'Aiyo, and will they hang you now?'
'What? Do they say that?'
'They say that in the village. It isn't true, is it, Appochchi?'
'I don't know; perhaps it is true, perhaps it isn't. But the magistrate Hamadoru said I would be tried by the great judge.'
'Aiyo! you were mad, Appochchi. It would have been better to have given me to the Mudalali.'
'Hold your tongue, hold your tongue!' burst out Silindu angrily, but his anger died down as rapidly as it had sprung up. 'Don't say that, child, don't say that. No, that is not true, is it, daughter? It is not true. It was for you I did it; and now—after all that—surely in a little while all will be well for you.'
'Well? What is to become of me? What am I to do? They will take you away again and hang you, or keep you in the great house over there. And my man, aiyo, is there too. I shall be alone here. What am I to do, Appochchi?'
'Hush! All will be well with you, I tell you. There is no one here to trouble you now. There will be quiet for you again—and for me, perhaps, why not? The killing was for that. Surely, surely, it must be, child. And Babun? Why, in a little while Babun will come back—in a month or two; you will wait in the village, you will sit in the house, in the compound, under the little mustard-tree—so quietly, and the quiet of the great trees, child, round about—nothing to trouble you now. And in a month or two he will come back; he is a good man, Babun, and there will be no evil then—now that the Arachchi is dead and the Mudalali. There will be quiet for you then, and rest.'
'How can I live here alone? There is no food in the house even now.'
'Are not there others in the village? They will help you for a month or two, and they know Babun. He will work hard in the chena and repay them.'