Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/218

 light of more or less helpless and irresponsible chil- dren. Instead, the Muhammadan woman looks up to a man as to a being who is nobler than herself, endowed with mental and physical powers superior to her own, who is often capricious, harsh, and violent, who may be cajoled and placated, but who fills her simple, trustful soul with fear and awe.

Little Minah, therefore, had been frightened out of her wits at the bare notion of being handed over to a husband for his service and pleasure, and her gratitude to her man had been extravagant and passionate in its intensity when she found that he was consistently kind and tender to her. For Ma- mat, the man to whom this child had been so early mated, was a typical villager of the interior, good- natured and easygoing through sheer indolence, courteous of manner, soft of speech, and caressing by instinct, as are so many folk of the kindly Malayan stock. He, too, perhaps, had felt something akin to pity for the wild-eyed little girl who addressed him in quavering monosyllables, and he found a new pleasure in soothing and petting her. So, little by little, his almost paternal feeling for her turned in due season to a man's strong love, and awoke in her a woman's passionate devotion. Thus, for a space. Mamat and Minah were happy, though no children were born to them, and Minah fretted secretly, when the house was still at night-time, for she knew that the village women spoke truly when they whis- pered together that no wife could hope to hold the