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!'