Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/56

 came from them. Kria, watching him with growing irritation, for a while was fearful to disturb him; but at last, unable longer to endure the delay and suspense, he burst out with an eager question.

"When do we take up the trial anew?" he asked.

Kûlop Rîau, coming up to the surface slowly from the depths of his abstraction, gazed at Kria for a space through unseeing eyes, while the question that had been spoken filtered through the clouds obscuring his brain. Then he jerked out an answer of five words:

"When you are in childbed!" and closed his mouth with a snap, not even troubling himself to complete the proverb.

Once more Kria knew himself to be impotent. Here again he had no course open to him but to sit and wait.

The long, still, stifling day wore toward evening, minute by minute and hour by hour, while the four men lay under the shelter of a rough lean-to of thatch, inactive but restless, and Kria thought bitterly of the amount and value of the rubber which he in his folly and trustfulness had handed over to Kûlop Rîau in advance. Late in the afternoon that worthy spoke to his companions for the first time for many hours, bidding them prepare food, and a little before the sunset, after the meal had been despatched, he rose to his feet, hiccoughed loudly, stretched himself elaborately, and made ready to resume his march. In an instant Kria was by his side, with an expression of joyful relief,