Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/200

 content which her arrival in the household occasions is inevitably transformed into a blazing indignation. Malay women, however, can sometimes patch up a modus virendi with the obviously intolerable as well as any of their sex, when circumstances are too strong for them; and Sentul's lawful wife did not carry her opposition farther than to stipulate that Chêp and she should be accommodated in separate buts.

The Sâkai girl was delighted with her new home. In her eyes it was a veritable palace compared with the miserable shacks which contented her own people; and the number and variety of the cooking-pots, the large stock of household stores, the incredibly luxurious flock sleeping mat, and above all the pretty Malayan garments of silk and cotton of which she had suddenly become the bewildered possessor filled her woman's soul with pleasure. Also, Sentul was kind to her, and she ate good boiled rice twice daily, which was to her an mndreamed-of content. Sooner or later the irresistible longing for the jungle, which is bred in the very marrow of the forest-dwell- ers, would awaken in her, and drive her back to her own people; but of this she knew nothing as yet, and for the time she was happy.

In the Sakai camp it was not until the day had lawned that the devil-worshippers, looking at one another's tired and pallid faces through heavy, sleep- less eyes, as they crawled forth from the sodden, draggled tangle of vegetation in the house, noted that two of their number were missing. The quick sight