Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/382

 palm-leaf roofings of boats and rafts relieved the even redness of the river.

A gentle breeze, which had sped upstream from the sea, playing catch as catch can with the flowing tide, sighed dreamily in our cars, and the heavy silence was broken only by the monotonous thud of a paddle handle against a boat's wooden side, the faint bleat of a goat, the whisper of an occasional stronger gust among the palm fronds, and the purring sound of old Tukang Burok's polishing tools.

"Than, the girl was very fair, and the madness came upon me, and I loved her."

He held a beautiful piece of the buttress root of the kumining tree between the toes of his left foot and sat working at its surface with a mass of rough empelas leaves held in both hands. Even in its raw state the wonderful, bold markings of the wood, the great curves and patches of black against their yellow background, were plainly to be discerned, an earnest of the magnificence that would be revealed when finally worked up and varnished, and the old Tukang handled it lovingly.

"Your servant was a youth in those so long ago days, and when it comes to the young, the madness. is very hot and burning so that the eyes will not sleep and the belly hath no desire for rice, and the liver is like a live ember in the breast. And, in Iruth, old age changes a man but little. Behold the lusts of him are as greal as of yore, only his bones are stiff and his limbs have turned traitor, and rage assails his liver as he watches the maidens playing the