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'Ralahami,'[13] said Silindu, stopping just outside the door, 'yesterday I was in the jungle collecting domba fruit—what else is there to eat?—when I smelt a smell of something dead some fathoms away. I searched about, and soon I came upon the carcass of a doe killed by a leopard—the marks of his claws were under the neck, and the belly was eaten. The meat I have brought to my house. This piece is for you.'

The headman took the meat in silence, and hung it up in the house. He fetched a chew of betel and gave it to Silindu. The two men then squatted down, one on each side of the door. For a long time neither spoke: their chewing was only interrupted every now and then by the ejection of a jet of red saliva. At last Babehami broke the silence:

'Four days ago I was in Kamburupitiya—I was called to the kachcheri there. They asked me two fanams[14] in the bazaar for a cocoanut.'

'Aiyo! I have not seen a cocoanut for two years.'

'Two fanams! And last year at this time they were but one fanam each. In the bazaar I met the Korala Mahatmaya. The Korala Mahatmaya is a hard man: he said to me, "Arachchi, there are guns in your village for which no permit has been given by the Agent Hamadoru." I said to him, "Ralahami, if there be, the fault is not mine." Then he said, "The order has come from the Agent Hamadoru to the Disa Mahatmaya[15] that if one gun be found without permit in a headman's village there will be trouble both for the Arachchi and the Korala." Now the Disa Mahatmaya is a good man, but the Korala is hard; and they say in Kamburupitiya that the Agent Hamadoru is very hard and strict, and goes round the villages searching for guns for which no permits have been given. They say, too, that he will come this way next month.'