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.