Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/264

 once more the night shut down, Kûlop of the Hare- lip sank exhausted upon the ground. His battle was over. He could bear up no longer against the weight of his weariness and the insistent craving for sleep. Almost as his head touched the warm litter of dead leaves, with which the earth in all Malayan jungles is strewn, his heavy eyelids closed and his breast rose and fell to the rhythm of his regular breathing. He was halfway up the mountains now, and almost within reach of safety, but Kulop of the Harelip- Kúlop, the resolute, the fearless, the strong, and the enduring had reached the end of his tether. He had been beaten, not by the Sakai, but by Nature, whom no man may long defy; and to her assaults he surrendered his will and slept.

Presently the underwood was parted by human hands in half a dozen different places, and the Sâkai crept stealthily out of the jungle into the little pateli of open in which their esiemy lay at rest. He moved uneasily in his sleep-not on account of any noise made by them, for they came as silently as a cloud shadow cast across a landscape; and at once the Sakai halted with lifted fect, ready to plunge back into cover should their victim awake. But Kûlop, utterly exhausted, was sleeping heavily, wrapped in the slumber from which he was never again to be aroused.

The noiseless jungle-folk, armed with heavy clubs and bamboo spears, stole to within a foot or two of the unconscious Malay. Then nearly a score of them raised their weapons, poised them aloft, and