them would arise and tend the fire, and then would group themselves squatting around the blaze, and jabber in the jerky, monosyllabic jargon of the aborigines. The pungent smoke enshrouded them, and their eyes waxed red and watery, but they heeded it not, for the warmth of fire is one of the Sâkai's few luxuries, and the discomforts connected with it are to them the traditional crumpled rose leaf.
And Kûlop of the Harelip slept the sleep of the just.
The dawn broke grayly, for a mist hung low over the forest, white as driven snow, and cold and clammy as the forehead of a corpse. The naked Sâkai peeped shiveringly from the doorways of their huts, and then went shuddering back to the grateful warmth of their fires, and the frowsy atmosphere within.
Kûlop alone made his way down to the river bank, and there performed his morning ablutions with scrupulous care, for whatever laws of God or man a Malay may disregard, he never is unmindful of the virtue of personal cleanliness which, in an Oriental. is ordinarily of more immediate importance to his neighbours than all the godliness in the world.
His ablutions completed, Kûlop climbed the steep bank, and standing outside the headman's hut, summoned the Sâkai from their lairs in strident tones, bidding them hearken to his words. They stood or squatted before him in the white mist, through which the sun, just peeping above the jungle, was beginning to send long slanting rays of dazzling white light.
They were cold and miserable—this little crowd of
