Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/387

 house out of the jungle, praying for rice and for tobacco.

"Now these Sakai, as you know, Tuan, are sorry animals, and our people do not suffer them to enter our houses, for they are of an evil odour, indescrib- ably dirty, and are, moreover, afflicted with skin discases, so that from afar off they appear to be as white as a fair woman. The villagers of the interior bear little love to the Sakai, though they do much trade with them; and the womenfolk hold them in special loathing and contempt, and cannot by any means abide their proximity. When, therefore, Hodoh beheld the face of Pa'Ah-Gap, scarred with blue tattoo-marks, with hair in locks like the top of the ragged sago-palm yonder, and his body, naked save for a loin-cloul, gray with the warm wood ashes in which he had slept, and with skin flaky with lupus, she was at once angered and afraid. Ac- cordingly, seizing a párang, she threatened him with it and cried aloud bidding him be gone, cursing him for a filthy, misbegotten, nile-eaten Sakai. Also she shouted "Hinchit! Ilinchit!" after the man- ner of men who drive away a dog.

"Pa' Ah-Gap stood gazing at her in silence, rub- bing his left calf slowly against his right shin bone, and scratching his scalp with one clawlike hand hidden in his mop of hair: and he gazed insolently at Hodoh. who abated not her railing and heaped shame upon him with many injurious words. Then, when she paused breathless, he lifted up his voice and spoke