Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/211

 at last the time comes for the long, long rest under the lovegrass and the spear-blades of the lalang in some shady corner of the peaceful village burial- ground. Accordingly, I took no special notice of the laden woman moving so painfully athwart the sun- glare ahead of the, until my arm was grasped vio- lently by the headman, who was walking just behind me.

"Have a care, Tuan!" he cried in some agitation. "Have a care. It is Minah and her man. It is the sickness that is not good-the evil sickness. Go not near to her, Tan, lest some ill thing befall."

The perverse instinct of the white man invariably prompts him to set at instant defiance any warning that a native may be moved to give him. This propensity has added considerably to the figures which represent the European death-rate throughout Asia, and, incidentally, it has led to many of the acts of reckless daring which have won for Englishmen their Eastern Empire. It has also set the native the hard task of deciding whether the greater sub- ject for wonder is the courage or the stupidity of the men who rule him. I had lived long enough among natives to know that there is generally a sound reason to justify any warning they may give; but nature, as usual, was stronger than acquired experience or com- mon sense, so I released my arm from the headman's grip, and walked up to the figure in front of me.

It was, as I had seen, that of a woman bowed beneath the weight of a heavy burden, a woman still young, not ill-looking, light coloured for a