The Village in the Jungle

by Leonard Woolf

'I know nothing about them: they are not mine.'

'Don't lie, yakko. They were in your house. Where did you get them from?'

'Hamadoru, I know nothing about them. Some one must have put them there.'

'Lies. They were stolen last night from the Arachchi's house. The Mudalali saw you leaving the house in the night. Curse you, I shall have to take you into Kamburupitiya now to the court and the magistrate Hamadoru. And what about this fellow?' pointing to Silindu, 'Do you charge him as well?'

'Yes, Mahatmaya,' said Babehami. 'But there is the box too. Should not the jungle round the house be searched for it?'

'Yes. Hi there, you fellows! Go and search that piece of jungle there.'

Three or four men went off slowly and began a desultory search in the jungle which lay behind the compound. Suddenly there was a cry, and one of them lifted up a large box. He brought it to the Korala. The lock had been forced open. It was recognised as the headman's. The case was complete, and the onlookers recognised that the evidence against Babun was damning.

Babun and Silindu were taken off to the headman's house. They had to spend the night in the verandah with Babehami's brother, who was there to see that they did not run away. The injustice of this new catastrophe seemed to have completely broken Babun's spirit. His misfortunes were too many and sudden for him to fight against. He refused to talk, and squatted with his back against the wall silent throughout the night. The effect upon Silindu was different. He saw at last the malignity of the headman and how his life had been ruined by it. This last stroke made him aware of the long series of misfortunes, which he now felt were all due to the same cause. This knowledge roused him at last from his resignation and from the torpor habitual to his mind. He talked incessantly in a low voice, sometimes to Babun, but more often apparently to himself.

'They call me a hunter, a vedda? A fine hunter! To be hunted for years now and not to know it! It is the headman who is the vedda, a very clever hunter. I have been lying here like a fat old stag in a thicket while he was crawling, crawling nearer and nearer, round and round, looking for the shot. Where was the watching doe to cry the alarm? Always he shot me down as I lay quiet. But the old hunter should be very careful. In the end misfortune comes. Perhaps this time I am a buffalo, wounded. The wise hunter does not follow up the wounded buffalo, where the jungle is thick. Ha! ha! The wounded buffalo can be as clever as the clever hunter. He hears the man crawling and crawling through the jungle. He stands there out of the track in the shadows, the great black head down, the blood bubbling through the wound, listening to the twigs snap and the dry leaves rustle; and the man comes nearer and nearer. Fool! you cannot see him there, but he can see you now; he will let you pass him, and then out he will dash upon you, and his great horns will crash into your side, and he will fling you backwards through the air as if you were paddy straw. The old buffalo knows, the old buffalo knows; the young men laugh at him, "buffaloes' eyes," they say, "blind eyes, foolish eyes, a foolish face like a buffalo," but he is clever, amma! he is clever—when wounded—when he hears the hunter after him—cleverer than the cleverest hunter. And when it has gone on for years! all his life! What will he do then? Will he lie quiet then? Oh! he will lie quiet, yes, and let them take all from him, daughter and home and food. He will shake his head and sigh the great sigh, and lie quiet in the mud of the wallow, very sad. And then at last they come after his life. Shall they take that too? Then at last he knows and is angry—very angry—and he stands waiting for them. The fools! They come on, crawling still; they do not know that he is ready for them now. The fools! the fools!'

The next morning the Korala took with him the complainant, the accused, and the witnesses, of whom Fernando turned out to be one, and started for Kamburupitiya. Punchi Menika went with them. They travelled slowly, and reached Kamburupitiya on the fourth morning. Silindu had relapsed into his usual state of sullen silence; Babun's spirit appeared to be completely broken. He scarcely understood what the charge against him was; he knew nothing of why or on what evidence it had been made. He waited bewildered to see what new misfortune fate and his enemies would bring upon him.