Vallee did not cry out or burst into tears, but drawing herself up, walked silently and proudly out of the house and disappeared into the jungle.
Great was the disgust of the púsári at the conduct of his rapacious and selfish relatives, and his indignation at their treatment of his daughter. Muttering wrathfully to himself that he would make them regret it, if he ever regained his human form, he got up and went out after Vallee. As he entered the jungle at the spot where he had seen her disappear, he heard a voice that he instantly recognised—it was that of Valan Elúvan. Vallee had just met her lover.
‘What is the matter, sweet one?’ he heard Valan say. ‘Are you crying for your father?’
‘Aiyo, aiyo!’ wailed the girl. ‘I shall never see him again!’
‘Do not give way to such thoughts, little one,’ replied Valan. ‘He will certainly return. He has probably gone to some distant village on sudden and important business.’
‘O Valan,’ exclaimed Vallee, ‘then you don’t think—you do not believe that he—killed the headman?’
‘No; I do not, Púliya knows,’ returned her lover gravely. ‘’Twas some stranger, no doubt, that did the rascally deed. Your father will doubtless return soon and prove his innocence.—Were those some of your people who came to your house just now?’ he added.
Vallee explained who they were, and told him of her uncle’s treatment of her.
‘Never mind, child,’ he said soothingly, when she had finished speaking. ‘Should anything have happened to your father, and he not return, I will take you to my house as my wife; and we will go and live in some distant village where nothing is known about either of us, and no one can say malicious things of us.—What say you, sweet one?’
Vallee made no reply and no protest when he tenderly embraced her. They continued to talk together for some minutes. When they separated, the púsári followed Valan home, as he wished to see what his enemy was doing. As they entered the house, the púsári saw Iyan hastily hide some money he had been fingering, in his waist-cloth. Valan, too, saw his brother’s action; he did not say anything, however, till he had deposited his jungle-knife in a corner; then, without looking round, he said quietly: ‘Elder brother, where did you get that money?’