long you
can pass them on to your father.' I faced round on Aoodya with a smile
which no doubt was thin enough, though honestly meant to hearten her.
'It's all right, old girl. Come back to bed,' said I, and held her in
my arms until I fell asleep in the dawn.

"But of course it was not all right; and after two days spent with this
dismal secret between us, and Aoodya all the while play-acting at her
old tricks of love for me and the babe--as if, God knows, I doubted
they, and not the horror, were her real self--I could stand it no
longer, but did what I ought to have done before; sought out my master
and made a clean breast of it.

"I could see that it took the old man between wind and water. When I
had done he sat for some time pulling his beard and eyeing me once or
twice rather queerly, as I thought.

"'My friend,' said he at last, 'I suppose you will be suspecting me; yet
I give you my word--and the Hadji Hamid is no liar--that if Aoodya is a
Berbalang, or a daughter of Berbalangs, the same was unknown to me when
I married you.'

"'I'll believe that,' I answered; 'the more by token that I never
suspected you.'

"'She had no known father, which (as you know) is held a disgrace among
us; so much a disgrace that she grew up without suitors in spite of her
looks and my favour. Therefore I seized my chance of giving her a
husband, and in that I am not guiltless towards you; but of anything
worse I was ignorant, and for proof I am going to help you if I can.'
He frowned to himself, still tugging at his beard. 'Her mother was of
good family, on this side of the island. Therefore she cannot be pure
Berbalang, and most likely the Berbalangs have no more than a fetch upon
her'--he used a word new to me, but 'fetch' I took to be the meaning of
it. 'If so, we must go to them and persuade them to take it off.
They owe me something; for though, as we value peace and quiet, Hassan
and I leave them alone in their own dirty village and ask no tax nor
homage, we could make things uncomfortable if we chose. Yes, yes,' said
he, 'I think it can be done; but it will be dangerous. You are wearing
your cocoanut pearl, of course?'

"I told him that I had given it up to the baby.

"He nodded. 'Yes, that was well done; but you must borrow it for the
day. Run and fetch it at once; we have a long walk before us.'

"So I ran back, and without telling Aoodya, who was washing her linen
behind the house, slipped the pearl off