At length Dingihami bore twins, two girls, of whom one was called Punchi Menika and the other Hinnihami. When the women told Silindu that his wife was delivered of two girls, he rushed into the hut and began to beat his wife on the head and breasts as she lay on the mat, crying, 'Vesi! vesi mau! Where is the son who is to carry my gun into the jungle, and who will clear the chena for me? Do you bear me vesi for me to feed and clothe and provide dowries? Curse you!' And this was the beginning of Silindu's quarrel with Babehami, the headman; for Babehami, hearing the cries of Dingihami and the other women, rushed up from the adjoining compound and dragged Silindu from the house.
Dingihami died two days after giving birth to the twins. Silindu had a sister called Karlinahami, who lived in a house at the other end of the village. Misfortune had fallen upon her, the misfortune so common in the life of a jungle village. Her husband had died of fever two months before: a month later she bore a child which lived but two weeks. When Dingihami died, Silindu brought her to his hut to bring up his two children. Her hut was abandoned to the jungle. When the next rains fell the mud walls crumbled away, the tattered roof fell in, the jungle crept forward into the compound and over the ruined walls; and when Punchi Menika was two years old, only a little mound in the jungle marked the place where Karlinahami's house had stood.
Karlinahami was a short, dark, stumpy woman, with large impassive eyes set far apart from one another, flat broad cheeks, big breasts, and thick legs. Unlike her brother she was always busy, sweeping the house and compound, fetching water from the tank, cooking, and attending to the children. Very soon after she came to Silindu's house she began to talk and think of the children as though she had borne them herself. Like her brother she was slow and sparing of speech; and her eyes often had in them the look, so often in his, as if she were watching something far away in the distance. She very rarely took much part in the interminable gossip of the other village women when they met at the tank or outside their huts. This gossip is always connected with their husbands and children, food and quarrels.
But Karlinahami was noted for her storytelling: she was never very willing to begin, but often, after the evening meal had been eaten, the women and many of the men would gather in Silindu's compound to listen to one of her stories. They sat round the one room or outside round the door, very still and silent, listening to her droning voice as she squatted by the fire and stared out into the darkness. Outside lay Silindu, apparently paying no attention to the tale. The stories were either old tales which she had learnt from her mother, or were stories usually about Buddha, which she had heard told by pilgrims round the campfire on their way to pilgrimages, or in the madamas or pilgrims' resting-places at festivals. These tales, and a curious droning chant with which she used to sing them to sleep, were the first things that the two children remembered. This chant was peculiar to Karlinahami, and no other woman of the village used it. She had learnt it from her mother. The words ran thus:
'Sleep, child, sleep against my side,
Aiyo! aiyo! the weary way you've cried;
Hush, child, hush, pressed close against my side.
'Aiyo! aiyo! will the trees never end?
Our women's feet are weary; O Great One, send
Night on us, that our wanderings may end.
'Hush, child, hush, thy father leads the way,
Thy mother's feet are weary, but the day
Will end somewhere for the followers in the way.
'Aiyo! aiyo! the way is rough and steep,
Aiyo! the thorns are sharp, the rivers deep,
But the night comes at last. So sleep, child, sleep.'
Until Punchi Menika and Hinnihami were three years old Silindu appeared not even to be aware of their existence. He took no notice of them in the house or compound, and never spoke about them. But one day he was sitting in front of his hut staring into the jungle, when Punchi Menika crawled up to him and put her hand on his knee, and looked solemnly up into his face. Silindu looked down at her, took her by her hands, and stood her up between his two knees. He stared vacantly into her eyes for some time, and then suddenly he began to speak to her in a low voice:
'Little toad! why have you left the pond? Isn't there food there for your little belly? Rice and cocoanuts and mangoes and little cakes of kurakkan? Is the belly full, that you have left the pond for the jungle? Foolish little toad! The water is good, but the trees are evil. You have come to a bad place of dangers and devils. Yesterday, little toad, I lay under a domba-tree by the side of a track, my gun in my hand, waiting for what might pass. The devils are very angry in the jungle, for there has been no rain now for these three months. The water-holes are dry; the leaves and grass are brown; the deer are very thin; and the fawns, dropped this year, are dying of weakness and hunger and thirst. Therefore, the devils are hungry, and there is nothing more terrible than a hungry devil. Well, there I lay, flat on the ground, with my gun in my hand; and I saw on the opposite side of the track, lying under a domba-tree, a leopardess waiting for what might pass. I put down my gun, and, "Sister," I said, "is the belly empty?" For her coat was mangy, and the belly caught up below, as though with pain. "Yakko, he-devil," she answered, "three days now I have killed but one thin grey monkey, and there are two cubs in the cave to be fed. Yakkini, she-devil," I said, "there are two little toads at home to be fed. But I still have a handful of kurakkan in my hut, from which my sister can make cakes. It remains from last year's chena, and after it is eaten there will be nothing. The headman, too, is pressing for the three shillings[3] body tax. 'How,' I say to him, 'can there be money where there is not even food?' But the kurakkan will last until next poya day. Therefore, your hunger is greater than mine. The first kill is yours." So we lay still a long time, and at last I heard far away the sound of a hoof upon a dry stick. "Sister," I whispered, "I hear a deer coming this way. Yakko, have you no ears?" she said. "A long while now I have been listening to a herd of wild pig coming down wind. Can you not even now hear their strong breathing, and their rooting in the dry earth, and the patter of the young ones' feet on the dry leaves? Yakkini," I said, for I heard her teeth clicking in the darkness, "the ear of the hungry is in the belly: the sound of your teeth can be heard a hoo[4] cry's distance away." So we lay still again, and at last the herd of pigs came down the track. First came an old boar, very black, his tusks shining white in the shadows; then many sows and young boars; and here and there the little pigs running in and out among the sows. And as they passed, one of the little pigs ran out near the domba-bush, and Yakkini sprang and caught it in her teeth, and leapt with it into the branch of a palu-tree which overhung the path. There she sat, and the little pig in her mouth screamed to its mother. Then all the little pigs ran together screaming, and stood on one side, near the bush where I lay; and the great boars and the young boars and sows ran round the palu-tree, looking up at Yakkini, and making a great noise. And the old sow, who had borne the little pig in Yakkini's mouth, put her forefeet against the trunk of the tree, and looked up, and said, "Come down, Yakkini; she-devil, thief. Are you afraid of an old, tuskless sow? Come down." But the leopardess laughed, and bit the little pig in the back behind the head until it died, and she called down to the old sow, "Go your way, mother. There are two cubs at home in the cave, and they are very hungry. Every year I drop but one or two cubs in the cave, but the whole jungle swarms with your spawn. I see eight brothers and sisters of your child there by the domba-bush. Go your way, lest I choose another for my mate. Also, I do mot like your man's teeth." The old boar and the sows were very angry, and for a long while they ran round the tree, and tore at it with their tusks, and looked up and cursed Yakkini. But Yakkini sat and watched them, and licked the blood which dripped from the little pig's back. I too lay very still under my domba-bush, for there is danger in an angry herd. At last the old boar became tired, and he gathered the little pigs together in the middle of the herd, and led them away down the track. Then Yakkini dropped to the ground, and bounded away into the jungle, carrying the little pig in her mouth. So you see, little crow, it is a bad place to which you have come. Be careful, or some other devil will drop on you out of a bush, and carry you off in his mouth.'
While Silindu had been speaking, Hinnihami had crawled and tottered across the compound to join her sister. At the end of his long story she was leaning against his shoulder. From that day he seemed to regard the two children differently from the rest of the world in which he lived. He was never tired of pouring out to them in a low, monotonous drone his thoughts, opinions, and doings. That they did not understand a word of what he said did not trouble him in the least; but when they grew old enough to understand and to speak and to question him, he began to take a new pleasure in explaining to them the world in which he lived.
It was a strange world, a world of bare and brutal facts, of superstition, of grotesque imagination; a world of trees and the perpetual twilight of their shade; a world of hunger and fear and devils, where a man was helpless before the unseen and unintelligible powers surrounding him. He would go over to them again and again in the season of drought the reckoning of his small store of grain, and the near approach of the time when it would be exhausted; his perpetual fear of hunger; his means and plans for obtaining just enough for existence until the next chena season. But, above all, his pleasure seemed to be to tell them of the jungle, of his wanderings in search of game, of his watchings by the water-holes at night, of the animals and devils which lived among its shadows.