Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/128

 “Look!”

“What’s the matter?”

At the foot of the wall that surrounded the compound a man lay on his back with his legs stretched out and his arms thrown over his head. He wore the patched blue rags and the wild mop of hair of the Chinese beggar.

“He looks as if he were dead,” Kitty gasped.

“He is dead. Come along; you’d better look the other way. I’ll have him moved when we come back.”

But Kitty was trembling so violently that she could not stir.

“I’ve never seen any one dead before.”

“You’d better hurry up and get used to it then, because you’ll see a good many before you’ve done with this cheerful spot.”

He took her hand and drew it in his arm. They walked for a little in silence.

“Did he die of cholera?” she said at last.

“I suppose so.”

They walked up the hill till they came to the arch-way. It was richly carved. Fantastic and ironical it stood like a landmark in the surrounding country. They sat down on the pedestal and faced the wide plain. The hill was sown close with the little green mounds of the dead, not in lines but disorderly, so that you felt that beneath the surface they must strangely jostle one another. The narrow causeway meandered sinuously among the green rice fields. A small boy seated on the neck of a water-buffalo drove it slowly home, and three peasants in wide