Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/90

 "She hath a wicked mouth, this woman of yours, and it is not fitting that such words should be spoken. I am loath to repeat them to the Grandfather, for were I to do so, a great evil would certainly overtake you. Show me that spear of yours—the ancient spear with a silver hasp at the base of the blade. I have a mind to borrow it. Ah, it is a good spear. and I will take it as an earnest of the love you hear me."

"Take it," said Mat Drus meekly; and Kria having possessed himself of this weapon, which he had long coveted, swaggered off to pass the word to other villagers that the Chief required their services for the weeding of his rice crop.

The sun stood high in the heavens, its rays bending down pitilessly upon the broad expanse of rice-field. A tall fence of bamboo protected the crop, shutting it off on the one side from the rhododendron scrub and the grazing-grounds beyond which rose the palm and fruit groves and the thatched roofs of the village, and on the other three from the forest, which formed a dark bank of foliage rising abruptly from the edge of the land which had been won from it by the labour of successive generations of men. The cubit-high spears of the pâdi carpeted the earth with vivid colour, absorbing the sun's rays and refracting them, and the transparent heat haze danced thin and restless over the flatness of the cultivated fields. The weeders, with their sârongs wound turban-wise about their heads to protect them from