'Patience, mother, patience. You must call louder to the god nightly until the moon is full. Perhaps even now the devil—the fever—is fighting against him.'

'Aiyo! what help for the cultivator when the flies have sucked the strength from the paddy? He sowed in an unlucky hour, and not even the god can help him. Pity us, vederala. Will you not come with us and look at my brother now?'

'Why should I see your brother?' said the vederala angrily. 'What good can I do? Did I not tell you, woman, that I cannot cure your brother's fever? Where the god fails, can the man succeed? O the minds of these women! They say in the village'—here he looked round and smiled at Hinnihami—'that even the little one is like an untamed buffalo cow.'

'Do not be angry with me, vederala. You are the only help left for us. We are weary with walking, and in grief. How can the women of the house not raise the cry when the brother and father lies dying within? If I have spoken foolishly, pardon my words.'

Punchirala sat silently looking at Hinnihami. The girl was crying. The memory of the great god, whom she had seen go riding by upon the elephant amid the flames and the shouts, the wild god who ruled over the jungle, and to whom the men crowned with flowers and leaves were now dancing in the street, the god to whom she cried so passionately on the night before, had left her: her excitement and exaltation had died out as she listened to the jeering words of Punchirala. She hated him as she had hated him when he approached her before; but as she listened to him talking to Karlinahami, fear—the fear that she felt for unknown evils—gradually crept upon her. She cried helplessly, and Punchirala smiled at her as he watched her. Karlinahami watched his face expectantly and anxiously.

At last Punchirala began again slowly:

'How the girl cries. And for her father too! I am thinking that there is yet something for you to do. I am a poor vederala, and my powers are small. But there is a man here, a great man, a holy man, who they say is very skilled in medicine and magic, and knows the mind of the god. He is a sanyasi[37] from beyond the sea, from India, and his hair is ten cubits[38] in length. Perhaps if you take Silindu to him, and inquire of him, he will tell you the god's mind. But you must take money for him.'

'Aiyo! what is the use of talking of money to the starving?'

Punchirala fumbled in the fold of his 

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