kurunies I am asking for—only ten kurunies—and surely the barn behind your house is full.'

'There is very little grain in the barn now, and what there is will not last me until the reaping of the next crop. There is the old man, my father, to be fed, and my wife and her brother, and the two children.'

'Will you let me die of hunger? and my two children? Give but five kurunies, and I will repay it threefold.'

'If you had come last poya, Silindu, I could have given it. But I owed fifteen rupees to Nandiyas, the boutique-keeper in Kamburupitiya, for clothes, and I took kurakkan to pay it. The barn is all but empty.'

'Aiyo! We must die of hunger then. Give but one measure, and I will repay one kuruni at next reaping.'

'I paid away all my grain that was in the barn. The grain which remains is my father's, and he keeps it for his use. You must go to the Mudalali in Kamburupitiya, Silindu, and borrow from him. And when you go there, remember, you must take a permit for the gun.'

Silindu felt that he had nothing more to say. He had the meat at home which he would dry and take to Kamburupitiya and sell in the bazaar. Then he would have to borrow from the Mudalali, who knew him too well to give anything but ruinous terms. Perhaps in that way he would manage to return to the village with a few kurunies of kurakkan and a gun licence. He walked slowly away from the headman's compound. Babehami's little eyes twinkled as he saw Silindu move away, and he smiled to himself.

 CHAPTER III

Silindu made the journey to Kamburupitiya, obtained the licence for his gun and some grain, but life continued to become harder for him. The headman's ill-feeling worked against him unostentatiously, and in all sorts of little things. He never thought about the motives and intentions of those around him, and Babehami always had some excuse for refusing a loan or pressing for payment of the body tax. He did not become conscious of Babehami's enmity, or aware that many of the difficulties of his life were due to it.

The collection of the body tax was a good example of the way in which the headman worked against him. Every villager had to pay the three-shilling tax or do work on the roads, work which was the worst of hardships to them. It had always been Babehami's custom to pay himself the tax for each villager, and then recover what he had paid, with heavy 

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