eftly
back and forth through the many-colored threads; but best of all did
she love to watch the little gray lizards that ran about on the palm
sides of the house after the flies and moths.

She was soon able to answer the lizards' call of "gecho, gecho," and
once she laughed outright when one, in fright of her baby-fingers,
dropped its tail and went wiggling away like a boat without a
rudder. But most of the time she swung and crowed in her wicker cradle
under the low rafters.

When Busuk grew older, she was carried every day down the ladder of the
house and put on the warm white sand with the other children. They were
all naked, save for a little chintz bib that was tied to their necks;
so it made no difference how many mudpies they made on the beach nor
how wet they got in the tepid waters of the ocean. They had only to
look out carefully for the crocodiles that glided noiselessly among
the mangrove roots.

One day one of Busuk's playmates was caught in the cruel jaws of
a crocodile, and lost its hand. The men from the village went out
into the labyrinth of roots that stood up above the flood like a
huge scaffolding, and caught the man-eater with ropes of the gamooty
palm. They dragged it up the beach and put out its eyes with red-hot
spikes of the hard billion wood.

Although the varnished leaves of the cocoanuts kept almost every ray
of sunlight out of the little village, and though the children could
play in the airy spaces under their own houses, their heads and faces
were painted with a paste of flour and water to keep their tender
skins from chafing in the hot, moist air.

At evening, when the fierce sun went down behind the great banian
tree that nearly hid Mount Pulei, the kateeb would sound the call to
prayer on a hollow log that hung up before the little palm-thatched
mosque. Then Busuk and her playmates would fall on their faces,
while the holy man sang in a soft, monotonous voice the promises
of the Koran, the men of the kampong answering. "Allah il Allah,"
he would sing, and "Mohammed is his prophet," they would answer.

Every night Busuk would lie down on a mat on the floor of the house
with a little wooden pillow under her neck, and when she dared she
would peep down through the open spaces in the bamboo floor into
the darkness beneath. Once she heard a low growl, and a great dark
form stood right below her. She could see its tail lashing its sides
with short, whip-like movements. Then all