path: root/60627-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60627 ***

THE VILLAGE
IN THE JUNGLE

BY

L. S. WOOLF

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD

1913




CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X




To V. W.


I've given you all the little, that I've to give;
You've given me all, that for me is all there is;
So now I just give back what you have given--
If there is anything to give in this.




CHAPTER I


The village was called Beddagama, which means the village in the jungle.
It lay in the low country or plains, midway between the sea and the
great mountains which seem, far away to the north, to rise like a long
wall straight up from the sea of trees. It was in, and of, the jungle;
the air and smell of the jungle lay heavy upon it--the smell of hot air,
of dust, and of dry and powdered leaves and sticks. Its beginning and
its end was in the jungle, which stretched away from it on all sides
unbroken, north and south and east and west, to the blue line of the
hills and to the sea. The jungle surrounded it, overhung it, continually
pressed in upon it. It stood at the door of the houses, always ready to
press in upon the compounds and open spaces, to break through the mud
huts, and to choke up the tracks and paths. It was only by yearly
clearing with axe and katty that it could be kept out. It was a living
wall about the village, a wall which, if the axe were spared, would
creep in and smother and blot out the village itself.

There are people who will tell you that they have no fear of the jungle,
that they know it as well as the streets of Maha Nuwara or their own
compounds. Such people are either liars and boasters, or they are fools,
without understanding or feeling for things as they really are. I knew
such a man once, a hunter and tracker of game, a little man with
hunched-up shoulders and peering, cunning little eyes, and a small dark
face all pinched and lined, for he spent his life crouching, slinking,
and peering through the undergrowth and the trees. He was more silent
than the leopard and more cunning than the jackal: he knew the tracks
better than the doe who leads the herd. He would boast that he could see
a buck down wind before it could scent him, and a leopard through the
thick undergrowth before it could see him. 'Why should I fear the
jungle?' he would say. 'I know it better than my own compound. A few
trees and bushes and leaves, and some foolish beasts. There is nothing
to fear there.' One day he took his axe in his hand, and the sandals of
deer-hide to wear in thorny places, and he went out to search for the
shed horns of deer, which he used to sell to traders from the towns. He
never returned to the village again, and months afterwards in thick
jungle I found his bones scattered upon the ground, beneath some
thorn-bushes, gnawed by the wild pig and the jackal, and crushed and
broken by the trampling of elephants. And among his bones lay a bunch of
peacock feathers that he had collected and tied together with a piece of
creeper, and his betel-case, and the key of his house, and the tattered
fragments of his red cloth. In the fork of one of the thorn-bushes hung
his axe: the massive wooden handle had been snapped in two. I do not
know how he died; but I know that he had boasted that there was no fear
in the jungle, and in the end the jungle took him.

All jungles are evil, but no jungle is more evil than that which lay
about the village of Beddagama. If you climb one of the bare rocks that
jut up out of it, you will see the jungle stretched out below you for
mile upon mile on all sides. It looks like a great sea, over which the
pitiless hot wind perpetually sends waves unbroken, except where the
bare rocks, rising above it, show like dark smudges against the
grey-green of the leaves. For ten months of the year the sun beats down
and scorches it; and the hot wind in a whirl of dust tears over it,
tossing the branches and scattering the leaves. The trees are stunted
and twisted by the drought, by the thin and sandy soil, by the dry wind.
They are scabrous, thorny trees, with grey leaves whitened by the clouds
of dust which the wind perpetually sweeps over them: their trunks are
grey with hanging, stringy lichen. And there are enormous cactuses,
evil-looking and obscene, with their great fleshy green slabs, which put
out immense needle-like spines. More evil-looking still are the great
leafless trees, which look like a tangle of gigantic spiders'
legs--smooth, bright green, jointed together--from which, when they are
broken, oozes out a milky, viscous fluid.

And between the trees are the bushes which often knit the whole jungle
together into an impenetrable tangle of thorns. On the ground beneath
the trees it is very still and very hot; for the sterile earth is
covered with this thorny matted undergrowth, through which the wind
cannot force its way. The sound of the great wind rushing over the
tree-tops makes the silence below seem more heavy. The air is heavy with
the heat-beating up from the earth, and with the smell of dead leaves.
All the bushes and trees seem to be perpetually dying for ten months of
the year, the leaves withering, and the twigs and branches decaying and
dropping off, to be powdered over the ground among the coarse withered
grass and the dead and blackened shrubs. And yet every year, when the
rains come, the whole jungle bursts out again into green; and it forces
its way forward into any open space, upon the tracks, into villages and
compounds, striving to blot out everything in its path.

If you walk all day through the jungle along its tangled tracks, you
will probably see no living thing. It is so silent and still there that
you might well believe that nothing lives in it. You might perhaps in
the early morning hear the trumpeting and squealing of a herd of
elephants, or the frightened bark of the spotted deer, or the deeper
bark of the sambur, or the blaring call of the peacock. But as the day
wore on, and the heat settled down upon the trees, you would hear no
sound but the rush of the wind overhead, and the grating of dry branches
against one another. Yet the shadows are full of living things, moving
very silently, themselves like shadows, between the trees, slinking
under the bushes and peering through the leaves.

For the rule of the jungle is first fear, and then hunger and thirst.
There is fear everywhere: in the silence and in the shrill calls and the
wild cries, in the stir of the leaves and the grating of branches, in
the gloom, in the startled, slinking, peering beasts. And behind the
fear is always the hunger and the thirst, and behind the hunger and the
thirst fear again. The herd of deer must come down to drink at the
water-hole. They come down driven by their thirst, very silently through
the deep shadows of the trees to the water lying white under the moon.
They glide like shadows out of the shadows, into the moonlight,
hesitating, tiptoeing, throwing up their heads to stare again into the
darkness, leaping back only to be goaded on again by their thirst, ears
twitching to catch a sound, and nostrils quivering to catch a scent of
danger. And when the black muzzles go down into the water, it is only
for a moment; and then with a rush the herd scatters back again
terror-stricken into the darkness. And behind the herd comes the
leopard, slinking through the undergrowth. Whom has he to fear? Yet
there is fear in his eyes and in his slinking feet, fear in his pricked
ears and in the bound with which he vanishes into the shadows at the
least suspicious sound.

In the time of the rains the jungle might seem to be a pleasant place.
The trees are green, and the grass stands high in the open spaces. Water
lies in pools everywhere; there is no need to go stealthily by night to
drink at rivers or water-holes. The deer and the pig roam away, growing
fat on the grass and the young leaves and the roots; the elephant
travels far from the river bank. The time of plenty lasts, however, but
a little while. The wind from the north-east drops, the rain fails; for
a month a great stillness lies over the jungle; the sun looks down from
a cloudless sky; the burning air is untempered by a breath of wind. It
is spring in the jungle, a short and fiery spring, when in a day the
trees burst out into great masses of yellow or white flowers, which in a
day wither and die away.

The pools and small water-holes begin to dry up under the great heat;
the earth becomes caked and hard. Then the wind begins to blow from the
south-west, fitfully at first, but growing steadier and stronger every
day. A little rain falls, the last before the long drought sets in. The
hot, dry wind sweeps over the trees. The grass and the shrubs die down;
the leaves on the small trees shrivel up, and grow black and fall. The
grey earth crumbles into dust, and splits beneath the sun. The little
streams run dry; the great rivers shrink, until only a thin stream of
water trickles slowly along in the middle of their immense beds of
yellow sand. The water-holes are dry; only here and there in the very
deepest of them, on the rocks, a little muddy water still remains.

Then the real nature of the jungle shows itself. Over great tracts there
is no water for the animals to drink. Only the elephants remember the
great rivers, which lie far away, and whose banks they left when the
rains came; as soon as the south-west wind begins to blow, they make for
the rivers again. But the deer and the pig have forgotten the rivers. In
the water-holes the water has sunk too low for them to reach it on the
slippery rocks; for days and nights they wander round and round the
holes, stretching down their heads to the water, which they cannot
touch. Many die of thirst and weakness around the water-holes. From time
to time one, in his efforts to reach the water, slips, and falls into
the muddy pool, and in the evening the leopard finds him an easy prey.
The great herds of deer roam away, tortured by thirst, through the
parched jungle. They smell the scent of water in the great wind that
blows in from the sea. Day after day they wander away from the rivers
into the wind, south towards the sea, stopping from time to time to
raise their heads and snuff in the scent of water, which draws them on.
Again many die of thirst and weakness on the way; and the jackals follow
the herds, and pull down in the open the fawns that their mothers are
too weak to protect. And the herds wander on until at last they stand
upon the barren, waterless shore of the sea.

Such is the jungle which lay about the village of Beddagama. The village
consisted of ten scattered houses, mean huts made of mud plastered upon
rough jungle sticks. Only one of the huts had a roof of tiles, that of
the village headman Babehami; the others were covered with a thatch of
cadjans, the dried leaves of the cocoanut-palm. Below the huts to the
east of the village lay the tank, a large shallow depression in the
jungle. Where the depression was deepest the villagers had raised a long
narrow bund or mound of earth, so that when the rain fell the tank
served as a large pond in which to store the water. Below the bund lay
the stretch of rice-fields, about thirty acres, which the villagers
cultivated, if the tank filled with water, by cutting a hole in the
bund, through which the water from the tank ran into the fields. The
jungle rose high and dense around the fields and the tank; it stretched
away unbroken, covering all the country except the fields, the tank, and
the little piece of ground upon which the houses and compounds stood.

The villagers all belonged to the goiya caste, which is the caste of
cultivators. If you had asked them what their occupation was, they would
have replied 'the cultivation of rice'; but in reality they only
cultivated rice about once in ten years. Rice requires water in plenty;
it must stand in water for weeks before it grows ripe for the reaping.
It could only be cultivated if the village tank filled with water, and
much rain had to fall before the tank filled. If the rains from the
north-east in November were good, and the people could borrow seed, then
the rice-fields in January and February were green, and the year brought
the village health and strength; for rice gives strength as does no
other food. But this happened very rarely. Usually the village lived
entirely by cultivating chenas. In August every man took a katty and
went out into the jungle and cut down the undergrowth, over an acre or
two. Then he returned home. In September he went out again and set fire
to the dead undergrowth, and at night the jungle would be lit up by
points of fire scattered around the village for miles; for so sterile is
the earth, that a chena, burnt and sown for one year, will yield no crop
again for ten years. Thus the villagers must each year find fresh jungle
to burn. In October the land is cleared of ash and rubbish, and when the
rains fall in November the ground is sown broadcast with millet or
kurakkan or maize, with pumpkins, chillies, and a few vegetables. In
February the grain is reaped, and on it the village must live until the
next February. No man will ever do any other work, nor will he leave the
village in search of work. But even in a good year the grain from the
chenas was scarcely sufficient for the villagers. And just as in the
jungle fear and hunger for ever crouch, slink, and peer with every
beast, so hunger and the fear of hunger always lay upon the village. It
was only for a few months each year after the crop was reaped that the
villagers knew the daily comfort of a full belly. And the grain sown in
chenas is an evil food, heating the blood, and bringing fever and the
foulest of all diseases, parangi. There were few in the village without
the filthy sores of parangi, their legs eaten out to the bone with the
yellow, sweating ulcers, upon which the flies settle in swarms. The
naked children, soon after their birth, crawled about with immense pale
yellow bellies, swollen with fever, their faces puffed with dropsy,
their arms and legs thin, twisted little sticks.

The spirit of the jungle is in the village, and in the people who live
in it. They are simple, sullen, silent men. In their faces you can see
plainly the fear and hardship of their lives. They are very near to the
animals which live in the jungle around them. They look at you with the
melancholy and patient stupidity of the buffalo in their eyes, or the
cunning of the jackal. And there is in them the blind anger of the
jungle, the ferocity of the leopard, and the sudden fury of the bear.

In Beddagama there lived a man called Silindu, with his wife Dingihami.
They formed one of the ten families which made up the village, and all
the families were connected more or less closely by marriage. Silindu
was a cousin of the wife of Babehami, the headman, who lived in the
adjoining compound. Babehami had been made a headman because he was the
only man in the village who could write his name. He was a very small
man, and was known as Punchi Arachchi[1] (the little Arachchi). Years
ago, when a young man, he had gone on a pilgrimage to the vihare[2] at
Medamahanuwara. He had fallen ill there, and had stayed for a month or
two in the priest's pansala. The priest had taught him his letters, and
he had learnt enough to be able to write his own name.

Silindu was a cultivator like the other villagers. The village called
him 'tikak pissu' (slightly mad). Even in working in the chena he was
the laziest man in the village. His real occupation was hunting; that is
to say he shot deer and pig, with a long muzzle-loading gas-pipe gun,
whenever he could creep up to one in the thick jungle; or, lying by the
side of a water-hole at night, shoot down some beast who had come there
to drink. Why this silent little man, with the pinched-up face of a grey
monkey and the long, silent, sliding step, should be thought slightly
mad, was not immediately apparent. He seemed only at first sight a
little more taciturn and inert than the other villagers. But the village
had its reasons. Silindu slept with his eyes open like some animals, and
very often he would moan, whine, and twitch in his sleep like a dog; he
slept as lightly as a deer, and would start up from the heaviest sleep
in an instant fully awake. When not in the jungle he squatted all day
long in the shadow of his hut, staring before him, and no one could tell
whether he was asleep or awake. Often you would have to shout at him and
touch him before he would attend to what you had to say. But the
strangest thing about him was this, that although he knew the jungle
better than any man in the whole district, and although he was always
wandering through it, his fear of it was great. He never attempted to
explain or to deny this fear. When other hunters laughed at him about
it, all he would say was, 'I am not afraid of any animal in the jungle,
no, not even of the bear or of the solitary elephant (whom all of you
really fear), but I am afraid of the jungle.' But though he feared it,
he loved it in a strange, unconscious way, in the same unconscious way
in which the wild buffalo loves the wallow, and the leopard his lair
among the rocks. Silent, inert, and sullen he worked in the chena or
squatted about his compound, but when he started for the jungle he
became a different man. With slightly bent knees and toes turned out, he
glided through the impenetrable scrub with a long, slinking stride,
which seemed to show at once both the fear and the joy in his heart.

And Silindu's passions, his anger, and his desire were strange and
violent even for the jungle. It was not easy to rouse his anger; he was
a quiet man, who did not easily recognise the hand which wronged him.
But if he were roused he would sit for hours or days motionless in his
compound, his mind moving vaguely with hatred; and then suddenly he
would rise and search out his enemy, and fall upon him like a wild
beast. And sometimes at night a long-drawn howl would come from
Silindu's hut, and the villagers would laugh and say, 'Hark! the leopard
is with his mate,' and the women next morning when they saw Dingihami
drawing water from the tank would jeer at her.

At length Dingihami bore twins, two girls, of whom one was called Punchi
Menika and the other Hinnihami. When the women told Silindu that his
wife was delivered of two girls, he rushed into the hut and began to
beat his wife on the head and breasts as she lay on the mat, crying,
'Vesi! vesi mau! Where is the son who is to carry my gun into the
jungle, and who will clear the chena for me? Do you bear me vesi for me
to feed and clothe and provide dowries? Curse you!' And this was the
beginning of Silindu's quarrel with Babehami, the headman; for Babehami,
hearing the cries of Dingihami and the other women, rushed up from the
adjoining compound and dragged Silindu from the house.

Dingihami died two days after giving birth to the twins. Silindu had a
sister called Karlinahami, who lived in a house at the other end of the
village. Misfortune had fallen upon her, the misfortune so common in the
life of a jungle village. Her husband had died of fever two months
before: a month later she bore a child which lived but two weeks. When
Dingihami died, Silindu brought her to his hut to bring up his two
children. Her hut was abandoned to the jungle. When the next rains fell
the mud walls crumbled away, the tattered roof fell in, the jungle crept
forward into the compound and over the ruined walls; and when Punchi
Menika was two years old, only a little mound in the jungle marked the
place where Karlinahami's house had stood.

Karlinahami was a short, dark, stumpy woman, with large impassive eyes
set far apart from one another, flat broad cheeks, big breasts, and
thick legs. Unlike her brother she was always busy, sweeping the house
and compound, fetching water from the tank, cooking, and attending to
the children. Very soon after she came to Silindu's house she began to
talk and think of the children as though she had borne them herself.
Like her brother she was slow and sparing of speech; and her eyes often
had in them the look, so often in his, as if she were watching something
far away in the distance. She very rarely took much part in the
interminable gossip of the other village women when they met at the tank
or outside their huts. This gossip is always connected with their
husbands and children, food and quarrels.

But Karlinahami was noted for her storytelling: she was never very
willing to begin, but often, after the evening meal had been eaten, the
women and many of the men would gather in Silindu's compound to listen
to one of her stories. They sat round the one room or outside round the
door, very still and silent, listening to her droning voice as she
squatted by the fire and stared out into the darkness. Outside lay
Silindu, apparently paying no attention to the tale. The stories were
either old tales which she had learnt from her mother, or were stories
usually about Buddha, which she had heard told by pilgrims round the
campfire on their way to pilgrimages, or in the madamas or pilgrims'
resting-places at festivals. These tales, and a curious droning chant
with which she used to sing them to sleep, were the first things that
the two children remembered. This chant was peculiar to Karlinahami, and
no other woman of the village used it. She had learnt it from her
mother. The words ran thus:


'Sleep, child, sleep against my side,
Aiyo! aiyo! the weary way you've cried;
Hush, child, hush, pressed close against my side.

'Aiyo! aiyo! will the trees never end?
Our women's feet are weary; O Great One, send
Night on us, that our wanderings may end.

'Hush, child, hush, thy father leads the way,
Thy mother's feet are weary, but the day
Will end somewhere for the followers in the way.

'Aiyo! aiyo! the way is rough and steep,
Aiyo! the thorns are sharp, the rivers deep,
But the night comes at last. So sleep, child, sleep.'


Until Punchi Menika and Hinnihami were three years old Silindu appeared
not even to be aware of their existence. He took no notice of them in
the house or compound, and never spoke about them. But one day he was
sitting in front of his hut staring into the jungle, when Punchi Menika
crawled up to him and put her hand on his knee, and looked solemnly up
into his face. Silindu looked down at her, took her by her hands, and
stood her up between his two knees. He stared vacantly into her eyes for
some time, and then suddenly he began to speak to her in a low voice:

'Little toad! why have you left the pond? Isn't there food there for
your little belly? Rice and cocoanuts and mangoes and little cakes of
kurakkan? Is the belly full, that you have left the pond for the jungle?
Foolish little toad! The water is good, but the trees are evil. You have
come to a bad place of dangers and devils. Yesterday, little toad, I lay
under a domba-tree by the side of a track, my gun in my hand, waiting
for what might pass. The devils are very angry in the jungle, for there
has been no rain now for these three months. The water-holes are dry;
the leaves and grass are brown; the deer are very thin; and the fawns,
dropped this year, are dying of weakness and hunger and thirst.
Therefore, the devils are hungry, and there is nothing more terrible
than a hungry devil. Well, there I lay, flat on the ground, with my gun
in my hand; and I saw on the opposite side of the track, lying under a
domba-tree, a leopardess waiting for what might pass. I put down my gun,
and, "Sister," I said, "is the belly empty?" For her coat was mangy, and
the belly caught up below, as though with pain. "Yakko, he-devil," she
answered, "three days now I have killed but one thin grey monkey, and
there are two cubs in the cave to be fed. Yakkini, she-devil," I said,
"there are two little toads at home to be fed. But I still have a
handful of kurakkan in my hut, from which my sister can make cakes. It
remains from last year's chena, and after it is eaten there will be
nothing. The headman, too, is pressing for the three shillings[3] body
tax. 'How,' I say to him, 'can there be money where there is not even
food?' But the kurakkan will last until next poya day. Therefore, your
hunger is greater than mine. The first kill is yours." So we lay still a
long time, and at last I heard far away the sound of a hoof upon a dry
stick. "Sister," I whispered, "I hear a deer coming this way. Yakko,
have you no ears?" she said. "A long while now I have been listening to
a herd of wild pig coming down wind. Can you not even now hear their
strong breathing, and their rooting in the dry earth, and the patter of
the young ones' feet on the dry leaves? Yakkini," I said, for I heard
her teeth clicking in the darkness, "the ear of the hungry is in the
belly: the sound of your teeth can be heard a hoo[4] cry's distance
away." So we lay still again, and at last the herd of pigs came down the
track. First came an old boar, very black, his tusks shining white in
the shadows; then many sows and young boars; and here and there the
little pigs running in and out among the sows. And as they passed, one
of the little pigs ran out near the domba-bush, and Yakkini sprang and
caught it in her teeth, and leapt with it into the branch of a palu-tree
which overhung the path. There she sat, and the little pig in her mouth
screamed to its mother. Then all the little pigs ran together screaming,
and stood on one side, near the bush where I lay; and the great boars
and the young boars and sows ran round the palu-tree, looking up at
Yakkini, and making a great noise. And the old sow, who had borne the
little pig in Yakkini's mouth, put her forefeet against the trunk of the
tree, and looked up, and said, "Come down, Yakkini; she-devil, thief.
Are you afraid of an old, tuskless sow? Come down." But the leopardess
laughed, and bit the little pig in the back behind the head until it
died, and she called down to the old sow, "Go your way, mother. There
are two cubs at home in the cave, and they are very hungry. Every year I
drop but one or two cubs in the cave, but the whole jungle swarms with
your spawn. I see eight brothers and sisters of your child there by the
domba-bush. Go your way, lest I choose another for my mate. Also, I do
mot like your man's teeth." The old boar and the sows were very angry,
and for a long while they ran round the tree, and tore at it with their
tusks, and looked up and cursed Yakkini. But Yakkini sat and watched
them, and licked the blood which dripped from the little pig's back. I
too lay very still under my domba-bush, for there is danger in an angry
herd. At last the old boar became tired, and he gathered the little pigs
together in the middle of the herd, and led them away down the track.
Then Yakkini dropped to the ground, and bounded away into the jungle,
carrying the little pig in her mouth. So you see, little crow, it is a
bad place to which you have come. Be careful, or some other devil will
drop on you out of a bush, and carry you off in his mouth.'

While Silindu had been speaking, Hinnihami had crawled and tottered
across the compound to join her sister. At the end of his long story she
was leaning against his shoulder. From that day he seemed to regard the
two children differently from the rest of the world in which he lived.
He was never tired of pouring out to them in a low, monotonous drone his
thoughts, opinions, and doings. That they did not understand a word of
what he said did not trouble him in the least; but when they grew old
enough to understand and to speak and to question him, he began to take
a new pleasure in explaining to them the world in which he lived.

It was a strange world, a world of bare and brutal facts, of
superstition, of grotesque imagination; a world of trees and the
perpetual twilight of their shade; a world of hunger and fear and
devils, where a man was helpless before the unseen and unintelligible
powers surrounding him. He would go over to them again and again in the
season of drought the reckoning of his small store of grain, and the
near approach of the time when it would be exhausted; his perpetual fear
of hunger; his means and plans for obtaining just enough for existence
until the next chena season. But, above all, his pleasure seemed to be
to tell them of the jungle, of his wanderings in search of game, of his
watchings by the water-holes at night, of the animals and devils which
lived among its shadows.




CHAPTER II


So Punchi Menika and Hinnihami grew up to be somewhat different from the
other village children, who crawl and play about the compounds, always
with the women and always listening to women's gossip. Long before they
had grown strong and big enough to go down in the morning and evening
with Karlinahami to the tank, and to carry back on their heads the red
earthenware waterpots, they had learnt from Silindu to sit by his side
for hour upon hour through the hot afternoons, very still and very
silent, while he stared silently before him, or droned out his
interminable tales. They grew up to be strange and silent children,
sitting one on either side of him in a long, thoughtless trance. And
they learnt to believe all he told them about the strange world of
jungle which surrounded them, the world of devils, animals, and trees.
But above all they learnt to love him, blindly, as a dog loves his
master.

When they grew old enough to trot along by his side, Silindu used to
take them out with him into the jungle. The villagers were astonished
and shocked, but Silindu went his own way. He showed them the
water-holes upon the rocks; the thick jungle where the elephant hides
himself from the heat of the day, strolling leisurely among the trees
and breaking off great branches to feed upon the leaves as he strolls;
the wallow of the buffalo, and the caves where the bear and the leopard
make their lairs. He showed them the sambur lying during the day in the
other great caves; they dashed out, tens and tens of them, like enormous
bats from the shadow of the overhanging rocks, to disappear with a crash
into the jungle below. He taught them to walk so that no leaf rustled or
twig snapped under their feet, to creep up close to the deer and the
sambur and the pig. They were surprised at first that the animals in the
jungle did not speak to them as they always did to Silindu when he was
alone. But Silindu explained it to them. 'You are very young,' he said.
'You do not know the tracks. You are strange to the beasts. But they
know me. I have grown old among the tracks. A man must live many years
in the jungle before the beasts speak to him, or he can understand what
they say.'

Punchi Menika and Hinnihami were also unlike the other village children
in appearance. They, like Silindu, never had fever, and even in the days
of greatest scarcity Karlinahami had seen that they got food.
Karlinahami was far more careful to wash them than most mothers are: she
used to quote the saying, 'Dirt is bad and children are trouble, but a
dirty child is the worst of troubles.' The result was that they never
got parangi, or the swollen belly and pale skin of fever. Their skin was
smooth and blooming; it shone with a golden colour, like the coat of a
fawn when the sun shines on it. Their eyes were large and melancholy;
like the eyes of Buddha in the Jataka, 'they were like two windows made
of sapphire shining in a golden palace.' Their limbs were strong and
straight, for their wanderings with Silindu had made their muscles firm
as a man's, not soft like the women's who sit about in the compound,
cooking and gossiping and sleeping all day.

There was therefore considerable jealousy among the women, and
ill-feeling against Karlinahami, when they saw how her foster children
were growing up. When they were ten or eleven years old, it often burst
out against her in angry taunts at the tank.

'O Karlinahami!' Nanchohami, the headman's wife, would say, 'you are
growing an old woman and, alas, childless! But you have done much for
your brother's children. Shameless they must be to leave it to you to
fetch the water from the tank and not to help you. This is the fourth
chatty full you are carrying to-day. I have seen it with these eyes. The
lot of the childless woman is a hard one. See how my little one of eight
years helps me!'

'Nanchohami, your tongue is still as sharp as chillies. Punchi Menika
has gone with my brother, and Hinnihami is busy in the house.'

'Punchi Menika wants but three things to make her a man. I pity you,
Karlinahami, to live in the house of a madman, and to bring up his
children shameless, having no children of your own. They are vedda[5]
children, and will be vedda women, wandering in the jungle like men.'

The other women laughed, and Angohami, a dirty shrivelled woman, with
thin shrivelled breasts, called out in a shrill voice:

'Why should we suffer these veddas in the village? Their compound smells
of their own droppings, and of the offal and rotten meat on which they
feed. I have borne six children, and the last died but yesterday. In the
morning he was well: then Silindu cast the evil eye upon him as he
passed our door, and in the evening he was dead. They wither our
children that their own may thrive.'

'You lie,'said Karlinahami, roused for the moment by this abuse; 'you
lie, mother of dirt. Yesterday at this hour I saw your Podi Sinho here
in the tank, pale and shivering with fever, and pouring the cold tank
water over himself. How should such a mother keep her children? All know
that you have borne six, and that all are dead. What did you ever give
them but foul words?'

'Go and lie with your brother, the madman, the vedda, the pariah,'
shrieked Angohami as Karlinahami turned to go. 'Go to your brother of
the evil eye. You blighter of others' children, eater of offal, vesi,
vesige mau! Go to him of the evil eye, belli, bellige duwa; go to your
brother. Aiyo! aiyo! My little Podi Sinho! I am a mother only of the
dead, a mother of six dead children. Look at my breasts, shrivelled and
milkless. I say to the father of my child,[6] "Father of Podi Sinho," I
say, "there is no kurakkan in the house, there is no millet and no
pumpkin, not even a pinch of salt. Three days now I have eaten nothing
but jungle leaves. There is no milk in my breasts for the child." Then I
get foul words and blows. "Does the rain come in August?" he says. "Can
I make the kurakkan flower in July? Hold your tongue, you fool. August
is the month in which the children die. What can I do?" Then comes fever
and Silindu's evil eye, curse him, and the little ones die. Aiyo! aiyo!'

'Your man is right,' said Nanchohami. 'This is the month when the
children die. Last year in this month I buried one and my brother's wife
another. Good rain never falls now, and there is always hunger and
fever. The old die and the little ones with them. The father of my
children has but nine houses under him, and makes but five shillings a
year from his headmanship. His father's father, who was headman before
him, had thirty houses in his headmanship, and twenty shillings were
paid him by the Government every year, besides twenty-four kurunies of
paddy from the fields below the tank. I have not seen rice these five
years. The headman now gives all and receives nothing.' Here one of the
women laughed. 'You may well laugh, Podi Nona,' she continued. 'Did not
he[7] lend your man last year twenty kurunies[8] of kurakkan,[9] and has
a grain of it come back to our house? And Silindu owes another thirty,
and came but yesterday for more. And Angohami there, who whines about
her Podi Sinho, her man has had twenty-five kurunies since the reaping
of the last crop.'

These words of Nanchohami were not without effect. An uneasy movement
began among the little group of women at the mention of debts: clothes
were gathered up, the chatties of water placed on their heads, and they
began to move away out of reach of the sharp tongue of the headman's
wife. And as they moved away up the small path, which led from the tank
to the compounds, they murmured together that Nanchohami did not seem to
remember that they had to repay two kurunies of kurakkan for every
kuruni lent to them.

Nanchohami had touched the mainspring upon which the life of the village
worked--debt. The villagers lived upon debt, and their debts were the
main topic of their conversation. A good kurakkan crop, from two to four
acres of chena, would be sufficient to support a family for a year. But
no one, not even the headman, ever enjoyed the full crop which he had
reaped. At the time of reaping a band of strangers from the little town
of Kamburupitiya, thirty miles away, would come into the village.
Mohamadu Lebbe Ahamadu Cassim, the Moorman boutique-keeper, had supplied
clothes to be paid for in grain, with a hundred per cent, interest, at
the time of reaping; the fat Sinhalese Mudalali,[10] Kodikarage Allis
Appu, had supplied grain and curry stuffs on the same terms; and among a
crowd of smaller men the sly-faced low-caste man, who called himself
Achchige Don Andris (his real name Andrissa would have revealed his
caste), who, dressed in dirty white European trousers and a coat, was
the agent of the tavern-keeper in Kamburupitiya, from whom the villagers
had taken on credit the native spirit, made from the juice of the
cocoanut flowers, to be drunk at the time of marriages. The villagers
neither obtained nor expected any pity from this horde. With the reaping
of the chenas came the settlement of debts. With their little greasy
notebooks, full of unintelligible letters and figures, they descended
upon the chenas; and after calculations, wranglings, and abuse, which
lasted for hour after hour, the accounts were settled, and the strangers
left the village, their carts loaded with pumpkins, sacks of grain, and
not infrequently the stalks of Indian hemp,[11] which by Government
order no man may grow or possess, for the man that smokes it becomes
mad. And when the strangers had gone, the settlement with the headman
began; for the headman, on a small scale, lent grain on the same terms
in times of scarcity, or when seed was wanted to sow the chenas.

In the end the villager carried but little grain from his chena to his
hut. Very soon after the reaping of the crop he was again at the
headman's door, begging for a little kurakkan to be repaid at the next
harvest, or tramping the thirty miles to Kamburupitiya to hang about the
bazaar, until the Mudalali agreed once more to enter his name in the
greasy notebook.

With the traders in Kamburupitiya the transactions were purely matters
of business, but with the headman the whole village recognised that they
were something more. It was a very good thing for Babehami, the
Arachchi, to feel that Silindu owed him many kurunies of kurakkan which
he could not repay. When Babehami wanted some one to clear a chena for
him, he asked Silindu to do it; and Silindu, remembering the debt, dared
not refuse. When Silindu shot a deer--for which offence the Arachchi
should have brought him before the police court at Kamburupitiya--he
remembered his debt, and the first thing he did was to carry the best
piece of meat as an offering to the headman's house. And Babehami was a
quiet, cunning man in the village: he never threatened, and rarely
talked of his loans to his debtors, but there were few in the village
who dared to cross him, and who did not feel hanging over them the power
of the little man.

The power which they felt hanging over them was by no means imaginary;
it could make the life of the man who offended the headman extremely
unpleasant. It was not only by his loans that Babehami had his hand upon
the villagers; their daily life could be made smooth or difficult by him
at every turn.

The life of the village and of every man in it depended upon the
cultivation of chenas. A chena is merely a piece of jungle, which every
ten years is cleared of trees and undergrowth and sown with grain
broadcast and with vegetables. The villagers owned no jungle themselves;
it belonged to the Crown, and no one might fell a tree or clear a chena
in it without a permit from the Government. It was through these permits
that the headman had his hold upon the villagers. Application for one
had to be made through him; it was he who reported if a clearing had
been made without one, or if a man, having been given one, cleared more
jungle than it allowed him to clear. Every one in the village knew well
that Babehami's friends would find no difficulty in obtaining the
authority to clear a chena, and that the Agent Hamadoru[12] would never
hear from Babehami whether they had cleared four acres or eight. But the
life of the unfortunate man, who had offended the headman, would be full
of dangers and difficulties. The permit applied for by him would be very
slow in reaching his hands: when it did reach his hands, if he cleared
half an acre more than it allowed him to clear, his fine would be heavy;
and woe betide him if he rashly cleared a chena without a permit at all.

Babehami had never liked Silindu, who was a bad debtor. Silindu was too
lazy even to cultivate a chena properly, and even in a good year his
crop was always the smallest in the village. He was always in want, and
always borrowing; and Babehami found it no easy task to gather in
principal and interest after the boutique-keepers from Kamburupitiya had
taken their dues. And he was not an easy man to argue with: if he wanted
a loan he would, unheeding of any excuse or refusal, hang about the
headman's door for a whole day. But if it were a case of repayment, he
would sit staring over his creditor's head, listening, without a sign or
a word, to the quiet persuasive arguments of the headman.

The headman's dislike became more distinct after the birth of Punchi
Menika and Hinnihami. Silindu had resented his interference between him
and his wife, and when Dingihami died bitter words had passed between
them; Though Silindu soon forgot them, Babehami did not. For years
Silindu did not realise what was taking place, but he vaguely felt that
life was becoming harder for him. A month after Dingihami's death his
store of grain was exhausted, and it became necessary for him to begin
his yearly borrowings. Accordingly, he took his gun and went in the
evening to the nearest water-hole to wait for deer. The first night he
was unsuccessful: no deer came to drink; but on the second he shot a
doe. He skinned the deer, cut it up, and carried the meat to his hut. He
then carefully chose the best piece of meat, and took it with him to
Babehami's house. The headman was squatting in his doorway chewing
betel. His little eyes twinkled when he saw Silindu with the meat.

'Ralahami,'[13] said Silindu, stopping just outside the door, 'yesterday
I was in the jungle collecting domba fruit--what else is there to
eat?--when I smelt a smell of something dead some fathoms away. I
searched about, and soon I came upon the carcass of a doe killed by a
leopard--the marks of his claws were under the neck, and the belly was
eaten. The meat I have brought to my house. This piece is for you.'

The headman took the meat in silence, and hung it up in the house. He
fetched a chew of betel and gave it to Silindu. The two men then
squatted down, one on each side of the door. For a long time neither
spoke: their chewing was only interrupted every now and then by the
ejection of a jet of red saliva. At last Babehami broke the silence:

'Four days ago I was in Kamburupitiya--I was called to the kachcheri
there. They asked me two fanams[14] in the bazaar for a cocoanut.'

'Aiyo! I have not seen a cocoanut for two years.'

'Two fanams! And last year at this time they were but one fanam each. In
the bazaar I met the Korala Mahatmaya. The Korala Mahatmaya is a hard
man: he said to me, "Arachchi, there are guns in your village for which
no permit has been given by the Agent Hamadoru." I said to him,
"Ralahami, if there be, the fault is not mine." Then he said, "The order
has come from the Agent Hamadoru to the Disa Mahatmaya[15] that if one
gun be found without permit in a headman's village there will be trouble
both for the Arachchi and the Korala." Now the Disa Mahatmaya is a good
man, but the Korala is hard; and they say in Kamburupitiya that the
Agent Hamadoru is very hard and strict, and goes round the villages
searching for guns for which no permits have been given. They say, too,
that he will come this way next month.'

There was a short silence, and then Babehami continued:

'It is five months, Silindu, since I told you to take a permit for your
gun, and you have not done so yet. The time to pay three shillings has
gone by, and you will now have to pay four. The Korala is a hard man,
and the Agent Hamadoru will come next month.'

Silindu salaamed.

'Ralahami, I am a poor man. How can I pay four shillings or even three?
There is not a fanam in the house. There was a permit taken two years
ago. You are my father and my mother. I will hide the gun in a place
that only I know of, and if it be taken or question be made, is it not
easy to say that the stock was broken, and it was not considered
necessary to take a permit for a broken gun?'

But the argument, which before had been successful with Babehami, now
seemed to have lost its strength.

'A permit is required. It is the order of Government. I have told you
the Korala is a hard man, and he is angry with me because I brought him
but two cocoanuts as a present, whereas other Arachchis bring him an
amunam of paddy. For I, too, am a poor man.'

Silindu sat in helpless silence. The hopelessness of raising two rupees
to pay for a gun licence for the moment drove out of his mind the object
of his coming to Babehami's house. All that he felt was the misery of a
new misfortune, and, as was his nature, he sat dumb under it. At last,
however, the pressing need of the moment again recurred to him, and he
started in the tortuous way, habitual to villagers, to approach the
subject.

'Ralahami, is there any objection to my clearing Nugagahahena next chena
season?'

'There are three months before the chena season. Why think of that now?'

'When the belly is empty, the mouth talks of rice. Last year my chena
crop was bad. There was but little rain, and the elephants broke in and
destroyed much kurakkan. The Lord Buddha himself would be powerless
against the elephants.'

Silindu got up as if to go. He took a step towards the stile which led
into the compound, and then turned back as if he had just remembered
something, and began in a soft, wheedling voice:

'Ralahami, there is nothing to eat in the house. There is Karlinahami to
feed too. If you could but lend me ten kurunies! I would repay it
twofold at the reaping of Nugagahahena.'

Babehami chewed for some minutes, and then spat with great deliberation.

'I have no grain to lend now, Silindu.'

'Ralahami, it is only ten kurunies I am asking for--only ten
kurunies--and surely the barn behind your house is full.'

'There is very little grain in the barn now, and what there is will not
last me until the reaping of the next crop. There is the old man, my
father, to be fed, and my wife and her brother, and the two children.'

'Will you let me die of hunger? and my two children? Give but five
kurunies, and I will repay it threefold.'

'If you had come last poya, Silindu, I could have given it. But I owed
fifteen rupees to Nandiyas, the boutique-keeper in Kamburupitiya, for
clothes, and I took kurakkan to pay it. The barn is all but empty.'

'Aiyo! We must die of hunger then. Give but one measure, and I will
repay one kuruni at next reaping.'

'I paid away all my grain that was in the barn. The grain which remains
is my father's, and he keeps it for his use. You must go to the Mudalali
in Kamburupitiya, Silindu, and borrow from him. And when you go there,
remember, you must take a permit for the gun.'

Silindu felt that he had nothing more to say. He had the meat at home
which he would dry and take to Kamburupitiya and sell in the bazaar.
Then he would have to borrow from the Mudalali, who knew him too well to
give anything but ruinous terms. Perhaps in that way he would manage to
return to the village with a few kurunies of kurakkan and a gun licence.
He walked slowly away from the headman's compound. Babehami's little
eyes twinkled as he saw Silindu move away, and he smiled to himself.




CHAPTER III


Silindu made the journey to Kamburupitiya, obtained the licence for his
gun and some grain, but life continued to become harder for him. The
headman's ill-feeling worked against him unostentatiously, and in all
sorts of little things. He never thought about the motives and
intentions of those around him, and Babehami always had some excuse for
refusing a loan or pressing for payment of the body tax. He did not
become conscious of Babehami's enmity, or aware that many of the
difficulties of his life were due to it.

The collection of the body tax was a good example of the way in which
the headman worked against him. Every villager had to pay the
three-shilling tax or do work on the roads, work which was the worst of
hardships to them. It had always been Babehami's custom to pay himself
the tax for each villager, and then recover what he had paid, with heavy
interest, out of the crops at the time of reaping. But for some years
after Dingihami's death, Silindu found that when the time to pay the tax
came round, Babehami was always short of money. Silindu never had any
money himself, and he was therefore compelled to work upon the roads.

As the years passed he became more sullen, more taciturn, and more lazy.
Some evil power--one of the unseen powers which he could not
understand--was, he felt, perpetually working against him. He tried to
escape from it, or at any rate to forget it by leaving the village for
the jungle. He would disappear for days together into the jungle, living
upon roots and the fruit of jungle trees, and anything which might fall
to his gun. He talked with no one except Punchi Menika and Hinnihami.
For them he never had a harsh word, and it was seldom that he returned
to the hut without bringing them some wild fruit or a comb of the wild
honey.

Gradually the hut of the veddas, as they were nicknamed, seemed to the
other villagers to fall under a cloud. The headman's enmity and the
strange ways of Silindu formed a bar to intercourse. And so it came
about that Punchi Menika and Hinnihami grew up somewhat outside the
ordinary life of the village. The strangeness and wildness of their
father hung about them: as the other women said of them, they grew up in
the jungle and not in the village. But with their strangeness and
wildness went a simplicity of mind and of speech, which showed in many
ways, but above all in their love for Silindu and each other.

Their lives were harder even than those of the other village women. As
they became older the fear of hunger became more and more present with
them. When Silindu was away from the village they were often compelled
to live upon the fruits and leaves and roots, which they gathered
themselves in the jungle. And when the chena season began, they worked
like the men and boys in the chenas. They cut down the undergrowth and
burnt it; they cleared the ground and sowed the grain; they lay out all
night in the watch huts to scare away the deer and wild pig which came
to damage the crop.

When they were fifteen, Babun Appu, the brother of Nanchohami, came to
live in his brother-in-law's, the headman's, house. He had previously
lived in another house with his father, an old man, toothless and
brainless. When the old man whom he had supported died, he abandoned his
hut and came to live with his sister and her husband. The number of
houses in the village thus sank to eight.

At that time Babun Appu was twenty-one years old. He was tall for a
Sinhalese, broad-shouldered, and big-boned. His skin was a dark
chocolate-brown, his face oval, his nose small, his lips full and
sensual. His expression was curiously virile and simple; but his brown
eyes, which were large and oval-shaped, swept it at moments with
something soft, languorous, and feminine. This impression of a mixture
of virility and femininity was heightened by the long hair, which he
tied in a knot at the back of his head after the custom of villagers. He
was noted for his strength, his energy, and his good humour. The minds
of most villagers are extraordinarily tortuous and suspicious, but Babun
was remarkable for his simplicity. It used to be said of him in the
village, 'Babun's Appu could not cheat a child; but a child, who had not
learnt to talk, could cheat Babun Appu.'

For two years Babun had lived in the hut adjoining Silindu's without
ever speaking more than a word or two to Punchi Menika. But her presence
began to move him strongly. His lips parted, and his breathing became
fast and deep as he saw her move about the compound. He watched in
painful excitement her swelling breasts and the fair skin, which went
into soft folds at her hips when she bent down for anything.

One night in the chena season Punchi Menika had been watching the crop
of her father's chena. It lay three miles away from the village, at some
distance from any other chena. The track therefore which led from it to
the village was used by no one except herself, her father, and sister.
In the early morning she started back to the hut.

There had been rain during the night, and the jungle was fresh and
green. That freshness, which the time of rain brings for so brief a
time, was upon all things. The jungle was golden with the great hanging
clusters of the cassia flowers. The bushes were starred with the white
karambu flowers, and splashed with masses of white and purple kettan.
The grey monkeys leapt, shrieking and mocking, from bough to bough; the
jungle was filled with the calling of the jungle fowl and the wild cries
of the peacocks. From the distance came the trumpeting and shrieking of
a herd of elephants. As Punchi Menika passed a bush she heard from
behind it the clashing of horns. Very quietly she peered round. Two
stags were fighting, the tines of the horns interlocked; up and down,
backwards and forwards, snorting, panting, and straining they struggled
for the doe which stood grazing quietly beside. Punchi Menika had crept
up very quietly; but the doe became uneasy, lifted her head, and looked
intently at the bush behind which Punchi Menika crouched. She approached
the bush slowly, stamping the ground angrily from time to time, and
uttering the sharp shrill call of alarm. But the bucks fought on, up and
down the open space. Punchi Menika laughed as she turned away. 'Fear
nothing, sister,' she said, 'there is no leopard crouching for you.
Fight on, brothers, for the prize is fair.'

Punchi Menika walked slowly on down the track. The blood in her veins
moved strangely, stirred by the stirring life around her. The trumpet
call of the sambur blared through the jungle, a terrific cry of desire.
The girl, who had heard it unmoved thousands of times before, started at
the sound of it. A sense of uneasiness came over her. Suddenly she
stopped at the sight of something which moved behind a bush down the
track.

She stood trembling as Babun came out of the jungle and walked towards
her. His eyes were very bright; his teeth showed white between his
parted lips; the long black hair upon his breast glistened with sweat.
He stood in front of her.

'Punchi Menika,' he said, 'I have come to you.'

'Aiyo!' she answered. 'I was very frightened. I thought you were a devil
of the trees crouching there for me behind the bushes. Even when we were
little children our father warned us against the devils that would leap
upon us from the bushes.'

'I have come to you. Come with me out of the path into the thick jungle.
Last night I could not sleep for thinking of you. So I came in the early
morning along the path to meet you on your way from the chena. I cannot
sleep, Punchi Menika, for thinking of you. I have watched you in the
compound and at the tank--your fair skin and the little breasts. Do not
fear, I will not hurt you, Punchi Menika; but come, come quickly, out of
the path.'

A strange feeling of excitement came over the girl, of joy and fear, as
Babun leant towards her, and put out his hand to take her by the wrist.
A great desire to fly from him, and at the same time to be caught by him
came over her. She stood looking down until his fingers touched her
skin; then with a cry she broke from him, and ran down the track to the
village. She heard his breathing very close to her as she ran; and when
she looked round over her shoulder she felt his breath on her face, saw
his bright eyes and great lips, through which the teeth shone white.
Another moment and she felt the great strength of his arms as he seized
her. He held her close to him by the wrists.

'Why do you run, why are you frightened, Punchi Menika? I will not hurt
you.'

She allowed him to take her into the thick jungle, but she struggled
with him, and her whole body shook with fear and desire as she felt his
hands upon her breasts. A cry broke from her, in which joy and desire
mingled with the fear and the pain:

'Aiyo! aiyo!'




CHAPTER IV


In towns and large villages there are, especially among people of the
higher castes, many rigid customs and formalities regarding marriages
always observed. It is true that the exclusion of women no longer
exists; but young girls after puberty are supposed to be kept within the
house, and only to meet men of the immediate family. A marriage is
arranged formally; a formal proposal is made by the man's father or
mother to the girl's father or mother. There are usually long
negotiations and bargainings between the two families over the dowry.
When at last the preliminaries are settled and the wedding day arrives,
it is a very solemn and formal affair. All the members of each family
are invited; the bridegroom goes with his friends and relations to the
house of the bride, and then conducts her in procession, followed by the
guests, to his own house. Much money is spent upon entertaining, and new
clothes and presents.

But in villages like Beddagama, these customs and formalities are often
not observed. The young girls are not kept within the house; they have
to work. The young men know them, and often choose for themselves. There
is no family arrangement, no formal proposal of marriage; the villagers
are too poor for there to be any question of a dowry.

And yet the villager makes a clear distinction between marriage and what
he calls concubinage. In the former the woman is recognised by his and
her families as his wife; almost invariably she is openly taken to his
house, and there is a procession and feasting on the wedding day: in the
latter the woman is never publicly recognised as a wife. Marriage is
considered to be more respectable than concubinage, and in a headman's
immediate family it would be more usual to find the women 'recognised'
wives than 'unrecognised' wives. And though in the ordinary village life
the 'unrecognised' wife is as common as, or even more common than, the
'recognised' wife, and is treated by all exactly as if she were the
man's wife, yet the distinction is understood and becomes apparent upon
formal occasions. For instance, a woman who is living with a man as his
'unrecognised' wife cannot be present at her sister's wedding. When a
man takes a woman to live with him in this informal way, the arrangement
is, however, regarded as in many ways a formal one, a slightly lower
form than the recognised marriage. The man and the woman are of the same
caste always: there would even be strong objection on the part of the
man or woman's relations if either the one or the other did not come
from a 'respectable' family.

Babun knew well his brother-in-law's dislike of Silindu, and the
contempt with which the 'veddas' were regarded by the other villagers.
He knew that his sister and Babehami would be very angry with him if he
chose a wife from such a family. But he had watched Punchi Menika, and
gradually a love, which was more than mere desire, had grown up in him.
The wildness and strangeness of her father and of Hinnihami were
tempered in her by a wonderful gentleness. Passion and desire were
strong in him: they would allow no interference with his determination
to take her to live with him.

The night after his meeting with Punchi Menika on the path from the
chena, he broke the news to Nanchohami and Babehami, as he and his
brother-in-law were eating the evening meal.

'Sister,' he said, 'it is time that, I took a wife.'

Nanchohami laughed. 'There is no difficulty. When you go to the chena
the women look after you and smile and say, "Chi! chi! There goes a man.
O that he would take my daughter to his house." But there are no women
for you here. They are all sickly things, unfit to bear you children.'

'My father's brother married a woman of Kotegoda,' said Babehami. 'In
those days wives brought dowries with them--of land. He went to live on
her land at Kotegoda: it lies fifty miles away, towards Ruhuna. His sons
and daughters are married now in that village, and have children. They
are rich: it is a good village: rain falls there, and there are cocoanut
lands, and paddy grows. The village spreads and prospers, and the
headman is a rich man. They say that tax is paid upon sixty men every
year. It would be a good thing for you to take a wife from there, for
she would bring you a dowry.'

'Yes,' said Nanchohami, 'it would be a good thing for you to go to
Kotegoda and take a woman from there, a daughter of my man's
brother.[16] She would bring you land, and you could settle there. What
use is it to live in this village? Even the chena crops wither for want
of rain. It is an evil place this.'

'I want no woman of Kotegoda,' said Babun. 'Nor will I leave the
village. There is a woman, this Punchi Menika, the daughter of Silindu.
I am going to take her to live with me.'

Babehami looked at his brother-in-law, his little eyes moving restlessly
in astonishment and anger. Nanchohami threw up her hands, and began in a
voice which shrilled and fluted with anger:

'Ohé! So we are to take veddas into the house, and I am to call a
pariah sister! A fine and a rich wife! A pariah woman, a vedda, a
daughter of a dog, vesi, vesige duwa! Ohé! the headman's brother is to
marry a sweeper of jakes! Do you hear this? Will you allow these
Tamils[17] in your house? Yes, 'twill be a fine thing in the village to
hear that the headman has given his wife and daughters to Rodiyas,[18]
leopards, jackals!'

Babehami broke in upon his wife's abuse; but she, now thoroughly
aroused, continued throughout the conversation to pour out a stream of
foul words from the background in a voice which gradually rose shriller
and shriller.

'The woman is right,' Babehami said angrily to Babun. 'You cannot bring
this woman to the house.'

'I will take no other woman. I have watched her there about the
compound. She is fair and gentle. She is unlike the other women of this
village (here he looked round at Nanchohami), in whose mouths are always
foul words.'

Babehami tried to hide his anger. He knew his brother-in-law to be
obstinate as well as good-humoured and simple.

'No doubt the woman is fair. But if you desire her, is she not free to
all to take? Does she not wander, like a man, in the jungle? They say
that even kings have desired Rodiya women. If you desire her, it is not
hard to take her. But there need be no talk of marriage, or bringing her
to the house.'

'This morning I took her with me into the jungle, but it is not enough;
the desire is still with me. I have thought about it. It is time that I
took a wife to cook my food and bear me children. I want no other than
this. I can leave your compound, and build myself a new house, and take
her to live with me.'

Babehami's anger began to break out again.

'Are you a fool? Will you take this beggar woman to be your wife? Is not
her father always about my door crying for a handful of kurakkan? Fool!
I tell you my brother's children in Kotegoda will bring you land, paddy
land, and cocoanuts. There is no difference between one woman and
another.'

'I tell you I want no Kotegoda woman. I will take the daughter of
Silindu. I want no strange woman or strange village. I can build myself
a house here, and clear chenas, as my father did and his father.'

'Is it for this I took you into my house? Two years you have eaten my
food. How much of my kurakkan have you taken?'

'I have taken nothing from you. I have worked two years in the chena,
and the crop came to you, not to me. Is not the grain now in your barn
from the chena cleared by me?'

Babehami was too quiet and cunning often to give way to anger, but this
time he was carried away by the defiance of his brother-in-law, whom he
regarded as a fool. He gesticulated wildly:

'Out of my house, dog; out of my house. You shall bring no woman to my
compound. Go and lie with the pariahs in their own filth?'

Babun got up and stood over Babehami.

'I am going,' he said quietly, 'and I will take Punchi Menika as my
wife.'

The abuse of the headman and his wife followed him out of the compound.
He walked slowly over to Silindu's hut. He found Silindu squatting under
a ragged mustard-tree which stood in the compound, and he squatted down
by his side. He did not like Silindu; he had always an uncomfortable
feeling in the presence of this wild man, who never spoke to any one
unless he was spoken to; and he felt it difficult to begin now upon the
subject which had brought him to the compound. Silindu paid no attention
to him. Babun sat there unable to begin, listening to the sounds of the
women in the hut. At last he said:

'Silindu, I have come to speak to you about your daughter Punchi
Menika.'

Silindu remained quite still: he apparently had not heard. Babun touched
him on the arm.

'I am talking of your daughter, Silindu, Punchi Menika.'

Silindu turned and looked at him.

'The girl is in the house. What have you to do with her?'

'I want you to listen to me, Silindu, for there is much to say. I have
watched the girl from the headman's compound, and a charm has come upon
me. I cannot eat or sleep for thinking of her. So I said to my sister
and my sister's husband, "It is time for me to take a wife, and now I
will bring this girl into the compound." But they were very angry, for
they want to marry me to a woman of Kotegoda, because of the land which
she would bring as dowry. To-night they abused me, and there was a
quarrel. I have left their compound. Now I will make myself a house in
the old compound where my father lived, and I will take the girl there
as my wife.'

Silindu had become more and more attentive as he listened to Babun. The
words seemed to distress him: he shifted about, fidgeted with his hands,
scratched himself all over his body. When Babun stopped, he took some
time before he said:

'The girl is too young to be given to a man.'

Babun laughed. 'The girl has attained her age. She is older than many a
woman who has a husband.'

'The girl is too young. I cannot give her to you, or evil will come
of it.'

Babun's patience began to be exhausted. His good humour had been
undisturbed during the scene in the headman's compound, but this new
obstacle began to rouse him. His voice rose:

'I cannot live without the girl. I have quarrelled with my sister and
the headman over her; I have left the compound for her. I ask no dowry.
Why should you refuse her to me?'

'They call us veddas in the village, while you are of the headman's
house. Does the leopard of the jungle mate with the dog of the village?'

'That is nothing to me. The wild buffalo seeks the cows in the village
herds. The girl is very gentle, and my mind is made up. Also the girl
wishes to come to me.'

The loud voices of the two men had reached the women in the house. They
had come out, and stood listening behind the men. At the last words of
Babun, Silindu cried out as if he had been struck:

'Aiyo! aiyo! they take even my daughter from me. Is there money in the
house? No. Is there rice? No. Is there kurakkan, or chillies, or
jaggery,[19] or salt even? The house is empty. But there is always
something for the thief to find. They creep in while I am away in the
jungle; they see the little ones whom I have fed, the little ones who
laughed and called me "Appochchi"[20] when I brought them fruits and
honeycomb from the jungle. They creep in like the hooded snake, and
steal them away from me. Aiyo! aiyo! The little ones laugh to go.'

Punchi Menika rushed forward, threw herself at Silindu's feet, which she
touched and caressed with her hands. She struck the ground several times
with her forehead, crying and wailing:

'Appochchi! Appochchi! Will you kill me with your words? I will never
leave you nor my sister.'

Babun turned upon her:

'Are the words in the jungle nothing then? Did you lie to me when you
said you would come to my house? They are right then when they say that
women's words are lies--in the morning one thing, at night another. Did
I not tell you that I cannot be without you? Aiyo! You told me there
under the cassia-tree that you would come to me and cook my rice. And in
the evening I am homeless and without you! I shall go now into the
jungle and hang myself.'

Babun moved away, but Karlinahami caught hold of his hand and pulled him
back. Punchi Menika threw herself on the ground again in front of
Silindu.

'Appochchi! it is true: I said I would go to him. Do not kill me with
bitter words. I must go: I cannot be without him. I gave my word: what
can I do?'

Punchi Menika crouched down at Silindu's feet. He sat very still for a
little while, and then began in a low, moaning voice:

'Did I not often tell you of the devils of the trees that lurk for you
by the way? I have stood by you against them in the day: I have held you
in my arms when they howled about the house at night. I told you that
the place is evil, and evil comes from it. They lie in the shadows of
the trees, and cast spells on you as you pass. And now one has got you,
and you laugh to go from me. They sit in the trees among the grey
monkeys and laugh at me as I pass in the morning: they howl at me among
the jackals as I come back in the evening. They take all from me, and
the house is very empty.'

'Appochchi! the devils are not taking me. I shall not leave you; when
you come from the jungle I shall be here with my sister. But the man has
called to me and I must go to him. The cub does not always remain in the
cave by the father's side: her time comes, and she hears her mate call
from the neighbouring rocks: she leaves her father's cave for another's.
But, Appochchi, she will still look out for the old leopard when he
returns: she will live very close to him.'

'Aiyo! aiyo! the house will be empty.'

'The doe cannot always stay with the herd. She hears the call of the
buck, and they fly together into the jungle.'

'The house is empty. There is no use for me to live now.'

Karlinahami, who had been growing more and more impatient, here broke
in:

'Are you mad, brother? The child is a woman now, and it is time to give
her to a man. Is she to die childless because she has a father? There is
no need for her even to leave the compound. There is room for Babun to
make himself a house here.'

Babun eagerly seized upon this suggestion. He assured Silindu that he
had no intention of taking Punchi Menika out of the compound. Punchi
Menika, still crouching at his feet, told her father that she would
never leave him.

It was eventually arranged that for the present Babun should live in the
house while he put up another house for himself and Punchi Menika.
Silindu took no part in the discussion. After Karlinahami intervened, he
became silent: there was nothing for him to do or to say which could
help him: it was only one more of the evils which inevitably came upon
him. The talk died down: the others went into the house to prepare the
evening meal. He sat on under the mustard-tree, staring at the outline
of the trees against the starlit sky. The silence of the jungle settled
down upon the compound. Punchi Menika brought him his food. She tried to
comfort him, to get him to come into the house, but for once she could
not rouse him. He sat in the compound through the night, staring into
the darkness, and muttering from time to time, 'Aiyo, the house is
empty!'




CHAPTER V


Babun put up a new hut in Silindu's compound, and three weeks after he
left his brother-in-law, he and Punchi Menika began to live together in
it. It was the beginning of a far greater prosperity for the family.
Babun worked hard: he cleared his chena and watched it well: his crop
was always the best in the village, and the produce went with Silindu's
into a barn which served in common for the whole compound.

Silindu did not again refer to Punchi Menika's leaving him. He seemed
hardly to be aware of Babun's existence in the compound: he very rarely
addressed a word to him. In fact, he now scarcely ever spoke to any one
except Hinnihami. When he came back to the compound from the jungle or
from the chenas, he never went into the new hut, where Punchi Menika
lived: he never called her to him as he had been used to do. If she came
out in the evenings to sit with him and speak with him, he answered her
questions; but he no longer poured out to her everything that was in his
mind, as he still did to Hinnihami. It seemed as if he were unable to
share her with another.

And Punchi Menika altered. Her blind love for her father and her sister
remained, but it was swamped by a fierce attachment to Babun. She felt
the barrier which had grown up and separated her from Silindu, and in a
less degree from Hinnihami. And as her life became different, she lost
some of the wildness which had before belonged to her. She began to lead
a life more like the other village women. She no longer went to, or
worked, in the chena; the jungle began to lose its hold on her. She had
listened from the time when she first began to understand anything to
the tales of her father, and imperceptibly his views of life had become
hers: she and he were only two out of the countless animals which wander
through the jungle, continually beset by hunger and fear. But as she
became more and more separated from him and attached to Babun, this view
of life--always vague and unconsciously held--became vaguer and dimmer.
The simplicity of Babun reacted upon her: she became the man's woman,
the cook of his food, the cleaner of his house, the bearer of his
children.

There had always been considerable difference in character between
Hinnihami and Punchi Menika. There was very little of her sister's
gentleness in Hinnihami. There was, added to the strangeness and
wildness which she derived from Silindu, a violence of feeling far
greater than his. You could see this in her eyes, which gradually lost
the melancholy of childhood, and glowed with a fierce, startled look
through the long black hair, which hung in disorder about her pale brown
face. The village women, who never tired of following Nanchohami's lead
in jeering at Karlinahami and Punchi Menika, soon learned to respect the
passionate anger which it was so easy to rouse in Hinnihami.

And the passion of her anger was equalled by the passion of her
attachment to Silindu and Punchi Menika. The women soon learned that it
was as dangerous to abuse in her presence her father or her sister, as
to risk a gibe at the girl herself. It was always remembered in the
village how, when Angohami once, worked up by the bitterness of her own
tongue, raised her hand against Punchi Menika, Hinnihami, then a child
of eight, had seized the baby which the woman was carrying on her hip
and flung it into the tank water.

Hinnihami had taken no part in the discussion about her sister's
marriage. But when Babun took Punchi Menika to live with him in the hut
which he had built, she felt an instinctive dislike towards him, a
feeling that she was being robbed of something. Her father and her
sister were everything to her: for she had never felt for Karlinahami
the blind affection which she felt for them. She could not understand,
therefore, how Punchi Menika could turn from them to this man whom she
had scarcely known the day before.

She saw and understood her father's anger and unhappiness, but she could
not turn against her sister. Something had happened which she did not
understand: 'an evil had come out of the jungle,' as such evils come. If
any one could be blamed, it was the stranger Babun; but as her sister
desired to go to him, she put on one side her own feelings of anger
against him. She watched in silence the new house being put up, and she
watched in silence Punchi Menika leave the old hut for the new. She felt
as if she were losing something; that her sister was going away from
her, and that her life had greatly altered. She turned with an increased
passion of attachment to her father; she refused to allow Karlinahami to
cook his food for him; if he went out alone in the jungle, she would sit
for hours in the compound watching the path by which she knew he would
return; and whenever he would allow her, she followed him on his
expeditions.

The marriage of Punchi Menika and Babun created a great sensation in the
village. The headman and his wife did not at first hide their anger, and
the thought that they had been crossed was not unpleasant to many of the
villagers. Moreover, Babun was liked, and in many ways respected. The
contempt in which the veddas had been held could no longer be shown
towards a compound where he had married and where he lived. The compound
was no longer avoided; the men entered it now to see Babun, and the
women began to come and gossip with Punchi Menika.

It was not in Babehami's nature to remain long openly an enemy of any
one. His cunning mind was inclined to, and suited for, intrigue. He
understood how much easier--and more enjoyable--it is to harm your
enemy, if he thinks that you are his friend, rather than if he knows you
are his enemy. He was, however, too angry with Babun for any open
reconciliation. He hid his anger; and though he never went into Babun's
compound, nor Babun into his, when they met in the village paths, they
spoke to one another as if there was nothing between them. But he often
thought over the reckoning which he was determined one day to have; and
it was Silindu and his family who, he made up his mind, would feel it
most heavily. He was a man who never forgot what he considered a wrong
done him. He could wait long to repay a real or imaginary injury: the
repayment might be made in many divers ways, but until it was repaid
with interest his mind was unsatisfied.

As time passed Silindu's family began again to enter into the ordinary
village life. It was natural, therefore, that the hesitation which the
villager might have felt to take a wife from the family died down before
Babun's example. People who live in towns can hardly realise how
persistent and violent are the desires of those who live in villages
like Beddagama. In many ways, and in this beyond all others, they are
very near to the animals; in fact, in this they are more brutal and
uncontrolled than the brutes; that, while the animals have their
seasons, man alone is perpetually dominated by his desires.

Hinnihami, both in face and form, was more desirable than any of the
other women. It was about a year after Babun and Punchi Menika began to
live together that proposals began to be made about her. There lived in
one of the huts, with his old mother, a man called Punchirala. He was a
tall, thin, dark man, badly afflicted with parangi. The naturally crafty
look of his face had been intensified by an accident. When a young man
he had been attacked by a bear, which met him crawling under the bushes
in search of a hive of wild bees which he had heard in the jungle. The
bear mauled him, and had left the marks of its teeth and claws upon his
cheeks and forehead, and partially destroyed his right eye. The drooping
lid of the injured eye gave him the appearance of perpetually and
cunningly winking. He had some reputation in the village as a vederala
or doctor, and also as a dealer in spells. The result of his quarrel
with his brother had made him feared and respected. They had cultivated
a chena in common, and a dispute had arisen over the division of the
produce. Punchirala considered himself to have been swindled. He went
out into the jungle and collected certain herbs, leaves, and fruit. He
put them in a cocoanut shell together with a lime, and placed them at
night in the corner of his brother's compound. The next morning his
brother was found to be lying unable to speak or move. The wife and
mother came and begged Punchirala to remove the spell. He denied all
knowledge of the matter, and in three days his brother died. The
brother's share of the chena produce was handed over to Punchirala, as
no one else was inclined to run the risk of the curse which appeared to
attach to it.

Punchirala was about thirty-eight years old. The woman who had lived
with him had died about a year previously, and the marriage of Babun had
directed his attention towards Hinnihami. His first proposals were made
to the girl herself. He was astonished by the fury with which they were
rejected, but he was not discouraged. He watched for his opportunity;
and some days later, when Hinnihami was not there, he went to Silindu's
compound. He found Silindu sitting in the shadow of the hut.

'I heard,' he said to him, 'that you have an ulcer in your foot. Let me
see. Aiyo! caused by a bad thorn! Here are some leaves. I brought them
with me. They will do it good.'

Silindu had been unable to walk for some days owing to the swelling and
pain. He was very glad to show the foot to the vederala. Punchirala sat
down to examine it, and Karlinahami and Babun came out to see what was
going on. This was exactly what Punchirala wanted. He heated the leaves
by putting them in hot water, which he made Karlinahami fetch. He tied
them on with much ceremony, and then the whole party squatted down to
talk.

'This medicine I learned from my father,' he told them. 'It is of great
power. It will draw the evil and the heat out of the foot into the
leaves, and to-morrow you will be able to walk.'

The power of medicine and spells was a subject which never failed to
appeal to Karlinahami.

'They say your father was a great man, and that in those days people
came to the village from all sides for his medicine.'

'Ah, but he was a great man, and I have all my knowledge from him. Now
the Government builds hospitals, and makes people go to them, and gives
them Government medicine, which is useless. And so our work is taken
from us, and people die of these foreign medicines. But my father was a
great man. He knew of many charms: one which would bring any woman to a
man. There is a tale about that charm. In those days there lived a
Korala Mahatmaya by the sea, a big-bellied man, a great lover of women.
Down the coast, beyond his village, was a village in which only Malay
people live. The Malay women are before all others in beauty, very fair,
with eyes shaped like pomegranate seeds. They are Mohammedan people, and
no Sinhalese can approach their women; for the men are very jealous, and
also strong and fearless. They are bad men. The Korala Mahatmaya used to
go to the village on Government work, and every time he walked through
the street, and saw the women peeping at him from the doorways--and he
saw their eyes shaped like pomegranate seeds, shining beneath the cloths
which covered their heads--he was very troubled, and longed to have a
Malay woman. At last he could bear it no longer: so he lay down in his
house, and sent a message to my father to say that he was very ill, and
that he should come to him at once. Then my father went three days'
journey to the Korala's house; and, when he came there, the Korala
Mahatmaya sent all the women out of the house, and he made my father sit
down by his side, and he said to him, "Vederala, I am very ill. I cannot
sleep: I have a great desire day and night in me for a woman from the
Malay village along the coast. I can get no pleasure from my own women.
But if I be seen even talking to a Malay woman, the men of the village
would rise and beat me to death. The desire is killing me. Now you, I
know, have great skill in charms. You must make me one therefore which
will bring a Malay woman to me to a place of which I will tell you."
Then my father said, "Hamadoru! I dare not do this. For I must go and
make the charm in the compound of the girl's house. And I know these
Malay people: they are very bad men. If they catch me there, they will
kill me." But the Korala Mahatmaya said, "There is no need to fear.
There is a house at the end of the village standing somewhat apart from
the others. There lives in it a young girl, unmarried, the daughter of
Tuwan Abdid. I will take you there on a moonless night, and you will
make the charm there. And if the next night the girl comes to me, I will
give you £5."[21] Then my father thought, "If I refuse the Korala
Mahatmaya, he will be angry, and put me into trouble, and ruin me; and
if I consent to his wish I will gain £5 which is much money, and
possibly a beating from the Malay men. It is better to risk the
beating." So he agreed to make the charm on a moonless night. Then the
Korala Mahatmaya gave out that he was very ill, and that my father was
treating him. And for three days my father lived in the house, preparing
the charm. On the fourth day the Korala Mahatmaya and my father--taking
cold cooked rice with them--set out from the house, saying they were
going to my father's village for the treatment of the Korala with
medicines in my father's house. But after leaving the village they
turned aside from the path, and went secretly through the jungle to a
cave near the Malay village. The cave was hidden in thick jungle, and
they lay there through the day. When it was night and very dark they
crept out, and the Korala showed the house to my father. My father stood
in the garden of the house, and made the charm, and buried it in the
earth of the garden, and returned to the cave with the Korala Mahatmaya.
All through the next day they lay in the cave, and ate only the cold
rice, and the Korala Mahatmaya talked much of the Malay women, and their
eyes, which were shaped like pomegranate seeds. And in the evening, at
the time when the women go to draw water, the girl came to the cave, and
the Korala Mahatmaya enjoyed her. Then he sent her away, and he called
my father who was sitting outside in the jungle, and told him that the
girl was cross-eyed and ugly, and not worth £5, but at the most ten
rupees. He gave my father ten rupees, and told him he would give the
other forty some other time--but the money was never paid. Next day they
went back to the Korala's house, and told a tale how the Korala
Mahatmaya had got well on the way to my father's village, and so they
had returned at once. But the girl had seen the Korala Mahatmaya in the
village, and she recognised his black face and big belly, and she told
her mother how she had been charmed to go to the cave. The mother told
the Malay men, and they were very angry. Next time that the Korala
Mahatmaya went to their village, they set upon him, and beat him with
clubs and sticks until he nearly died. Then they put him in a
bullock-cart, and tied his hands together above his head to the hood of
the cart, and took him twelve miles into Kamburupitiya, to the Agent
Hamadoru, and said that they had caught the Korala Mahatmaya with a bag
on his back stealing salt. And there was a great case, and the
magistrate Hamadoru believed the story of the Korala Mahatmaya, who had
many witnesses to show that on the very day on which the girl said she
had gone to the cave they had seen him on the road to my father's
village. So the Malay men all were sent to prison; but my father got a
great name; for all the country, except the magistrate Hamadoru, knew of
the charm by which he had brought the girl to the fat Korala Mahatmaya
in the cave.'

'Did your father teach you the making of the charm?' asked Karlinahami.

'Am I not a vederala and the son of a vederala? The learning of the
father is handed down to the son.'

'Yes, I remember hearing my mother speak of him: there was no one in the
district, she said, so skilled in charms and medicines as your father.'

'Yes, he knew many things which other vederalas know nothing of. He had
a charm by which devils are charmed to become the servants of the
charmer. He learnt it from a man of Sinhala,[22] who lived long ago in
the neighbouring village. This man was called Tikiri Banda, and he
wanted to marry the daughter of the headman. The headman refused to give
her, and Tikiri Banda being very angry put a charm upon a devil which
lived in a banian-tree. And the devil took a snake in his hand and
touched the headman with it on the back as he passed under the tree in
the dusk, and the headman's back was bent into a bow for the rest of his
days.'

'Was that the village called Bogama?' asked Silindu, who had listened
with interest. 'Where the nuga-trees[23] now stand in the jungle to the
south? The last house was abandoned when I was a boy, but the devil
still dances beneath the nuga-trees.'

'Yes, it was Bogama. It was a village like this in my father's time, and
in your father's time. I can myself remember houses there near the
nuga-trees.'

'Of course,' said Karlinahami. 'Podi Sinho's wife Angohami came from
there. Aiyo! when the jungle comes in, how things are forgotten!'

'Well, well,' said the vederala, 'the devils still dance under the
trees, though the men have gone. The chena crops were bad, and every
year the fever came; it is the same now in this village. The old
medicines of the vederalas are no longer used, but people go to the
towns and hospitals for these foreign medicines. But they die very
quickly, and where there was a village there are only trees and devils!'

The little group was silent for a while; nothing could be heard but the
sigh of the wind among the trees for miles around them. Then the
vederala began to speak again:

'Yes, that was a wonderful charm. The headman walked bow-backed for the
rest of his life because he would not give the girl. Aiyo! it is always
the women who bring trouble to us men, and yet what can a man do? A man
without a wife, they say, is only half a man. There is no comfort in a
house where there is no woman to cook the meal.'

'There is no need to use your charm, vederala,' said Karlinahami, 'if
you want one for yourself.'

'There is only one unmarried woman in the village now,' said the
vederala, 'and she is Silindu's daughter.'

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the listeners. Karlinahami and Babun
looked at Silindu, who remained silent, his eyes fixed upon the ground.
The vederala's intentions were very clear, and the point of his previous
stories very obvious now. Punchirala turned to Karlinahami:

'I was thinking but yesterday that it is time that the girl was given in
marriage. Babun here has taken her twin sister, and it is wrong that a
woman should live alone.'

'It is not for me to give the girl. She is her father's daughter.'

Silindu's face showed his distress. The vederala was a dangerous man to
offend, but too much was being asked of him. He began in a low voice:

'The girl is too young; she has not flowered yet.'

Punchirala laughed.

'Did you bring the girl up or only filth, as the saying is? They are
called twins, but the one has been married a year and the other has not
flowered yet!'

'Vederala! I would give the girl, but she is unwilling. She told me last
night that you had spoken to her. She is of the jungle, wild, not fit
for your house. She was very frightened and angry.'

For a moment Punchirala was disconcerted that his rebuff was known. But
anger came to his rescue.

'Am I to ask the girl then when I want a wife? Can the father not give
his child? So the child is angry, and the father obeys! Ohé! strange
customs spring up! You are a fool, Silindu. If you tell the child to
obey, there is no more to be said.'

'The girl is a wild thing, I tell you. I cannot give her against her
will.'

The vederala got up. He smiled at Silindu, who watched him anxiously.

'You will not give the girl, Silindu?'

'I cannot, I cannot.'

'You will not give her? Remember the man of Sinhala, who taught my
father.'

'Aiyo! how can I do this?'

'And the headman of Bogama, and the devil that still dances beneath the
trees.'

Silindu's face worked with excitement.

'Ask anything else of me, vederala. I cannot do this, I cannot do
this.'

Punchirala walked away. The others watched him in silence. When he got
to the fence of the compound, he turned round and smiled at them again.

'And don't forget,' he called out, 'to tell the girl about the Malay
girl who came to the Korala Mahatmaya in the cave. A black-faced man and
big-bellied, but she came, she came. I am an ugly man, and the bear's
claws have made me uglier; a poor bed-fellow for a girl! And so was he,
black as a Tamil, and a great belly swaying as he walked. But she came
to the cave, to the calling of my father's charm. Oh yes, she came, she
came.'

Punchirala walked away chuckling. Silindu was trembling with excitement
and fear. Karlinahami burst out into a wail of despair.

'Aiyo! what will become of us, brother? He is a bad man, a bad man; very
cunning and clever. There is no protection against his charms. He will
bring evil and disease upon the house: he will make devils enter us.
What have you done? What have you done? Aiyo!'

Babun was not as excited as the other two, but he was very serious.

'It would perhaps have been better to give him the girl,' he said. 'The
man is not a bad man if you do not cross him, and the girl is of age to
marry. Even the bravest man does not go down the path where a devil
lives.'

'Only the fool struggles against the stronger,' said Karlinahami. 'What
the vederala says is medicine, is medicine. It is not too late, brother,
to undo the evil. To whom else in the village can you give the girl?'

Silindu turned upon them in his anger and fear:

'Have you too joined to plague me? Evils come upon a man: it is fate.
What can I do? The girl is unwilling: am I to throw away the kurakkan
when the rice is already stolen? Am I to help the thief to plunder my
house? I am a poor man, and the evil has come upon me; I can do nothing
against it. His devils will enter me, and I shall waste away. But as for
the child, what else is left to me? I will not force her to go to this
son of a----. Go into the house, woman, and cry there; and you, Babun,
is it not enough that you have stolen from me one child that now you
should join with this dog to steal the other from me?'

The other two were frightened by this outburst of Silindu; they saw that
to argue with him would only increase his excitement. They left him. He
remained squatting in the compound, and as his anger died down fear
possessed him utterly. He had no doubt of the powers of Punchirala over
him: he knew that he had delivered himself into his power, and the power
of the devils that surrounded him. He had no thought of resistance in
such a case. The terrible sense of a blank wall of fate, against which a
man may hurl himself in vain, was upon him. He sat terrified and crushed
by the inevitableness of the evil which must be. When Hinnihami
returned, he told her what had happened, and she shared in his terror
and despair.

The charms of the vederala did not take long to act upon Silindu. He
felt that he was a doomed man, and his mind could think of nothing but
the impending evil. The banian-trees of the ruined village of Bogama
obsessed his mind: he knew that ruin waited for him there, and yet a
horrible desire to see them was always present with him. He could no
longer remain in the hut or compound: he wandered through the jungle,
fighting against the pull of the desire: his wanderings became a circle,
of which the banian-trees were the centre. He tried to go back to his
hut, where he felt that there was safety for him, and found himself
walking in the opposite direction. Darkness began to settle over the
jungle, and the life, which awakes only in its darkness, began to stir.
Voices mocked him from the canopy of leaves above him; dim forms moved
among the shadows of the trees. Suddenly a blind terror came upon him,
and he began to run through the dense jungle. The boughs of the trees
lashed him as he ran down the narrow tracks; the thorns tore him like
spurs. He lost all sense of direction; vague shapes seemed to follow him
in the darkness; enormous forms broke away from the track before him, to
crash away among the undergrowth and trees. The throbbing of his heart
and throat became unendurable, but still his one idea was to run. As he
ran the jungle suddenly became thinner; the thorny undergrowth had given
way to more open spaces. Even here it was very dark. He stumbled against
the knotted root of a tree; a long, straight, swinging bough struck him
in the face; a wild, derisive yell came from above. The blood seemed to
rise and drown his eyes: he felt about vaguely with his hands. He
recognised the root-like, stringy trunks of the banian-trees: he heard
the cry ring out above his head, and he fell huddled together among the
roots of the trees.

Silindu did not hear again the cry of the devil-bird from the tree-tops.
He lay unconscious throughout the night. When dawn broke he came to
himself stiff and cold. He dragged himself slowly to the hut. There was
no necessity to tell the others what had happened. The pale yellow of
his skin, his sunken glazed eyes, his shivering body told them that
Punchirala's charms had already begun their work, and his devils had
already entered Silindu. He lay down on a mat within the hut to wait for
the slow sapping of his life by the spell.

For the next two days Silindu lay in the hut, very slowly letting go his
hold of life. A kind of coma was upon him, as he felt life gradually
slipping from his body. From time to time the women began a shrill wail
in the compound. Babun went to expostulate with Punchirala; but the
vederala, after listening with a malignant smile, replied that he knew
nothing, and could do nothing, in the matter. Babun returned to lounge
moodily about the compound.

On the second day Karlinahami determined in despair to go herself to the
vederala. She found him sitting in his compound.

'You have come about your brother, no doubt. But I can do nothing; I'm
only a poor vederala. There is the Government hospital in Kamburupitiya,
and a Mahatmaya in trousers, a drinker of arrack, a clever man; he will
give you Government medicines free of charge--just a fanam or two for
the peon who stands by the door. You should take your brother there. It
is only three days' journey.'

'Vederala! my brother lies in the hut dying. He has covered his head
with his cloth, and he will neither eat nor speak. Life is slipping from
him.'

'The doctor Mahatmaya will say it is the fever. He will give you a
bottle of fever mixture--free of charge. A clever man, the doctor
Mahatmaya. Yes, you should take him to the hospital and get the
medicine--free of charge. It is a good medicine, though unpleasant to
the taste, they tell me.'

'Aiyo! what is the good of going to the hospital? Why do you talk like
that, vederala? You are laughing at me. We know that it is the devils
that have entered my brother, and that you alone have power to save
him.'

'Devils! what do I know of devils? No, they tell me the doctor Mahatmaya
keeps no medicine in the hospital against devils. 'The Government says
there are no devils. Surely it is fever, or fire-fever,[24] or
dysentery. It is for these that they give Government medicine. No, it is
no good going to the hospital for devils.'

'Vederala! I have brought you kurakkan here; it is all I have. And I
will talk to the girl for you, yes, and to my brother if he gets well.
But take the spell from him, vederala; take the spell from him, I pray
you.'

'I know nothing of spells. I am a poor village vederala with a little
knowledge of roots and leaves and fruits, which my father taught me.'

'Vederala, you yourself told us of the charms and spells. Your skill is
known. Charm the devil to leave my brother. He meant no harm; he is a
strange man--you know that, vederala. He never meant to injure you. The
girl will come to you, I will see to that--only take the spell from my
brother.'

Punchirala sat and looked at Karlinahami, smiling, for a little while.
Then he said, 'Is the woman mad too? What do I know of charms and
spells? I can work no charm on your brother. But I have some little
knowledge of devils--my father taught me. Well, well, let me think now.
If a devil has entered the man, and is slowly taking his life from him,
perhaps there is a way. Let me think. Do you know the village of
Beragama?'

'No, vederala, no. I have heard of it, but I do not know it.'

'Well, it lies over there to the east, five days' journey through the
jungle, beyond Maha Potana and the River of Jewels. Do you think you
could take your brother there?'

'Yes, vederala, we could go there.'

'There is a great temple there, and the great Beragama deviyo[25] lives
in it. He is a Tamil god, so they say; but Sinhalese kapuralas[26] serve
him in the temple. My father used to say that he is a very great god.
His power is over the jungle, and the devils who live in it. The devils
of the trees obey him, for his anger is terrible. If a devil has entered
a man, and is harming him, and taking his life from him, the man should
make a vow to the god, so my father used to say. Then he should go to
the temple at Beragama at the time of the great festival, and roll in
the dust round the temple three times every day, and call upon the god
in a loud voice to free him from the devil. And perhaps, if he call loud
enough, the god will hear him and order the devil to leave him. Then the
devil will be afraid of the god's power, and will leave the man, who
will be freed from the evil. Now the great festival falls on the day of
the next full moon. Perhaps if your brother makes a vow to the Beragama
deviyo, and goes to the great festival, the devil will be driven out by
the god. You and the girl might take him there; and perhaps I will go
too, for I have made a vow myself.'

Karlinahami fell at the vederala's feet, salaaming and whimpering
blessings on him. Then she hurried home. It took a long time to make
Silindu understand that there was hope for him. At first he would not
listen to their entreaties and exhortations. At last, when he was
prevailed upon to believe that it was Punchirala himself who had
suggested the remedy, some spirit to fight for life seemed to creep into
him. He took some food for the first time, and sat listening to the
plans for the pilgrimage. It was decided that they should start on the
next day, and that Babun should accompany them.

The next day the pilgrims set out on a journey which, with the enfeebled
Silindu, would they knew take them at least six days. Their road the
whole way led them through thick jungle; villages were few, and what
there were consisted only of a few squalid huts. The only village of any
size through which they were to pass was Maha Potana, an agricultural
village, one day's journey from Beragama, which had sprung up around a
vast tank restored by Government. They carried their food with them, and
slept at night on the bare earth under bushes or trees. Every day they
trudged, straggling along in single file, from seven to eleven in the
morning, and from three to six in the evening. Silindu was dazed and
weak, and often had to be helped along by Babun. The women carried large
bundles of food and chatties,[27] wrapped up in cloths, upon their
heads. It was the hottest time of the year, when the jungle is withered
with drought, the grass has died down, the earth is caked and cracked
with heat; the trees along the paths and road are white with dust. The
pools had dried up, and the little streams were now mere channels of
gleaming sand. Often they had to go all day without finding a pool or a
well with water in it. For twelve hours every day the sun beat down upon
them fiercely; the quivering heat from the white roads beat up into
their faces and eyes; the wind swept them with its burning gusts and
eddies of dust. Their feet were torn by the thorns, and swollen and
blistered by the hot roads. As Hinnihami followed hour after hour along
the white track, which for ever coiled out before her into the walls of
dusty trees, the old song, which Karlinahami had sung to them when they
were children, continually was in her mind, and she sang as she walked:

'Our women's feet are weary, but the day Must end somewhere for the
followers in the way.'


Two days' journey from Beddagama they joined a larger and more
frequented track. Here they continually met little bands of pilgrims
bound for the same destination as themselves. The majority of them were
Tamils, Hindus from India, from the tea estates, and from the north and
east of the island; strange-looking men, such as Hinnihami had never
seen before; very dark, with bodies naked to the waist; with lines of
white and red paint on their shoulders, their foreheads smeared with
ashes, and the mark of God's eye between their eyebrows. They wore
clothes of fine white cotton, caught up between the legs, and they
carried brass bowls and brass tongs. Their women, heavy and
sullen-looking, followed, carrying bundles and children.

There were, however, also little bands of Buddhists, Sinhalese like
themselves, and to one of these bands they attached themselves. Four of
them were a family from a village only twenty miles north of Beddagama,
and jungle people like themselves. They were taking a blind child to see
whether, if they called upon the god, he would hear them and give him
sight. There were a fisher and his wife from the coast; they were
childless, and the woman had vowed to go to the festival and touch the
heel of the kapurala, in order that the god might remove from her the
curse of barrenness. Last, there was an old man, a trader from a large
and distant village of another district; he wore immense spectacles, and
all day long he walked reading or chanting from a large Sinhalese
religious book, which he carried open in his hand. The rest of the party
did not understand a word of what he read, but they felt that he was
acquiring merit, and that they would share a little of it. He had been
brought up in a Buddhist temple, and at night after the evening-meal he
gathered the little party round him and preached to them, or read to
them, by the light of the camp-fire, how they should live in order to
acquire merit in this life. And at the appropriate places they all cried
out together, 'Sadhu! sadhu!' or he made them all repeat together aloud
the sil or rules; and as their voices rose and fell in the stillness of
the night air, Karlinahami's face shone with ecstasy, and a sense of
well-being and quiet, strange to her, stole over Hinnihami. Even in
Silindu there came a change; he joined in the chant:


'Búddhun sáranam gáchchamí,'


with which they began and ended the day; he became less hopeless and
sullen, and the look of fear began to leave his eyes. In the evenings,
when the air grew cool and gentle after the pitiless heat and wind of
the day; as they sat around the fire by the roadside; and the great
trees rose black behind them into the night; and the stars blazed above
them between the leaves; and up and down the road twinkled the fires of
other pilgrims, and the air was sweet with the smell of the burning wood
and the hum of voices; and the vast stillness of the jungle folded them
round on every side; and they listened to the strange words, but half
understood, of the Lord Buddha, and how he attained to Nirvana;--then
the sufferings of the day were forgotten, and a feeling stole over them
of peace and holiness and merit acquired.

And one evening, at Babun's suggestion, Karlinahami told them a story
which had always been a favourite with the village women. At first the
old man with the book and spectacles showed signs of being offended at
this usurpation; but he was soothed by their saying that they did not
want to tire him, and by their asking him to read to them again after
the story was finished. In the end he was an absorbed listener as
Karlinahami told the following story:[28]

'The Lord Buddha, in one of his previous lives, met a young girl
carrying kunji[29] to her father, who was ploughing in the field. And
when he saw her he thought, "The maiden is fair. If she is unmarried she
would make me a fit wife." And she thought when she saw him, "If such a
one took me to wife, I would bring fortune to my family." And he said to
her, "What is your name?" Her name was Amara Devi, which means
"undying," so she replied, "Sir, my name is that which never was, is,
nor will be in this world. Nothing," he said, "born in this world is
undying. Is your name Amara?" She answered, "Yes, sir." Then the Buddha
said, "To whom are you taking the kunji? To the first god. You are
taking it to your father? Yes, sir. What is your father doing? He makes
one into two. To make one into two is to plough. Where is your father
ploughing? He ploughs in that place from which no man returns. No man
returns from the grave. Is he ploughing near the burial-ground? Yes,
sir." Then Amara Devi offered the Buddha kunji to drink, and he accepted
it, and he thought to himself, "If the maiden gives me the kunji without
first washing the pot, I will leave her at once." But Amara Devi washed
the pot first, and then gave the kunji. The Buddha drank the kunji, and
said, "Friend, where is your house that I may go to it?" And Amara Devi
answered, "Go by this path until you come to a boutique where they sell
balls of rice and sugar; go on until you come to another where they sell
kunji. From there you will see a flamboyant-tree in full blossom. At
that tree take the path towards the hand with which you eat rice.[30]
That is the way to my father's house." And the Buddha went as Amara Devi
had directed him, and found the house, and went in. Amara Devi's mother
was in the house, and she welcomed the Buddha, and made him sit down.
And he, seeing the poverty of the house, said, "Mother, I am a tailor.
Have you anything for me to sew?" And she said, "Son, there are clothes
and pillows to mend, but I have no money to pay for the mending." Then
he replied, "There is no need of money; bring them for me to mend." So
the Lord Buddha sat and mended the torn clothes and pillows; and in the
evening Amara Devi came back from the fields carrying a bundle of
firewood on her head, and a sheaf of jungle leaves in the folds of her
cloth. And Buddha lived in the house some days in order to learn the
behaviour of the girl. At the end of three days he gave her half a
seer[31] of rice, and said, "Amara Devi, cook for me kunji, boiled rice,
and cakes." She never thought to say, "How can I cook so much out of
half a seer of rice?" but was ready to do as she was told. She cleaned
the rice, boiled the whole grains, made kunji from the broken grains,
and cakes from the dust. She offered the kunji to the Buddha, and he
took a mouthful and tasted the delight of its sweetness, but to try her
he spat it out on the ground, and said, "Friend, since you do not know
how to cook, why do you waste my rice?" Amara Devi took no offence, but
offered him the cakes, saying, "Friend, if the kunji does not please
you, will you eat of the cakes?" And the Buddha did the same with the
cakes. Then Amara Devi offered him the rice, and again he spat out the
rice, and pretended to be very angry, and smeared the food upon her head
and body, and made her stand in the sun before the door. The girl showed
no anger, but went out and stood in the sun. Then the Buddha said,
"Amara Devi, friend, come here," and she came to him, and he took her as
his wife, and lived with her in the city in the gatekeeper's house. And
she still thought he was a tailor, and one day he sent two men to her
with a thousand gold pieces to try her. The men took the gold pieces,
and with them tempted her, but she said, "These thousand gold pieces are
unworthy to wash my husband's feet." And three times she was tempted,
and at last he told them to bring her to him by force. So they brought
her to him by force, and when she came into his presence she did not
know him, for he sat in state in his robes, but she smiled and wept when
she looked at him. The Buddha asked her why she smiled and wept, and she
said, "Lord, I smiled with joy to see your divine splendour and the
merit acquired by you in innumerable births; but when I thought that in
this birth you might by some evil act, such as this, by seducing
another's wife, earn the pains of death, I wept for love of you." Then
the Buddha sent her back to the house of the gatekeeper, and he told the
king and queen that he had found a princess for his wife. And the queen
gave jewels and gold ornaments to Amara Devi, and she was taken in a
great chariot to the house of the Buddha, and from that day she lived
happily with him as his wife.'

The other pilgrims, except the fisher, who had fallen asleep, were
delighted with Karlinahami's story, and they wanted her to tell them
another. But she was afraid to offend the old man again, so she refused.
The old man read to them a while, and gradually, one after the other,
they dropped off to sleep. And in the morning they started off again
down the long white road; and at midday, when they were hot and
footsore, the wall of jungle before them parted suddenly, and they came
out into a great fertile plain. The green rice-fields stretched out
before them, dotted over with watch-huts and clumps of cocoanut-trees
and red-roofed houses, and the immense white domes of dagobas gleaming
in the sun. Beyond shone the pleasant sheet of water through which the
jungle had yielded the smiling plain; the dead trees still stood up
gaunt and black from its surface; great white birds sat upon the black
branches, or flapped lazily over the water with wild, hoarse cries; its
bosom was starred and dappled with pink lotus-flowers. And beyond again
lay the long dark stretch of jungle, out of which, far away to the
north, towered into the fiery sky the line of dim blue hills. It was the
tank and village of Maha Potana; and when the weary band of pilgrims
suddenly saw the monotony of the trees and of the parched jungle give
place to the water, and the green fields, and the white dagobas, the
shrines built by kings long ago to hold the relics of the Lord Buddha,
they raised their hands, salaaming, and cried aloud, 'Sadhu! Sadhu!'[32]

They picked lotus-flowers, and went to the great dagoba, which is called
after an ancient king, and laid the flowers upon the shrine as an
offering, and walked three times around, crying, 'Sadhu! Sadhu!' and
thus acquired merit. Then they went into the bazaar which was crowded
with pilgrims, Hindus and Buddhists, and Indian fakirs and Moormen.
Innumerable bullock-carts stood on the road and paths and open spaces,
and the air rang with the bells of the bulls, which lazily fed upon the
great bundles of straw tied to the carts.

And the old man, who had noted the poverty of Silindu and his family,
bought them rice and curry and plantains. So they sat under the shade of
a great bo-tree, and ate a meal such as Hinnihami had never eaten
before. Her eyes wandered vacantly from thing to thing; she was dazed by
the crowd perpetually wandering to and fro, by the confused din of
talking people, of coughing cattle, and jangling bells. In the evening
they went to another dagoba, and then returned to the bo-tree and
lighted their fire. All about them were other little fires, around which
sat groups, like themselves, of pilgrims eating the evening meal. They
ate rice again and cakes, and Hinnihami grew heavy with sleepiness. A
great peace came upon her as she heard Karlinahami tell of how she had
before come on pilgrimage to the great Buddhist festival at Maha Potana,
when the crowds were tens of thousands more. And the old man told of a
pilgrimage to the sacred city of Anuradhapura on the great poya day,
when hundreds of thousands acquire merit by encircling the shrine; and
the merit to be acquired by climbing Adam's Peak, or by visiting the
ruined shrines of Situlpahuwa, which the jungle has covered, so that the
bears and leopards have made their lairs in the great caves by the side
of Buddhas, who lie carved out of rock. The air was heavy with the smell
of cooking and the pungent smell of the burning wood; the voice of the
old man seemed to come from very far away. She covered her head with a
cloth and lay down on the bare ground. For the first time the bareness
and fear and wildness of life had fallen from her; she fell asleep in
the peace of well-being, and the merit which she had acquired.

Next morning, to the regret of all, they had to leave the pleasant
village and resting-place of Maha Potana, and face again the suffering
and weariness of the jungle. For two days their path led them through
low thorny jungle, where there was little shelter from the sun. The
track became stony and rocky; great boulders of grey lichen-covered rock
were strewn among the thick undergrowth; at intervals could be seen
enormous rocks towering above the trees. In the afternoon of the first
day they caught their first glimpse of the sacred Beragama hill, which
rises into three rounded peaks above the village and temple. Next day,
towards evening, they had reached the high forest, which, starting from
its foot, clothed the hill almost to its peaks.

Then, once again, the jungle parted suddenly, and they stood upon the
bank of a great stream. The banks were deep, and enormous trees, kumbuk
with its peeling bark and the wild fig-tree, shaded them. The season of
drought had narrowed the stream of water, so that it flowed shallow in
the centre of the channel, leaving on either side a great stretch of
white sand. Up and down stream were innumerable pilgrims, washing from
them in the sacred waters the dust of the journey, and the impurities of
life, before they entered the village. They followed the example of the
other pilgrims, and performed the required ablutions; after which they
put on clean white clothes, and climbed a path on the opposite bank
which led them into the village.

They found themselves in a long, very broad street, on each side of
which were boutiques and houses and large buildings--resting-places for
the pilgrims. The street was thronged with pilgrims, idling, buying
provisions, hurrying to the temple. It was near the time for the
procession to start from the temple. The festival lasted fourteen days,
and every night the god was taken in procession through the village: it
culminated in the great procession of the fourteenth night, which falls
when the moon is full; and in the ceremony of the following morning,
when the kapurala goes down, accompanied by all the pilgrims, into the
bed of the river, and 'cuts the waters' with a golden knife. Silindu and
his party arrived in Beragama on the ninth day of the festival, so that
they would remain six days in the village, and take part in six
processions.

At either end of the broad straight street stood temples. The one at the
north end belonged to the Beragama deviyo: the temple or dewala itself
was a small, squat, oblong building, above which at one end rose the
customary dome-like erection of Hindu temples, on which are
fantastically carved the images of gods. Around the temple was an
enormous courtyard enclosed by red walls of roughly-baked bricks. Just
outside the wall of the courtyard on the east side was another and a
smaller temple belonging to the god's lawful wife. At the southern end
of the street stood another temple: it was a square, dirty white
building without a courtyard, but surrounded on all sides by a verandah,
in which, among a litter of broken furniture and odds and ends, lounged
and squatted and slept a large number of pilgrims. The only entrance to
the shrine itself was through a doorway in the front, which was screened
by a large curtain ornamented crudely with the figures of gods and
goddesses. No one was allowed to enter behind this curtain except the
kapuralas, for the temple belonged to the mistress of the Beragama
deviyo.

The solemnity of the pilgrimage was intensified in the minds of Silindu
and Karlinahami and the other pilgrims, who were villagers like
themselves, by the mystery which surrounds the god. On the road and
around the fires at night, in the streets of the village, and in the
very courtyard of the temple, they listened to the tales and legends;
and believing them all without hesitation or speculation they felt,
through their strangeness, far more than they had ever felt with the
Buddha of dagobas and vihares, that this god was very near their own
lives.

Who was he, this Tamil god, living in the wilderness, whom the Tamils
said was Kandeswami, the great Hindu god? These Buddhist villagers felt
that they could understand him; he was so near to the devils of the
trees and jungles whom they knew so well. He had once lived upon the
centre of the three peaks of the great hill, ruling over the unbroken
forest which stretched below him, tossing and waving north to the
mountains, and south to the sea. That was why every night throughout the
festival a fire blazed from the peak. But one day, as he sat among the
bare rocks upon the top of the hill and looked down upon the winding
river and the trees which cooled its banks, the wish came to him to go
down and live in the plain beyond the river. Even in those days he was a
Tamil god, so he called to a band of Tamils who were passing, and asked
them to carry him down across the river. The Tamils answered, 'Lord, we
are poor men, and have travelled far on our way to collect salt in the
lagoons by the seashore. If we stop now, the rain may come and destroy
the salt, and our journey will have been for nothing. We will go on,
therefore, and on our way back we will carry you down, and place you on
the other side of the river, as you desire.' The Tamils went on their
way, and the god was angry at the slight put upon him. Shortly
afterwards a band of Sinhalese came by: they also were on their way to
collect salt in the lagoons. Then the god called to the Sinhalese, and
asked them to carry him down across the river. The Sinhalese climbed the
hill, and carried the god down, and bore him across the river, and
placed him upon its banks under the shadow of the trees, where now
stands his great temple. Then the god swore that he would no longer be
served by Tamils in his temple, and that he would only have Sinhalese to
perform his ceremonies; and that is why to this day, though the god is a
Tamil god, and the temple a Hindu temple, the kapuralas are all
Buddhists and Sinhalese.

The god, therefore, is of the jungle; a great devil, beneficent when
approached in the right manner and season, whose power lies for miles
upon the desolate jungle surrounding his temple and hill. A power to
swear by, for he will punish for the oath sworn falsely by his hill; a
power who will listen to the vow of the sick or of the barren woman; a
power who can aid us against the devils which perpetually beset us.[33]

It was in this way that the pilgrims regarded the god, and they chose
well the time of his festival to approach him. For the god loved a hind,
and had made her his mistress, and had placed her in the temple which
stood at the southern end of his street. On each of the fourteen nights
of his festival the kapuralas entered his shrine, and covering the god
in a great black cloth, so that no one should look upon him, carried him
out, and placed him upon the back of an elephant. Then the pilgrims
called upon the name of the god, and with bowls of blazing camphor upon
their heads followed him in procession to his mistress's temple. There
the kapuralas, blindfolded, took the god, hidden by the cloth, from the
elephant, and carried him up the steps of the temple. Again, the
pilgrims shouted the god's name, and women pressed forward to touch the
kapurala as he passed, for in this way they escape the curse of
barrenness. The kapurala carried the god to his mistress, and then
retired. Amid the roar of tomtoms, the jangling of bells, the flaring of
great lights, and the passionate shouts of the people, the pilgrims
prostrated themselves. Then the kapurala, still blindfolded, again
slipped behind the curtain into the shrine, and brought out the god and
placed him upon the elephant, and the procession followed him back to
his own temple.

Silindu and the others reached the village in the evening, only a little
while before the procession started. They therefore made their way at
once to the great temple, and took their stand among the pilgrims who
crowded the courtyard. They had eaten nothing since the midday meal;
they were hungry and dizzy after the long days upon the road. Silindu
seemed too dazed and weak to take much notice of what was taking place
about him, and he had to be helped along by Babun. Karlinahami was awed
and devout: an old pilgrim, she knew the demeanour required of her.

The effect upon Hinnihami was different. Tired and hungry though she
was, even the great crowd in the courtyard excited her. As each new
pilgrim arrived he called aloud upon the god; and the whole crowd took
up the cry, which rose and fell around the shrine. She who had before
never seen more than forty or fifty people in her life felt the weight
and breath of thousands that jostled and pressed her. Her heart beat as,
under the flare of the torches, hundreds of arms were raised in
supplication, and to the crash of the tomtoms the name of the god
thundered through the air. The tears came into her eyes and ran down her
cheeks as time after time the roll of the many voices surged about her;
and when at last the great moment came, and the kapurala appeared
carrying the god under the black cloth, and over the sea of arms the
elephant lifted up its trunk and trumpeted as the god was placed upon
its back, she stretched out her hands and cried to, the god to hear her.

They followed in the rear of the procession, where men roll over and
over in the dust, and childless women touch the ground with their
forehead between every step, in fulfilment of their vows.

Silindu, with drawn face and vacant eyes, dragged himself along, leaning
on Babun: Karlinahami, devout and stolid, raised the ceremonial cry at
the due stopping-places. But Hinnihami felt the power of the god in her
and over them all: she felt how near he was to them, mysteriously hidden
beneath the great cloth which lay upon the elephant's back. She felt
again the awe which great trees in darkness and the shadows of the
jungle at nightfall roused in her, the mystery of darkness and power,
which no one can see. And again and again as the procession halted, and
the cry of the multitude rolled back to them, her breath was caught by
sobs, and again she lifted her hands to the god and called upon his
name. She formulated no prayer to him, she spoke no words of
supplication: only in excitement and exaltation of entreaty she cried
out the name of the god.

They were too tired that night to go into the shrine of the big temple
after the procession and see the ceremony there. They had lost sight of
the old man in the crowd, so that they had to make their meal off a
little food that they carried with them. Then, worn out by the journey
and excitement, they lay down on the bare ground in the courtyard of the
temple.

Next morning Silindu was no better. He seemed weaker and more lifeless:
it was clear that the devil had not yet left him. Babun remained with
him, while Karlinahami and Hinnihami went down to the river to bathe.
The excitement of the previous evening had not died out of the girl, and
there was much going on around her to keep it up. The village was a
small one, and really consisted of little more than the one street of
thirty or forty houses, which were roofed with red tiles and had brown
walls of mud. Most of the houses were turned into boutiques during the
pilgrimage, and the inhabitants prospered by selling provisions to the
pilgrims. When Karlinahami and Hinnihami returned from the river,
hundreds filled the street, lounging, strolling, gossiping, and
purchasing. Every now and then the crowd would gather more thickly in
one quarter, and they would see a pilgrim arrive performing some strange
vow. There were some who had run a skewer through their tongue and
cheeks; another had thrust, through the skin of his back a long stick
from which hung bowls of milk. At another time they saw a man, naked
except for a dirty loin cloth, his long hair hanging about his face, and
a great halo of flowers and branches upon his head; thirty or forty
great iron hooks had been put through the skin of his back; to every
hook was attached a long cord, and all the cords had been twisted into a
rope. Another man held the rope, while the first, bearing with his full
weight upon it so that the skin of his back was drawn away from his
body, danced around in a circle and shouted and sang.

As Karlinahami and Hinnihami were making their way slowly through the
crowd, they suddenly heard a soft voice behind them say:

'Well, mother, has not the hospital cured your brother of his fever?'
They turned and saw the smiling face and winking eye of the vederala.
Hinnihami shrank away from him behind Karlinahami.

'Vederala,' said Karlinahami, 'I must speak with you. Come away from all
these people.'

They pushed through the crowd, and going down a narrow opening between
two boutiques found themselves in the strip of quiet forest upon the
bank of the river. The vederala squatted down under a tree and began to
chew betel. Karlinahami squatted down opposite to him, and Hinnihami
tried to hide herself behind her from the eye of the vederala, which
seemed to her maliciously to wink at her.

Punchirala leaned round and peered at the girl.

'Well, daughter,' he said, ironically emphasising the word 'daughter,
what have you come to the god for? Have you touched the kapurala's foot
and prayed for a child? Truly they say he is the god of the barren wife.
Chi, chi, she covers her face with her hands. Is the man dead then? What
has the widow to do in Beragama? Ohé! now, see. She has come to the god
for clothing and food,[34] as they say. May the god give her a man,
young and fair and strong, a prince with cattle and land. For the girl
is fair, even I, the one-eyed old man, can see that--and the god is a
great god.'

'Don't talk this nonsense, vederala,' broke in Karlinahami impatiently.
'You shame the girl and frighten her. The god is a great god, we know
that, and as you told me we brought my brother here. Aiyo! the long road
and the hot sun. We are burnt as black as Tamils, and look at our feet.
On the road the strong and healthy fall sick, and the sick, man grows
weaker. Have you sent my brother here to kill him? He lies now in the
temple with no strength in him. Last night we took him in the
perahera,[35] and called upon the god to hear us. I pray you,
vederala--you are a wise man, and renowned for your knowledge--tell me
what wrong have we done. The devil remains; the god has not heard us,
nor driven him out.'

'Be patient, mother. This fever is a hard thing to cure. Did I not tell
you that even in the hospital there is no medicine against it? And it is
hard for a man to find the lucky hour. The gecko[36] calls, and the man
starts from the house: the man does not hear the sign; he is saying,
"You there bring that along!" and, "You here, where is the bundle with
the kurakkan?" So he starts on the journey in an unlucky hour.'

'We heard no gecko, nor any other bad sign. But we had to start quickly,
for the time was short. We had no time to consult an astrologer to find
the lucky hour.'

'Yes, perhaps that is it. And it is no easy matter, as I told you, to
find a cure for these--fevers.'

'But, vederala, what are we to do now? The man's strength goes from him.
Even to take him back the long way to the village will be difficult.'

'Patience, mother, patience. You must call louder to the god nightly
until the moon is full. Perhaps even now the devil--the fever--is
fighting against him.'

'Aiyo! what help for the cultivator when the flies have sucked the
strength from the paddy? He sowed in an unlucky hour, and not even the
god can help him. Pity us, vederala. Will you not come with us and look
at my brother now?'

'Why should I see your brother?' said the vederala angrily. 'What good
can I do? Did I not tell you, woman, that I cannot cure your brother's
fever? Where the god fails, can the man succeed? O the minds of these
women! They say in the village'--here he looked round and smiled at
Hinnihami--'that even the little one is like an untamed buffalo cow.'

'Do not be angry with me, vederala. You are the only help left for us.
We are weary with walking, and in grief. How can the women of the house
not raise the cry when the brother and father lies dying within? If I
have spoken foolishly, pardon my words.'

Punchirala sat silently looking at Hinnihami. The girl was crying. The
memory of the great god, whom she had seen go riding by upon the
elephant amid the flames and the shouts, the wild god who ruled over the
jungle, and to whom the men crowned with flowers and leaves were now
dancing in the street, the god to whom she cried so passionately on the
night before, had left her: her excitement and exaltation had died out
as she listened to the jeering words of Punchirala. She hated him as she
had hated him when he approached her before; but as she listened to him
talking to Karlinahami, fear--the fear that she felt for unknown
evils--gradually crept upon her. She cried helplessly, and Punchirala
smiled at her as he watched her. Karlinahami watched his face
expectantly and anxiously.

At last Punchirala began again slowly:

'How the girl cries. And for her father too! I am thinking that there is
yet something for you to do. I am a poor vederala, and my powers are
small. But there is a man here, a great man, a holy man, who they say is
very skilled in medicine and magic, and knows the mind of the god. He is
a sanyasi[37] from beyond the sea, from India, and his hair is ten
cubits[38] in length. Perhaps if you take Silindu to him, and inquire of
him, he will tell you the god's mind. But you must take money for him.'

'Aiyo! what is the use of talking of money to the starving?'

Punchirala fumbled in the fold of his cloth, and drew out his
betel-case. From this he took a very dirty rag, in which were a number
of copper and silver coins. He made up the sum of ninety-five cents, and
handed it over to Karlinahami.

'Here you are then, a rupee. Even the gods require payment. You can pay
me three shillings in kurakkan when the crop is reaped. The sanyasi sits
behind the little temple under a banian-tree. To-day, when the sun sinks
behind the trees of the jungle, take your brother to him and make
inquiry.'

Punchirala got up and began walking away, followed by the obeisances and
profuse thanks of Karlinahami. The two women hurried back to the temple.
They found that the old man and the fisher and his wife had joined
Silindu and Babun. The whole party agreed that the only thing to do was
to consult the sanyasi. They waited, dozing and talking through the hot
afternoon, until the hour fixed by the vederala arrived.

As soon as the sun sank behind the jungle, and the shadow of the trees
fell upon the temple courtyard, they went in a body to the banian-trees.
They found the sanyasi sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree
with a brass bowl by his side. He was unlike any sanyasi whom they had
seen before. He had a long black beard reaching below his waist, a big
hooked nose, and little twinkling black eyes. He wore a long white
cotton robe, which was indescribably dirty, and an enormous dirty white
turban. As they approached him he unwound the folds of his turban, and
displayed his hair to the crowd which surrounded him. It was plaited and
matted into two thin coils upon the top of his head, and its length had
not been by any means exaggerated by Punchirala. The sanyasi spoke only
a strange language, unintelligible to the Tamils and Sinhalese in the
crowd, but there stood by him an old Tamil man who interpreted what he
said.

Babun led Silindu up to the sanyasi and dropped the money in the bowl.
He explained what he wanted to the old Tamil, who understood and spoke
(very badly) Sinhalese. The crowd pressed forward to listen. The sanyasi
and his interpreter muttered together. The old man then addressed the
crowd, and told them that the holy man could not consult the god, or
give an answer, with them pressing upon him. There was much talking and
excitement, but at last a large circle was cleared, and the crowd was
induced to move away out of earshot. Most of the people squatted down,
and, though they could not hear a word of what followed, they watched in
hope of some exciting development.

Babun and Silindu squatted down in front of the sanyasi. Karlinahami,
Hinnihami, and the others of their party stood behind them. Silindu,
weak and dejected though he was, for the first time for several days
seemed to take some interest in what was passing. It had been arranged
that Babun should explain the case to the sanyasi.

'Will you tell the holy man,' he said to the interpreter, 'that we are
poor folk and ask pardon of him? This man is my wife's father, a hunter,
a very poor man. There is also a yakka who lives in the banian-trees in
the jungle over there' (Babun made a sweep with his arm towards the
west). 'This yakka has entered this man, and his life is going from him.
Why has the yakka entered the man? There is another man in the village;
that man is skilled in charms and magic, and is angry with this man.
Therefore, he charmed the devil to do this. Well, then, when this had
happened, the woman went to him and prayed him to charm the devil away
again. Then he said, "Take your brother to Beragama, and pray to the god
there at the great festival." So we walked and walked to this place with
the sick man, and we went in the perahera and called to the god. But the
god does not hear us, and the man's life is going from him. Then the
woman went again to the man, for he too is here, and told him. He said,
"I can do nothing; take the man to the holy man who sits under the
banian-tree, and make inquiry of him." So we waited for the lucky hour,
and have brought him.'

The interpreter talked in the strange tongue with the sanyasi, and then
said to Babun:

'The holy man says that the offering is too small.'

'Father, it is all we have. We are very poor. Rain never falls upon our
fields, and we have no land. We pray him to help us.'

There was another muttered conversation, and then the interpreter
said:

'It is very little for so great a thing. But the holy man will help
you.'

The little group became very still; everyone watched the sanyasi
anxiously. He muttered to himself, fixed his eyes on the ground in front
of him, made marks in the sand with his finger, and swayed his body from
side to side. Then looking at Silindu intently he began to speak very
volubly. Silindu watched him, fascinated. At last the sanyasi stopped,
and the interpreter addressed them:

'The holy man says thus: it is true that a devil of the jungle has
entered the man. This devil is of great power. Why has this happened?
The man is a foolish man. There has come into the holy man's mind
another man, his face marked with scars, and one-eyed. He is a vederala,
very skilled in charms. You have not told why the one-eyed man is angry,
but the holy man knows because of his holiness and wisdom. The one-eyed
man came and said, "Give me your daughter," but this man, being mad,
refused and spoke evil. Then the one-eyed man was very angry, and went
away and made a charm over the devil, and the devil entered the man.
When the one-eyed man made the charm he said to the devil: "Unless she
be given to me, do not leave him."'

A cry broke from Hinnihami; she covered her face with her hands, and
crouched in fear upon the ground. The interpreter paid no attention to
her.

'Now even the one-eyed man cannot loose the charm, so he has sent you to
the god. The god is of great power over devils: he heard your prayer,
and he said to this devil, "Leave the man." But the yakka answered,
fighting against the power, "Something must be given." The master said,
"Unless she be given, do not leave the man. Am I to die for this foolish
man's sake?" Then the god said, "Yes, something must be given--either
the man or the girl." The holy man knows this, and says that you must
remain here, and take the man every night in the perahera until the
night of the full moon, and on the morning of the next day you must
return to the village. But on the evening of the first day's journey,
the one-eyed man will meet you in an open stony place beside two
palu-trees. Then you must go to him and say, "There is the girl; take
her." He will take the girl, and the devil will leave the man.
Otherwise, if you do not do this the man will die, for something must be
given--either the man or the girl. Remember, too, that the girl cannot
be given during the festival.'

Hinnihami pressed her body against the ground, but her eyes were dry
now. She was broken: tired and numb with fear and despair; she had
always known that it was she who was bringing death upon her father.
Instinctively, like a wild animal against a trap, she had fought against
the idea of giving herself to Punchirala. At the thought of her body
touching his, the skin seemed to shrink against her bones. Silindu was
everything to her, and she knew that now she was everything to him. At
first she had felt that she was being driven inevitably to sacrifice
herself; but when Karlinahami returned from Punchirala's compound, and
told them of the pilgrimage, hope came to her. The hardships and
excitement of the road, her ecstasy before the god, had driven away her
first feeling of despair. The god would certainly help them. But fear
had crept in again at the first sight of Punchirala, and as she listened
to his talk with Karlinahami her hope grew cold. Now she knew that she
must inevitably sacrifice herself. Had not the sanyasi known the truth
which Babun had not disclosed? She knew that not even the god could help
her; she had heard his words, 'Yes, something must be given--either the
man or the girl.' Once more evil had come out of the jungle.

The effect upon the other listeners had also been great. The holy man
had seen what Babun had hidden; they knew well that they had heard from
him the reply of the god. They walked back to the temple talking about
it in low voices. There was no suggestion of doubt in any one as to what
should be done. Even Silindu had given in. The god had spoken; it was
fate, the inevitable. The girl would be given.

The remainder of the festival passed slowly for them. They followed the
perahera dispirited, and called upon the god nightly. But there was no
hope or even doubt now to excite them. Silindu, listless, waited for his
release; Hinnihami was cowed and dulled by despair. The nights passed,
and the morning following the new moon came; and they went down
dutifully to the river to take part in the cutting of the waters. They
were a melancholy little group among the laughing, joking crowd, which
stood knee-deep in the river. And when the supreme moment came, and the
kapurala cut the waters, and the crowd with a shout splashed high over
themselves and one another the waters which would bring them good
fortune through the coming year, Hinnihami stood among them weeping.

The pilgrimage was over, and a line of returning pilgrims began at once
to stream across the river westwards. The old man and the fisher and his
wife said good-bye to them, for they felt that it was not right for
them, being strangers, to be present at what was to take place upon the
homeward journey. Then they too set out. They walked all that day
slowly--for Silindu was very weak--and in silence. When the shadows
began to lengthen the jungle became thinner, and the ground more stony.
They knew that they must be nearing the place. The track turned and
twisted through the scrub; the air was very still. They passed a bend,
and there before them stood the vederala under some palu-trees. They
stopped for a moment and looked at one another. Karlinahami touched
Silindu on the arm. He took Hinnihami by the hand and went up to
Punchirala. His eyes seemed to be fixed upon something far away beyond
Punchirala; he spoke very slowly:

'Here is the girl; take her.'

Punchirala looked at Hinnihami and smiled.

'It is well,' he said.

Silindu turned, and with Karlinahami and Babun walked on down the track.
Neither of them looked back. Hinnihami was left standing by the
vederala, her arms hanging limply by her side, her eyes looking on the
ground.




CHAPTER VI


It became clear on the morning after Hinnihami had been given to the
vederala that the sanyasi had rightly interpreted the will of the god,
and that the devil had left Silindu. His eyes no longer presented the
glazed appearance, which is the sign of possession. He ate eagerly of
the scanty morning meal; and, though still weak, walked with a vigour
unknown to him since the night when he fell beneath the banian-trees in
the jungle. Throughout the homeward journey strength and health
continued to return to him; and by the time they reached the village,
the colour of his skin showed that he had been restored to his normal
condition.

Though they travelled very slowly, they had not again seen the vederala
and Hinnihami on the way home. Punchirala made no haste to return to the
village, and he only appeared there two days after Silindu arrived. He
showed no signs of pleasure in his triumph; he was more quiet and
thoughtful than usual. In the house he seemed to his mother to be
uneasy, and a little afraid of Hinnihami.

The girl had yielded herself to him in silence. In the long journey
together through the jungle he had, without success, tried many methods
of breaking or bending her spirit. But he had failed: his jeers and his
irony, his anger and his embraces, had all been received by her in
sullen silence. He would have put her down to be merely a passionless,
stupid village woman had he not seen the light and anger in her eyes,
and the shudder that passed over her body when he touched her.

On the morning after she arrived in the village, Hinnihami was alone in
Punchirala's compound; the vederala had gone out, and his mother was in
the house. She saw Silindu coming along the path, and ran out eagerly to
meet him. They sat down under a tamarind tree, just outside the stile in
the compound fence.

'The yakka has gone,'said Silindu. 'The god drove him out after the
vederala took you. But now what to do? The house is empty without you,
child.'

'I must come back, Appochchi. I cannot live in this house.'

'But, is it safe? Will not he bring evil again upon us? The god said one
must be given, and now if I take you again, will he not kill you?'

'The god said that one must be given, and it was done. I was given, and
the man took me. Surely the gods cannot lie. The evil has been driven
out; and as for the man, I am not frightened of him.'

'Ané!' said the mocking voice of the vederala behind them. 'They are
not frightened of the man. Oh no, nor of the devils either, I suppose.'

Silindu and Hinnihami got up; the old fear came upon Silindu when he saw
Punchirala, but the girl turned angrily upon the vederala, who was
astonished by her violence.

'Punchirala,'[39] she said, 'I am not frightened of you. The god did not
say I was to live with you. There is no giving of food or clothing. I
was given that the devil might leave my father. Was the god disobeyed? I
was given to you, you dog; the devil has flown; the god heard us there
at Beragama; he will not allow you again to do evil.'

'Mother, mother, come out! Listen to the woman I brought to the house;
she has become a vederala. The pilgrimage has made her a sanyasi, I
think, knowing the god's mind, skilled in magic.'

'Keep your words for the women of the house. I am going.'

'And are there no other charms, Silindu? No other devils in the trees?
You have learned wisdom surely from a wise woman.'

'Do not listen to him, Appochchi. He can no longer harm us. The god has
aided us.' She turned upon Punchirala. 'Do you wish me to stay in the
house? Yes, there are still devils in the trees. Do not I too come from
the jungle? I shall be like a yakkini to you in the house, you dog. You
can tell them, they say, by the eyes which do not blink. Rightly the
village women call me yakkini. I will stay with you. Look at my arms.
Are they not as strong as a man's arms? I will stay with you, but as you
lie by my side in the house I will strangle you, Punchirala.'

Punchirala instinctively stepped back, and Hinnihami laughed.

'Ohé! Are you frightened, Punchirala? The binder of yakkas is
frightened of the yakkini. You can tell her, they say, because her eyes
are red and unblinking, and because she neither fears nor loves. It is
better for you that I should go--to the trees from which a I came,
mighty vederala. Otherwise, I would strangle you, and eat you in the
house. Come, Appochchi, we will go out into the jungle together again as
we did long ago--aiyo! the long time. I was a little thing then--and the
little sister too. Come, Appochchi; do not fear this Rodiya dog: he is
frightened: and now I will never leave you.'

Punchirala was really frightened. He stood and watched the girl walk
slowly away with Silindu along the path. Things had not happened quite
as he had expected or hoped. He had enjoyed his first triumph over the
girl, but he had soon grown to doubt whether her continued presence in
his house would add to his comfort. He had felt, without understanding,
that the giving of her body to him had only made her spirit more
unyielding. Even on the way from Beragama he had felt nervous and
uncomfortable with her. He was angered by his defeat and by her taunts,
but he watched her disappear with a distinct feeling of relief.

The vederala made no further attempt to molest Silindu, and the next
nine months were a period of unwonted prosperity and happiness in the
'Vedda' family. Towards the end of October great clouds rolled up from
the northeast, and great rains broke over the jungle. For days the rain
fell steadily, ceaselessly. The tank filled and ran over; the dry sandy
channels became torrents, sweeping down old rotten trunks and great
trees through the jungle; a mist of moisture rose from the parched
earth, and hung grey upon the face of the jungle. Suddenly the ground
became green, and soon the grass stood waist-high beneath the
undergrowth. The earth at last was sodden; and as the rain still fell
and the streams overflowed, the water spread out in a vast sheet beneath
the trees.

Not for forty years, it was said, had rain fallen so abundantly. A great
chena crop was assured. The more energetic began to talk of rice
cultivation, now that the tank was full, and to regret the want of seed
paddy. Then a rumour spread that the Government was going to make
advances of seed, and at last one day the Korala Mahatmaya appeared in
the village, and the rumour was confirmed. Promissory-notes were signed;
buffaloes were borrowed to turn up the soil of the fields; and at last,
after twelve years, the village again saw paddy standing green in the
water below their tank.

Silindu's family, principally owing to Babun, had a large share in the
prosperity which came to the village from the wonderful chena and
rice-crops. Their store was full of kurakkan and millet and rice. They
were well fed, and even Silindu became happy. After the return of
Hinnihami he seemed to change greatly. They were almost always together,
and the fearlessness which she had shown towards Punchirala, and which
seemed to have changed her suddenly from a child into a woman, inspired
him. The fear of evil overhanging him no longer oppressed him. He worked
with Babun cheerfully in the chena and rice-fields: he began again to
talk with Punchi Menika. And sometimes he would sit in the compound and
tell his strange stories to her and to the child, who had been born to
her eighteen months before, and he was happy as he had been happy with
her and with Hinnihami years ago when they were children. His happiness
and Hinnihami's was greatly increased when she gave birth to a daughter.
The child, conceived during the pilgrimage, was a pledge to them from
the god that, as his word had been obeyed, the evil had been finally
conquered. To the physical joy which Hinnihami felt as she suckled the
child, was added her exultation in the knowledge that she was holding in
her arms a charm against the evil which had threatened Silindu. Her
hatred for the father only increased therefore her love for his child.

But the love and care which she showed from the moment of her birth to
Punchi Nona, as she called her daughter, were from the first to be
shared with another. On the morning following the evening on which the
child was born, Silindu came back from the jungle carrying in his arms a
fawn newly dropped by its mother. He went straight to Hinnihami, who lay
in the hut nursing the child, and kneeling down by her placed the fawn
in her arms. Hinnihami with a little laugh took it, and nestling it
against the child was soon suckling the one at one breast and the other
at the other. Silindu watched in silence: he was very serious.

'It is well, it is well,' he said when he saw that the fawn was sucking
quietly and nestling against Hinnihami and the child.

'The little weakling,' said Hinnihami, gently touching with her fingers
the soft skin of the fawn. 'How hungry for milk the little one is! Where
has it come from?'

'It has come to you from the jungle. The gods have sent it.'

She bent her head, and very softly drew her lips backwards and forwards
over its back.

'It takes the milk like the child. Has the god given another gift,
Appochchi?'

'The god sent it. Last night I went to the water-hole, but nothing came
while the moon was up. Then clouds gathered and the moon was hidden, and
it became very dark. I heard a doe cry near by in pain, "Amma,
amma",[40] but it was too dark to see, so I lay down and slept on the
top of the high rock. I woke up with the first light, and, as I lay
there, I heard below the moving of something among the leaves. Very
slowly I looked over the rock, and there below in the undergrowth I saw
the back of a doe. Her head was down, hidden by the leaves, and she
murmured, licking something on the grass. Slowly, slowly I took up my
gun and leaned it over the rock and fired. Everything was hidden from me
by the smoke, and I lay quiet until the wind blew it from before me.
When I looked again I saw the doe stand there still, the blood running
down her side; and she stretched up her head toward me from the jungle,
and her great eyes rolled back with fear and showed white, and she
opened her mouth and cried terribly to me. I was sorry for her pain, and
I said, "Hush, mother, the evil has come. What use to cry? Lie down that
death may come to you easily." But again she stretched out her neck
toward me, and cried loud in pain, "Amma! amma! Aiyo! aiyo! It is you
who have brought the evil, Yakka. To the child here that I dropped last
night and that lies now between my feet. Little son, I have borne you to
be food for the jackal and the leopard." Then I came down from the rock
and stood by her and said, "Mother, the daughter at home this night bore
a child. I will take this one too to her, and she will give it the
breast." Then she stretched out her head, and she cried out again, and
fell dead upon the ground by the side of the fawn.'

Hinnihami pressed the fawn to her.

'Yes, he has come to me out of the jungle, a sign from the god, a great
charm against evil. Did not the god himself take the doe as his
mistress? They told it to us at Beragama. And now in the same night he
has sent me a son and a daughter from the jungle.'

So Hinnihami suckled the child and the fawn together. The village looked
on with astonishment and disapproval. 'The woman is as mad as the
father,' was the general comment. It was commonly rumoured that she
showed more love for Punchi Appu, as the fawn was called, than for her
daughter. And though she did not realise it herself, it was true. 'The
son from the jungle' inspired in her a passionate love and
tenderness--the great eyes which watched her and the wonderful skin that
she was never tired of caressing. He had come to her out of the jungle,
with something of the mystery and exaltation which she had felt in
Beragama towards the god who went by upon the elephant. And her love was
increased by the attachment of Punchi Appu to her. Long before Punchi
Nona could crawl about the compound, the fawn would trot along by her
side crying to be taken up and fed; and even after it grew old enough to
feed upon grass and leaves, it never left her, following her always
about the house and compound, and through the village and jungle.

The year of the great rains and rice and plenty was followed by a year
of scarcity and sickness. For four months, from June to October, the sun
beat down from a cloudless sky. The great wind from the south-west
failed at last, but even then the rain did not come, and the withering
heat lay still and heavy over the jungle. The little puddle thick with
mud in the tank, which supplied the village with water, dried up, and
the women had to go daily four miles to fetch water from an abandoned
tank in the jungle. In November the chenas were still standing black and
unsown. At last a little rain fell and the seed was sown. The crop just
showed green above the ground, and drought came again, and the young
shoots died down.

Then, when it was too late to save the crops, the rains came, and with
them sickness. Want had already begun to be felt by bodies weakened by
the long drought, and fever and dysentery swept over the country. There
was not a family in Beddagama which did not suffer, nor a house in which
death did not take the old or the children. The doctor Mahatmaya, whom
Punchirala despised, appeared in the village, bringing the medicines
which he despised still more; but his efforts were no more or less
successful than those of the village vederala. When at last the sickness
passed away, it was found that the village had lost sixteen out of its
forty-one inhabitants. And the jungle pressed in and claimed two of the
eight houses, after dysentery and fever had taken the men, the women,
and their children, who lived there.

Even Silindu's house did not escape: there death took its toll of the
young. First Punchi Menika's child sickened, and then Punchi Nona. Day
after day the mothers, helpless, watched the fever come and shake the
children's bodies, and sap and waste their strength. The wail of the two
women, each for her dead child, was raised in one night.

It was Silindu who seemed to feel the loss of the children more than any
one else in the house. This time clearly the envious powers had grudged
him his little happiness. He had been foolish to show his pleasure in
the children crawling about the house. He had brought disaster upon them
and upon himself. The misery he had felt at losing Punchi Menika came
upon him again. It was his own fault: he was a fool to tempt the evil
powers that stood around him eager for their opportunity.

After their first wild outburst of grief, Punchi Menika and Hinnihami
felt their loss less than Silindu. The death of the child is what every
mother must continually expect. They had seen it too long in the village
to be surprised at their own suffering: the birth of children every year
and then the coming of the fever to carry them off. Their grief was
lightened by the feeling of resignation to the inevitable. And in
Hinnihami's case there was a further consolation. She still had Punchi
Appu, in whose attachment she could forget the child's death. All her
love for the child was now merged in her love for him: he was the
mysterious gift and pledge of the god; and she felt that so long as he
followed by her side, so long as she felt the caress of his lips upon
her hand, no real evil could come to her.

Hinnihami's extraordinary love for the deer was well known in the
village, and had never been approved. At first it was regarded merely as
the folly of the 'mad' woman. These views were, however, very rarely
expressed to the girl herself, for most of the villagers stood in some
fear of her passionate anger. But about the time when the epidemic of
fever and dysentery was decreasing, a new feeling towards them made its
appearance in the village. It was started by Punchirala. 'The mad woman
and her child,' he would say. 'What sort of madness is that? An evil
woman, an evil woman. I have some knowledge of charms and magic. I took
her to my house to live with me. But did I keep her? I drove her away
very soon. I did not want the evil eye and a worker of evil to bring
misfortune on my house. My mother knows, for she heard her call herself
a yakkini. Only because of my knowledge of charms was I able to keep
away the evil with which she threatened me. And then comes this deer
which they say is found in the jungle. Was not the woman herself in
travail that very night? Do not she-devils give birth to devils? Do
village women suckle deer? Surely it is a devil, born of a devil. Look
at the evil that fell upon the village when it came. The crops withered,
and the old and the young died. It has brought us want and disease and
death.'

The village soon came to believe in Punchirala's opinions. Small
children were hurried away out of sight of Hinnihami as she passed. The
deer was certainly a devil, who had brought misfortune on the village.
Some said that at night it went out and ate the corpses in the new
graves. It had been clear for some time that the ill-feeling against
them had been growing, when an event occurred which required immediate
action. The son of the headman died suddenly, and apparently for no
cause. Then it was remembered that, three days before, the child had
been carrying some leaves when he met the deer and Hinnihami. The deer
had gone up to the child and tried to nibble the leaves, but the boy had
snatched them away. The headman and the vederala were convinced that
Hinnihami and the deer were the direct cause of the child's death. There
was much talk between Babehami and Punchirala; other villagers were sent
for; there was much coming and going and discussion in the headman's
compound, and eventually action was decided upon.

The next day Hinnihami was collecting firewood in an old chena. The deer
was with her, feeding at a little distance from her upon the young
leaves and grass. Suddenly she was aroused by noise and movements near
her. A small band of men and boys from the village had crept quietly
through the jungle, and now were between her and the deer. As she looked
up the first stone was thrown: it missed its mark, but another followed,
and struck with a thud upon the deer's side. He bounded forward.
Hinnihami cried out and ran towards him: at the sound of her voice he
stopped and looked round. A shower of stones fell about him; thin
streams of blood began to trickle down his flanks; suddenly he plunged
forward upon his head, his two forelegs broken at the knees. A cheer
broke from the men. Hinnihami, as she dashed forward, was caught by two
men and flung backwards upon the ground. She fell heavily and for a
moment was stunned; then she heard the long, bleating cry of pain, and
saw the deer vainly trying to raise itself upon its broken legs among
the jeering knot of men. She felt the blood surge up to her forehead and
temples as a wave of anger came over her, and she flung herself upon the
two men who barred her path. Swinging their arms wildly, they gave her
blow upon blow with the open hand upon her head and breast. Her jacket
was torn into shreds, and at last she fell exhausted.

The sight of the bleeding deer and the woman lying on the ground, naked
to the waist, seemed to send a wave of lust and cruelty through the men.
They tore Hinnihami's cloth from her, and, taking her by her arms,
dragged her naked up to the deer.

'Bring the vesi to her child,' they shouted. 'Comfort your yakka,
yakkini. Is there no milk in your breasts for him now?'

They held her that she might see what they did. The deer was moaning in
pain. One of the men cut a thick stick and struck him upon the hind legs
until they were broken. Hinnihami fought and struggled, but she was
powerless in their hands. At length, when they had become tired of
torturing them, they threw her down by the deer's side and went away.

Hinnihami was unhurt, but she was stunned by the violence of anger and
horror. The deer moaned from time to time. She tried to lift him with
some vague idea of carrying him back to the house. But he screamed with
pain at the slightest movement, and he had grown too big for her to
carry. She felt that he was dying. She flung herself down by him,
caressing his head, and calling to him not to leave her. 'Punchi Appu!
Punchi Appu!' she kept repeating, 'you must not die. Surely the god who
gave you to me will save you. Punchi Appu, Punchi Appu, you cannot die.'

Then gradually a sense only of dull despair settled upon her. She sat
through the long day unconscious of the passing of time. She was unaware
when the deer died; she knew that he was dead now, and that with him
everything had died for her. There was nothing for her to live for now,
and already she felt life slipping from her. She thought of the child
who had died too: she had missed her, and grieved for her, but she had
never loved the child as she loved the deer. He had come to her, a wild
thing from the jungle, the god's mysterious gift. Now he was lying there
dead, his broken limbs twisted under him, the dead white eyes bulging,
the tongue hanging out from the open mouth. She shuddered as she
remembered the scene, shuddered as she recalled the thud of the stones
and the blows.

She was found by Silindu next morning, still sitting naked by the body
of the deer, her hair wet with the dew, and her limbs stiff with the
chill of the jungle at night. He tried in vain to rouse her. She
recognised him. 'Let me be, Appochchi,' she kept repeating. 'Let me die
here, for he is dead. Let me die here, Appochchi.'

Then Silindu wrapped her cloth about her, and carried her in his arms to
the house. She cried a little when she felt his tears fall upon her, but
after that she showed no more signs of grief. She lay in the house,
silent, and resigned to die. She had even ceased to think or feel now.
Life had no more a hold upon her, and in the hour before dawn in deep
sleep she allowed it to slip gently from her.




CHAPTER VII


Silindu knew well now that Hinnihami had been a victim to save him. Both
the devil and the god had said, 'Either the man or the girl must be
given.' It was the girl who had been given; but it was he who should
have died, when the devil still possessed him. He knew now, when it was
too late, that in giving Hinnihami to the vederala he was giving her to
certain death. He had gained nothing by his first refusal of the
vederala but pain and trouble, and now the bitterest of griefs. In the
end he had lost her utterly; now indeed the house was empty. He was a
fool, yes, a fool; he knew that; but how can a man know how to walk
surrounded by all the snares of evil and disaster? A man may wash
himself clean of oil, but however much he rubs himself he will never rub
off fate. And then there was Punchirala; it was he who was the real
cause of the evil. Why had he ever come with his hateful face into the
compound? He would go in the early morning and take his gun and shoot
the vederala dead as he came out of his house. And yet what would be the
good of that now--now that Hinnihami was dead? It would only be more
evil. It would be useless. It was useless for him to do anything now.

For days Silindu sat about the compound 'thinking and thinking,' as
Punchi Menika called it. She alone had any influence with him, and even
she had no power to console him. In time grief lost its first
bitterness, and he sank into a perpetual state of sullen despair. An air
of gloom and disaster seemed to hang about the compound.

It was not long after the life of the village had been stirred by the
death of Hinnihami that another event happened which caused no little
excitement. It was seen that Babehami, the headman, was having a house
built on the open ground adjoining his compound; and as soon as it was
finished there came to live in it a man from Kamburupitiya, known as
Fernando. Many of the villagers had had dealings with him: he kept a
small boutique in Kamburupitiya, and lent money on the usual, and even
more than the usual, interest. He was not a Sinhalese, and spoke
Sinhalese very badly. Some people said he was a Tamil: his black skin
and curly black hair pointed to the fact that he had Kaffir blood in his
veins.

He was a typical town man, cunning, unscrupulous, with a smattering of
education. He wore the ordinary native cloth, but above it a shirt and
coat, and the villagers therefore called him Mahatmaya. It was obvious
that some very peculiar circumstances had brought such a man to settle
down in a village like Beddagama. The fact was that the headman and many
of the villagers were deeply in his debt. The failure of the previous
year's chena crop had made it impossible to recover anything; in fact he
was pestered with requests for further loans to tide the debtors over
the hot season, until the chenas could again be sown.

The creditor was faced with an unpleasant alternative. If he refused
further loans he would lose what he had lent already through the death
or emigration of his debtors, or they would borrow from others, and thus
make it difficult for him to recover. On the other hand the complete
failure of the chena crop made his own position far from easy: the debt
outstanding together with the interest would be in itself a heavy charge
on the next crop, even if it were a really good one. To be safe in
giving still more credit, he required additional security.

It was Babehami, the headman, who devised a scheme to meet these
difficulties. Four acres of chena would be allowed to each debtor: the
permits would be given in favour of the debtors, who were to assign
their rights to Fernando for one-fifth of the crop. It was tacitly
understood that if the four-fifths of the crop exceeded the amount of
the loans and interest, the debts would be considered cancelled.
Fernando was to come to the village, and himself supervise the working
of the chenas. Practically, therefore, the money-lender was hiring
labour for the cultivation of chenas for one-fifth of the crop, an
exceedingly paying transaction; while his rights and power of action for
the outstanding debts remained unaffected. The villagers were completely
in his hands, and both sides were fully aware of it. The whole
transaction, certainly, so far as the headman was concerned, was
illegal. Babehami knew this; but his needs were pressing, and his own
profit would be great; for, while his consent was purchased by the
cancellation of his debts, by a private arrangement with Fernando, his
own four acres of chena were not assigned to the money-lender.

To the villagers Fernando was, owing to his dress and habits, a
Mahatmaya. He did not treat them as his equals, and they--being in his
debt--treated him as a superior. He was, however, on terms of intimacy
with Babehami; and although he had a small boy with him as servant, he
took all his meals in the headman's house.

Punchi Menika very soon attracted Fernando's attention. Her face and
form would have been remarkable even in a town: to find her among the
squalid women of so squalid a village astonished him. He wanted a woman
to live with him; he was always wanting a woman; and it would be far
more comfortable to have his food cooked for him than to go always to
the headman for his meals. He anticipated no difficulty; she was a mere
village woman, and the husband was a village boor, and in his debt.

Despite his confidence Fernando decided to act cautiously. He knew very
little about villages, but he knew the many proverbs about women and
trouble; and he had heard many tales of violence and murder, of which
women had been the cause. He was quite alone among people whom he did
not really understand, far away from the boutiques and police court, the
busy little town which he understood, and where alone he really felt
secure. He was a timid man, and he hated the jungle; and, though he
despised these people who lived in it, he was not comfortable, with
them.

His first move was to try to learn something about the family from the
headman. He sounded Babehami cautiously. The result pleased him greatly.
They were bad people according to the headman--veddas, gipsies,
traffickers in evil, whores, and vagabonds. By evil charms they had
enticed Babun to their compound, and now they boasted that he, the
brother of the headman's wife, had married Punchi Menika. They were
dangerous people; they had brought misfortune and death into the
village. Fernando was not greatly impressed by their reputation for
working harm 'by magic'; as became a town-man, he was somewhat
sceptical; but what was clear to him was that the headman hated the
whole family; they would get in no eventuality any help or sympathy from
him. This knowledge was as valuable as it was pleasing to him.

Then one evening he surprised them by coming and chatting to Babun
almost as if he were an equal. It was evening, just about the time
before the lamps are lit in the house, when the air grows cool, and the
wind dies down, and the afterglow of the setting sun is in the sky. The
work in the chena for the man, and in the house for the woman, was over.
Babun was squatting in the compound near the house, and Punchi Menika
stood behind him, leaning against the doorpost. From time to time a word
or two was spoken, but for the most part they were content to allow the
silence of the evening to descend upon them, as they watched with vacant
eyes the light fade out of the sky.

Punchi Menika brought the wooden mortar in which the grain was pounded,
turned it upside down, and dusted the top with a piece of cloth.

'Will you sit down, aiya?' said Babun. Fernando sat down upon it. Babun
squatted opposite to him, while Punchi Menika stood behind, leaning
against the doorpost.

'Well, Babun,' said Fernando, 'will the chena crop be good, do you
think?'

'Who can say, aiya, who can say? Only a fool measures his grain before
it is on the threshing-floor.'

'Then all these villagers do that, for they are all fools. Aiyo! what
cattle! what trouble they give a man!'

'We are poor men, aiya, and ignorant.'

'I'm not thinking of you, Babun, but of the others. There is only one
man in the village; all say that, and I've seen it myself. But the
others! They will ruin me. How much do they owe me! Only a very good
crop will pay it, but they don't care. They don't fence the chena or
watch it; they sit and sleep in the compound, and the deer and pig go
off with my rupees in their bellies. Isn't that true?'

'It's true, aiya.'

'And what can I do, a town man, with all these chenas? I ought to have a
gambaraya.'[41]

'Yes, you want a gambaraya.'

'So I thought, and I thought too, "This Babun is the only man in the
village, why shouldn't he be my gambaraya?" Well, what do you say? You
could look after the other chenas, and also cultivate your own?'

Babun was silent with astonishment; it was a piece of good fortune which
he could never have dreamed of.

'I would give you one-twentieth of the crop, after the fifth had been
paid to the cultivators,' Fernando went on. 'Would you do it for that?'

'Yes, aiya, I will do it for that, gladly.'

'Very well, that's settled. You are my gambaraya now.'

Fernando sighed and stretched himself. 'What a place this jungle is!' he
said. 'It is not fit for a sensible man to live in. Of course these
other villagers, if they went anywhere else, what could they do, the
cattle? They do not know the east from the west, as the tale says. If
they get into a bazaar they are frightened, and run about like a scared
bull. But you, Babun, you are young and strong; you are a knowing man.
Why do you starve here when you could eat rice and grow fat elsewhere?'

'So my sister and her man said, aiya! They wanted me to go away and
marry in another village--over there; rain falls and rice grows there.
But it is a great evil to live in a strange place and among strangers.'

Fernando laughed. 'An evil you call it! But how many have got wealth and
fortune by going to strange places! Have you not heard of Maha Potana?
Many years ago it was all trees and jungle like this, and no one lived
there. Then they built the great tank in the jungle, and people went
there from all the villages of the west--poor men living in villages
like this. Now it is a town, and all are rich there, and eating rice.'

'Yes, aiya, we know that. The tank was built in my father's time. And
the Korala Mahatmaya and the Ratemahatmaya came to the village and spoke
as you speak now. And they said that land would be given to all that
went there, and water from the tank for the cultivation of rice. It was
in a year, I remember my father telling me, when rain had not
fallen--like the last crop with us--and there was want in the village,
and many died of fever. They urged my father to go, for he was a good
man: they knew that. And my father said to them--so he told me--"How can
I go to this strange place? Can I take the woman and the child with me?
I have no house there, and no money to buy in the bazaar. Among
strangers and in strange places evil comes. Here my father lived, and
his father before him, in this house; and they cleared the chenas as I
do, and from time to time when rain fell sowed rice below the tank. What
folly for me to leave my home and field and the chena to meet evil in
strange places." My father said this to the headman, and all the other
men of the village also refused to go, except one man--Appu they called
him; he went with his wife, and was given land under Maha Potana. And
nothing was heard of Appu for many months; and his brother, who still
lived here, at last went to Maha Potana to inquire about him. And when
he came there the people told him that Appu was dead of the fever, and
that his wife had gone away, and no one knew where she had gone.'

'But people die of fever in Beddagama.'

'Yes, aiya, of course many people die of fever here too. But they die
among their relations, and friends, and people who are known to them; in
houses where their fathers lived before them. Surely it is a more bitter
thing to die in a strange place. I am a poor man and ignorant, and I
cannot explain it to you better. There is always trouble and evil in
strange places; when a man goes even upon a journey or pilgrimage to
Kamburupitiya or Maha Potana or Beragama, always, aiya, he is troubled
and afraid--in the bazaars and boutiques and on the roads people unknown
to him--and everywhere he is thinking of his village, and his house, and
the tank, and the jungle paths which he knows there, and people living
in the village, all of whom he knows. That is why a man will not leave
his village, even when the crops fail and there is no food; no, not even
when the headmen come--and they come now every year--and say, "There is
good land to be given in such a place, there is work upon such a road,
or in such a village, why starve here?" I have heard people say that far
away in the west there are large towns, Colombo and Kalutara and Galle,
where every one has food and money always; but, aiya, not even to those
towns do you see a man going who has been born and lived all his life in
a village.'

'Am I not now among strangers? What evil will befall me?'

'May the gods keep it away from you, aiya. But how can a man tell what
evil is before him? But you are not an ignorant village man like us, and
besides after the chena is reaped you will return to your house.'

Fernando was silent for a while. When he spoke again he had a curiously
seductive effect upon his listeners. His low, soft voice and broken
Sinhalese, the languorousness and softness which seemed to pervade him
fascinated them even more than what he said.

'What can the buffalo born in the fold know of the jungle? or does the
wild buffalo know how to work in the rice-fields? I was born far away
across the sea on the coast. I was only a little child when they brought
me to Colombo to live there in the shop which my father kept. He had no
fear to leave his village and to cross the sea, nor had he any desire to
go back again there. He was a rich man. Ohé! what a town is Colombo.
There we lived in a great building, and all around us were houses and
houses, and people and people: no jungle or snakes or wild beasts; not
even a paddy-field or a cocoanut-tree. Always streets and people
walking, walking backwards and forwards on the red roads (and very few
even known to you by sight), and bullock-carts and carriages and
rickshaws, hundreds upon hundreds. And there are houses, very high, as
high as the hill at Beragama, full of white Mahatmayas and their women,
always coming and going from the ships. How many times have I stood
outside when a boy and watched them, always laughing and talking loud,
like madmen, and dancing, men and women together. And how fair are the
women, fair as the lotus-flower as the tale says; very fair and very
shameless.'

'Is it true then that the women of the white Mahatmayas are shameless?'
broke in Punchi Menika.

'In Colombo all say they are shameless. Very fair, very mad, and very
shameless. Their eyes are like cat's eyes. The proverb says, "If the
eyes of a woman are like the eyes of a cat, evil comes to the man who
looks into them." The hair of the English Mahatmayas' women is very
fair, the colour of the young cocoanut-flowers. Yes, they are mad. In
the evening strange music is played by many men sitting high up near the
roof; then every Mahatmaya takes a woman in his arms, and looking into
her eyes goes round and round very quickly on the floor.'

'Aiya, aiya, is this a true tale?'

'Why should I tell you what is false? Did I not live twenty years there
in Colombo? It is a great town. In the morning I went and walked on the
stone road that has been built into the sea, and within is the harbour,
full always of great ships bigger than villages. Always the Mahatmayas
are coming and going in the great ships; from where they come and where
they go no one can tell. You stand upon the stone road, and you see the
great ship come in across the sea in the morning, filled with white
Mahatmayas, and in the evening it carries them out again across the sea.
They are all very rich, and for a thing that costs one shilling they
willingly give five. Also they are never quiet, going here and there
very quickly, and doing nothing. Very many are afraid of them, for
suddenly they grow very angry, their faces become red, and they strike
any one who is near with the closed hand.'

Fernando stopped. He had become quite excited as he recalled his life in
Colombo in his youth. He had forgotten where he was. Suddenly he became
aware of his surroundings, the little village so far away from
everything; the ignorant, uncouth villager who listened to him; the
woman behind him for whose sake he had come to the hut, and whom for the
moment he had forgotten. For a while Babun did not like to disturb his
silence, then he asked diffidently:

'But, aiya, if Colombo is your village, how is it that you now live in
Kamburupitiya?'

Fernando laughed. 'What talk is this of villages?' he said. 'Everywhere
here the question is, "Of what village is he?" And then, "He is of
Beddagama or Bogama, or Beragama, or any gama."[42] And the liver in
villages says, as you did but now, "How can I leave my gama?" Did I not
tell you that I am of no village? My father's village is beyond the sea,
and they say that the father's village is the son's. I have never seen
that village; I have forgotten its name. I was born in Colombo, which is
no village, but a town. Aiyo! what a town it is! How pleasant! The
houses and the noise and smell of the bazaar for miles, and the dust and
people everywhere! What folly to live here, like a sanyasi on the top of
a bare rock! Perhaps one day I shall return to Colombo, and live in a
great house, as my father did. My father was a rich man, but always
gambling; no money stayed in the house. And I spent much money upon
women. There was a nautch-girl from the coast; her eyes had made me mad,
and she devoured me. It was always rupees, and bracelets, and anklets,
and silk cloths. Then my father was very angry, for all the money had
gone on the gambling and jewellery. There was no money to pay the
merchants for goods for the shop, but worst of all he had no money for
gambling. The girl had taunted me because I had come empty-handed,
saying that she would shame me openly if I came back again with nothing.
So I again asked my father for money. He drove me away, cursing me; so I
went into the shop, and took goods and sold them, and taking two
handfuls of silver flung them down before the girl. But when my father
found what I had done, he cursed me again, and beat me, and drove me out
of the house, saying, that if I returned he would give me to the police.
I ran out very sad because of the girl. I was also sorry that I had
given her both handfuls of silver, and had not kept one for myself. I
stood at a street corner thinking that now I would die of hunger, and
that it would be better to hang myself. Just then there passed a
Moorman, Cassim, a man of Kalutara, a merchant, whom I had often seen in
my father's shop. He laughed at me when he saw me, and said, speaking
Tamil, "Now I see that the feet of the girl have danced away with the
old man's wealth and the young man's life." At that the tears ran down
my face, and I told him all that had happened. Then he said, "Come with
me to Kalutara. You can sell there for me in my shop." So I went with
him to Kalutara, and stayed there selling for him for two years. After
that he sent me to sell for him in Kamburupitiya, and there I now live,
and have a shop of my own.'

Fernando paused for a while; then he began again:

'You see I have no village. I live always among strangers, but no evil
has come. I left Colombo without a cent, and now I have become rich.
What folly to starve where one was born when there are riches to be got
in the neighbouring village! Well, I am going now.'

Babun accompanied his guest to the stile of the compound, and took leave
of him with the usual words, 'It is well; go and come again.'

Fernando was quite satisfied with his interview. He thought he had
gauged Babun, and that he would have no difficulty with him; he seemed
so simple and mild. Both the man and woman had obviously been impressed
by him and by his wealth. He was, however, still cautious; he decided to
make his first overture through the servant boy, whom he could trust.

The boy was instructed carefully. He was to go to Punchi Menika as if on
his own initiative His master was a rich man, and a great lover of
women. He had already remarked upon her beauty. The boy was quite sure
that, though his master had not actually said so, he desired her
greatly. If she agreed, he would tell his master that the next night
that Babun was watching in the chena she would come to his house or
would receive him in hers. It would benefit both her and her husband,
for his master was very kind and generous.

The attempt was a failure. Punchi Menika listened to what the boy had to
say, and then gave him a sound smack in the face, which sent him crying
back to his master. She was very angry with the 'badness of these boys
from the town,' and she did not suspect that he had been sent by his
master.

Fernando beat the servant boy, and himself went to Punchi Menika's
compound one evening when he knew that Babun would be watching at the
chena.

'Woman,' he said, 'you have beaten my servant boy. Why is that?'

'He came here with evil words, aiya.'

'Evil words? A child of eight?'

'Chi, chi. But he came here with evil words and lies.'

'Lies? What did he say? That your face is very fair, and that all men
desire you?'

'Aiya, aiya, do not speak like that. He spoke shameful words. I cannot
tell you what he said.'

'Nonsense. You have beaten my servant and you must tell me why, or I
must go to the headman.'

'Aiya, why force me to tell what is shameful?'

'What nonsense. Are you a child, then? What shame is there in words?'

'The boy came here with shameful words, saying that you desired a woman.
He called me to come to you secretly at night, when my man goes to the
chena.'

Fernando looked very hard at Punchi Menika. He smiled when her eyes
dropped.

'But what if the boy did not lie? What if he was sent by his master?'

'Hush, aiya. Do not speak like that.'

'Why? Am I so foul that the woman of the villager Babun shrinks from
me?'

'It is not that.'

'What is it, then? The women of Colombo and Kamburupitiya have not found
me foul. Are you afraid?'

'Yes, aiya, I am afraid.'

'Afraid of what? What harm can come? Who need know? And what can Babun
do? He is a fool. He owes me money. What can he do?'

'I am afraid. It is difficult for me to explain to you, for I see you
will grow angry. I am a village woman, ignorant: I am not a woman like
that. I went to the man willingly, even against my father's will. He has
been the father of my child, that is dead. He is good to me. Let me
alone, aiya, let me alone, to keep his house and cook his meals for him
as before.'

'Why not? I do not ask you to come to Kamburupitiya to be my wife. There
is no talk of leaving your husband. I am rich, and can give you money
and jewels. You will bring good fortune to your husband, for I will
cancel his debts and give him the share of the other chenas which I
promised him.'

'I cannot do it, aiya.'

'What folly! There is nothing to fear. The houses are near with the same
fence. No one will know if you come to me through the fence after
nightfall. If I say 'Come, I want you,' is it not enough? Do you wish me
to lie on the ground before you and pray to you?'

'Enough, enough, aiya. Pardon me, I cannot do it.'

'Will you bring ruin on your man, then?'

'I do not understand.'

'What? She doesn't understand. What cattle these people are! Is Babun in
my debt? Is he to get a share of my chenas?'

'Yes, aiya, I heard you tell him so.'

'Well, is anything given for nothing? Do they give you rice in the
bazaar for nothing, or kurakkan or cloth? Do they? Fool, why do you
stand there looking at me like a buffalo? You--your man, tell him that I
have been here, and what I said. Will he sell you to me like a sack of
kurakkan? If not, he is a fool too, a dog, a pig; if not, he gets no
share of the crop from me, his debts stand and the interest too. I can
ruin him. He--I will, too, I will ruin him. Do you hear that? Well, what
do you say?'

'What is there to say, aiya? I cannot do it. If this thing must come to
us, what can we do? Always evil is coming into this house--from the
jungle, my father says. At first there was no food. Then the devil
entered into my father. Then more evil, upon my sister and her child,
and upon my child. The children died; they killed Punchi Appu; they
killed my sister. And now evil again.'

Punchi Menika had spoken in a very low voice, very slowly. Fernando
stood looking at her. For a moment he was affected by the resignation
and sadness of her tone. Then he thought he had been a fool to lose his
temper and threaten openly. But how could one deal with cattle like
these people? He began to grow angry again, but he recognised that it
was useless and dangerous further to show his anger and disappointment.
He returned without another word to his house.

His failure astonished him almost more than it annoyed him. His first
thought was to approach Babun himself. Probably the woman was only
frightened of her husband, and probably the husband would see more
clearly the advantages to be gained by giving his consent. But Fernando
had lost a good deal of his confidence; he felt the need of an adviser
and ally. There could be no danger in consulting the headman. In any
case it would be dangerous for Babehami to oppose him, and there was
every reason to believe that Babehami would be only too glad of an
opportunity of working against Babun and Punchi Menika.

Next day, after he had eaten the evening meal, in the headman's house,
and while he was sitting in the compound with Babehami, chewing betel,
he opened the subject.

'I thought to get your wife's brother to oversee my chenas. He is a good
man, I think.'

Babehami spat. 'What will you pay him?'

'One twentieth of the crop. He is a good man to work.'

'He is a good worker. His chena is always the best, but he is a fool. He
has brought disgrace upon us.'

'Is he married to that woman?'

'No. He went to her father's house and lives there with her.'

'It would be a good thing to take him from them. Is he not tired of her
now?'

'He was mad about her. He would not listen to reason.'

'Ah, but that was at first, long ago. They say the man first finds
heaven in a woman, later in a field, and last in the temple. Would you
like to get him back to your house?'

'Yes.'

'Well, why not?' Fernando moved nearer to Babehami and lowered his
voice. 'Ralahami, I must live here some months. Without a woman what
comfort in a house? The woman is not ill-looking and could cook my meals
for me. I had thought of this for some days, so I sent my servant boy to
her. She answered that she would come, but she was afraid of her man.
Then I thought of speaking to the man, but it is not easy for a
stranger. I thought, if he marries this woman it is a disgrace to the
headman. It is better that his friends speak to him. Probably he is
tired of the woman, and will marry from another village some girl who
has a dowry of land.'

Babehami seemed to be considering the ground in front of him with great
attention; from time to time he spat very deliberately. It was
impossible to tell from his face what impression Fernando's suggestion
had made upon him. His silence irritated Fernando. 'What swine these
villagers are,' he thought.

'Well,' he said at last, 'what do you say?'

'Did she say she would come to you, if Babun allowed her?'

'Yes, but why do you ask that? If the man agrees, what difficulty can
there be?'

'Perhaps none, perhaps none, aiya, but who can say? They are mad those
people. It happens so sometimes to people who live as we do in the
jungle. The spirits of the trees, they say, enter into a family and they
are mad and a trouble to the village. Who knows what such people will
do?'

'Well?'

'What more is there to say now?'

'Is the plan good?'

'Yes.'

'But will you help me?'

'The plan is a good one certainly. But I am on bad terms with my wife's
brother. We quarrelled about the girl. What can I do?'

'If you talk to him now, Ralahami? You quarrelled when he was hot after
the girl. That was long ago; and a man soon tires of the woman that has
borne him children. And there are many ways, Ralahami, to persuade him
if you will help me. There are the debts and the chenas, and many other
ways. What is there that a headman cannot do? It is wrong for him to sit
still and watch disgrace come upon him and his family. Have you given
him his permit to chena yet?'

'No, not yet.'

'Well, you can keep it back. How can they live without chenas? Then
there are the courts. I can help you there, for, being of Kamburupitiya,
I know the ways of the courts well. There will be cases and trouble for
him, and for them.'

Babehami was not to be hurried. He considered the proposal for some
minutes. It was the sort of persecution which appealed to him. He would
at the same time be injuring those he disliked, helping those in whose
debt he stood, and pleasing himself. He could see very little risk in
it, and much to gain.

'Well, aiya,' he said at length, 'I will help you if I can. I will speak
to Babun. Shall it be done soon?'

'Yes, quickly. Send for him now. There is no harm in doing it before me;
and there is no time to lose if I am to get the woman.'

Babehami was at first averse to doing things with such precipitation; he
liked to think over carefully each move in his game. But he was
overpersuaded by Fernando, who could not restrain his impatience. A
message was sent to Babun that the headman wanted to speak to him. Babun
was very much astonished at receiving this message, and still more so at
his reception. He was given a chew of betel and welcomed warmly.

'Brother,' said the headman, 'it is a bad thing for those of the same
blood to quarrel. This Mahatmaya has been speaking of it, saying you are
a good man. All that is very long ago, and it is well to forget it.'

'I have forgotten it. I have never had a bad thought of you in my mind,
brother.'

'Good, good. Nor I of you, brother, really. Well, and how are things
with you now?'

'The light half of the moon returns. This Mahatmaya is giving me his
chenas to work for a share of the crop.'

'Good, good. Where there is food, there is happiness. Never have I known
a year like this, and I am growing an old man now. On the poya[43] day
two months back there was not a kuruni of grain in all the village. I
went to the Korala Mahatmaya; I said to him: "Can men live on air?" He
is a hard man. He said (his stomach swollen with rice), "For ten years
now I have told you to leave your village. There are fields and land
elsewhere; there is work elsewhere; they pay for work on the roads. If
you make your paddy field on rock, do you expect the rice to grow?" I
said to him, "The Government must give food or the people will die."
Then he said, "Go away and die quickly," and he abused me, calling me a
tom-tom-beater, and drove me away. So I went to this Mahatmaya and
arranged about the chenas. Had it not been for him, we should all have
starved.'

'I know. The Mahatmaya has been very good.'

'And now again the Mahatmaya said to me: "It is a foolish thing to
quarrel with a brother. It is long ago and about a woman. A young man
hot after a woman! What use is it? Send for him and be friends."'

'The Mahatmaya is very good to us.'

'I was wrong, brother. I say it to you myself. I used shameful words to
you. But that was long ago. A young man must have a woman. It is foolish
to stand in his way. Even the buck will turn upon you in the rutting
season.'

'All that is forgotten now.'

'So the Mahatmaya says: "It is time," he said, "for him to marry. Send
for him and become friends again. For the heat of youth is now past." So
I sent for you.'

'I have come.'

'He said to me, "Now is the time. The boy has become a man. When he
learns about the woman, he will do as you ask."'

'I do not understand that.'

'The woman has offered to go and live with the Mahatmaya and cook his
meals for him. So the Mahatmaya says, "Very well, I will take her to
live with me while I am here. I will give her food and money, and also
to her father. I will give work in my chenas to your brother. So your
brother can leave the woman and marry from another village."'

'I do not understand. I do not wish to marry from another village. And
what offer of the woman do you talk of?'

'The woman came to the Mahatmaya while you were away in the chena. She
offered herself to him. The Mahatmaya said to her, "I cannot take you
unless the man gives you." Then he came to me: he said to me, "This
woman says this and that to me. It would be better for me to take her to
live with me while I am here; and you should marry your brother to an
honest woman." So I sent for you.'

'It must be lies, brother. It must be lies. Who told this to you?'

'The Mahatmaya himself. Would he tell lies?'

'Is this true, aiya?' Babun asked Fernando.

'Yes, it is true. The woman came to me.'

'The woman is a whore, brother; I told you so long ago. It is better
that you should give her to the Mahatmaya, and marry now from another
village. You can come back to my house and live here meanwhile.'

Babun was dazed. His first instinct had been to disbelieve entirely the
story about Punchi Menika. He did not believe it now, but he could not
disbelieve it. Why should the Mahatmaya lie? He could not tell him to
his face that he was lying. He got up and stood hesitating. The others
watched him. Fernando had difficulty in repressing his laughter. Several
times Babun opened his mouth to speak, and then stopped.

'I do not understand,' he said at last. 'I do not understand this. The
woman went to the Mahatmaya? Offered herself? Aiya, that cannot be so.
Surely she would be afraid? Yet you yourself say it's true. Aiyo, I do
not understand. I must go to the woman herself.'

Babehami got up and caught hold of Babun by the arm, trying to prevent
his leaving the compound.

'Do not do that, brother. Let her go, let her go to the Mahatmaya, and
do you stay here. My house is always open to you; stay now and I will
tell the woman to go to the Mahatmaya.'

'No, no. I must see her myself.'

'What is the use? There will only be abuse and angry words. It is always
lies or foul words in a woman's mouth.'

'I must go, brother. I must see her myself.'

'What folly! But you would never listen to me, and see what has come of
it. She is a whore. It was known before, but you would not believe it.
You would not listen. Hark, the lizard chirps. It is an evil hour, but
again you do not listen. You are going, brother, to meet misfortune.'

Babun allowed himself to be brought back into the compound. His mind
worked slowly, and he was dazed by the shock, and by the insinuating
stream of the headman's words. But there was a curious obstinacy about
him which Babehami recognised and feared. Babun came back, but he did
not squat down again. He stood near Fernando; his forehead was wrinkled
with perplexity. Surely the story could not be true, and yet how could
it be false? Why should the Mahatmaya and Babehami lie to him? The
simplicity of his character made him always inclined to believe at once
and without question anything said to him. The headman had reckoned on
this, and his plan would probably, but for Fernando, have succeeded.
Suddenly, however, the latter could no longer restrain his amusement.
The wrinkled forehead, the open mouth, the pain and hesitation in
Babun's face as he stood before him, seemed to him extraordinarily
ridiculous. He laughed. The laugh broke the spell. Babun turned again.

'I must see the woman herself,' he said as he walked away.

'That was foolish, aiya,' said Babehami to Fernando. 'Very foolish. He
would have stayed.'

'I know. But I couldn't help it. He stood there like a bull pulled this
way and that with a string in its nose. What now?'

'He will come back. Then we shall see. It is spoilt now, I think. This
bull is an obstinate brute when it jibs. We may have to use the goad. It
will be the only way, I think.'

They waited in silence. The headman proved right. Babun returned. He did
not speak to Fernando, but addressed himself to Babehami.

'The Mahatmaya was right to laugh at me for a fool. Yes, I am a fool. I
know that. The tale was false. It was the Mahatmaya who called the woman
to come to him, and she refused. I knew it. Yes, brother, I knew it. But
I was frightened by your words. I thought, "he is my sister's man, why
should he lie to me?" It was lies. The woman wept for shame when I told
her.'

'It was true, brother. It is the woman who is lying now to you. She is
frightened of you, frightened that you should know what she has done.'

'I am a fool, brother, but what use is there in repeating lies now? The
story was false. It was the Mahatmaya who came to my house and called
the woman to him. She refused. She would not leave me.' He turned to
Fernando. 'Aiya, why come and trouble us? We are poor and ignorant, and
you have wealth, and women in the town as you told us. Leave us in
peace, aiya, leave us in peace.'

'It is not lies,' broke in Babehami. 'Truly you are a fool. The woman is
ashamed now, and lies to you, and you believe. But what has that to do
with it? The Mahatmaya is now ready to take the woman. It is time that
this folly should end. Let him take her, and come back to this house.'

'She refuses, I tell you.'

'What has that to do with it? It is time for you to marry, and leave
that filth.'

'What is the good, brother, of beginning this again? It will only lead
to angry words again. I told you, so many years back, that I want no
other wife than this. It is the same now. I will live with no one else.
All these lies and words are useless.'

'Ohé, ohé! it may lead to angry words; yes, but are they useless? Last
time you refused to listen to me. Well, I did nothing: I allowed you to
go your own way. You brought shame on me and my family. I did nothing. I
let you go. But now it is different. Suppose they were lies, the words
spoken by me just now. They weren't, but suppose they were. What then?
The Mahatmaya wants the woman now. He calls her to him: she will not
come; you refuse to give her. Is it wise, wise brother? Think a little.
Is there much kurakkan in the house after the drought? The Mahatmaya has
made you overseer of his chenas. If the woman is refused, will you
remain overseer? The twentieth of the crop will go, I think, to some one
else. Is it wise for the bull to fight against the master, when he has
the goad in his hand? Is it wise, too, always to be fighting against the
headman? Even the headman has a little power still. The chena permit has
not yet come for you. Perhaps it may never come. Who knows?'

'The Mahatmaya will not do that--and you--you are my brother.'

'If the woman is not given to me,' said Fernando, 'neither will the
twentieth be given to you. I have not come here to be laughed at by
cattle like you. First the woman is offered, and then I am refused! What
does it mean? Would you try to make me out a fool?'

'Very well, aiya, then I will not have the twentieth. The woman cannot
be given to you.'

'Fool,' said Babehami. 'So you refuse again to listen to me? But
remember this time it will not be as it was before. You shall not always
disgrace and insult me.'

'I have never spoken nor thought evil of you, brother. But I tell you,
as I told you before, I will not live without this woman. It is useless
to talk more, for nothing but angry words will follow. Therefore I am
going.'

Babun did not wait for any answer from the two men, but went quickly
from the compound. The other two sat on discussing the matter for long.
They had to take their steps quickly, for Fernando would only be a few
weeks in the village, and he was very anxious, now that he was really
opposed, to possess Punchi Menika. Their plans were laid that night.

Babun and Silindu very soon became aware of the web that was being spun
around them. They had already begun to cultivate a chena together: two
days after Babun's conversation with Babehami and Fernando they found
another man, Baba Sinno, a near relation of Babehami, in occupation of
it. Babun went to the headman to inquire what this meant. The headman
was quite ready to explain it. No permit could be given to Babun and
Silindu this year. It was a Government rule that permits were to be
given only to fit persons. Babun and Silindu were not fit persons,
therefore no permits could be given to them. That was all.

They returned to the compound amazed, overwhelmed. Babun explained to
Silindu the real cause of the headman's act, the proposal of Fernando
and its reception. It was clear that the two men would stop at nothing,
that they had determined upon the complete ruin of Silindu's family,
unless Punchi Menika were given up. For if no chena were given, it meant
starvation; for they had at the utmost food only for a month, and
besides that nothing but their debts. They saw that Baba Sinno was but a
foil; they did not dare to turn him out by force, because they had no
permits which would give them the right to do so. If they had felt that
there was any one in the village who would openly take their part, it
would have been different; but they knew that no one would dare to side
with them against the headman and Fernando, who already held the whole
village enmeshed in their debt.

The more they discussed it the more horrible became their fear. In a
month they would be starving or forced to leave the village. There was
only one thing for them to do, to put the whole case before the
Assistant Government Agent. Babun set off for Kamburupitiya next morning
with this object. His trouble and his fear drove him; and he did the
three days' journey in two. On the morning of the third day, hours
before the office opened, he was standing, haggardand frightened, on the
Kachcheri[44] verandah, waiting to fall at the feet of the Assistant
Agent. At last a peon or two arrived, and later some clerks. At first no
one took any notice of him. Then a peon came and asked him what he
wanted. He told him that he had come to make a complaint to the
Assistant Agent. The peon said, 'The Assistant Agent is away on circuit.
You must send a petition.'

'When will he be back?'

'I don't know.'

'Where is he now, aiya?'

'I don't know.'

He had not the few cents necessary to buy him a fuller answer. He went
from one peon to another, and from one clerk to another trying to learn
more particulars. They told him nothing; they did not know, they said,
when the Assistant Agent would return, or where he was; he had better
have a petition written, and come again a week later. He became stupid
with fear and misery. He hung about the verandah hour after hour, doing
nothing, and thinking of nothing. At last, late in the afternoon, he
wandered aimlessly into the bazaar. He was passing the shop of the
Moorman, who had previously made many loans in Beddagama: Cassim, who
was sitting within doing nothing, knew Babun and called out to him:

'What are you doing in Kamburupitiya, Babun? Like cotton down in a
storm! What is the matter with you? I hear that dog Fernando is in
Beddagama--may he die of the fever.'

'I have been to the Kachcheri to lay a complaint before the Agent
Hamadoru. The Agent Hamadoru is away on circuit. I cannot learn where he
is or when he returns.'

'Ohé! a complaint? Those dogs of peons! Every one knows where the Agent
Hamadoru is except the peon; and he only knows when there are fanams in
his hand. The Agent Hamadoru is in Galbodapattu on circuit: he will not
return for another ten days. Every one knows that.'

'Aiyo! then we are ruined!'

'Why? what is it?'

'We are ruined. Only the Agent Hamadoru could help us, and now it will
be too late. Our chena is taken from us. Aiyo! Aiyo!'

'Is this one of Fernando's games? They say that the chenas are his now,
and not the Government's. The low caste fisher! Vesige puta! He is a
Mudalali now: I expect he hopes to be made the Agent Hamadoru one day.'

'It is he, aiya, he and the headman. They want me to give my wife to the
Mudalali. I refused. Now they have taken my chena from me. They will
ruin me. The Agent Hamadoru, if he knew, would have interfered to stop
this; but now it will be too late by the time I can complain to him. It
will be too late, aiya!'

The fat Moorman rolled from side to side with laughter.

'O the dog! O the dog! O the dog! There is no one like these fishers for
finding money and women everywhere. Allah! They call us Moormen cunning
and clever. The only thing I ever found in Beddagama was bad debts. And
here this swine of a fisher finds not only bags of grain, and bags of
rupees there, but women too. But I am sorry for you, Babun. I remember
you; you were a good man in that accursed village. Come in here now, and
I'll see what I can do for you. I should like to stop that swine's game.
But it is difficult. One wants time. We must send a petition; the Agent
Hamadoru would stop it if he knew. But there are always peons and clerks
and headmen in the way before you can get to him. Cents here and cents
there, and delays and inquiries! You want time, and we haven't got it.
But there is nothing for it but a petition. Here now, I'll write it
myself for you to spite that dog Fernando.'

The Mudalali made Babun give him all the particulars, and he wrote the
petition, and stamped and posted it. He told Babun to come in again to
Kamburupitiya in ten days' time to see him about it. He also gave him
food, and made him sleep that night in his verandah. The next day Babun,
somewhat comforted, set out for his village. He was very weary by the
time that he reached it: he felt that he could show little gain from his
journey to Silindu and Punchi Menika. Ruin seemed very near to them.
They could do little but sit gloomily talking of their fears.

But Babehami and Fernando were meanwhile not idle. The cunning headman
and the town-man, with his energetic fertile mind, were a strong
combination. On the morning after Babun's return to the village a rumour
spread through the village that the headman's house had been broken into
during the night, and that Babehami had left at once to complain to the
Korala. Late in the afternoon of the same day the Korala and Babehami
arrived in the village. They called to them three or four of the village
men, and went with them straight to Silindu's compound. The Korala, a
fat, consequential, bullying man, went in first and summoned Babun,
Silindu, and Punchi Menika. They were handed over to Babehami's brother,
who was instructed to keep them in the compound, and not to allow them
out of his sight.

The news of the burglary had not reached Babun and Silindu. They were
bewildered by what was passing. They saw the Korala go into the house
with Babehami. They were some time in the house, while the men in the
compound talked together in whispers. A little group of men and women
had gathered outside the fence, and Fernando stood in the door of his
house watching what was happening. At last the two headmen came out of
the house. The Korala was carrying a bundle. He walked up to Babun and
showed him the bundle: it consisted of two cloths, a pair of gold
ear-rings, and some other pieces of gold jewellery.

'Where did you get these from, yakko?'[45] he asked.

'I know nothing about them: they are not mine.'

'Don't lie, yakko. They were in your house. Where did you get them
from?'

'Hamadoru, I know nothing about them. Some one must have put them
there.'

'Lies. They were stolen last night from the Arachchi's house. The
Mudalali saw you leaving the house in the night. Curse you, I shall have
to take you into Kamburupitiya now to the court and the magistrate
Hamadoru. And what about this fellow?' pointing to Silindu, 'Do you
charge him as well?'

'Yes, Mahatmaya,' said Babehami. 'But there is the box too. Should not
the jungle round the house be searched for it?'

'Yes. Hi there, you fellows! Go and search that piece of jungle there.'

Three or four men went off slowly and began a desultory search in the
jungle which lay behind the compound. Suddenly there was a cry, and one
of them lifted up a large box. He brought it to the Korala. The lock had
been forced open. It was recognised as the headman's. The case was
complete, and the onlookers recognised that the evidence against Babun
was damning.

Babun and Silindu were taken off to the headman's house. They had to
spend the night in the verandah with Babehami's brother, who was there
to see that they did not run away. The injustice of this new catastrophe
seemed to have completely broken Babun's spirit. His misfortunes were
too many and sudden for him to fight against. He refused to talk, and
squatted with his back against the wall silent throughout the night. The
effect upon Silindu was different. He saw at last the malignity of the
headman and how his life had been ruined by it. This last stroke made
him aware of the long series of misfortunes, which he now felt were all
due to the same cause. This knowledge roused him at last from his
resignation and from the torpor habitual to his mind. He talked
incessantly in a low voice, sometimes to Babun, but more often
apparently to himself.

'They call me a hunter, a vedda? A fine hunter! To be hunted for years
now and not to know it! It is the headman who is the vedda, a very
clever hunter. I have been lying here like a fat old stag in a thicket
while he was crawling, crawling nearer and nearer, round and round,
looking for the shot. Where was the watching doe to cry the alarm?
Always he shot me down as I lay quiet. But the old hunter should be very
careful. In the end misfortune comes. Perhaps this time I am a buffalo,
wounded. The wise hunter does not follow up the wounded buffalo, where
the jungle is thick. Ha! ha! The wounded buffalo can be as clever as the
clever hunter. He hears the man crawling and crawling through the
jungle. He stands there out of the track in the shadows, the great black
head down, the blood bubbling through the wound, listening to the twigs
snap and the dry leaves rustle; and the man comes nearer and nearer.
Fool! you cannot see him there, but he can see you now; he will let you
pass him, and then out he will dash upon you, and his great horns will
crash into your side, and he will fling you backwards through the air as
if you were paddy straw. The old buffalo knows, the old buffalo knows;
the young men laugh at him, "buffaloes' eyes," they say, "blind eyes,
foolish eyes, a foolish face like a buffalo," but he is clever, amma! he
is clever--when wounded--when he hears the hunter after him--cleverer
than the cleverest hunter. And when it has gone on for years! all his
life! What will he do then? Will he lie quiet then? Oh! he will lie
quiet, yes, and let them take all from him, daughter and home and food.
He will shake his head and sigh the great sigh, and lie quiet in the mud
of the wallow, very sad. And then at last they come after his life.
Shall they take that too? Then at last he knows and is angry--very
angry--and he stands waiting for them. The fools! They come on, crawling
still; they do not know that he is ready for them now. The fools! the
fools!'

The next morning the Korala took with him the complainant, the accused,
and the witnesses, of whom Fernando turned out to be one, and started
for Kamburupitiya. Punchi Menika went with them. They travelled slowly,
and reached Kamburupitiya on the fourth morning. Silindu had relapsed
into his usual state of sullen silence; Babun's spirit appeared to be
completely broken. He scarcely understood what the charge against him
was; he knew nothing of why or on what evidence it had been made. He
waited bewildered to see what new misfortune fate and his enemies would
bring upon him.

The parties and witnesses in the case were taken at once to the
court-house. They waited about all the morning on the verandah. The
court was a very large oblong room with a roof of flat red tiles. At one
end was the bench, a raised dais, with a wooden balustrade round it.
There were a table and chair upon the dais. In the centre of the room
was a large table with chairs round it for the bar and the more
respectable witnesses. At the further end of the room was the dock, a
sort of narrow oblong cage made of a wooden fence with a gate in it.
Silindu and Babun were locked up in this cage, and a court peon stood by
the gate in charge of them. There was no other furniture in the room
except the witness-box, a small square wooden platform surrounded by a
wooden balustrade on three of its sides.

Nothing happened all the morning: Babun and Silindu squatted down behind
the bars of their cage. They were silent: they had never been in so vast
or so high a room. The red tiles of the roof seemed a very long way
above their heads. Outside they could hear the murmur of the sea, and
the rush of the wind, and the whispered conversation of the witnesses on
the verandah; but inside the empty room the silence awed them. About one
o'clock there was a stir through the court: the headmen hurried in, a
proctor or two came and sat down at the table. The peon nudged Babun and
Silindu, and told them to stand up. Then they saw a white Hamadoru, an
Englishman, appear on the daïs and sit down. The court interpreter, a
Sinhalese Mahatmaya in coat and trousers, stood upon a small wooden step
near the bench. The judge spoke to him in an angry voice. The
interpreter replied in a soothing deferential tone. The conversation
being in English was unintelligible to Babun and Silindu. Then the door
of their cage was unlocked, and they were led out and made to stand up
against the wall on the left of the bench.

The court-house stood on a bare hill which rose above the town, a small
headland which ran out into the sea to form one side of the little bay.
The judge, as he sat upon the bench, looked out through the great open
doors opposite to him, down upon the blue waters of the bay, the red
roofs of the houses, and then the interminable jungle, the grey jungle
stretching out to the horizon and the faint line of the hills. And
throughout the case this vast view, framed like a picture in the heavy
wooden doorway, was continually before the eyes of the accused. Their
eyes wandered from the bare room to the boats and the canoes, bobbing up
and down in the bay, to the group of little figures on the shore hauling
in the great nets under the blazing sun, to the dust storms sweeping
over the jungle, miles away where they lived. The air of the court was
hot, heavy, oppressive; the voices of those who spoke seemed both to
themselves and to the others unreal in the stillness. The murmur of the
little waves in the bay, the confused shouts of the fishermen on the
shore, the sound of the wind in the trees floated up to them as if from
another world.

It was like a dream. They did not understand what exactly was happening.
This was 'a case' and they were 'the accused,' that was all they knew.
The judge looked at them and frowned; this increased their fear and
confusion. The judge said something to the interpreter, who asked them
their names in an angry threatening voice. Silindu had forgotten what
his ge[46] name was; the interpreter became still more angry at this,
and Silindu still more sullen and confused. From time to time the judge
said a few sharp words in English to the interpreter: Silindu and Babun
were never quite certain whether he was or was not speaking to them, or
whether, when the interpreter spoke to them in Sinhalese, the words were
really his own, or whether he was interpreting what the judge had said.

At last the question of the names was settled. Babehami was told to go
into the witness box. As he did so a proctor stood up at the table and
said:

'I appear for the complainant, your honour.'

'Any one for the defence?' said the judge.

'Have you a proctor?' the interpreter asked Silindu.

'No,' said Babun, 'we are very poor.'

'No, your worship,' said the interpreter.

Babehami knew exactly what to do; it was not the first time that he had
given evidence. He was quite at his ease when he made the affirmation
that he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. He gave his name and his occupation. Then his proctor stood up
and said to him:

'Now Arachchi, tell us exactly what has happened.'

Babehami cleared his throat and then told the following story in a
rather sing-song voice:

'About four days ago when I woke up in the morning my wife had gone out
into the compound. I heard her cry out, "Aiyo, some one has made a hole
in the wall of the house." I ran out and saw a hole on the western side
of the house. The hole was big enough for a man to crawl through. There
are two rooms in the house, one on the eastern side, and one on the
western side. We, my wife and I, were sleeping that night in the room on
the east side; in the other room was a wooden box in which were clothes
and two new sarong cloths and jewellery belonging to my wife. The box
was locked. When I saw the hole I ran back into the house to see if the
box was safe. I found it had disappeared. At that I cried out: "Aiyo, my
box has been stolen." Then the Mudalali, who had been staying in the hut
next to mine, hearing the cries came up and asked what was the matter. I
told him: he said, "Last night about four peyas[47] before dawn I went
out into the compound for a call of nature. I heard a noise in your
compound. Thinking it was a wild pig I stepped back into the doorway and
looked. Then I saw your brother-in-law come running from your compound
carrying something in his hands. He ran into the jungle behind his own
house." I went straight off to the village of the Korala Mahatmaya; it
lies many miles away to the north. Then when the sun was about there
(pointing about three-quarters way up the wall of the court) I met the
Korala Mahatmaya on the road. The Korala Mahatmaya said, "What are you
coming this way for, to trouble me? I am going to Kamburupitiya." I told
him what had happened and turned with him to go back. We came to the
village in the afternoon. The Korala Mahatmaya went to the accused's
house and searched. In the roof between the thatch he found the two
sarong cloths and my wife's jewellery, and the box with the lock broken
was found in the jungle behind the house.'

When Babehami began his story, Babun and Silindu had not really listened
to what he was saying. They were still dazed and confused, they did not
quite understand what was going on. But as he proceeded, they gradually
grasped what he was doing, and when he told the story about the
Mudalali, they saw the whole plot. Their brains worked slowly; they felt
they were trapped; there was no way out of it. Babehami's proctor stood
up to examine him, but the judge interrupted him:


'The first accused, I understand, is the brother-in-law of the
complainant. Is that correct? I propose to charge the accused now. But
is there any evidence against the second accused--Silindu, isn't his
name?--Mr. Perera?'

The proctor called Babehami to him and had a whispered conversation with
him.

'There is no evidence, sir,' he said to the judge, 'to connect him
directly with the theft. But he was in the house in which the first
accused lived, on the night in question. He must have been an accessory.
He is the owner of the house, I understand, and might be charged with
receiving.'

'No, certainly not--if that's your only evidence to connect him with the
theft. I should not be prepared to convict in any case, Mr. Perera. I
shall discharge him at once--especially as the man does not look as if
he is quite right in the head.'

'Very well, sir.'

'Charge the first accused only,' said the judge to the interpreter.
'There is no evidence against the second accused. He can go.'

This conversation had been in English and therefore was again
unintelligible to the two accused. Their bewilderment was increased
therefore when the interpreter said to Silindu: 'You there, go away.'
Silindu, not knowing where he had to go, remained where he was. 'Can't
you hear, yakko?' shouted the interpreter. 'Clear out.' The peon came up
and pushed Silindu out on to the verandah. A small group of idle
spectators laughed at him as he came out.

'They'll hang you in the evening, father,' said a small boy.

'I thought the judge Hamadoru said ten years' rigorous imprisonment,'
said a young man. Silindu turned to an old man who looked like a
villager, and said:

'What does it mean, friend?' Every one laughed.

'You are acquitted,' said the old man; 'go back to your buffaloes.'

Babun also did not understand the acquittal of Silindu. Things appeared
to be happening around him as if he were in a dream. The interpreter
came and stood in front of him and said the following sentence very fast
in Sinhalese:

'You are charged under section 1010 of the Penal Code with housebreaking
and theft of a box, clothing, and jewellery, in the house of the
complainant, on the night of the 10th instant, and you are called on to
show cause why you should not be convicted.'

'I don't understand, Hamadoru.'

'You heard what the complainant said?'

'Yes, Hamadoru.'

'He charges you with the theft. Have you anything to say?'

'I know nothing about this.'

'He says he knows nothing about this,' said the interpreter to the
judge.

'Any witnesses?' said the judge.

'Have you any witnesses?' said the interpreter to Babun.

'How can I have witnesses? No one will give evidence against the
headman.'

'Any reason for a false charge?' asked the judge.

'Hamadoru, the headman is on very bad terms with me; he is angry with me
because of my wife. He is angry with my wife's father. He wanted me to
marry from another village. Then he wanted me to give my wife to the
Mudalali and because I refused he is angry.'

'Anything else?'

Babun was silent. There was nothing more to say. He looked out through
the great doors at the jungle. He tried to think where Beddagama was;
but, looking down upon it from that distance, it was impossible to
detect any landmark in the unbroken stretch of trees.

'Very well, Mr. Perera,' said the judge.

Mr. Perera got up again and began to examine Babehami.

'How long have you been a headman?'

'Fifteen years.'

'Have you ever had a private case before?'

'No.'

'Are you on bad terms with your brother-in-law?'

'No, but he is on bad terms with me.'

'How is that?'

'There is a Government Order that chenas are only to be given to fit
persons. The accused is not a fit person: he could do work, but he is
lazy. Therefore chenas were refused to him. He thought that I had done
this. It was a Kachcheri Order from the agent Hamadoru. Last week he was
very angry and threatened me because of it. The Mudalali heard him.'

'Is the Mudalali a friend of yours?'

'How could he be, aiya? He is a mahatmaya of Kamburupitiya. I am only a
village man. How could he be a friend of mine? He comes to the village
merely to collect debts due to him.'

'And when he comes, you let him stay in the unoccupied house next to
yours. Otherwise you do not know him?'

'Yes, that is true, aiya.'

'Is the Korala related to you?'

'No.'

'A friend of yours?'

'No; he was on bad terms with me. He said I troubled him and was a bad
headman.'

Mr. Perera sat down.

'Any questions?' said the judge.

'Any questions?' the interpreter asked Babun.

'I don't understand,' said Babun.

'Yakko,' said the interpreter angrily, 'do you want to ask complainant
any questions?'

'What questions are there to ask? It is lies what he said.'

There was a pause while the judge waited for Babun to think of a
question. The silence confused him, and all the eyes looking at him. He
fixed his own eyes on the jungle.

At last Babun thought of a question.

'Did you not ask me to give the woman to the Mudalali?'

'No,' said Babehami.

'Did not the Mudalali call her to go to his house?'

'I know nothing of that.'

'Weren't you angry when I married the woman?'

'No.'

Babun turned desperately to the judge.

'Hamadoru,' he said, 'it is all lies he is saying.' The judge was
looking straight at him, but Babun could read nothing in the impassive
face; the light eyes, 'the cat's eyes,' of the white Hamadoru frightened
him.

'Is that all?' said the judge.

Babun was silent.

'Who is this Mudalali?' said the judge sharply to Babehami.

'Fernando Mudalali, Hamadoru. He comes from Kamburupitiya; he is a
trader, he lends money in the village.'

'What's he doing in the village now?'

'He has come to collect debts.'

'When did he come?'

'About a week ago.'

'When is he going?'

'I don't know.'

'Is he married?'

'I don't think so. I don't know.'

'Why do you give him a house to live in?'

'Hamadoru, the little hut was empty. He came to me and said: "Arachchi,"
he said, "I must stay here a few days. I want a house. There is that hut
of yours--can I live in it?" So I said, "Why not?"'

'Whose is the hut?'

'Mine.'

'Why did you build it?'

'It was built, Hamadoru, for this brother-in-law of mine.'

'When?'

'I don't know.'

'What do you mean?'

'Hamadoru, last year, I think.'

'But your brother-in-law lives with his father-in-law?'

'Yes.'

'Then why did you build him a house?'

'There was talk of his leaving the other people.'

'Has the Mudalali ever stayed in the village before?'

'No.'

'Do you owe anything to him?'

'No.'

'Next witness.'

Babehami stood down and the Korala entered the witness-box. He was
examined by Mr. Perera. He told his story very simply and quietly. He
had met Babehami, who had told him that his house had been broken into
and that a box had been stolen; he described the box and its contents;
he suspected his brother-in-law, who had been seen going away from his
house in the night, by the Mudalali. The Korala then described how he
went into and searched the house, and how he found the cloths and
jewellery which answered to Babehami's previous description. He then
produced them. The proctor examined him.

'Are you on good terms with the complainant?'

'I am not on good terms or bad terms with him. I only know him as a
headman.'

'Do you complain of his troubling you?'

'I complained that he was a bad headman. He has troubled me with silly
questions. He is an ignorant man.'

Mr. Perera sat down. 'Any questions?' asked the judge.

'Any questions?' asked the interpreter of Babun.

Babun shook his head. 'What questions are there?' he said.

'Do you know this Mudalali?' said the judge to the Korala.

'I have seen him before in Kamburupitiya.'

'Have you seen him before in Beddagama?'

'No.'

'Did you know that he was there?'

'No.'

'Do you know of any ill-feeling between complainant and accused?'

'No, I did not know the accused at all. I live many miles from
Beddagama.'

'Next witness.'

Fernando was the next witness. He wore for the occasion a black European
coat, a pink starched shirt, and a white cloth. He was cool and
unabashed. He told how he had gone out in the night for a call of
nature, how he had heard a noise in the compound of the headman and had
then seen Babun come out carrying something and go with it into the
jungle behind his own house.

'Could you see what it was?' asked the proctor.

'Not distinctly. He walked as if it were heavy. It was rather large.'

'How did you recognise him? Can you swear it was he?'

'I can swear that it was the accused. I recognised him first by his
walk. But I also saw his face in the moonlight.'

'Are you on bad terms with accused? Does he owe you money?'

'I am not on bad terms with him. I scarcely know him. He owes me for
kurakkan lent to him. I had arranged to make him my gambaraya. All the
villagers there owe me money.'

'How long have you been in the village?'

'About ten days. I am making arrangements for the recovery of my loans.
Last crop failed and therefore much is owed to me.'

The proctor sat down.

'Any questions?' said the judge.

'Any questions?' said the interpreter to Babun. Babun shook his head.
'It is lies they are telling,' he murmured.

'Are you married?' the judge asked Fernando.

'No.'

'You live with a woman in Kamburupitiya?'

'Yes.'

'How did you come to settle in the hut in Beddagama?'

'I was getting into difficulties with my loans because the crop failed
last year. I thought I must go to the village during the chena season
and arrange for the repayment. I saw the hut empty there, and went to
the headman and asked whether I might live there. He said "Yes."'

'Do you know the accused's wife?'

'I have seen her. Their compound adjoins that of the hut. Otherwise I do
not know her.'

'Next witness.'

The man who had found the box gave evidence of how and where he had
found it. Various villagers were then called, who identified the things
found in Silindu's hut and the box as having belonged to Babehami. They
all denied any knowledge of ill-feeling between Babun and the headman or
of any intimacy between the headman and Fernando. This closed the case
for the prosecution.

The judge then addressed Babun in a speech which was interpreted to him.
Babun should now call any witnesses whom he might have. It was for him
to decide whether he would himself go into the witness-box and give
evidence. If he gave evidence he would be liable to cross-examination by
Babehami's proctor; if he did not, he (the judge) might draw any
conclusion from his refusal.

Babun did not really understand what this meant. He did not reply.

'Well?' said the interpreter.

'I don't understand.'

'Are you going to give evidence yourself?'

'As the judge hamadoru likes.'

'Explain it to him properly,' said the judge. 'Now, look here. There is
the evidence of the Korala that he found the things in your house. There
is no evidence of his being a prejudiced witness. There is the evidence
of Fernando that he saw you leaving the complainant's hut at night. You
say that Fernando wants your wife, and that the headman is in league
with him against you. At present there is no evidence of that at all.
According to your story the things must have been deliberately put into
your house by complainant, or Fernando--or both. Listen to what I am
saying. Have you any witnesses or evidence of all this?'

'Hamadoru, how could I get witnesses of this? No one will give evidence
against the headman.'

'I will adjourn the case if you want to call witnesses from the
village.'

'What is the good? No one will speak the truth.'

'Well, then, you had better, in any case, give evidence yourself.'

'Get up here,' said the interpreter.

Babun got into the witness-box. He told his story. The judge asked him
many questions. Then the proctor began cross examining.

'Are you on bad terms with the Korala? Do you know him well?'

'I am not on bad terms. I scarcely know him.'

'Do you know that Fernando came to the village to recover money, that he
has arranged to get the chena crops from many of the villagers in
repayment of his loans?'

'Yes.'

'Did he ask you to act as overseer of those chenas, and promise you a
share of the crop if you did?'

'Yes.'

'Because he thought you the best worker in the village?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'When did this happen?'

'About a week ago.'

The proctor sat down. Babun called no witnesses. There was a curious
look of pain and distress in his face. The judge watched him in silence
for some minutes, then he told the interpreter to call Silindu. Silindu
was pushed into the box, the interpreter recited the words of the
affirmation to him. He said, 'I do not understand, Hamadoru.' It took
some time to make him understand that he had only to repeat the words
after the interpreter. He sighed and looked quickly from side to side
like a hunted animal. The eyes of the judge frightened him. He was
uncertain whether he was being charged again with the theft. He had not
listened to what was going on after he had been sent out of the court.
It occurred vaguely to him that the best thing would be to pretend to be
completely ignorant of everything. He still thought of the wounded
buffalo listening to the hunter crawling after him through the scrub:
'He doesn't move,' he muttered to himself, 'until he is sure: he stands
quite stupid and still, listening always; but when he sees clear, then
out he rushes charging.'

'Stop that muttering,' said the judge, 'and listen carefully to what I
ask you. You've got to speak the truth. There's no charge against you;
you've got nothing to fear if you speak the truth. Do you understand?'

'I understand, Hamadoru,' said Silindu. But he thought, 'They are
cunning hunters. They lie still in the undergrowth, waiting for the old
bull to move. But he knows: he stands quite still.'

'Is there any reason why the headman should bring a false case against
you and the accused?'

'I don't know, Hamadoru.'

'You are not on bad terms with him personally.'

'I have nothing against him. He does not like me, they say.'

'Why doesn't he like you?'

'Hamadoru, how should I know that?'

'You have never had any quarrel with him?'

'No, Hamadoru.'

'Are you related to him?'

'I married a cousin of his wife.'

'The accused lives in your house? He is married to your daughter?'

'Yes, Hamadoru.'

'Do you know of any quarrel between him and the headman?'

'How should I know that?'

'There was no quarrel at the time of the marriage?'

'They say this and that, but how should I know, Hamadoru?'

'You know nothing about it yourself, then?'

'No, Hamadoru.'

'Do you know the Mudalali Fernando?'

'No, Hamadoru.'

'You don't know him? Doesn't he stay in the hut adjoining your
compound?'

'I have seen him there. I have never spoken with him.'

'Did you hear of anything between him and your daughter?'

'They talk, Hamadoru.'

'What did they say?'

'They said he wanted my daughter.'

'Who said? When?'

'This man' (pointing to Babun).

'When?'

'Three or four days ago.'

'You know nothing more, yourself, about this?'

'No, Hamadoru.'

Neither Babun nor Babehami's proctor asked Silindu any questions; he was
told to go away, and was pushed out of court by the peon. The case was
over, only the judgment had to be delivered now. The judge leant back in
his chair, gazing over the jungle at the distant hills. There was not a
sound in the court. Outside, down on the shore, the net had been hauled
in, and the fish sold. Not a living being could be seen now, except an
old fisherman sitting by a broken canoe, and looking out over the waters
of the bay. The wind had died away, and sea and jungle lay still and
silent under the afternoon sun. The court seemed very small now,
suspended over this vast and soundless world of water and trees. Babun
became very afraid in the silence. The judge began to write; no one else
moved, and the only sound in the world seemed to be the scratching of
the pen upon the paper. At last the judge stopped writing. He looked at
Babun, and began to read out his judgment in a casual, indifferent
voice, as if in some way it had nothing to do with him. The interpreter
translated it sentence by sentence to Babun.

'There is almost certainly something behind this case which has not come
out. There is, I feel, some ill-feeling between complainant and accused.
The complainant impressed me most unfavourably. But the facts have to be
considered. There can be no doubt that complainant's things were found
hidden in the house in which accused lives, and that the box was found
in the jungle behind the house. The evidence of the Korala is obviously
trustworthy on these points. There is clear evidence, too, that a hole
had been made in complainant's house wall. Then there is the evidence of
the Mudalali. As matters stand, it was for the accused to show that that
evidence was untrustworthy. He has not really attempted to do this. His
father-in-law's evidence, if anything, goes to show that there is
nothing in complainant's story that Fernando wanted to get hold of his
wife. Accused's defence implies that there was a deliberate conspiracy
against him. I cannot accept his mere statement that such a conspiracy
existed without any corroborating evidence of motive for it. He has no
such evidence. Even if there were ill-feeling over the refusal of a
chena or something else, it would cut both ways; that is, it might have
been accused's motive for the theft. I convict accused, and sentence him
to six months' rigorous imprisonment.'

Babun had not understood a word of the broken sentences of the judgment
until the interpreter came to the last words, 'six months' rigorous
imprisonment.' Even then, it was only when the peon took hold of him by
the arm to put him back again into the cage, that he realised what it
meant--that he was to be sent to prison.

'Hamadoru,' he burst out, 'I have not done this. I cannot go to prison,
Hamadoru! It is all lies, it is lies that he has said. He is angry with
me. I have not done this. I swear on the Beragama temple I have not done
this. I cannot go to prison. There is the woman, Hamadoru, what will
become of her? Oh! I have not done this. I have not.'

The proctors and idlers smiled; the peon and the interpreter told Babun
to hold his tongue. The judge got up and turned to leave the court.

'I am sorry,' he said, 'but the decision has been given. I treated you
very leniently as a first offender.'

Every one stood up in silence as the judge left the court. As soon as he
had left, everything became confusion. Proctors, witnesses, court
officials, and spectators all began talking at once.

Babun crouched down moaning in the cage. Punchi Menika began to shriek
on the verandah, until the peon came out and drove her away. Only
Silindu maintained his sullenness and calmness. He followed Babun when
he was taken away by the peon to the lock-up. At one point, when he saw
that the peon was not looking, he laid his hand on Babun's arm and
whispered:

'It is all right, son, it is all right. Don't be afraid. The old buffalo
is cunning still. Very soon he will charge.' He smiled and nodded at
Babun, and then left him to find Punchi Menika.

It took some time for Silindu to find Punchi Menika. She had wandered
aimlessly away from the court through the bazaar. Silindu was now
extraordinarily excited, he seemed to be almost happy. He ran up to her,
took her by the hand, and began leading her quickly away out of the
town.

'We must go away at once,' he said. 'There is much to think of and much
to do. It is late, but we at least do not fear the jungle. The jungle is
better than the town. We can sleep by the big trees at the second hill.'

'But, Appochchi, my man. What will become of him? What will they do to
him? Will they kill him?'

'Babun is all right. I have told him. The Government do not kill. There
is no killing here. But in the jungle, always killing--the leopard and
jackal, and the hunter. Yes, and the hunter, always killing, the blood
of deer and pig and buffalo. And at last, the hunting of the hunter,
very slow, very quiet, very cunning; and at the end, after a long time,
the blood of the hunter.'

'But, Appochchi, stop, do. What does it mean? They are taking him to
prison. What will they do with him? Shall we never see him again?'

'The hunter? Yes, yes we shall see him again. Very soon, but he will not
see us?'

'What is this about the hunter? It is my man I am talking about.'

'Oh, Babun. He is all right. The white Hamadoru said, "Six months'
rigorous imprisonment." I heard that quite clear at the end. "Six
months' rigorous imprisonment." It was all that I heard clearly. He is
all right. There is no need for you to cry. They will take him away over
there--(Silindu pointed to the east)--there is a great house----I
remember I saw it a long time ago when I went on a pilgrimage with my
mother. They will put him in the great house, and give him rice to eat,
so I hear. Then he will come back to the village----but it will be after
the hunting.'

'O Appochchi, are you sure?'

'Yes, child, all will be well after the hunting. But now I must
think.'

Punchi Menika saw that it would be impossible to get anything more out
of Silindu in his present state. They walked on in silence. As they
walked his excitement began to die down. He seemed to be thinking
deeply. From time to time he muttered to himself. Late in the evening
they came to the big trees. Silindu collected some sticks and made a
fire. Then he squatted down while Punchi Menika cooked some food which
they had carried with them.

Once or twice as they sat round the fire, after having eaten the food,
Punchi Menika began to question Silindu about Babun, but he did not
reply; he did not seem to hear her. Her mind was numbed by the fear and
uncertainty. She lay down on the ground, and an uneasy sleep came to
her. Suddenly she was aroused by Silindu shaking her. She saw in the
light of the fire how his face was working with excitement.

'Child, there are two of them, two of them the whole time, and I never
saw it.'

'What do you mean? Where?'

'Hunting me, child, hunting us all--me, you, and Babun, and Hinnihami.
They killed Hinnihami, your sister. I found her lying there in the
jungle, dying. They did that. But they shall not get you. There are two
of them. Listen! I hear them crawling round us in the jungle, do you
hear? Now--there----! I thought there was only one, fool that I was--the
little headman. But now I hear them both. The little headman first and
then the other; the man with the smooth black face and the smile. It was
he, wasn't it? Didn't Babun say so? He came to you and called you to
come to his house. Babun said so, I heard him. Fernando--the
Mudalali--he wanted to take you away, but he couldn't. Then he went to
the headman and together they went to hunt us. Isn't that true? Isn't
that true?'

'Yes, Appochchi, yes. It was because they wanted me for the Mudalali.
Then they took the chena away and then they brought the case. They have
taken my man from me, what shall I do?'

'Hush, I am here. They shall do no more. Listen, child. It is true that
they have taken Babun from you. For six months he will be over there.
"Very well," they think. They thought to send me there too, but the
judge Hamadoru was wise. "Get out," he said to me. I did not understand
then, and they laughed at me, but I understand now. Well, those two will
come back to the village. "The man," they think, "is away over there for
six months, only the woman and the mad father are here. What can they
do? The Mudalali can now take the woman." Is this true?'

'Appochchi! It is what I fear. It is true.'

'It is true. But do not be afraid. The old father is there, but he is
not altogether mad. The Mudalali will come back to-morrow, perhaps, r
the next day, with the headman. Then they will begin again.'

'Yes, yes. That is what I fear, Appochchi. What can we do? we must go
away.'

'Hush, child. Do not cry out. There is no need to be afraid. We cannot
go away. How can we live away from the village and the jungle which we
know. That is foolish talk. There in the town I do not understand even
what they say to me; and the noise and the talking in the bazaar, and
people always laughing, and the long hard roads and so many houses all
together! How could we live there? But in the village I am not
altogether mad. It is folly to talk of leaving it and the jungle. Very
soon I shall feel the gun in my hand again. Then I shall be a man again,
slipping between the trees--very quietly. Ha, ha! we know the tracks,
little Arachchi. I remember, child, when I was but a boy, I went out
once with my father for skins and horns. He was a good hunter and knew
the jungle well. We went on and on--many days--round and round too--he
leading, and I following. And at last we came to very thick jungle which
not even he knew. And a sort of madness came on us to go on and on
always, and we had forgotten the village and the wife and mother. The
jungle was tall, dense, and dark, and the sky was covered with
cloud--day after day--so that one could not tell the west from the east.
And at last, when we had many skins and horns, my father stopped, and
stood still in the track and laughed. "Child," he said, "we are mad, we
have become like the bear and the elephant; it is time to return to the
village." Then he turned round and began to walk. Soon he stopped again,
frowning. It was very dark. He stood there for a little, thinking; and
then climbed a very big tree and looked around for a long time. Then he
came down and I saw from his face that he was very afraid. We said
nothing, but started off again. For many peyas we walked and always
through very thick jungle. Again he stopped and climbed a tree and
again, when he came down, there was great fear in his face. Aiyo! that
was the first time that I saw the fear, the real fear of the jungle; but
then I did not understand. "Appochchi," I said, "what is the matter?
Boy," he said, and his voice trembled; "we are lost. I do not know where
we are, nor where the village lies, nor how we came, nor which is east
and which is west. From the trees I can see nothing which I know, not
even the hill at Beragama, only the tops of the trees everywhere.
Therefore we must be very far from the village. I have heard of such
things happening to very good hunters; but always before I have known
the way. Punchi Appu must have died like that. Wandering on and on until
no powder is left and no food. Aiyo! the jungle will take us, as they
say." Then I said, "Appochchi, do not be afraid. I do not know which way
we came, and I cannot tell just now which is west and which is east
because of the clouds; but I know where the village lies. It is over
there. Can you lead the way?" he asked, and I said, "Yes." Then he
said, "Perhaps you know, perhaps you do not; but now one way is as good
as another for me. You go first." At that I was pleased, and led on
straight to where I knew the village must lie. For two days I led the
way and my father said nothing, but I saw that he became more and more
afraid. And on the third day, suddenly he cried out, "I know this: this
track leads to the village. You are going right." It was a track I had
never been on, but I still led the way; and on the fourth day we entered
the village--well, what was I saying? Yes, I know the tracks, even in
those days when I was a boy I knew the jungle. But this time it requires
clever hunting.'

'Yes, Appochchi, but what to do now, when they come back to the
village?'

'Those two! Ah! now you listen, child. I have thought over it all this
time and there is only one way. I shall kill them both.'

'Kill them! O Appochchi, no, no. You are mad!'

'Am I mad? And what if I am? Haven't they always called me mad, the mad
vedda. Well, now let them see if I am mad or not. Have they not hunted
me for all these years and am I always to go running like a stupid deer
through the jungle? No, no, little Arachchi; no, no. This time it is the
old wounded buffalo. Three times, four times that night in the hut when
I saw it first I got up to get my gun and end it. And again, after the
court, I would have done it, had I had a gun. But I thought--no, not
yet, for once we must act cunningly, not in anger only. The buffalo's
eye is red with anger, but he stands quiet until the hunter has passed.
Then he charges.'

'But, Appochchi, you must not say that. You cannot do it. You must come
away. They will take you and hang you.'

'What can I do? I cannot leave the village; I will not; I have told you
that. There is no other way.'

'But what are you going to do?'

'Ah! I must think. It needs cunning and skill first. I must think.'

'No, no, Appochchi; no, no. It would be better to give me to the
Mudalali!'

'I would rather kill you than that. Do you hear? I shall kill you if you
go to the Mudalali.'

'Oh! oh! isn't it enough that they should have taken my man from me? And
now more evil comes.'

'I tell you that I will end this now. Now I shall sleep and to-morrow
think of the way.'

Silindu refused to listen any further to Punchi Menika's expostulations.
He lay down by the fire and soon slept. Next day, and throughout their
journey to the village, he was very silent, and refused to discuss the
subject at all with her. The lethargy habitual to him had left him
completely. He was in an extraordinary state of excitement, goaded on
perpetually by great gusts of anger against Babehami and Fernando. When
he got back to his house he sat down in the compound in a place from
which he could see the headman's house, and waited. He watched the house
all day, and, when in the evening he saw the headman return, he smiled.
Then he got up and went into the hut. He took his gun which stood in the
corner of the room, unloaded it, and reloaded it again with fresh powder
and several big slugs. He examined the caps carefully, chose two, and
put them in the fold of his cloth. Then he lay down and slept.

Next morning he was very quiet and thoughtful; but if any one had
watched him closely, he would have seen that he was really in a state of
intense excitement. After eating the morning meal he took his gun and
went over to the headman's house. To the astonishment of Babehami and
his wife he walked into the house, put his gun in the corner of the
room, and squatted down. Babehami watched him closely for a minute or
two; he felt uneasy; he noted that the curious wild look in Silindu's
eyes was greater than ever.

'Well, Silindu, what is it?' he said.

'Arachchi, I have come to you about this chena. I cannot live without
chena. You must give it back to me.'

'You heard in the court that the chena cannot be given to you. It has
been given to Appu. Let us have an end of all this trouble.'

'Yes, Arachchi, that is why I have come to you. I want an end of all
this trouble. Do you hear that? An end now--to-day--of trouble. Trouble,
trouble, for years. We must end it to-day. Do you hear?'

'What do you mean?'

'Yes. What did I say? This, this. Now, Arachchi, that was nothing; do
not mind what I said then. I was thinking, thinking. You know they call
me mad in the village. Well, I was thinking, you know, now that Babun is
over there for six months, I heard the judge Hamadoru say that clearly,
but to me he said merely, "Clear out"--I was never a friend of that
Babun--all the trouble has come from him--he took Punchi Menika from me,
and then Hinnihami. I saw her lying in the jungle by the deer--what did
we call him? Kalu Appu? Punchi Appu? Yes, yes, Punchi Appu, that was
long ago. They beat her. They threw stones at her. That was long ago--in
the jungle. But now Babun is away for six months. When he comes back, I
shall say to him, "Clear out," as the judge Hamadoru said. They laughed
at me then. A foolish old man, a mad old man, eh? Ha, ha! little
Arachchi, little Arachchi, you have laughed at me too--for years,
haven't you, haven't you?'

'What is all this, Silindu? What do you mean? I don't understand.'

'Ah, Arachchi, it is nothing. Do not mind what I say. I do not know what
I was saying. I am a poor man, Arachchi, very ignorant, a little mad.
But I am a quiet man; I have given no trouble in the village. You know
that well, Arachchi, don't you? I cannot speak well--like you,
Arachchi--in the court. But this is what I want to say. I do not like
this Babun; all the trouble has come from him. I am a quiet man in the
village, you know that. I said to my daughter on the way here by the big
palu-trees at the second hill--I said to her, "The man is now sent away;
he will be over there for six months. He is a foolish man. It is he who
has brought the trouble. The Mudalali is a good man. The Arachchi, too,
is a good man. Why should we quarrel with those two? There is no shame
in your going to the Mudalali." Then my daughter said, "I will do as you
think best, Appochchi." Do you understand now, Arachchi?'

Silindu stopped. The Arachchi had been watching him narrowly. He began
to understand the drift of Silindu's incoherent words. But he still felt
uneasy. As Silindu spoke, his suppressed excitement became more and more
apparent in his voice and words. But Babehami knew well that he was mad,
and that he was also wonderfully stupid. It was just like him to do
things in this wild way. The more Babehami thought of it, the more he
became convinced that the conviction of Babun had done its work. Silindu
and Punchi Menika had given in.

'Yes, I think I understand,' he said. 'It is true that the Mudalali will
take your daughter. He is a good man; and the trouble came from Babun,
as you say.'

'That is it, Arachchi, that is it. Let the Mudalali take Punchi Menika.
My daughter cannot live with thieves now. She will go to the Mudalali.
Do you understand?'

'Yes, Silindu. But it must be done quietly. She cannot go openly to his
house, or there will be silly talk, after what was said in the court.'

'No, no. It must be done quietly, very quietly.'

'I will tell the Mudalali, and she can come at night to him. Afterwards,
perhaps, she can live at the house; but at first she must go secretly at
night.'

'Ha, ha, Arachchi. You are clever! How clever you are! You think of all
things. Yes, it must be all done quietly, quietly.'

'Very well, Silindu, I will tell the Mudalali. It is a good thing to end
all this trouble, like this.'

'Yes, it is a very good thing to end it--like this. Yes--like this, like
this. But now the chena, Arachchi. I cannot live without the chena.
Without a chena I must starve. You cannot see me starve. Even now there
is no grain in my house. You must give me the chena.'


Babehami thought for a while, then he said:

'Well, I will see what can be done; perhaps I can arrange with Appu
about the chena. We will see.'

'Yes, Arachchi, but let us have done with it once for all. The thing is
settled. Appu cannot be left there. Come.'

'Why, what do you want? Don't you trust me?'

'Yes, I trust you--why not, Arachchi?--but I am afraid of Appu. If he is
left there to do work, he will refuse to go. He is in the chena now. It
would be better to go and tell him at once.'

'I cannot go now. To-morrow, perhaps.'

'Arachchi, it is but two miles. You said it is a good thing to end the
trouble. Let us settle it now, to-day, and the Mudalali can have Punchi
Menika to-night.'

Babehami was silent. He disliked being hurried. On the other hand he
would be very glad to see the whole matter settled. His action with
regard to the chena troubled him because it was dangerous. He knew that
the petition had been presented, and he was not at all sure that he
would come off as well in an inquiry as he had in the court. It would
also be wise to bind Silindu to him by giving him back the chena, and
not to risk his changing his mind about the Mudalali and Punchi Menika.
He argued a little more, and stood out half-heartedly against Silindu's
urgings to start at once. At last he gave in, and they started for the
chena.

They followed a narrow jungle track which had been lately cleared. The
tangle of shrubs and undergrowth and trees was like a wall on each side
of the track. The headman walked first, and Silindu, carrying his gun,
followed. For the first three-quarters of a mile they walked in silence,
except for a word or two which the headman shouted back to Silindu
without turning his head. Silindu had fallen somewhat behind; he
quickened his pace, and came up close to the headman; he was muttering
to himself.

'What do you say?' asked Babehami.

'What? Was I talking? I do not know, Arachchi. They say the hunter talks
to himself in the jungle. It is a custom. Have you ever been a hunter,
Arachchi?'

'No. You know that well enough.'

'Oh yes. You are no hunter. Who should know that better than I? But do
they call me a good hunter, Arachchi? skilful, cunning? Do I know the
tracks, Arachchi?'

'Of course, every one knows you to be the best hunter in the district.'

'Aiyo, the best hunter in the district! And do you know, Arachchi, that
I am afraid of the jungle?'

'So they say. What are you afraid of?'

Silindu began to speak with great excitement. As he went on his voice
began to get shriller and shriller; it trembled with anger and fear and
passion.

'I am afraid of everything, Arachchi; the jungle, the devils, the
darkness. But, above all, of being hunted. Have you ever been hunted,
Arachchi? No, of course you are not a hunter, and therefore have never
been hunted. But I know. It happens sometimes to the cleverest of us.
The elephant, they say; but that I have never seen. But the buffalo: I
have seen that--here--on this very track--before it was cleared--many
years ago. The buffalo is stupid, isn't he, little Arachchi? Very
stupid; he does not see--he does not hear--he goes on wallowing in his
mud. And they hunt him year after year--year after year--he does not
know--he does not see them--he does not hear them. Do you know that? I
know it--I am a hunter. Then--then having crept close, they shoot him.
It was near here. At first, crash--he tears away through the jungle, the
blood flowing down his side. He is afraid, very afraid--and in pain. But
the pain brings anger, and with anger, anger, Arachchi, comes cunning.
And now, Arachchi, now comes the game, the dangerous game. The young men
laugh at it, but the wise hunter would be afraid. There he stood, do you
see?--there--under that maiyilittan-tree, head down, very still. And the
hunter--fool, fool--crept after him through the undergrowth: there was
no track then. Ah, it was thick then: he could not see anything but the
shrubs and thorns; he did not see the red eyes behind him nor the great
head down. For the other was cunning now, cunning, and very angry. And
when the hunter had gone on a little--just where you are now,
Arachchi--then--do you hear, little Arachchi?--then, out and crash, he
charged, charged, like this----'

Babehami had at first hardly listened, but the fury and excitement of
Silindu had at last forced his attention. As Silindu said the last
words, Babehami half stopped and turned his head: he just saw Silindu's
blazing eyes and foam on the corner of his lips; at the same moment he
felt the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against his back. Silindu pulled
the trigger and Babehami fell forward on his face. A great hole was
blown in the back, and the skin round it was blackened and burnt; the
chest was shattered by the slugs which tore their way through. The body
writhed and twisted on the ground for a minute, and then was still.
Silindu kicked it with his foot to see whether it was dead. There was no
movement. He reloaded his gun and turned back towards the village. His
excitement had died down: the old lethargy was coming upon him again. He
felt this himself and walked faster, muttering, 'Even now it is not
safe. There were two of them. There is still the other.'

When Silindu got back to the village, Fernando was in the headman's
compound. When he saw Silindu he came down towards the fence and called
out to him, 'Where is the Arachchi? They say he went out with you.'
Silindu walked up towards the stile, and stopping levelled his gun at
the Mudalali. Fernando stepped back, his mouth wide open, his eyes
staring, his whole face contorted with fear. He cowered down behind the
stile, stretching his hands vaguely out between the wooden bars, and
shouted:

'Don't shoot! don't shoot!'

The stile was little or no protection: between the two bottom bars
Silindu could see the Mudalali's fat stomach and legs. He took careful
aim between the bars and fired. Fernando fell backwards, writhing and
screaming with pain. Silindu went and looked over the stile: at the same
moment Babehami's wife rushed out of the house. But he saw that his work
had been accomplished; blood was pouring from the Mudalali's stomach;
his two legs and one of his hands were shattered. 'The trouble is
ended,' he muttered.

He walked very slowly to his house. He put the gun in the corner of the
room, thought for a minute, and then immediately left the hut. He saw
that already there was a crowd of people in the headman's compound: the
women were screaming. Silindu turned into the jungle at the back of his
house, and walking quickly cut across to the track which led to
Kamburupitiya.




CHAPTER VIII


Before Silindu reached the Kamburupitiya track, he stopped and squatted
down with his back against a tree. He wanted to think. After the wild
excitement which had possessed him now for three days, a feeling of
immense lassitude came upon him. His mind worked slowly, confusedly; he
had no clear idea of where he was going, or of what he ought to do. He
was very tired, very unhappy now; but he felt no regret for what he had
done--no remorse for the blood of the Arachchi and of Fernando could
trouble him. So far as they were concerned, he only felt a great relief.

He wanted to lie down and sleep. He lent back against the tree and began
to doze, but he started up again immediately, listening for footsteps of
pursuers. His first idea had been simply to run away into the jungle, to
get away at any rate from the village. The hunt would begin; he would be
hunted once again, he knew that. Then he thought of going east where the
thick jungle stretched unbroken for miles. He could live there in some
cave among the rocks; he could live there safe from his hunters for
months. He had heard stories of other men doing this: strange men from
other districts, whom the Government and the police were hunting down
for some crime. They came down from the north, so it was said, flying to
the sanctuary of the uninhabited jungle where they lay hidden for years;
they lived alone in caves and in trees, eating leaves and wild fruit and
honey, and the birds and animals which they managed to snare or kill.
They were never caught; there were no villages in that wilderness from
which information could come to the police. Sometimes one of the few
bold hunters, who were the only people to penetrate these solitudes,
would catch a glimpse of a wild, naked man in a cave or among the
shadows of the trees. Some of them perhaps eventually, trusting to the
lapse of time and to the short memory of the Government, went back to
their villages and their homes. But most of them died of fever in the
jungle to which they had fled.

If such a life were possible for men from distant villages, who did not
know the jungle, it would be easy for Silindu. But as he squatted under
the trees thinking of what he should do, a feeling of horror for such a
life crept over him, and his repugnance to flying became stronger and
stronger. He was very tired. What he desired--and the desire was
sharp--was to rest, to be left alone untroubled in the village--in his
hut, in his compound--to sleep quietly there at night, to sit hour after
hour through the hot day under the mustard-tree in the compound. But in
the jungle there would be no rest. It was just in order to escape that
terror--the feeling of the hunted animal, the feeling that some one was
always after him meaning evil--that he had killed the Arachchi and the
Mudalali. And if he fled into the jungle now, he would have gained
nothing by the killing. He would live with that feeling for months, for
years, perhaps for ever. The hunt would begin again, and again it was he
who would be the hunted.

Then he thought of returning to the village, but that too would be
useless; he would get no peace there. He knew well what would happen.
The Korala would be sent for; he would be seized, worried, bullied,
ill-treated probably. That would be worse than the jungle. Suddenly the
conviction came to him that it would be best to end it all at once, to
go into Kamburupitiya and give himself up to the Ratemahatmaya and the
white Hamadoru, to confess what he had done. He got up and started for
the town immediately, keeping to the game tracks in the thick jungle,
and avoiding the main tracks, for he did not wish to meet any one.

He walked slowly, following instinctively the tangled winding tracks.
His lassitude and fatigue increased. He reached Kamburupitiya in the
evening of the third day, and asked his way to the Ratemahatmaya's
house.

When Silindu reached the Ratemahatmaya's house, no news of the murder
had yet come to Kamburupitiya. He had walked slowly, but what was a slow
pace for him was faster than that of the other villagers. He went into
the compound, and walked cautiously round the house: in the verandah
through the lattice-work he saw the Ratemahatmaya lying in a long chair.
There was a table with a lamp upon it beside him. Silindu coughed. The
Ratemahatmaya looked up and said sharply:

'Who is there?'

'Hamadoru, it is I. May I come into the verandah?'

'What do you want at this time? Come to-morrow. I can't attend to
anything at night.'

'Hamadoru, I come from Beddagama. There has been a murder there.'

'Come in, then.'

Silindu came into the verandah and salaamed. He stood in front of the
Ratemahatmaya.

'Hamadoru,' he said, 'I have killed the Arachchi and the Mudalali.'

The Ratemahatmaya sat up. 'You? What? What do you mean? Who are
you?'

'I am Silindu of Beddagama. The Arachchi brought a false case against me
and my son-in-law. May I sit down, Hamadoru? I am very tired. Babun was
sent to prison by the judge Hamadoru, but to me he said, "Clear out."
The case was false. They were trying to bring evil upon me and my
daughter. The Mudalali wanted the girl. They were still trying to bring
evil on me, so I said, "Enough." I took the gun and I went out with the
Arachchi over there to the chena, and I shot him through the back. He is
dead, lying there on the track. Then I went back to the village and shot
the Mudalali in the belly through the stile. He was not dead then, but I
looked over and saw the blood coming fast from the belly low down. He
must be dead now.'

The Ratemahatmaya was not a brave man. As he listened to Silindu's short
expressionless sentences, the bald description of the shedding of blood,
given in the tired voice of the villager, he became afraid. He sat up in
his chair looking at Silindu, who crouched in front of him, motionless,
watching him. The light of the lamp fell upon the dark, livid face. It
was the face of the grey monkeys which leap above the jungle among the
tree-tops, and peer down at you through the branches; a face scarred and
pinched by suffering and weariness and fear. It was as if something evil
from the darkness, which he did not understand, had suddenly appeared in
his quiet verandah. He looked out nervously over Silindu's head into the
night: the light of the lamp in the verandah made it seem very dark
outside. The Ratemahatmaya became still more afraid in the silence which
followed Silindu's speech. He suddenly got up and shouted for his
servant. There was the sound of movements in the back of the house, and
a dirty servant boy, in a dirty vest and cloth, came blinking and
yawning into the verandah. The Ratemahatmaya told him to stand by
Silindu.

The Ratemahatmaya drew in a deep breath of relief. The beating of his
heart became quieter.

'Now, yakko!' he said in a sharp angry tone, 'stand up.'

Silindu did not move; he looked up at the Ratemahatmaya with weary eyes
and said, 'Hamadoru! I am very tired. For days now there has been no
rest for me. Aiyo! I cannot remember how long it is now since I sat
quiet in my compound. Let me sleep now. I have come straight to you and
told you all. I thought at first I would run away. I could have lived
out there for months, and you would not have caught me. But I was tired
of all this: I am very tired. I thought: No. What is the good? Out there
away from the village, and the hut, and the compound, and the daughter?
It is the evil all over again. Aiyo! how tired I am of it. It is better
to end it now. So I came here. I have told you no lies. What harm can I
do now? Let me sleep here, and to-morrow you can do what you like to
me.'

'Do you hear what I say? Stand up, yakko, stand up. Make him stand
up.'

The servant boy kicked Silindu in the ribs, and told him to stand up.
Silindu rose slowly.

'Now, then. You say you have killed the Arachchi and the Mudalali. Is
that Fernando, the boutique-keeper?'

'Yes, Hamadoru, yes. Fernando, the boutique-keeper.'

'Fetch me ink and paper and a pen.'

The servant boy fetched the paper, ink, and pen. Meanwhile Silindu again
squatted down. The Ratemahatmaya prepared to write.

'Didn't you hear me tell you to get up? Get up, yakko' (the servant boy
kicked Silindu again). 'Now, then. When did you kill them, and how?'

'Three or four days ago. It was in the morning. I went with the Arachchi
to the chena. I shot him through the back.'

'Where did you get the gun?'

'It was my gun. I had it in my house.'

'Was it licensed?'

'Yes, Hamadoru. I am very tired. What is the good of all these
questions? I tell you I killed them both. Let me be. I cannot think of
these things now. To-morrow, perhaps, to-morrow. Surely you have me here
safe, and can do with me what you like to-morrow.'

The Ratemahatmaya was a self-important, fussy little man; he was also
timid, and not fond of taking responsibilities. The sudden appearance of
Silindu with this strange story out of the darkness had upset him. He
was very annoyed when Silindu again sank down into a squatting position.
'Stand up, fellow,' he said. 'Stand up. Didn't you hear me, pariah?
Stand up. You've got to answer my questions. Now, then. What did I ask
last? Now, then----' He paused and thought for a moment. 'It is not,
perhaps, too late. Perhaps I had better take him at once to the
magistrate. Yes, that's better. You there get the bull put into the
hackery. No, no, stop there; you must look after the man. Keep him
there. Kalu Appu! Kalu Appu! Call Kalu Appu! Kalu Appu! Hoi! D'you hear?
Wake up! Put the bull in the hackery and hurry up.'

At last another servant boy was woken up, the bull was put into the
hackery. The Ratemahatmaya put on a dark coat, and, with many curses and
complaints, got into the cart. Silindu followed slowly with the servant
boy. They trailed wearily along the dark roads for three-quarters of a
mile: then the cart stopped in the compound of the magistrate's
bungalow. The Ratemahatmaya got out and went round to the back of the
house to announce his arrival through the servants. Silindu squatted
down near the hackery; he was no longer quite conscious of what was
going on around him; after a while the Ratemahatmaya called to him to
come round into the house, and the boy who had driven the bullock poked
him up with the goad.

He was taken along a broad dark verandah, and suddenly found himself in
a large well-lit room. Had it not been for the stupor of his fatigue he
would have been very frightened, for he had never seen anything like
this room before. It seemed to him to be full of furniture, and all the
furniture to be covered with strange objects. In reality there was only
a little travel-battered furniture in the barn-like white-washed room.
There was matting on the floor, and rugs on the matting. An immense
writing-table littered with letters and papers stood in front of the
window. There were three or four tables on which were some ugly
ornaments, mostly chipped or broken, and a great many spotted and faded
photographs. A gun, a rifle, and several sentimental pictures broke the
monotony of the white walls. The rest of the furniture consisted of a
great many chairs, two or three lamps, and a book-case with thirty or
forty books in it.

When Silindu entered the room with the Ratemahatmaya, the magistrate was
lying in a long chair reading a book. He got up and went over to sit
down at the writing-table. He was the white Hamadoru, whom Silindu had
seen before in the court. He was dressed now in black, in evening-dress.
He sat back in his chair and stared at Silindu in silence for a minute
or two with his 'cat's eyes'; he looked cross and tired. Silindu had
instinctively squatted down again. The Ratemahatmaya angrily told him to
stand up. The magistrate seemed to be lost in thought: he continued to
stare at Silindu, and as he did so the look of irritation faded from his
face. He noted the hopelessness and suffering in Silindu's face, the
slow weariness of effort with which he moved his limbs. 'He need not
stand,' he said to the Ratemahatmaya. 'He looks damned tired, poor
devil. You can take a chair yourself, Ratemahatmaya. God! This is a nice
time to bring me work, and you seem to've brought me a miserable-looking
wretch. You say it's a murder case?'

'Yes, sir. Or rather it appears so. I do not know much about it. In
fact, sir, only what this man has told me. He appeared at my place just
now--not half an hour ago--and says that he has killed the Arachchi of
his village and another man. I brought him straight to you, sir.'

'Oh, damn it! That means I'll have to go out there to-morrow. How far is
it? Beddagama? I don't know the place.'

'It's up the north track, in the jungle, sir. It must be between fifty
or sixty miles away, sir.'

'Oh, damn! And there are any number of cases fixed for to-morrow.
Well--poor devil--he looks pretty done himself! By Jove! I believe he is
the man who was before me as an accused in that theft case the other
day. I would not charge him, I remember--no evidence against him. It
might have been better for him, perhaps, if I had, and convicted him,
too.' He turned to Silindu, and said in Sinhalese, 'You were accused of
theft before me a few days ago, weren't you?'

'Yes, Hamadoru.'

'Ah, I thought so. Well, Ratemahatmaya, I suppose I had better record
your statement first in form. Come on, now.'

The Ratemahatmaya made a short statement of how Silindu had come to him,
and what he had said. The magistrate wrote it down, and then turned to
Silindu, and explained to him that the offence with which he was charged
was murder, and that he was prepared to take down anything he wished to
say, and that anything which he did say would be read out at his trial.

Silindu did not quite understand, but he felt vaguely encouraged by the
white Hamadoru. He had spoken Sinhalese to him; he had not spoken in an
angry voice, and he was the same Hamadoru who had told him to clear out
of the court when he was charged before.

'It is as the Dissamahatmaya[48] said. I have killed the Arachchi and
the Mudalali. If the Hamadoru sends to the village, he will find that
what I say is true. The Hamadoru remembers the previous case; he knew
that they brought a false case against me. He told me to clear out. But
the whole case was false--against Babun, too. Am I to tell everything? I
am very tired, Hamadoru. For three days now I have been walking and no
food but the jungle fruit and leaves. If I might rest now a little, and
sleep until to-morrow.... What can I do? I have told all. I am almost an
old man, very poor. What can I do?'

'I think I had better take down what you have to say now. But you need
not stand. You had better begin from the case. What happened after
that?'

'Aiyo, Hamadoru, aiyo! I am very tired. After the case----It was a false
case. The Arachchi for long had been trying to do me harm. How long I
cannot remember, but for many years it seems to me. At that time it was
because of my daughter; he wanted to take her from Babun and give her to
the Mudalali. Well, after the case I set out for the village with the
daughter. And all the way I was thinking--thinking how to end this evil.
For I knew well that when they came back to the village it would begin
again, all over again. They had put Babun in jail--it was a false case,
but how should the Hamadoru know that?--with all the lies they told. And
they would get Punchi Menika for the Mudalali. Then, as I went, I
thought of the old buffalo who is wounded and charges upon----' Silindu
caught sight of the gun and rifle, and stopped. 'Ah! the Hamadoru is a
hunter, too? He knows the jungle?' he asked eagerly.

'Yes, I know the jungle.'

'Good; then the Hamadoru will understand. The evil and the killing
there----"Yes, it is time," I thought, "to end the evil. I must kill
them both." I was a quiet man in the village, all know that. I harmed no
one; I wanted to live quietly. I went back to my compound, and sat down
and waited. In the evening came the Punchi Arachchi to his house; I saw
him go in. Then I took my gun, and went to him, and said: "Ralahami, you
may give the woman to the Mudalali, and in return give me back my
chena." The Arachchi thought to himself: "Here is a fool." But he said:
"Very well, I will give the chena back to you." Then we started for the
chena, and as we went on the track I shot him from behind. He is lying
dead there now--on the track which leads from the village to the chena.
If the Hamadoru sends some one, he can find the body.'

'Yes, and then?'

'Then, Hamadoru, I loaded the gun again, and went back to the village.
There was still the Mudalali. I saw him in the Arachchi's garden. He
called to me. "Where is the Arachchi?" I went close up to him--he was
standing by the stile, and through it I saw his big belly. I shot him
too. He must be dead now.'

'Yes, and then?'

'Then? I went to my house, for the women ran out screaming. I put the
gun in my house, and went out into the jungle. I was tired. I am a poor
man, and I have harmed no one in the village. I am getting old: I wanted
to live quietly in my hut. I wanted to rest, Hamadoru. What good, I
thought, to fly into the jungle? Only more evil. So I came straight to
the Dissamahatmaya. I told him what I had done. That is all.'

The magistrate wrote down what Silindu said, and when he had finished,
sat thinking, the pen in his hand, and looking at Silindu. It was very
quiet in the room; outside was heard only the drowsy murmur of the sea.
Suddenly the quiet was broken by the heavy breathing and snoring of
Silindu, who had fallen asleep where he squatted.

'Leave him alone for a bit,' the magistrate said to the Ratemahatmaya.
'There's nothing more to be got from him to-night. We shall have to push
on to Beddagama early to-morrow. I suppose it's true what he says.'

'I think so, sir.'

'Damned curious. I thought he wasn't right in the head when I saw him in
court before. Well, I'm glad _I_ shan't have to hang him.'

'You think he will be hanged, sir?'

'He'll be sentenced at any rate. Premeditation, on his own
showing--clearly. And a good enough motive for murder. A very simple
case--so they'll think it. You think so, too?'

'It seems to be a simple case, sir.'

'I see you would make a very good judge, Ratemahatmaya. I don't mind
telling you--unofficially of course--that I'm a very bad one. It does
not seem at all a simple case to me. _I_ shouldn't like to hang Silindu
of Beddagama for killing your rascally headman. Now then, Ratemahatmaya,
here you are; a Sinhalese gentleman; lived your whole life here, among
these people. Let's have your opinion of that chap there. He's a human
being, isn't he? What sort of a man is he? And how did he come suddenly
to murder two people?'

'It's difficult, sir, for me to understand them; about as difficult as
for you, sir. They are very different from us. They are very ignorant.
They become angry suddenly, and then, they kill like--like--animals,
like the leopard, sir.'

'Savages, you mean? Well, I don't know. I rather doubt it. You don't
help the psychologist much, Ratemahatmaya. This man, now: I expect he's
a quiet sort of man. All he wanted was to be left alone, poor devil. You
don't shoot, I believe, Ratemahatmaya, so you don't know the jungle
properly. But it's really the same with the other jungle animals, even
your leopard, you know. They just want to be left alone, to sleep
quietly in the day, and to get their food quietly at night. They won't
touch you if you leave them alone. But if you worry 'em enough; follow
'em up and pen 'em up in a corner or a cave, and shoot '450 bullets at
them out of an express rifle; well, if a bullet doesn't find the lungs
or heart or brain, they get angry as you call it, and go out to kill. I
don't blame them either. Isn't that true?'

'I believe it is, sir.'

'And it's the same with these jungle people. They want to be left alone,
to reap their miserable chenas and eat their miserable kurakkan, to live
quietly, as he said, in their miserable huts. I don't think that you
know, any more than I do, Ratemahatmaya, what goes on up there in the
jungle. He was a quiet man in the village, I believe that. He only
wanted to be left alone. It must take a lot of cornering and torturing
and shooting to rouse a man like that. I expect, as he said, they went
on at him for years. This not letting one another alone, it's at the
bottom of nine-tenths of the crime and trouble; and in nine-tenths of
that nine-tenths there's one of your headmen concerned--whom you are
supposed to look after.'

'It's very difficult, sir. They live far away in these little villages.
Many of them are good men and help the villagers. But they are ignorant,
too.'

'Oh, I'm not blaming you, Ratemahatmaya. I'm not blaming any one. And
it's late if we are to start early to-morrow. You had better take your
friend away with you and put him in the lock-up. Tell them to give him
some food if he wants it. Good night.'

The Ratemahatmaya shook Silindu until he woke up. It was some little
while before he realised where he was, and then that he had to set out
again with the Ratemahatmaya. He turned to the magistrate.

'Where are they taking me to, Hamadoru?'

'You will be taken to the prison. You will have to stay there until you
are tried.'

'But I have told the truth to the Hamadoru. Let him give his decision.
It is to end it all that I came here.'

'I can't try you. You will have to be tried by the great judge.'

'Aiyo, it is you I wish to judge me. You are a hunter, and know the
jungle. If they take me away now, how do I know what will happen? What
will they do to me? Let it end now, Hamadoru.'

'I am sorry, but I can't do anything. You will be charged with murder. I
can't try you for that. The great judge tries those cases. But no harm
will come to you. You will be able to rest in the jail until the trial.'

'And what will they do to me? Will they hang me?'

'I'm afraid I can't tell you even that. You must go with the
Dissamahatmaya now.'

Silindu, passive again, followed the Ratemahatmaya out of the room. The
latter, grumbling at the late hour and the foolish talk of the
magistrate, got into his hackery, and the procession trailed off again
into the darkness towards the lock-up. Here a long delay occurred. A
sleepy sergeant of police had to be woken up, and the whole story had to
be explained to him. Eventually Silindu was led away by him and locked
up in a narrow bare cell, which, with its immense door made of massive
iron bars, was exactly like a cage for some wild animal. In it at last
he found himself allowed to lie down and sleep undisturbed.

The rest, which the magistrate had promised him, seemed however to be
still far off; for early next morning he was taken out of his cell and
made to start off with the police sergeant for Beddagama. The
magistrate, riding on a horse, and the Ratemahatmaya, in his
hackery,[49] passed them when they were two or three miles from the
town. A little while afterwards a messenger from Beddagama met the
party, bringing the news of the murder to the Ratemahatmaya.

Silindu was being taken to Beddagama to be present at the magistrate's
inquiry, but he did not understand this. He was weak and tired after the
excitement of the trial and the murder, the long days upon the road, and
the little food. He began to think that he had been a fool to give
himself up; as he walked behind the police sergeant through the jungle,
of which he knew every tree and track, a great desire for it and for
freedom came upon him again. He thought of the great bars of the cell
door through which he had seen the daylight for the first time that
morning. Babun was even now lying behind such bars, and would lie there
for six months. And he himself? He might never see the daylight except
through such bars now for the rest of his life--unless they hanged him.
He thought of the great river that cut through the jungle many miles
away: it was pleasant there, to bathe in the cool clear water, and to
lie on the bank under the great wild fig-trees in the heat of the day.
If he had not given himself up, he might have been there by now,
watching the elephant sluicing water over its grey sides or the herd of
deer coming down the opposite bank to drink. The thought came to him
even now to slip into the jungle and disappear; the fool of a police
sergeant would never catch him, would go on for a mile or two probably
without knowing that his prisoner had escaped. But he still followed the
police sergeant and had not the will or the energy for so decisive a
step, for breaking away from the circumstances to which he had always
yielded, for taking his life in his hands and moulding it for himself.
He had tried once to fight against life when he killed the Arachchi and
the Mudalali; he was now caught again in the stream; evil might come,
but he could struggle no more.

He had forgotten Punchi Menika until he was a mile or two from the
village, and he saw her waiting for him by the side of the track. The
rumour had reached the village that Silindu was being brought back by
the police in chains. Some said that he was going to be hanged there and
then in the village. Punchi Menika had started off to meet him. Her
first terror when she had been told of what her father had done had
given place to bewilderment, but when she saw him in charge of the
police sergeant she ran to him with a cry:

'Is it true, Appochchi; is it true, what they say?'

'What do they say? That I killed those two? It is true I killed them.
Then I went to Kamburupitiya and told it all to the Dissamahatmaya and
the magistrate Hamadoru.'

'Aiyo, and will they hang you now?'

'What? Do they say that?'

'They say that in the village. It isn't true, is it, Appochchi?'

'I don't know; perhaps it is true, perhaps it isn't. But the magistrate
Hamadoru said I would be tried by the great judge.'

'Aiyo! you were mad, Appochchi. It would have been better to have given
me to the Mudalali.'

'Hold your tongue, hold your tongue!' burst out Silindu angrily, but his
anger died down as rapidly as it had sprung up. 'Don't say that, child,
don't say that. No, that is not true, is it, daughter? It is not true.
It was for you I did it; and now--after all that--surely in a little
while all will be well for you.'

'Well? What is to become of me? What am I to do? They will take you away
again and hang you, or keep you in the great house over there. And my
man, aiyo, is there too. I shall be alone here. What am I to do,
Appochchi?'

'Hush! All will be well with you, I tell you. There is no one here to
trouble you now. There will be quiet for you again--and for me, perhaps,
why not? The killing was for that. Surely, surely, it must be, child.
And Babun? Why, in a little while Babun will come back--in a month or
two; you will wait in the village, you will sit in the house, in the
compound, under the little mustard-tree--so quietly, and the quiet of
the great trees, child, round about--nothing to trouble you now. And in
a month or two he will come back; he is a good man, Babun, and there
will be no evil then--now that the Arachchi is dead and the Mudalali.
There will be quiet for you then, and rest.'

'How can I live here alone? There is no food in the house even now.'

'Are not there others in the village? They will help you for a month or
two, and they know Babun. He will work hard in the chena and repay
them.'

'And you? What will they do to you? Aiyo, aiyo!'

'What does it matter? What have I ever done for you? It was true when
they said that I was a useless man in the village. To creep through the
leaves like a jackal; yes, I can do that; but what else? Isn't the bad
crop in the chena rightly called Silindu's crop. There was never food in
my house. The horoscope was true--nothing but trouble and evil and
wandering in the jungle. It is a good thing for you that I leave the
compound; when I go, good fortune may come.'

'Do not say that, Appochchi; do not say that! To whom did we run in the
compound, Hinnihami and I? What father was like you in the village? Must
I forget all that now, and sit alone in another's compound begging a
little kunji and a handful of kurakkan? No, no! I cannot stay here.
Won't they take me away with you to the jail? I cannot live here
alone--without you!'

The sergeant looked back and angrily told Punchi Menika to stop making
such a noise. They were nearing the village.

'Hush, child,' said Silindu. 'You must stay here. They will not take
you, and what could you do in the big town there? You must wait here for
Babun.'

The inquiry began as soon as they reached the village. Silindu went with
the magistrate, the Ratemahatmaya, the Korala (who had been sent for),
and most of the men of the village to the place where the Arachchi had
been shot. The body lay where it had fallen; a rough canopy of boughs
and leaves had been raised over it to shade it from the sun. A watcher
sat near to keep off the pigs and jackals. When the canopy was removed
for the magistrate to inspect the body, a swarm of flies rose and hung
buzzing in the air above the corpse. The body had not been moved; it lay
on its face, the legs half drawn up under the stomach. The blood had
dried in great black clots over the wounds on the back. The magistrate
looked at it, and then the Korala turned it over. A glaze of grey film
was over the eyes. The hot air in the jungle track was heavy with the
smell of putrefaction. The crowd of villagers, interested but unmoved,
stood watching in the background, while the magistrate, sitting on the
stump of a tree, began to write, noting down the position and condition
in which he had found the body. Then the doctor arrived and began to cut
up the body, where it lay, for post-mortem examination.

The magistrate walked back slowly to the village, followed by Silindu
and the headman and such of the spectators as were more interested in
the inquiry than in the post-mortem. The same procedure of inspection
was gone through with Fernando's body, which lay under another little
canopy, where he had died by the stile of the Arachchi's compound. After
the inspection came the inquiry: a table and chair had been placed under
a large tamarind-tree for the magistrate to write at. The witnesses were
brought up, examined, and their statements written down. After each had
made his statement, Silindu was told that he could ask them any
questions which he wanted them to answer. He had none. The afternoon
dragged on; there was no wind, but the heat seemed to come in waves
across the village, bringing with it the faint smell of decaying human
flesh. The dreary procession of witnesses, listless and perspiring,
continued to pass before the tired irritable magistrate. One told how he
had seen Silindu and the Arachchi leave the village, Silindu walking
behind and carrying a gun; another had heard a shot from the direction
of the chena; another had seen Silindu return by himself to the village
carrying a gun. The Arachchi's wife told of Silindu's early visit to the
hut, of how he left with the Arachchi, of how later, hearing the report
of a gun followed by screams, she ran out of the house to see Silindu
standing with a smoking gun in his hand and Fernando writhing on the
ground near the stile.

Late in the afternoon the inquiry was over. As the Ratemahatmaya had
said, it was a simple case. Silindu was remanded, and would certainly be
tried for murder before a Supreme Court judge. For the present he was
handed over to the police sergeant, with whom he slept that night in a
hut in the village. Next day he was taken back to Kamburupitiya, where
he again spent the night in the lock-up. Then he was handed over to a
fiscal's peon, who put handcuffs on him and started with him along the
dusty main road which ran towards the west. They walked slowly along the
road for two days. The peon was a talkative man, and he tried to make
Silindu talk with him, but he soon gave up the attempt. He had to fall
back for conversation on any chance traveller going the same way towards
Tangalla where the prison was.

'This fellow,' he would explain to them, pointing to Silindu, 'has
killed two men. He will be hanged, certainly he will be hanged. But he's
mad. Not a word can you get out of him. He walks along like that mile
after mile, looking from side to side--never a word. He thinks there are
elephants on the main road I suppose. He comes from up there--in the
jungle. They are all cattle like that there of course. I would rather
drive a bull along the road than him.'

They passed through several villages, where Silindu was an object of
great interest. People came out of the houses and boutiques, and
discussed him and his crimes with the peon. The first night they slept
in a boutique in one of these villages. The boutique was full of people;
they gathered round to watch Silindu eat his curry and rice with his
handcuffed hands. They too discussed him in loud tones with the peon.
There were two traders on their way to Kamburupitiya; the rest, with the
exception of one old man, belonged to the village. This old man was one
of those wanderers whom one meets from time to time in villages, upon
the roads, or even sometimes in the jungle. Very old, very dirty, with
long matted hair and wild eyes, he sat mumbling to himself in a corner.
A beggar and mad, he had two claims to the charity of the
boutique-keeper, who had taken him in for the night and given him a good
meal of curry and rice.

The peon had for the twentieth time that day told Silindu's story with
many embellishments, and complained bitterly of his silence and
stupidity. The others sat round in the reeking atmosphere watching
Silindu eat his rice by the dim light of two oil wicks.

'Will they hang him, aiya?' asked the boutique-keeper.

'Yes, he'll be hanged, sure enough,' said the peon. 'He confessed it
himself, you see.'

'But they never really hang people, I am told. They send them away to a
prison a long way off. They say they hang them just to frighten people.'

The other villagers murmured approval. The peon laughed.

'Of course they hang them. I've known people who were hanged. Why
Balappu, who lived next door to me in Kamburupitiya, was hanged. He
quarrelled with his brother in the street outside my house--it was about
a share in their land--and he stabbed him dead. They hanged him. I took
him along this same road to the prison three years ago. A good man he
was: wanted to gamble all along the road.'

'But you don't know that he was hanged, aiya. No one saw it, no one ever
sees it.'

'Nonsense,' said one of the traders. 'In Maha Nuwara they hang them. I
knew a man there whose nephew was hanged, and afterwards they gave him
the body to bury. The head hung over like this, and the mark of the rope
was round the neck.'

The old beggar had listened to what was going on, squatting in his
corner. He did not get up, but shuffled slowly forward into the circle,
still in a squatting position. Silindu, who had before shown little
interest in the conversation, looked up when the beggar intervened.

'Aiyo! what's that you say?' the old man asked. 'They are going to hang
this man? Why's that?'

'He shot two men dead up there in the jungle.'

'Chi! chi! why did he do that?'

'He's mad, father, as mad as you.'

The old man turned and looked hard at Silindu, while Silindu stared at
him. The spectators laughed at the curious sight. The old man smiled.

'He's not mad,' he said. 'Not as mad as I am. So he killed twice, did
he? Dear, dear. The Lord Buddha said: Kill not at all, kill nothing. It
is a sin to kill. If he saw a caterpillar in the path, he put his foot
on one side. Man, man, why have you killed twice? Were you mad?'

'I'm not mad,' said Silindu. 'They were hunting me: they would have
killed me. Therefore I killed them.'

'The man is not mad, no more mad than you, or you--but I--I am mad. So
at least they say. Why do they say that I'm mad? My son, do you see this
paper?' (He showed a very dirty English newspaper to Silindu.) 'Well, if
you are quite quiet and no gecko[50] cries and the jackals don't howl, I
will look at it like this afterwards, for some short time--staring
hard--then I shall see things on the paper, not the writing--I have
wandered all my life--a wanderer on the path, seeking merit by the Three
Gems--I cannot read writing or letters--but I shall see things
themselves, a little hut up there in the jungle, if you desire it--your
hut, my son--and I'll tell you what is doing there, that the woman is
lying in the hut, crying perhaps. This paper was given to me by a white
Mahatmaya whom I met out there once, also in the jungle. It is of great
power: before I could only see what was doing in this country; but now,
by its help, I can see over the sea, to the white Mahatmaya's country.
Then they say: this is a mad old man. Well, well, who knows? I am always
on the path--to-morrow I shall leave this village--from village to
village, from town to town, and from jungle to jungle. I see many
different men on the path. Strange men, and they do strange things.
Thieving, stabbing, killing, cultivating paddy. I do not cultivate
paddy, nor do I thieve or kill. I am mad perhaps. But very often it is
they who seem to me to want but a little to be mad. All this doing and
doing,--running round and round like the red ants--thieving, stabbing,
killing, cultivating this and that. Is there much good or wisdom in such
a life? It seems to me full of evil--nothing but evil and trouble. Do
they ever sit down and rest, do they ever meditate? Desire and desire
again, and no fulfilment ever. Is such a life sane or mad? Did they call
you mad in the village even before this, my son?'

'Yes, the mad hunter,' said Silindu, and the others laughed again.

'Ah, you are a hunter too. That also I have not done. But I know the
jungle, for I travel through it often on my path. Do the beasts in it
speak to you, son hunter?'

'Yes. They used to speak to me.'

'So they called you mad. All the beasts in the jungle speak to me too,
except the elephant. The elephant is too sad even to talk. Usually when
I see him he is eating; for he is always hungry because of his sins in
the previous birth. But sometimes I find him standing alone away among
the rocks, swaying from side to side. He is very sad, thinking of his
sins in the previous birth. Then I say to him, "Brother, your feet too
are upon the path. It is good to think of the sins of the previous
birth, but there is no need of such sadness." Then he sways more and
more, and his trunk moves from side to side, and he lifts one foot up
after the other very slowly, but he never says a word, watching me with
his little eye. Once, indeed, I remember, he lifted up his trunk and
screamed. I too lifted up my hands and cried out with him, for we were
both on the path.'

'You do not know the jungle, father,' said Silindu. 'It is of food and
killing and hunting that the beasts talk to me. They know nothing of
your path, nor do I.'

'Aiyo, it is not only in the jungle that they say that. They say the
same in the small villages and the great towns. What do you say, sir?'
he said, turning to one of the traders.

'I do not go into the jungle or talk to elephants, old man,' said the
trader. 'I know the bazaar, and there they think of fanams[51] first and
the path last.'

'A man must live,' said the other trader. 'It is only priests and
beggars who have full bellies and idle hands.'

'The Lord Buddha was a beggar and a priest too,' said the old man, and
began to mumble to himself. The laugh was against the trader.

'Aiya,' said the old man to the peon, 'who is going to hang this
hunter?'

'The Government of course. He will be tried by the judge, and then they
will hang him.'

'This is another thing which I do not understand. To the madman this
seems foolish to kill a man because he has killed. If it is a sin, will
he not be punished in the next birth?'

The old beggar had a strange influence on Silindu, who watched him the
whole time, fascinated. The mumbled words seemed to excite him greatly.

'What do you mean, father?' he said, his voice rising. 'How punished in
the next birth? They will punish me here--the judge--they do that--they
will hang me--you hear what these have said.'

'I do not know about that. I only know of the path. On my way through
the villages I hear them say this or that, but I do not understand.
To-morrow I shall be gone, to the east, and you to the west. Do you
know, my son, where you will sleep to-morrow night? No, no. Nor I
either. But we go on the path each of us, because of the sins in our
previous births. As the Lord Buddha said to the she-devil, "O fool!
fool! Because of your sins in the former birth, you have been born a
she-devil: and yet you go on committing sins even now. What folly!" Is
not that clear? Of these punishments of the Government I know nothing.
If they are punishments they are because of sins committed in your
previous birth; but be sure that for the sins which you commit in this
birth--for the killing--for that is a sin, a great sin--you will be
punished in the next birth. How many will hell await there! Surely, son,
it is better to wander on and on from village to village, always,
begging a little rice and avoiding sin.'

'But surely I have committed no sin. All these years they plagued me,
and did evil to me. Was I to be starved by them, and my daughter
starved? Was I to allow them to take her from me and from Babun?'

'The Lord Buddha said, "It is a sin to kill, even the louse in the hair
must not be cracked between the nails." The other things I do not
understand. I have no daughter and no wife and no hut. It is better to
be without. They stand in one's way on the path. And to starve? What
need to starve, my son? In every village is a handful of rice for the
wanderer. As for the hanging, that is very foolish; the judge must be a
foolish man, but I do not think it will hurt you. Remember it is not for
the killing of the two men, but for the previous birth. Then there comes
hell. You must have killed many deer and pig.'

'Yes, yes, I am a hunter, but what of that, father, what of that?'

'Each is a sin, for I told you, didn't I, that the Lord Buddha said, "It
is a sin to kill." My son, you are a hunter, you know the jungle; surely
you have seen the evil there, and the pain--always desire and killing.
No peace or rest there either for the deer or the pig, or the little
grey mongoose. They have sinned, and are far from Nirvana and happiness;
and, like the she-devil, they sin again only to bring more evil on
themselves by their blindness. What happiness is there in it, my son?
The deer and the pig, they too are upon the path. It was greater sin to
kill them than the other two. For those two, you say, were bringing evil
upon you; but what did the deer and pig do to you? eh, hunter? tell me
that.'

'Do? Nothing, of course. But there is no food up there. One must have
food to live.'

'No food up there? There is always food upon the path, a handful of rice
in every village, for the beggar. I have been forty years now on the
path. Have I starved?'

'What was your village, father?'

'The name--I have forgotten--but it lay up there in the hills--a
pleasant place--rain in plenty, and the little streams always running
into the rice-fields, and cocoa-nut and areca-nut trees all around.'

'Ohé!' murmured one of the villagers, 'it is easy to avoid killing in a
place like that.'

'Have you ever worked, old man?' said the peon. 'Have you ever earned a
fanam by work? In this part of the country rupees don't grow on wara[52]
bushes.'

'No,' said the old man; 'I have never done anything like that. I am mad,
you know'. I remember once they took me to the field to watch--I was a
boy--I had to scare the birds away. I was there alone, sitting under a
small tree beside the field. The little birds came in crowds to feed on
the young paddy. They were very hungry. What harm, I thought, if they
eat a little? Plenty will remain for the house. So I sat there thinking
of other things, and I forgot about the paddy and the birds until my
father came and beat me. After that they took me no more to the fields;
and I sat in the compound all day, thinking foolish things, until at
last an old priest came by, and he told me of the path, and how to
meditate, and I followed him. He died many years ago, many years. I have
been no more to my village, it is forgotten; but I think it was up there
in the hills; it is very long ago, and I have seen many villages since
then. They are all the same; even the names I never know; always some
huts, and men and women and children, suffering punishment for their
sins and sinning again.'

'This is fool's talk,' said the peon impatiently. 'We cannot all beg
upon the road. I have heard the priests themselves say that every one
cannot reach Nirvana. Nor are we all mad. There are the women and the
children. Are they too to become holy men? It is hard enough to live on
the eleven rupees which the Government gives us. I don't kill deer, but
I eat it when I can get it. Is that too a sin, old man?'

But before the old beggar could answer, Silindu threw himself down on
the ground in front of him, and touching his feet with his hands burst
out:

'It is true, father, it is true what you say. I did not understand
before, though I knew; yes, I knew it well. I have seen it all so long
in the jungle. But I did not understand. How many times have I told the
little ones--not understanding--about it all. Always the killing,
killing, killing; everything afraid: the deer and the pig and the jackal
after them, and the leopard himself. Always evil there. No peace, no
rest--it was rest I wanted. It is true, father, I have seen it, it is
the punishment for their sins. And always evil for me too, there; hunger
always and trouble always. You should have shown me this path of yours
before, father; even now I do not understand that, and it would be
useless now. Through all the evil I have but sinned more, killing the
deer and the pig, and now these two men. It is too late. They will hang
me, they will hang me, and what then, old man, what then?'

The old man began to shake with laughter. He mumbled incoherently,
pulling at his beard and long hair with his hands. The scene caused
great pleasure and amusement to all the others, except the peon, who was
annoyed at finding that he was no longer playing the most important
part. After a while the old man's laughter began to subside, and he
regained sufficient control to make himself intelligible.

'Well, well,' he said, 'well, well, I'm not the Lord Buddha, my son.
Well, well. D'you see that? He touches my feet as though I were the Lord
Buddha himself. I have never seen that before, and I have seen many
strange things. I am become a holy man; well, well.' Here again he was
overcome with silent laughter.

'Do not laugh, father,' said Silindu. 'Why do you laugh? Is it lies that
you told me just now?'

The other became serious again at once.

'Lies? No, no. I do not tell lies. Aiyo, it is all true. But what was it
you were saying just then? Ah, yes. You were afraid, afraid of the
hanging and the punishment, and of the next birth. Too late, you said,
too late for the path. My son, it is never too late to acquire merit.
Perhaps they will hang you, perhaps not. Who can say? It matters little,
for it will be as it will be. I do not think it will hurt very much. And
before that, it is possible for you to acquire much merit. It will help
you much in the next birth. You must meditate: you must think of holy
things. Here are holy words for you to learn.' He repeated a Pali
stanza, and tried to make Silindu learn it. It was a difficult task, and
it was only after innumerable repetitions that Silindu at last got it by
heart. When he had at last done so, he sat mumbling it over to himself
again and again, so as not to forget it.

'That is good,' went on the old man. 'Along the road as you go--wherever
you are going--to the prison or to the hanging--repeat the holy words
many times. In that way you will acquire merit. Also meditate on your
sins, the sin of killing, the deer and pig which you have killed. So you
will acquire merit too. And avoid killing. Remember, if there were a
caterpillar in the path, he put his foot on one side. So too you will
acquire merit. It will help you in the next birth. I think you are
already on the path, my son. And perhaps if my path too leads me to the
west, who knows? I shall see you there again, and we shall talk
together. Now, however, I grow tired.'

So saying the old man shuffled back into a corner, and covering his head
and face with a dirty cloth, soon fell asleep. Silindu continued to
mumble the Pali stanza, which he did not understand. The villagers,
seeing that no more amusement was to be obtained from the strangers,
left the boutique; and the boutique-keeper and the other travellers soon
after spread out their mats on the ground, and lay down to sleep.

The next day the peon and Silindu started off very early in the morning.
All along the road Silindu repeated the holy words to the great
annoyance of the peon. They reached the prison at Tangalla late in the
evening. It was dark when they arrived, and Silindu was at once locked
up in a cell. He fell asleep, still repeating the Pali stanza.

Silindu remained three weeks in the prison. It seemed to him an immense
building. It was a large and ancient Dutch fort, with high battlemented
grey walls of great thickness. The inside formed a square paved
courtyard in which the prisoners worked at breaking stones and preparing
coir[53] by hammering cocoa-nut husks with wooden mallets. Round the
courtyard were built the cells, oblong bare rooms with immense windows
and gates, iron barred, which looked out upon the yard. Silindu, not
being a convicted person, was not made to do any work. He squatted in
his cell, watching the prisoners working in the yard, and thinking of
what the old beggar had told him. He tried to meditate upon his sins,
but soon found that to be impossible. He began, however, to forget the
village and Punchi Menika, and all the trouble that had gone before. He
repeated the Pali stanza many times during the day. He was very happy;
he grew fat upon the good prison food.

Only once was the monotony of the days broken for him. He was watching a
group of prisoners, in their blue and white striped prison clothes; they
all looked almost exactly alike. They were quite near the gate of his
cell, filling the bathing-trough with water. Suddenly in one of them he
recognised Babun. He jumped up and ran to the bars of the gate, crying
out:

'Ohé! Babun! Babun!'

Babun looked round. There was no surprise or interest in his face, when
he saw that it was Silindu. A great change had come over him in the
short time during which he had been in prison. His skin, a sickly yellow
colour, seemed to have shrunk with the flesh and muscle, which had
wasted; he was bent and stooping; his eyes were sunken; a look of
dullness and hopelessness was in his face. He looked at Silindu
frowning. Silindu danced about with excitement behind the bars.

'You know me, Babun?' he shouted. 'You know me? Why do you look like
that? All is well, all is well. I shot the Arachchi and Fernando: they
are dead. But all is well. They'll hang me. That's why I'm here. But I
have my feet on the path. I've acquired merit. The old man was right.'

A jail guard shouted across the courtyard to Silindu to 'shut his
mouth.'

'And the woman,' said Babun, in a low, dull voice. 'Where is the
woman?'

'She is there in the village waiting for you. All is well, I tell you.
They are dead: I killed them. It was the only way, though a sin, a great
sin, the old man said. They will hang me, every one says so; but all is
well, I've found the path. And you--you'll go back to the village.
Punchi Menika is there, waiting. The evil is over.'

Babun stared at him, frowning. His face had lost completely the open
cheerful look which it had once had. At last he said slowly:

'You are mad. I don't understand you. If you have killed those two, you
are a fool, madman. What's the good? I shall never go back there. I
shall die here. And you? Yes, they'll hang you, as you say. What's the
good? You are mad, mad--you always were.'

He turned away, and slowly lifting the pail of water emptied it into the
trough.

Silindu often saw Babun again in the yard, but never spoke to him. Babun
seemed purposely to avoid passing near his cell, and if he had to do so,
he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. The day of Silindu's trial
arrived. In the morning he was taken out of his cell, and handed over
with four other prisoners to an escort of police. They put handcuffs on
his hands, and led him through the streets to the court.

Silindu's case was the first case for trial. He did not pay much
attention to the proceedings--he continued to mumble the Pali
stanza--but he felt the greater pomp and solemnity of this court
compared with the police court. The judge was a grey-haired man in a
dull scarlet gown. There was a jury, among which were several white
Mahatmayas; there were a great many lawyers sitting round the table in
the centre of the court; and there was a crowd of officials and
policemen standing about.

Silindu had an advocate assigned to him by the court to defend him. The
lawyer soon found it useless to discuss the case with the prisoner: the
line of defence was clear, however; he would admit the killing, and
plead insanity and provocation. The indictment for murder was read, and
the witnesses for the prosecution then gave their evidence. They were
cross-examined by Silindu's advocate, only with a view to showing that
it had been well known in the village that Silindu was mad: they
admitted that he had always been 'tikak pissu.' They none of them knew
anything about a quarrel with the Arachchi before the theft and the
conviction of Babun.

Silindu's advocate then put him in the witness-box. He repeated the
statement which he had made to the magistrate. He was asked very few
questions in cross-examination, but the judge examined him at some
length. The judge's object was to make it clear, when the idea of
killing the two men first came to Silindu, and what was in Silindu's
mind during his walk to the chena with the Arachchi. Silindu understood
nothing of what was going on; he did not know, and could not have been
made to understand the law; he understood the point and reason for no
single question asked him. He knew he would be hanged; he was tired of
this continual slow torture of questions which he had to answer; he
wanted only to be left in peace to repeat the holy words again and
again: he had told them of the killing so many times; why should they
continue to bother him with these perpetual questions? He answered the
questions indifferently, baldly. Most of those in the court listening to
his bare passionless sentences describing how he determined to kill the
two men, how he watched for their return to the village, sitting all day
long in his compound, and how he finally killed them on the next day,
were left with the conviction that they had before them a brutal and
cold murderer.

The summing up of the judge, however, showed that he was not one of
those who regarded it as a simple case. He laid stress on the fact that
the prisoner had never been considered in the village to be completely
sane, and he directed the notice of the jury to the 'queer' ideas which
the prisoner seemed to have had in his mind about the hunting and his
own identification with the buffalo. It was right for them also to
consider the demeanour of the prisoner while in court, his apparent
listlessness and lack of interest in what was going on. They must,
however, remember that if the defence of insanity was to succeed, they
must be satisfied that the prisoner was actually incapable, owing to
unsoundness of mind, of knowing the nature of his act, or of knowing
that he was doing what was wrong or contrary to law.

After the judge had summed up, the jury were told they could retire to
consider their verdict, but after consulting with them, the foreman
stated they were all agreed that the prisoner was guilty of murder.
Silindu was still muttering his stanza; he had not tried to understand
what was going on around him. The court interpreter went close up to the
dock and told him that the jury had found him guilty of murder. Was
there anything which he had to say why sentence of death should not be
passed on him? A curious stillness had fallen on the place. Silindu
suddenly became conscious of where he was: he looked round and saw that
every one was looking at him; he saw the faces of the crowd outside
staring through the windows and craning round the pillars on the
verandah; all the eyes were staring at him as if something was expected
from him. For a moment the new sense of comfort and peace left him; he
felt afraid again, hunted; he looked up and down the court as if in
search of some path of escape.

'Aiyo!' he said to the interpreter, 'does that mean I am to be
hanged?'

'Have you anything to say why you should not be sentenced to be
hanged?'

'What is there to say? I have known that a long time. They told me that
I should be hanged--all the people--along the road. What is there to say
now, aiya?'

Silindu's words were interpreted to the judge, who took up a black cloth
and placed it on his head. Silindu was sentenced to be hanged by the
neck until he should be dead. The words were translated to him in
Sinhalese by the interpreter. He began again to repeat the stanza. He
was taken out of the court, handcuffed, and escorted back to his cell in
the prison by five policemen armed with rifles.

He was to be hanged in two weeks' time, and the days passed for him
peacefully as the days had passed before the trial. He had no fear of
the hanging now. If he had any feeling towards it, it was one of
expectancy, even hope. Vaguely he looked forward to the day as the end
of some long period of evil, as the beginning of something happier and
better. He scarcely thought of the actual hanging, but when he did, he
thought of it in the words of the old beggar, 'I do not think it will
hurt much.'

Four days before the day fixed for the execution, the jailer came to
Silindu's cell accompanied by a Sinhalese gentleman dressed very
beautifully in European clothes and a light grey sun-helmet. Silindu was
told to get up and come forward to the window of the cell. The Sinhalese
gentleman then took a document out of his pocket and began reading it
aloud in a high pompous voice. It informed Silindu that the sentence of
death passed on him had been commuted to one of twenty years' rigorous
imprisonment. When the reading stopped, Silindu continued to stare
vacantly at the gentleman.

'Do you understand, fellow?' said the latter.

'I don't understand, Hamadoru.'

'Explain to him, jailer.'

'You are not going to be hanged, d'you understand that? You'll be kept
in prison instead--twenty years.'

'Twenty years?'

'Yes, twenty years. D'you understand that?'

Silindu did not understand it. He could understand a week or two weeks,
or a month, or even six months, but twenty years meant nothing to him.
It was just a long time. At any rate he was not, after all, to be
hanged. For the moment a slight sense of uneasiness and disappointment
came over him. In the last four days he had grown to look forward to the
end, and now the end was put off for twenty years, for ever, it seemed
to him. He squatted down by the gate of his cell, holding the great iron
bars in his hands and staring out into the courtyard. He thought of the
past three weeks which he had spent in the cell; after all, they had
been very peaceful and happy. He had been acquiring merit, as the old
man told him to do. Now he would have more time still for acquiring it.
He would be left in peace here for twenty years--for a lifetime--to
acquire merit, and at the end he might make his way back to the village
and find Babun and Punchi Menika there, and sit in their compound again
watching the shadows of the jungle. It was very peaceful in the cell.

A jail guard came and unlocked the cell gate. Silindu was taken out and
made to squat down in the long shed which ran down the centre of the
courtyard. A wooden mallet was put into his hand and a pile of cocoanut
husk thrown down in front of him. For the remainder of that day, and
daily for the remainder of twenty years, he had to make coir by beating
cocoanut husks with the wooden mallet.




CHAPTER IX


Punchi Menika had been present at the inquiry of the magistrate in the
village, but she had not spoken to Silindu after her meeting with him
when he was being brought to Beddagama by the police sergeant. The
magistrate and the headman and the prisoner had left for Kamburupitiya
very early in the morning following the day of the inquiry. She and the
other villagers woke up to find that the village had already been left
to its usual sleepy life. There was nothing for her to do but to obey
Silindu's instructions, to wait for Babun's release, living as best she
might in the hut with Karlinahami. Her present misfortunes, the
imprisonment of Babun, the loss of her father, and the fate (and the
uncertainty of it) which hung over him, weighed numbly upon her. And the
future filled her with vague fears; she did not, could not plan about
it, or calculate about it, or visualise it, or anything in it. She did
not even think definitely of how she was going to live for six months,
until Babun should return. There was scarcely food in the house for her
and Karlinahami to exist in semi-starvation through those six months.
Yet the future loomed somehow upon her, filling her with a horrible
sense of uneasiness, uncertainty. It was a new feeling. She sat in the
hut silent and frightened the greater part of the day. She thought of
Silindu stories of hunters who had lost their way in the jungle. Their
terror must have been very like hers; she was alone, terribly alone and
deserted; she too had lost her way, and like them one path was as good
or as bad to her as another.

Karlinahami was nearly fifty years old now, and in a jungle village a
woman--and especially a woman without a husband--is very old, very near
the grave at fifty. The sun and the wind, the toil, the hunger, and the
disease sap the strength of body and mind, bring folds and lines into
the skin, and dry up the breasts. A woman is old at forty or even
thirty. No one, man or woman, in the jungle, lives to the term of years
allotted to man. It would have been difficult to say whether Karlinahami
looked nearer eighty than ninety, nearer ninety than a hundred. The
jungle had left its mark on her. Her body was bent and twisted, like the
stunted trees, which the south-west wind had tortured into grotesque
shapes. The skin, too, on her face and thin limbs reminded one of the
bark of the jungle trees; it was shrunken against the bones, and
wrinkled, and here and there flaking off into whitish brown scales, as
the bark flakes off the kumbuk-trees. The flesh of the cheeks had dried
and shrunk; the lips seemed to have sunk into the toothless mouth,
leaving a long line damp with saliva under the nose. And under the lined
forehead were the eyes, lifeless and filmy, peering out of innumerable
wrinkles. The eyes were not blind, but they seemed to be sightless--the
pupil, the iris, and even the white had merged--because the mind was
dying. It is what usually happens in the jungle--to women
especially--the mind dies before the body. Imperceptibly the power of
initiative, of thought, of feeling, dies out before the monotony of
life, the monotony of the tearing hot wind, the monotony of endless
trees, the monotony of perpetual hardship. It will happen at an age when
in other climates a man is in his prime, and a woman still bears
children. The man will still help at the work in the chena, cutting down
the undergrowth and sowing the crop; but he will do so unthinking,
without feeling, like a machine or an animal; and when it is done he
will sit hour after hour in his compound staring with his filmy eyes
into nothing, motionless, except when he winds one long thin arm round
himself, like a grey monkey, and scratches himself on the back. And the
woman still carries the waterpot to the muddy pool to fetch water; still
cooks the meal in the house. While they still stand upright, they must
do their work; they eat and they sleep; they mutter frequently to
themselves; but they do not speak to others, and no one speaks to them.
They live in a twilight, where even pain is scarcely felt.

Karlinahami was sinking rapidly into this twilight. In the jungle decay
and growth are equally swift. The trial of Silindu and Babun, the murder
of the Arachchi and Fernando, and now the loss of Silindu had meant very
little to her. She had felt vaguely that many evils were happening, but
facts no longer had meaning for her clouded mind. She fetched the water
as usual for the cooking, muttering to herself; but she did not speak to
Punchi Menika, and Punchi Menika knew that to talk to her or consult
with her would be useless.

A month after the conviction of Silindu the life of the village would at
first sight have appeared to have regained its ordinary course. But in
reality a great change had come over it. It had been a small village, a
dwindling village before; one of those villages doomed to slow decay, to
fade out at last into the surrounding jungle. Now at a blow, in a day,
it lost one out of its six houses, and seven out of its twenty-five
inhabitants. For after the death of the Arachchi, Nanchohami, his wife,
decided to leave the village. Her children were too young to do chena
work; so that it was not possible any longer to support herself in
Beddagama. In Kotegoda, where the Arachchi's relations lived, there was
paddy land and cocoanuts, and rain fell in plenty every year. They would
give her a hut, and a little land; she would marry her children there;
she had always said that Beddagama was an unholy place, full of evil and
evil omens. She packed up her few possessions in a bullock hackery,
which she borrowed from the Korala, and set out for Kotegoda. The
Arachchi's house was abandoned to the jungle. There was no one to
inhabit it; and indeed no one would have been foolhardy enough to go and
live in it. It was ill-omened, accursed, and very soon came to be known
as the haunt of devils. It seemed to make a long fight against the
jungle. The fence itself merged into the low scrub which surrounded it,
growing into a thick line of small trees. The wara bushes, with their
pale grey thick leaves and purple flowers the rank grass, the great
spined slabs of prickly pear, crawled out from under the shadow of the
fence over the compound up to the walls and the very door. But the walls
were thicker and better made than those of most huts: the roof was of
tiles; there was no cadjan thatch to be torn and scattered by the
south-west wind. The rains of the north-east monsoon beat against the
mud walls for two years in vain; they washed out great holes in them,
through which you could see the jungle sticks upon which the mud had
been plastered. The sticks exposed to the damp air took root and burst
into leaf. Great weeds, and even bushes, began to grow up between the
tiles, from seeds dropped by birds or scattered by the wind. An immense
twisted cactus towered over the roof. The tiles were dislodged and
pushed aside by the roots. The jungle was bursting through the walls,
overwhelming the house from above. The jungle moved within the walls: at
last they crumbled; the tiled roof fell in. The grass and the weeds grew
up over the little mound of broken red pottery; the jungle sticks of the
walls spread out into thick bushes. Tall saplings of larger trees began
to show themselves. By the end of the third rains the compound and the
house had been blotted out.

It was as if the jungle had broken into the village. Other huts had been
abandoned, overwhelmed, blotted out before, but they had always lain on
the outside of the village. The jungle had only drawn its ring closer
round the remaining huts; it had not broken into the village--the
village had remained a whole, intact. But now the jungle cut across the
village, separating Silindu's and Bastian Appu's hut from the rest. The
villagers themselves noted it: they felt that they were living in a
doomed place. 'The village is dying,' Nanchohami had said before she
left. 'An evil place, devil-haunted. It is dying, as its young die with
the old. No children are born in it now. An evil place. In ten years it
will have gone, trampled by the elephants.'

It was, however, only very gradually that this feeling of doom came to
be felt by the village and the villagers. At first, after the excitement
of the trials and the murder, they seemed to have settled down to the
old monotonous life, as it had been before. The vederala was appointed
Arachchi. Punchi Menika waited for Babun. She did not and could not
count the passing of time: a week was only some days to her, and six
months only many months; but she waited, watching the passage of time,
vaguely but continuously, for the day when Babun should return. She
heard the rumour which eventually reached the village that after all
Silindu was not to be hanged; he was to be kept in prison, they said,
for ever, for the remainder of his life. It brought no comfort to her;
he had been taken out of her life, she would never see him again; did it
matter whether he was dead or in prison?

She waited month after month. Her first feelings of fear were lost in
the perpetual sense of expectancy as the time slipped away. And she had
to work, to labour hard in order to keep herself and Karlinahami alive.
The little store of kurakkan in the house dwindled rapidly. She had to
search the jungle for edible leaves and wild fruit and roots, like the
wild onions which the pig feed upon. When the chena season came she
worked in the others' chenas, Balappu's and Bastian Appu's, and even
Punchirala's. She worked hard like a man for a few handfuls of kurakkan,
given to her as a charity. The others liked her, and were in their way
kind to her; they liked her quietness, her gentleness and submission.
Even Punchirala said of her: 'She goes about like a doe. They used to
call the mad vedda a leopard. The leopard's cub has turned into a deer.'

As the months passed, she gradually began to feel as if each day might
be the one on which Babun would return. And as each day passed without
bringing him, she tried to reckon whether the six months had really
gone. She talked it over with the other villagers. Some said it was five
months, others seven months since the conviction. They discussed it for
hours, wrangling, quarrelling, shouting at one another. He had been
convicted two months--about two months--before the Sinhalese New Year.
'No, it was one month before the New Year. It couldn't be one month
before, because the chena crop was not reaped yet. Reaped? Why it had
only just been sown. It must have been three months before. Three
months, you fool? Isa chena crop like ninety days' rice? Fool? Who is a
fool? Hold your tongue! Hold your tongue! At any rate, it was before the
New Year, and it's already six months since the New Year. Aiyo! Six
months since the New Year. It is only a month since I sowed my chena.
Who ever heard of sowing a chena five months after the New Year? It is
not three months since the New Year.'

Punchi Menika would stand listening to them going over it again and
again, hour after hour. She listened in silence, and would then slip
quietly away to wander in the evening down the track towards
Kamburupitiya. It was on the track that she hoped, that she was certain
that she would meet him. Then all would be well; the evil would end, as
Silindu had said. But as the days went by, the certainty left her; even
hope began to tremble, to give place to forebodings, fears. The time
came when all were agreed that the six months had passed; something must
have happened to him; he was ill, perhaps, or he had just been forgotten
there; one can never tell, anything may happen when a man gets into
prison; 'they' simply have forgotten to let him out.

Punchirala, the new headman, was consulted.

'The man,' he said, 'is probably dead.' Punchi Menika shuddered. Her
great eyes, in which the look of suffering had already grown profound
and steady, did not leave the vederala's face. 'Yes, I expect the man's
dead. They die quickly over there in prison. Especially strong men like
Babun. They lie down in a corner and die. There is medicine for
diseases, but is there any medicine for fate? So they say, and lie down
in the corner and die. There is nothing for you to do. No. I can give
you no medicine for fate either. You must sit down here in the village
and marry a young man--if you can find one, and if not, perhaps, an old
one. Eh? Why not? Though the jackals are picking the bones of the
elephant on the river bank, there are other elephants bathing in the
river. Nor are they all cows. Well, well.'

'Ralahami, do you really know anything? Have you heard that he is
dead?'

'I have heard nothing. From whom could I hear? If you want to hear
anything you must go to the prison. It will take you many days--first to
Kamburupitiya, and then west along the great road, three days to
Tangalla, where the prison is. You must ask at the prison. They can tell
you.'

Punchi Menika left the vederala in silence. She walked away very slowly
to the hut; the conviction had come to her at once that she must go to
the prison. The thought of the journey alone into an unknown world
frightened her; but she felt that she must go, that she could not bear
any longer this waiting in doubt in the village. She made some cakes of
kurakkan, tied them up in a handkerchief, together with some uncooked
grain which the villagers gave her when they heard of her intended
journey, and started next day for Kamburupitiya.

The first part of her journey, the track to Kamburupitiya, she knew
well. She had, too, no fear, as other women have, of being alone in the
jungle. It was when she turned west along the main road to Tangalla that
her real troubles began. She felt lost and terribly alone on the
straight, white, dusty road. The great clumsy bullock carts, laden with
salt or paddy, perpetually rumbled by her; the carters she knew were bad
men, terrible tales were told about them in the villages. The life of
the road frightened her far more than the silence and solitude of the
jungle. That she understood: she belonged to it. But the stream of
passers-by upon the road, the unknown faces and the eyes that always
stared strangely, inquiringly at her for a moment, and had then passed
on for ever, made her feel vaguely how utterly alone she was in the
world. And nowhere was this feeling so strong for her as in the villages
which she slunk through like a frightened jackal. Everywhere it was the
same; the crowd of villagers and travellers staring at her from in front
of the village boutique, the group of women gossiping and laughing round
the well in the paddy field--not a known face among them all. She had
not the courage even to ask to be allowed to sleep at night in a
boutique or hut. She preferred to creep into some small piece of jungle
by the roadside, when darkness found her tired and hungry.

She was very tired and very hungry before she reached Tangalla. Her
bewilderment was increased by the network of narrow streets. She
wandered about until she suddenly found herself in the market. It was
market-day, and a crowd of four or five hundred people were packed
together into the narrow space, which was littered with the goods and
produce which they were buying and selling: fruit and vegetables and
grain and salt and clothes and pots. Every one was talking, shouting,
gesticulating at the same time. The noise terrified her, and she fled
away. She hurried down another narrow street, and found herself at the
foot of a hill which rose from the middle of the town. There were no
houses upon its sides, but there was an immense building on the top of
it. There was no crowd there, only an old man sitting on the bare
hillside watching five lean cows which were trying to find some stray
blades of parched brown grass on the stony soil.

She squatted down, happy in the silence and solitude of the place after
the noise of the streets and market. Nothing was to be heard except the
cough of one of the cows from time to time, and from far off the faint,
confused murmur from the market-place. She looked up at the great white
building; it was very glaring and dazzling in the blaze of the sun. She
wondered whether it was the prison in which Babun lay. She looked at the
old man sitting among the five starved cows. He reminded her a little of
Silindu; he sat so motionless, staring at a group of cocoanut-trees that
lay around the bottom of the hill. He was as thin as the cattle which he
watched: as their flanks heaved in the heat you saw the ribs sticking
out under their mangy coats, and you could see, too, every bone of his
chest and sides panting up and down under his dry, wrinkled skin. The
insolent noisy towns-people had terrified her; this withered old man
seemed familiar to her, like a friend. He might very easily have come
out of the jungle.

She went over to where he sat, and stood in front of him. For a moment
he turned on her his eyes, which were covered with a film the colour of
the film which forms on stagnant water; then he began again to stare at
the palms in silence.

'Father,' she said, 'is that the prison?'

The old man looked up slowly at the great glaring building as if he had
seen it for the first time, and then looked from it to Punchi Menika.

'Yes,' he said in a dry husky voice. 'Why?'

'My man must be there,' said Punchi Menika gazing at the white walls.
'He was sent there many months ago. They sent him there for six months.
It was a false case. The six months have passed now, but he has not
returned to the village. I have come to ask about him here--a long way.
I am tired, father, tired of all this. But he must be there.'

The old man's eyes remained fixed upon the cocoanut-palms; he did not
move.

'What is your village, woman?' he asked.

'I come from Beddagama.'

'Beddagama, I know it. I knew it long ago. I, too, come from over there,
from Mahawelagama, beyond Beddagama. You should go back to your village,
woman.'

'But my man, father, what about my man?'

The old man turned his head very slowly and looked up at the prison. The
sun beat down upon his face, which seemed to have been battered and
pinched and folded and lined by age and misery. His eyes wandered from
the prison to one of the cows. She stood still, stretching out her head
in front of her, her great eyes bulging; she coughed in great spasms
which strained her flanks. He waited until the coughing had stopped, and
she began again to search the earth for something to eat. Then he said,
speaking as if to himself:

'They never come out from there--not if they are from the jungle. How
can they live in there, always shut in between walls? These town
people--they do not mind, but we----Surely I should know--I am from
Mahawelagama, a village in the jungle over there. I would go back now,
but I am too old. When one is old, it is useless; but you----Go back to
your village, woman. It is folly to leave the village. There is hunger
there, I know, I remember that; but there is the hut and the compound
all by themselves, and the jungle beyond. Here there is nothing but
noise and trouble, and one house upon the other.'

'But I must ask at the prison first for my man. Why are they keeping him
there?'

'They never come out. Surely I should know. My son was sent there. He
never came out. The case was in this town, and I came here and spent all
I had for him. Then I thought I will wait here until they let him out;
but he never came. It will be the same with your man. Go back to the
village.'

Punchi Menika wept quietly from weariness and hunger and misery at the
old man's words:

'It is no good crying,' he said; 'I am old, and who should know better
than I? They never come out. It is better to go back to the village.'

Punchi Menika got up and walked slowly up the hill, and then round the
prison. There was only one entrance to it, an immense solid wooden gate
studded with iron nails. She knocked timidly, so timidly that the sound
was not heard within. Then she sat down against the wall and waited.
Hours passed, and nothing happened; the gate remained closed; no sound
could be heard from within the prison; the hill was deserted except for
the five cows whose coughing she could hear from time to time below her.
But she waited patiently for something to happen, only moving now and
again into the shadow of the wall, when the sun in its course beat down
upon her.

At last the door opened, and a man in a khaki uniform and helmet,
carrying a club in his hand, came out. He looked at Punchi Menika, and
said sharply:

'What do you want here?'

'I have come about my man, aiya. A long time ago he was sent here for
six months. The time has passed, but he has not returned to the village.
They say he is dead. Is it true, aiya?'

'What was his name and village?'

'He was from Beddagama.'

'His name?'

'Aiya, how can I tell his name?'

'What was his name, fool?'

'They called him Babun.'

'What was he convicted for?'

'It was a false case. They said he had robbed the Arachchi.'

'Oh, that man, yes. The Arachchi was killed afterwards, wasn't he?'

'Yes, yes, my father did that.'

'Well, he was here, too. Have you any money, woman?'

'No, aiya, none; we are very poor.'

'Ah! well. We can't tell you anything here. You must go to
Kamburupitiya, and send a petition to the Agent Hamadoru.'

'But you know my man, aiya; you said you did. What harm to tell me? Is
he here now? What has happened to him? I have come many days' journey to
ask about him, and now you send me away to more trouble.'

The jail guard looked at Punchi Menika for a minute or two.

'Well,' he said, 'charity they say is like rain to a parched crop. You
are asking for drought in a parched field. I knew the man; he was here,
but he is dead. He died two months back.'

The jail guard expected to hear the shrill cry and the beating of the
breast, the signs of a woman's mourning. Punchi Menika astonished him by
walking slowly away to the shade, and sitting down again by the prison
wall. The blow was too heavy for the conventional signs of grief. She
sat dry-eyed; she felt little, but the intense desire to get away to the
village, to get away out of this world, where she was lost and alone, to
the compound, where she could sit and watch the sun set behind the
jungle. She did not wait long; she set out at once down the hill. The
old man still sat among his cows looking at the cocoanut-trees.

'Ah,' he said, as she passed him, 'they never come out. I told you so.'

'He is dead, father.'

'Yes, they never come out. Go back to the village, child.'

'I am going, father.'




CHAPTER X


Two years later, Punchi Menika was still living in the hut which had
belonged to Silindu, but she lived alone. Karlinahami had died slowly
and almost painlessly, like the trees around her. Her death had brought
no difference into Punchi Menika's life, except that now she had to find
food for herself alone.

The years had brought more evil, death, and decay upon the village. Of
the five houses which stood when Punchi Menika returned from her journey
to the prison, only two remained, her own, and that of the headman
Vederala Punchirala. Disease and hunger visited it year after year. It
seemed, as the headman said, to have been forgotten by gods and men.
Year after year, the rains from the north-east passed it by; only the
sun beat down more pitilessly, and the wind roared over it across the
jungle; the little patches of chena crop which the villagers tried to
cultivate withered as soon as the young shoots showed above the ground.
No man, traveller or headman or trader, ever came to the village now. No
one troubled any longer to clear the track which led to it; the jungle
covered it and cut the village off.

Disease and death took the old first, Podi Sinho, and his wife Angohami,
and the jungle crept forward over their compound. And three years later
two other huts were abandoned. In one had lived Balappu with his wife
and sister, and his two children; in the other Bastian Appu with his two
sons, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, and a grandchild. They had tried to
help Punchi Menika by letting her work in their chenas, and by giving
her a share in the meagre crop. They struggled hard against the fate
that hung over them, clinging to the place where they had been born and
lived, the compound they knew, and the sterile chenas which they had
sown. No children were born to them now in their hut, their women were
as sterile as the earth; the children that had been born to them died of
want and fever. At last they yielded to the jungle. They packed up their
few possessions and left the village for ever, to try and find work and
food in the rice-fields of Maha Potana.

They tried to induce Punchi Menika to go with them, but she refused. She
remembered her misery and loneliness upon the road to Tangalla, and the
words of the old man from Mahawelagama, who sat among the cows upon the
hill there. She remembered Babun's words to the Mudalali, 'Surely it is
a more bitter thing to die in a strange place.' It might be a still
bitterer thing to live in a strange place. She was alone in the world;
the only thing left to her was the compound and the jungle which she
knew. She clung to it passionately, blindly. The love which she had felt
for Silindu and Babun--who were lost to her for ever, whose very
memories began to fade from her in the struggle to keep alive--was
transferred to the miserable hut, the bare compound, and the parched
jungle.

So she was left alone with Punchirala. He was an old man now, weak and
diseased. After a while he became too feeble even to get enough food to
keep himself alive. She took him into her hut. She had to find food now
for him, as well as for herself, by searching the jungle for roots and
fruit, and by sowing a few handfuls of grain at the time of the rains in
the ground about the hut. He gave her no thanks; as his strength
decayed, his malignancy and the bitterness of his tongue increased; but
he did not live long after he came to her hut; hunger and age and
parangi at last freed her from his sneers and his gibes.

The jungle surged forward over and blotted out the village up to the
very walls of her hut. She no longer cleared the compound or mended the
fence, the jungle closed over them as it had closed over the other huts
and compounds, over the paths and tracks. Its breath was hot and heavy
in the hut itself which it imprisoned in its wall, stretching away
unbroken for miles. Everything except the little hut with its rotting
walls and broken tattered roof had gone down before it. It closed with
its shrubs and bushes and trees, with the impenetrable disorder of its
thorns and its creepers, over the rice-fields and the tanks. Only a
little hollowing of the ground where the trees stood in water when rain
fell, and a long little mound which the rains washed out and the
elephants trampled down, marked the place where before had lain the tank
and its land.

The village was forgotten, it disappeared into the jungle from which it
had sprung, and with it she was cut off, forgotten. It was as if she was
the last person left in the world, a world of unending trees above which
the wind roared always and the sun blazed. She became one of the beasts
of the jungle, struggling perpetually for life against hunger and
thirst; the ruined hut, through which the sun beat and the rains washed,
was only the lair to which she returned at night for shelter. Her
memories of the evils which had happened to her, even of Babun and her
life with him, became dim and faded. And as they faded, her childhood
and Silindu and his tales returned to her. She had returned to the
jungle; it had taken her back; she lived as he had done, understanding
it, loving it, fearing it. As he had said, one has to live many years
before one understands what the beasts say in the jungle. She understood
them now, she was one of them. And they understood her, and were not
afraid of her. They became accustomed to the little tattered hut, and to
the woman who lived in it. The herd of wild pigs would go grunting and
rooting up to the very door, and the old sows would look up unafraid and
untroubled at the woman sitting within. Even the does became accustomed
to her soft step as she came and went through the jungle, muttering
greetings to them; they would look up for a moment, and their great eyes
would follow her for a moment as she glided by, and then the heads would
go down again to graze without alarm.

But life is very short in the jungle. Punchi Menika was a very old woman
before she was forty. She no longer sowed grain, she lived only on the
roots and leaves that she gathered. The perpetual hunger wasted her
slowly, and when the rains came she lay shivering with fever in the hut.
At last the time came when her strength failed her; she lay in the hut
unable to drag herself out to search for food. The fire in the corner
that had smouldered so long between the three great stones was out. In
the day the hot air eddied through the hut, hot with the breath of the
wind blowing over the vast parched jungle; at night she shivered in the
chill dew. She was dying, and the jungle knew it; it is always waiting;
can scarcely wait for death. When the end was close upon her a great
black shadow glided into the doorway. Two little eyes twinkled at her
steadily, two immense white tusks curled up gleaming against the
darkness. She sat up, fear came upon her, the fear of the jungle, blind
agonising fear.

'Appochchi, Appochchi!' she screamed. 'He has come, the devil from the
bush. He has come for me as you said. Aiyo! save me, save me!
Appochchi!'

As she fell back, the great boar grunted softly, and glided like a
shadow towards her into the hut.


[Footnote 1: The lowest rank of headman, the headman over a village.]

[Footnote 2: A Buddhist temple containing an image of Buddha.]

[Footnote 3: Shilling used colloquially for the half rupee or 50 cents
= 8d.]

[Footnote 4: A common method of measuring distance--the distance
being that at which it is possible to hear a man cry 'hoo.']

[Footnote 5: The veddas are the aborigines of Ceylon, and are or were
hunters. They are often identified with Yakkas or devils.]

[Footnote 6: A Sinhalese woman will not speak to or refer to her
husband byname. She always speaks of or to him as 'The father of
my child,' or 'The father of Podi Sinho,' etc., or simply 'He.']

[Footnote 7: _Vide_ note _supra._]

[Footnote 8: Kuruni is a measure employed in the measurement of grain.]

[Footnote 9: Kurakkan, a grain, _Eleusine coracana._]

[Footnote 10: Term applied usually to a rich trader.]

[Footnote 11: Called bhang, ganja, or hashish.]

[Footnote 12: The head of a district for administrative and revenue
purposes is a European Civil servant, and is called an assistant
Government agent. The Sinhalese call him Agent Hamadoru.]

[Footnote 13: A respectful form of address.]

[Footnote 14: A fanam: six cents, one penny.]

[Footnote 15: Disa Mahatmaya is the title used by villagers in referring
to chief headmen or Ratemahatmayas. Koralas are subordinate headmen of
korales under the Ratemahatmayas. Each Korala again has under him
several Arachchis, who are headmen of single villages.]

[Footnote 16: The son of a paternal uncle is regarded as a brother.]

[Footnote 17: A favourite form of abuse among the Sinhalese is to call
some one a Tamil.]

[Footnote 18: Rodiyas are the lowest Sinhalese caste.]

[Footnote 19: Native sugar made from the kitul palm.]

[Footnote 20: Father.]

[Footnote 21: Colloquially used for 50 rupees.]

[Footnote 22: Kandyan district.]

[Footnote 23: The banian-tree.]

[Footnote 24: Typhoid.]

[Footnote 25: Deviyo used of a god.]

[Footnote 26: Kapuralas are persons who perform various services in
temples.]

[Footnote 27: Earthenware pots.]

[Footnote 28: This story is taken from the Ummaga Jataka.]

[Footnote 29: A sort of rice gruel.]

[Footnote 30: The 'hand with which you eat rice' is a common expression
for the right hand, the left hand being used for an unmentionable
purpose.]

[Footnote 31: A small measure.]

[Footnote 32: Sadhu is an exclamation of assent or approval, which
people listening to the reading of Banna or Buddhist scriptures repeat
at intervals. It is also used by pilgrims at the sight of temples or
dagobas.]

[Footnote 33: There are two distinct races in Ceylon, Tamils and
Sinhalese. Their language, customs, and religions are different. The
Tamils are Dravidians, probably the original inhabitants of India; they
are Hindus in religion. The Sinhalese are Aryans, and their religion is
Buddhism. The Tamils inhabit the north and east of the island, the
Sinhalese the remainder.]

[Footnote 34: An expression used frequently in stories to mean a
husband.]

[Footnote 35: Procession, usually a Sinhalese or Buddhist procession.]

[Footnote 36: Lizard. The chirping cry of the gecko is universally
regarded as a warning cry of ill omen.]

[Footnote 37: A holy man or religious beggar Hindu.]

[Footnote 38: Fifteen feet.]

[Footnote 39: Hinnihami addresses Punchirala by name, and thereby shows
him that she does not regard herself as living with him as his wife.]

[Footnote 40: Mother.]

[Footnote 41: A gambaraya is technically a man who oversees the
cultivation of rice-fields for the owners, and is paid usually by a
share of the crop.]

[Footnote 42: Gama means a village.]

[Footnote 43: A poya day is the day of the change of the moon, which is
kept as a sacred day by the Buddhists, answering in some ways to the
Christian Sunday.]

[Footnote 44: Kachcheri is the Government offices.]

[Footnote 45: A term used by superiors to inferiors meaning something
like 'fellow.']

[Footnote 46: Ge is Sinhalese for house. A ge name answers in some
respects to a surname.]

[Footnote 47: A peya is a Sinhalese hour, and is equal to about twenty
minutes.]

[Footnote 48: A term commonly used by villagers, referring to the
Ratemahatmaya.]

[Footnote 49: A hackery is a single bullock cart.]

[Footnote 50: The common lizard: its 'chirp' is always considered by
the Sinhalese to be a warning or sign of ill omen.]

[Footnote 51: Pence.]

[Footnote 52: A shrub which grows in waste places.]

[Footnote 53: Coir, fibre of the cocoa-nut husk.]






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