He looked over his shoulder, and there were the two little tents, one that sheltered Kepple and one that awaited him, and beyond, in an irregular line, glowed the ruddy smoky fires of the men.One or two turbaned figures still flitted about, and there was a voice--low, monotonous--it must have been telling a tale.Further, sighing and stirring ever and again, were tethered beasts, and then a great pale space of moonlight and the clumsy outlines of the village well.
The clustering village itself slept in darkness beyond the mango trees, and still remoter the black encircling jungle closed in.One might have fancied this was the encampment of newly-come invaders, were it not for the larger villages that are overgrown with thickets and altogether swallowed up again in the wilderness, and for the deserted temples that are found rent asunder by the roots of trees and the ancient embankments that hold water only for the drinking of the sambur deer....
Benham turned his face to the dim jungle again....
He had come far out of his way to visit this strange world of the ancient life, that now recedes and dwindles before our new civilization, that seems fated to shrivel up and pass altogether before the dry advance of physical science and material organization.He was full of unsatisfied curiosities about its fierce hungers and passions, its fears and cruelties, its instincts and its well-nigh incommunicable and yet most precious understandings.He had long ceased to believe that the wild beast is wholly evil, and safety and plenty the ultimate good for men....
Perhaps he would never get nearer to this mysterious jungle life than he was now.
It was intolerably tantalizing that it should be so close at hand and so inaccessible....
As Benham sat brooding over his disappointment the moon, swimming on through the still circle of the hours, passed slowly over him.The lights and shadows about him changed by imperceptible gradations and a long pale alley where the native cart track drove into the forest, opened slowly out of the darkness, slowly broadened, slowly lengthened.It opened out to him with a quality of invitation....
There was the jungle before him.Was it after all so inaccessible?
"Come!" the road said to him.
Benham rose and walked out a few paces into the moonlight and stood motionless.
Was he afraid?
Even now some hungry watchful monster might lurk in yonder shadows, watching with infinite still patience.Kepple had told him how they would sit still for hours--staring unblinkingly as cats stare at a fire--and then crouch to advance.Beneath the shrill overtone of the nightjars, what noiseless grey shapes, what deep breathings and cracklings and creepings might there not be?...
Was he afraid?
That question determined him to go.
He hesitated whether he should take a gun.A stick? A gun, he knew, was a dangerous thing to an inexperienced man.No! He would go now, even as he was with empty hands.At least he would go as far as the end of that band of moonlight.If for no other reason than because he was afraid.NOW!
For a moment it seemed to him as though his feet were too heavy to lift and then, hands in pockets, khaki-clad, an almost invisible figure, he strolled towards the cart-track.
Come to that, he halted for a moment to regard the distant fires of the men.No one would miss him.They would think he was in his tent.He faced the stirring quiet ahead.The cart-track was a rutted path of soft, warm sand, on which he went almost noiselessly.
A bird squabbled for an instant in a thicket.A great white owl floated like a flake of moonlight across the track and vanished without a sound among the trees.
Along the moonlit path went Benham, and when he passed near trees his footsteps became noisy with the rustle and crash of dead leaves.
The jungle was full of moonlight; twigs, branches, creepers, grass-clumps came out acutely vivid.The trees and bushes stood in pools of darkness, and beyond were pale stretches of misty moonshine and big rocks shining with an unearthly lustre.Things seemed to be clear and yet uncertain.It was as if they dissolved or retired a little and then returned to solidity.
A sudden chattering broke out overhead, and black across the great stars soared a flying squirrel and caught a twig, and ran for shelter.A second hesitated in a tree-top and pursued.They chased each other and vanished abruptly.He forgot his sense of insecurity in the interest of these active little silhouettes.And he noted how much bigger and more wonderful the stars can look when one sees them through interlacing branches.
Ahead was darkness; but not so dark when he came to it that the track was invisible.He was at the limit of his intention, but now he saw that that had been a childish project.He would go on, he would walk right into the jungle.His first disinclination was conquered, and the soft intoxication of the subtropical moonshine was in his blood....But he wished he could walk as a spirit walks, without this noise of leaves....
Yes, this was very wonderful and beautiful, and there must always be jungles for men to walk in.Always there must be jungles....
Some small beast snarled and bolted from under his feet.He stopped sharply.He had come into a darkness under great boughs, and now he stood still as the little creature scuttled away.Beyond the track emerged into a dazzling whiteness....
In the stillness he could hear the deer belling again in the distance, and then came a fuss of monkeys in a group of trees near at hand.He remained still until this had died away into mutterings.
Then on the verge of movement he was startled by a ripe mango that slipped from its stalk and fell out of the tree and struck his hand.
It took a little time to understand that, and then he laughed, and his muscles relaxed, and he went on again.
A thorn caught at him and he disentangled himself.
