er Sakai girl, had blinded him, and bereft
him of reason. Life no longer seemed to hold anything of good for him
unless Chep, the Bird, as her people called her, might be his. In the
abstract he despised the Sakai as heartily as ever, but, for the sake of
this girl, he smothered his feelings, dwelt among her people as one of
themselves, losing thereby the last atom of his self-respect, and
finally consented to risk his soul's salvation by joining in their
superstitious ceremonies. Yet all this sacrifice had hitherto been
unavailing, for Chep was the wife of a Sakai named Ku-ish, or the
Porcupine, who guarded her jealously, and gave Kria no opportunity of
prosecuting his intimacy with the girl.

On her side, she had quickly divined that Kria had fallen a victim to
her charms, and, as he was younger than Ku-ish, richer, and, moreover, a
Malay, a man of a superior race, she was both pleased and flattered. No
one who knows what a Sakai's life is, nor of the purely haphazard manner
in which they are allowed to grow up, would dream of looking for
principle in a Sakai woman, or would expect her to resist a temptation.
The idea of right and wrong, as we understand it, never probably
occurred to Chep, and all she waited for was a fitting time at which to
elope with her Malay lover.

Their chance came on the night of the Harvest Home. In the darkness Kria
crept close to Chep, and, when the chant was at its loudest, he
whispered in her ear that his dug-out lay ready by the river bank, and
that he loved her. Together they stole out of the hut, unobserved by the
Sakai folk, who sang and grovelled in the darkness. The boat was found,
and the lovers, stepping into it, pushed noiselessly out into the
stream. The river at this point runs furiously over a sloping bed of
shingle, and the roar of its waters soon drowned the splashing of the
paddles. Chep held the steering oar, and Kria, squatting in the bows,
propelled the boat with quick strong strokes. Thus they journeyed on in
silence, save for an occasional word of endearment from one to the
other, until the dawn had broken, and a few hours later they found
themselves at the Malay village at which Kria lived. They had come down
on a half freshet, and that, in the far upper country, where the streams
tear over their pebbly or rocky beds through the gorges formed by the
high banks, means travelling at a rushing headlong pace. When the
fugitives finally halted at Kria's home, fifty miles