Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/28

 Suddenly, as the canoe crept round a bend in the bank, something plunged headlong out of the shadows and dived into the forest on the left. It leaped with a speed so startling, and was swallowed up so instantly, that it was gone before Kria had time even to reach for his musket; but the Sâkai boatmen, who, like the rest of their people, had the gift of sight through the back of their heads, at once set up a succession of queer animal calls and cries which spluttered off presently into the hiccoughing monosyllables which serve these folk as speech. A moment later a clear, bell-like call thrilled from out the forest, so close at hand that the surprise of it made Kria jump and nearly drop his paddle; and then came a ripple of words, like little drops of crystal, which made even the rude Sâkai tongue a thing of music, freshness, and youth. Next the shrubs on the bank were parted by human hands, and Pi-Noi—Breeze of the Forest—emerging suddenly, stepped straightway into Kria's life and into the innermost heart of him.

She was a Sâkai girl of about fifteen years of age, naked save for a girdle of dried, black water weed, a string of red berries round her neck, and a scarlet blossom stuck in her hair. She stood there, poised lightly upon her feet, in the agile pose which enables the jungle-folk instantly to convert absolute immobility into a wondrous activity. Her figure, just budding into womanhood, was perfect in every line, from the slender neck to the rounded lips, the cleanly shaped limbs and the small, delicate feet,