Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/113

 tree, and began somewhat ruefully to gather together his damaged property. He cried to the two Sâkai to come down and aid him, but they sat shuddering in their lofty perches and declined to move. Pandak Âris quickly lost his temper.

"Come down!" he yelled at them. "Descend out of the branches, ye children of sin! May you die violent deaths! Come down! Are your ears deaf that you obey me not?"

But the terrified Sâkai would not budge, and maintained an obstinate silence.

Pandak Âris, capering in his impotent rage, miscalled them with all that amplitude of vocabulary which, upon occasion, the Malays know how to use. He threatened them with all manner of grievous punishments; he tried to bribe the trembling wretches with promises of food and tobacco; he flung stones and sticks at them, which they evaded without the least difficulty; at last he even condescended to entreat them to come down. But all was in vain. The Sâkai are still, to some extent, arboureal in their habits, and when once fear has driven them to seek safety in the trees, some time must elapse before sufficient confidence is restored to them to embolden them again to face the dangers of life upon the ground. Pandak Âris would willingly have wrung their necks, could he but have got within reach of them; but he knew the hopelessness of attempting to chase these creatures through the branches, for Sâkai can move among the treetops with the instinctive dexterity of monkeys. At length,