Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/376

 battle one with another. Each woman was wildly jealous of all her fellows, mother suspecting daughter, and daughter accusing mother of receiving more than her fair share of Leh's generous and widely scat- tered attentions. Many were the scratches scored on nose and countenance, long and thick the tussocks of hair reft from one another by the combatants, terrible and extravagant the damage done to one an- other's rival wardrobes by the infuriated ladies; while the men beholding these impossible goings-on with horror and dismay, said among themselves that Leh. the warden of the king's dancing girls must die.

He was a hefty fellow and known to be a good man of his hands, wherefore, badly as they all felt about him, no one saw his way to engage him in single combat, though there were half a hundred very angry husbands and lovers who were anxious to take an active part in assassinating him. At last a commit- tee of three specially aggrieved citizens was appointed by general consent to act for the rest, and they lay in wait for Leh during several successive evenings, hoping to catch him returning alone from the ma'iong shed.

It was on the third night of their vigil that their chance came. The moon was near the full, and the heavy shadows cast by the palm fronds lay across the ground like solid objects. The footpath, which leads from the main thoroughfare into the villages around Kota Bharu, branches off some twenty yards from the spot where the watchers lay concealed. The committee of three sat huddled up just within the clustering compounds, hidden from sight by the