part0034

Twenty minutes later John Greystone and June walked rapidly towards the Karadi Arr, each carrying a cushion and blanket in case the night grew cold. It was shortly after 4 o'clock and his thoughts were entirely of little Chicka who now lay so cold in death on the charpoy in his room.

They met the tributary and changed their course to follow it, rifles loaded and cocked as they watched the undergrowth around for the slightest indications of movement. Soon they started to climb towards the silk cotton tree and the kill. June noticed the blood-splotches that had dripped from Chicka and splashed upon the leaves.

A few vultures, now perched on the ground, had eaten a portion of the sambar which John had had no time to screen with leaves. Seeing them, the huge birds rose to flap heavily away.

He looked at the stag. There was barely enough meat left to justify the tigress' return, but John knew they would have to chance it, as they could lose no opportunity that afforded the smallest glimmer of hope of killing the man-eater.

As the tigress' cave was hardly three-quarters of a mile distant the carnivore might return after all. Then he studied the neighbouring banyan tree. The first crotch where the big branches bifurcated, was about fifteen feet off the ground. Just the right height, he thought, as an idea came to him. It was already evening and they would have to work fast.

"Pile as many dried leaves as possible into one of the blankets and pass it up to me", he instructed June. With these words, John clambered up the tree and pushed the leaves

June handed to him into the depression formed by the crotch. One more bundle filled the hole. John stamped upon the leaves to crush them firmly into the hollow. He laid the two cushions upon the leaves and found they had a clear view of the sambar's carcass by sitting on them. Then he climbed higher into the tree and broke some branches which he kept handy to place around themselves after they had finally settled down.

It was 5:30 p.m. when John said, "Hold my hand, June", and drew her up beside him. Everything was quite comfortable except for the fact that they were tightly squeezed against each other. John stuck the few branches he had broken into the space behind and around afforded by the bifurcating boughs of the banyan, taking care not to impede the view they had of the dead stag.

As machans went, it was a most imperfect arrangement that hardly concealed their presence. But it was all they could do under the conditions and short time available.

The shades of evening fell rapidly after that with the brief twilight common to the tropics. A few jungle fowl called on the Karadi Arr and John and June could hear them from where they were sitting. A family of grey langoor monkeys, going to sleep for the night, bid farewell to the reddening orb of the sun as it sank behind the tall trees to the west with their cries of "Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!" that echoed through the jungle to the hill bordering the Karadi Arr where Chicka had found the tigress' den.

The moon would only rise late-around about 10 o'clock. Should the man-eater return, it would probably be before then and Greystone would have to take the shot as June had no torch on her rifle.

But nothing came and they heard no sound beyond the rustling of a mongoose below as it nibbled at the sambar's entrails.

The hours dragged by. The moon rose, but it was well past midnight before her partial orb ascended high enough to cast a feeble light through the interlacing leaves. It hardly outlined the remains of the deer below.

The sky was clear. This caused rapid radiation and the temperature dropped markedly. June wore only her thin khaki shirt and jodhpurs, while John had not remembered, in his hurry, to bring a coat for himself or for her. They began to feel chill and drew the blankets around themselves.

It was the cold that made John conscious of the warm flesh of the girl so close to him as they sat, shoulder to shoulder, facing the sambar kill. Little gusts of jungle breeze blew with the cooling atmosphere, wafting strands of June's raven hair across his neck and face. To his nostrils was carried the fresh, clean smell of her body.

Involuntarily, and as much as he tried not to think. Of such things, he began to contrast this odour with the often liquor-laden breath that had been Ruth's, together with the smell of the powder and scent she used. John did his best to control these thoughts. He felt they were disloyal to Ruth's memory. And at a time like the present when they were awaiting the return of the man-eater to avenge Chicka's death, he knew he was betraying the little Karumba too. His whole being revolted against himself.

But John Greystone was a man after all. The thoughts persisted, and grew. Towards the early hours, it became bitterly cold. Their dank blankets, soaked by the dew, accentuated their discomfort. John felt his companion shiver and heard the chattering of her teeth. Protectively he removed his right hand from the ice-cold stock of his rifle and gently slipped it about her slim waist.

June did not protest or draw away from him. Instead, after a minute or two, he felt her snuggle closer.

He wondered. Was it the cold that made her do that or could it be some other feeling?

Ideas of different kinds raced through his brain, and one of them grew in proportion to assume a paramount importance. It became an obsession. The thought was that, before day-break, he would have to discover for himself whether it had been the cold, or some stronger emotion, that made June snuggle against him.

Gently John Greystone drew the girl's body still closer. She could not fail to notice the movement, he knew. If she resented it, she would oppose the pressure he was exerting.

June was a virile girl, with all the feelings and urge of her sex and age behind her. The life she had led with her father in the jungles all these years had forced her to curb these emotions. There had been no man with whom she had had an opportunity of falling in love. So she had contrived to bottle-up the passions that tormented her at times.

The close proximity of this man's body next to hers for the past nine hours had been eating into that restraint. When John placed his arm around her, she had experienced a thrill never felt before. As much as she tried not to, she had pressed herself against him. She could not still the violent trembling that shook her frame or the sound of her breathing as it came to John in harder, faster momentum.

He read the signs aright and knew that the girl at his side was no longer just a girl. She was a woman in the throes of subjugated desire, now on the verge of rebellion. Slowly and gently, but inexorably, he pressed on to the ultimate surrender of this beautiful creature and of the complete conquest of her body. Bent upon such mastery, he exercised all the wiles of the male.

John kissed her gently on the top of her head, allowing his lips to run down the nape of her neck, and pushed his mouth through her long tresses to the velvety skin, snuggling upon the tender lobe of her ear. He kissed that too and whispered softly, "I love you, darling".

"John, oh John", she murmured, as she trembled yet more with mounting passion.

He bent his head to kiss her cheek, her nose and her lips. When he came to these he found them partly opened, for she was gasping. Eagerly now and hotly, he pressed his in turn over her mouth, ever so gently taking her lower lip between his teeth to bite it just enough to cause the smallest twinge of pain that whipped her rising desires to a climax.

June squirmed around, her hot dark eyes misting with desire. Then he forced his tongue into her mouth and roll-fed it around.

June lost all reserve and began to respond, kiss for kiss; her own slender, wet tongue darting out to meet his.

Placing his rifle and hers in the cleft made by two branches that forked above, John employed both hands to slyly unbutton her shirt and slid them, one after the other, beneath where they worked their way into her brassiere to cup each of her breasts. With the egoistic vanity of the conquering male he was delighted at the feel of the tautened, erect nipples and the squirms of hotness that came with her capitulating, low moans. Bending his head, he nestled one of them between his lips.

Gone were all thoughts of the man-eating tigress. In an outburst of passion, he lifted her to his lap and turned her about to face him.

"I want you, June", he blurted, "now! now!"

"I want you too", he heard her reply.

For the remaining three hours of that early morning they were lost to all sense of the tigress that might; be lurking below and enjoyed to the full the repeated goading of their unbridled desires as they depleted each other to the utmost.

John had found a willing and sensuous outlet for his yearning such as he had never experienced in the artificiality of Ruth, while June was transported to a heaven of delight she had been denied all her life.

They were wrapped in their blankets, asleep, when dawn came, grey and cold, heralded by the clarion crow of jungle-cocks and the calls of pea-fowl and spur-fowl as the sun arose to dispel the dew mat had fallen during the night in wisps of tenuous, gossamer-like mist.

A rain-bird called rapidly from one of the tall trees growing somewhere along the tributary: "Ko-el!" "Ko-el!" "Ko-el!" "Koel!" All creation appeared to expectantly await the coming of the rains.

The tigress had not returned to the kill. John had gained something far more precious than a man-eater's pelt. He had found a new and rich love such as he had never known before.

June came down from the tree awkwardly. She could hardly walk. But, although her demeanour showed she had been conquered, she wore the look of victory that the countenance of an entirely satisfied woman always carries.