terror from their bedroom doors, and younger ones clung to each other or the bed-post, or the door-knob, anything in fact which would help to support their quaking little knees.

Once again the terrible screams rent the air, whipping everyone out of the stunned apathy which great fear brings to some folk, just as the Principal came out on to her landing and looked up to the second storey.

“Miss Primstinn,” she called, and her voice showed no sign of the thudding of her heart.

Pushed by one of those willing hands always so eager to thrust someone else to the forefront of the battle, Miss Primstinn, clutching her courage and a drab dressing-gown in both hands, half ran, half slipped down the stairs.

We will investigate, Miss Primstinn, and the young ladies will retire to their rooms and shut the doors.”

In days long past the house had been well built after the excellent design of a wealthy old architect who had fled the place when Eastbourne had become a centre for girls’ schools and summer trippers.

The full moon flooded the hall round which ran the galleries belonging to the successive storeys, each crowded with girls in various designs of night attire who hung over the oak balustrades to watch developments.

But they all leapt in unison, as though spurred into action by an electric shock, when a deep voice boomed from the shadows round a green baize door in the hall which led to the servants’ quarters.

Then a distinct sigh of relief whistled softly through the entire house when the electric lights suddenly blazed and the speaker was discovered to be cook.

Cookie in an emerald green moirette petticoat and a somewhat declasse bedjacket, a tight knot of hair playing bob-cherry with her kindly right blue eye, and a rolling-pin clutched truculently in her red right hand.

Dear old Cookie who scolded and complained unceasingly, but who loved the entire school with a love which took the substantial form of delicious cakes, and buns, and jellies.

“H’I’ve come to h’investigate, Mum!” she called up. “Berglers or worse got into Miss Jessica’s room through them dratted French windies, I’ll be bound. Now just you stay where you are, Mum, an’ I’ll go an’ see, an’ if I screams then come along. And I think a policeman might come in handy, there may be one on the beat.”

She waddled away to another green door always left open o’ nights, and which led to the wing reserved entirely for the girls of the Upper Sixth; and where each one revelled in her own dainty separate bedroom.

“The young ladies will retire to their bedrooms and close their doors. Mademoiselle, I depend upon you!” With one hand on the banisters and one foot poised for descent, the Principal pitted her will against overwhelming curiosity and won.

Backing like a flock of sheep before the sheep-dog, they slowly retired and shut the doors, only to fling them wide open and rush to the balustrade in time to see the Principal, followed by Miss Primstinn, hurrying down the stairs to meet Cookie, who had run back into the hall shouting at the top of her voice.

“Come along, Mum! Quick! Miss Jessica’s dead and Miss Gertrude dying. And where’s Miss Lee-onny-fetch her someone-it’s ’er friend, little Miss Jessica, wots-wots-

The Principal, whose face looked suddenly livid and old, laid a hand on Cookie’s shoulder.

“Run and fetch the doctor, Cook, please, it will be quicker than the telephone! I can trust you to keep your head. Dr. Mumford is too far away, fetch the new one at the end of the road.”

“Please to send Brown, Mum, she’s younger an’ quicker at runnin’ than me. An’ I think I can ’elp you, Mum,” said Cookie quietly, unconsciously responding to the strength of her mistress’s character. “An’ I’d like to fetch Miss Lee-onny, Mum, she’s that to be depended h’on an’ clear’eaded.”

The Principal sighed under the sudden inrush of relief which had come to her at the mention of her favourite pupil.

She loved Leonie with a love quite separate from her affection for all the young souls in her charge, and secretly admired the strength of will which more than once had been pitted against her own; moreover, accustomed to the quiet monotonous passage of time, she suddenly realised that she needed someone young and energetic in this emergency.

And the girl she needed in her distress was kneeling on her bed with arms upraised above her head.

The dying moon was slowly withdrawing her waning silvery light from the billowing mass of tawny hair, tumbling in lavender-scented masses around the girl; lingering for a moment on the eyes staring from under the unblinking eyelids, and for a second upon the glint of even teeth showing through the lips moving in prayer.

And then she spoke, in the eerie tones of those who talk in their sleep; and the words were even those of India’s most holy writ, sonorous and full of a surpassing dignity, rising and falling as she knelt motionless, her eyelids slowly closing upon the terrible staring eyes.

“The sacrifice . . .” she chanted monotonously, “with voice, hearing, mind, I make oblation. To this sacrifice . . . let the gods come well willing!”

And as the moon sank to rest there was no sound save for a little sigh as Leonie, with closed eyes and white hands clasped upon her breast, stretched herself upon the bed, then with a violent movement sat up, and wide awake stared about the room.

“Yes?” she whispered. “Yes?”

And her strange eyes, with pin-point pupils in a yellow green circle, seemed to follow something which crept slowly round the bare walls as far as the chintz window-curtain moving softly in the breeze of the coming dawn. The room was full of shadows thrown by a creeper festooned outside the wide-open window; soft whisperings brought from the distant corners of the earth by the restless ocean filled the air, as she hastily twisted her hair into two great plaits with steady hands.

Then she slipped quietly to the edge of the bed and searched with her bare feet for the crimson slippers; searched fearfully as though afraid of what they might touch whilst her eyes glanced this way and that through the shadowed room.

“Who is calling me?” she whispered. “Who wants me?”

But there was no sound save for the whispering of the distant sea.

She bent her head sideways as though to listen, rose to her feet, and standing back against the bed, looked down at the shadows which danced about the hem of her garment. A swift furtive glance over her shoulder and her hand stole to the crimson kimono hanging on the brass rail, whilst a jewelled cat’s-eye winked cunningly among the embroidery of her night-robe.

“Come in,” she said suddenly and sharply, “don’t stand outside the door, come in.”

And when there came no answer she thrust her arms swiftly into the sleeves of the crimson kimono, and running across the room flung open the door, and finding the corridor empty passed hurriedly on, leaving the door wide so that the shadows skipped freakishly about the room in tune to the rhythmical whisperings which the sea bore from the distant corners of the earth.