Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/227

 have no care for anyone save for myself? O Mamat, my man to me, fruit of my heart! After these years that we have lived together in love, do you in truth know me so little? Is it fitting that I, your wife, should quit you now because the evil spirits have caused this trouble to fall upon you? Weh, I love you, I love you, I love you, and life would be of no use to me without you. Come to me, Weh, come to me!" And again she extended her arms toward him.

For long Mamat resisted, fighting against the temptation to accept her sacrifice sturdily; but at length the longing for human sympathy, and for comfort in his great affliction-a desire which, in time of trouble, a grown man feels as instinctively as does the little child that, having come by some hurt, runs to its mother to be petted into forgetful- ness of his pain-proved too strong for him; and he sank down, sobbing unrestrainedly, with his head in Minah's lap, and with her kind hands fondling and caressing him.

And thus it came about that Minah made the great sacrifice, which, in a manner, was to her no sacrifice, and her husband brought himself to ac- cept it as the one precious thing that capricious fate had accorded to him.

Two or three years slid by after this, and as Minali watched her husband, she marked the subtle changes of the evil to which he was a prey working their cruel will upon him. He had been far gone in the disease even before the medicine-man had mustered courage