‘Does the English mahatmeya [gentleman] take me for a Wanderoo monkey, or for a jungle-cat, to walk upon broken twigs high up in the air?’ he answered evasively.
‘How, then, did you manage to get over?’
‘I have not got over at all. I have come from my village on this side, and I wait here until the flood subsides.’
‘How long will that be, think you?’
‘If the rain ceases, the river will be again fordable in three or four hours. If the rain continues—who can tell? Buddha only knows!’
‘Three or four hours!’ muttered my companion despondingly. ‘Too long, much too long for me.’ Then again speaking to the Kandian: ‘Is there any possibility of crossing the bridge?’ he asked.
‘None, none, my master. Alas! it has been shattered for some time past, and has not yet been repaired.’
‘Let’s go,’ said my friend to me, ‘and reconnoitre.’
We dismounted, gave our ponies to the horsekeepers, who had closely followed us, and walked a short distance along the bank. Suspended in the air, resting upon the forked branches of two forest trees, which grew nearly opposite each other on either side of the stream, were the relics of one of those primitive bridges which the Singhalese villagers build to enable them to pass ravines and mountain torrents. Bamboo and the withes of a ground creeper called waywel are the usual materials they employ; but if they can get slabs of timber, they use them as well. This was the case here: the rough-hewn trunk of a tall but slender cocoa-nut palm spanned the river, its ends being firmly fastened to the two trees which served to support it. Originally, a sort of hand-rail of the waywel had been tied to uprights nailed along the stem; and thus hemmed in, the bridge was safe enough to traverse by any one not subject to dizziness on ‘giddy heights;’ but as time and mischief had partly removed this protection, leaving long gaps with nothing to hold on by, a more precarious, break-neck, risky crossing, save for the monkeys, no one could possibly imagine. Picture to yourself this tapering pole strung at a height over a deep rushing whirlpool of a current, and you will comprehend what we saw and what I fairly shuddered at.
Not so, my companion. He sprang up the tree, and stood for a moment or two upon the end of the mutilated bridge. Then he said quite determinedly: ‘I’ve made up my mind; I’m going over.’