tween the two bottom bars Silindu could see the Mudalali's fat stomach and legs. He took careful aim between the bars and fired. Fernando fell backwards, writhing and screaming with pain. Silindu went and looked over the stile at the same moment Babehami's wife rushed out of the house. But he saw that his work had been accomplished; blood was pouring from the Mudalali's stomach; his two legs and one of his hands were shattered. 'The trouble is ended,' he muttered.

He walked very slowly to his house. He put the gun in the corner of the room, thought for a minute, and then immediately left the hut. He saw that already there was a crowd of people in the headman's compound: the women were screaming. Silindu turned into the jungle at the back of his house, and walking quickly cut across to the track which led to Kamburupitiya.

CHAPTER VIII

BEFORE Silindu reached the Kamburupitiya track, he stopped and squatted down with his back against a tree. He wanted to think. After the wild excitement which had possessed him now for three days, a feeling of immense lassitude came upon him. His mind worked slowly, confusedly; he had no clear idea of where he was going, or of what he ought to do. He was very tired, very unhappy now; but he felt no regret for what he had done-no remorse for the blood of the Arachchi and of Fernando could trouble him. So far as they were concerned, he only felt a great relief.

He wanted to lie down and sleep. He lent back against the tree and began to doze, but he started up again immediately, listening for footsteps of pursuers. pursuers. His first idea had been simply to run away into the jungle, to get away at any rate from the village. The hunt would begin; he would be hunted once again, he knew that. Then he thought of going east where the thick jungle stretched unbroken for miles.

He could live there in some cave among the rocks; he could live there safe from his hunters for months. He had heard stories of other men doing this: strange men from other districts, whom the Government and the police were hunting down for some crime. They came down from the north, so it was said, flying to the sanctuary of the uninhabited jungle where they lay hidden for years; they lived alone in caves and in trees, eating leaves and wild fruit and honey, and the birds and animals which they managed to snare or kill. They were never caught; there were no villages in that wilderness from which information could come to the police. Sometimes one of the few bold hunters, who were the only people to penetrate these solitudes, would catch a glimpse of a wild, naked man in a cave or among the shadows of the trees. Some of them perhaps eventually, trusting to the lapse of time and to the short memory of the Government, went back to their villages and their homes. But most of them died of fever in the jungle to which they had fled.

If such a life were possible for men from distant villages, who did not know the jungle, it would be easy for Silindu. But as he squatted under the trees thinking of what he should do, a feeling of horror for such a life

crept over him, and his repugnance to flying became stronger and stronger. He was very tired. What he desired-and the desire was sharp-was to rest, to be left alone untroubled in the village-in his hut, in his compound-to sleep quietly there at night, to sit hour after hour through the hot day under the mustardtree in the compound. But in the jungle there would be no rest. It was just in order to escape that terror-the feeling of the hunted animal, the feeling that some one was always after him meaning evil-that he had killed the Arachchi and the Mudalali. And if he fled into the jungle now, he would have gained nothing by the killing. He would live with that feeling for months, for years, perhaps for ever. The hunt would begin again, and again it was he who would be the hunted.

Then he thought of returning to the village, but that too would be useless; he would get no peace there. He knew well what would happen. The Korala would be sent for; he would be seized, worried, bullied, ill-treated probably. That would be worse than the jungle. Suddenly the conviction came to him that it would be best to end it all at once, to go into Kamburupitiya and give himself up to the Ratemahatmaya and the white Hamadoru, to confess what he had done. He got up and started for

the town immediately, keeping to the game tracks in the thick jungle, and avoiding the main tracks, for he did not wish to meet any one.

He walked slowly, following instinctively the tangled winding tracks. His lassitude and fatigue increased. He reached Kamburupitiya in the evening of the third day, and asked his way to the Ratemahatmaya's house.

When Silindu reached the Ratemahatmaya's house, no news of the murder had yet come to Kamburupitiya. He had walked slowly, but what was a slow pace for him was faster than that of the other villagers. He went into the compound, and walked cautiously round the house in the verandah through the latticework he saw the Ratemahatmaya lying in a long chair. There was a table with a lamp upon it beside him. Silindu coughed. The Ratemahatmaya looked up and said sharply: 'Who is there?'

'Hamadoru, it is I. May I come into the verandah?'

'What do you want at this time? Come I can't attend to anything at

to-morrow.

night.'

'Hamadoru, I come from Beddagama. There has been a murder there.'

'Come in, then.'