Punchi Menika left the vederala in silence. She walked away very slowly to the hut; the conviction had come to her at once that she must go to the prison. The thought of the journey alone into an unknown world frightened her; but she felt that she must go, that she could not bear any longer this waiting in doubt in the village. She made some cakes of kurakkan, tied them up in a handkerchief, together with some uncooked grain which the villagers gave her when they heard of her intended journey, and started next day for Kamburupitiya.
The first part of her journey, the track to Kamburupitiya, she knew well. She had, too, no fear, as other women have, of being alone in the jungle. It was when she turned west along the main road to Tangalla that her real troubles began. She felt lost and terribly alone on the straight, white, dusty road. The great clumsy bullock carts, laden with salt or paddy, perpetually rumbled by her; the carters she knew were bad men, terrible tales were told about them in the villages. The life of the road frightened her far more than the silence and solitude of the jungle. That she understood: she belonged to it. But the stream of passers-by upon the road, the unknown faces and the eyes that always stared strangely, inquiringly at her for a moment, and had then passed on for ever, made her feel vaguely how utterly alone she was in the world. And nowhere was this feeling so strong for her as in the villages which she slunk through like a frightened jackal. Everywhere it was the same; the crowd of villagers and travellers staring at her from in front of the village boutique, the group of women gossiping and laughing round the well in the paddy field—not a known face among them all. She had not the courage even to ask to be allowed to sleep at night in a boutique or hut. She preferred to creep into some small piece of jungle by the roadside, when darkness found her tired and hungry.
She was very tired and very hungry before she reached Tangalla. Her bewilderment was increased by the network of narrow streets. She wandered about until she suddenly found herself in the market. It was market-day, and a crowd of four or five hundred people were packed together into the narrow space, which was littered with the goods and produce which they were buying and selling: fruit and vegetables and grain and salt and clothes and pots. Every one was talking, shouting, gesticulating at the same time. The noise terrified her, and she fled away. She hurried down another narrow street, and found herself at the foot of a hill which rose from the middle of the town. There were no houses upon its sides, but there was an immense building on the top of it. There was no crowd there, only an old man sitting on the bare hillside watching five lean cows which were trying to find some stray blades of parched brown grass on the stony soil.
She squatted down, happy in the silence and solitude of the place after the noise of the streets and market. Nothing was to be heard except the cough of one of the cows from time to time, and from far off the faint, confused murmur from the market-place. She looked up at the great white building; it was very glaring and dazzling in the blaze of the sun. She wondered whether it was the prison in which Babun lay. She looked at the old man sitting among the five starved cows. He reminded her a little of Silindu; he sat so motionless, staring at a group of cocoanut-trees that lay around the bottom of the hill. He was as thin as the cattle which he watched: as their flanks heaved in the heat you saw the ribs sticking out under their mangy coats, and you could see, too, every bone of his chest and sides panting up and down under his dry, wrinkled skin. The insolent noisy towns-people had terrified her; this withered old man seemed familiar to her, like a friend. He might very easily have come out of the jungle.
She went over to where he sat, and stood in front of him. For a moment he turned on her his eyes, which were covered with a film the colour of the film which forms on stagnant water; then he began again to stare at the palms in silence.
'Father,' she said, 'is that the prison?'
The old man looked up slowly at the great glaring building as if he had seen it for the first time, and then looked from it to Punchi Menika.
'Yes,' he said in a dry husky voice. 'Why?'
'My man must be there,' said Punchi Menika gazing at the white walls. 'He was sent there many months ago. They sent him there for six months. It was a false case. The six months have passed now, but he has not returned to the village. I have come to ask about him here—a long way. I am tired, father, tired of all this. But he must be there.'
The old man's eyes remained fixed upon the cocoanut-palms; he did not move.