LAND & WATER 
May II 1916 
Dyaks were at sea. The river was no use, so he dismissed 
it from liis mind ; the only road he could take was the river 
bank and he did not know the road in the least. 
He knew the forest, but he had never hunted along the river 
bank, though his hunts had sometimes brought him out on 
the river-side. However, want of knowledge of this strip of 
the forest did not stay him in tlie least. The river would be 
his guide, and picking up his spear he started. 
He did not know in the least where the boat was making 
for, he only knew that it had gone down stream and down 
-.tream he made his way. 
The road was easy at first, but presently it became bad. 
■-quashy and overgrown with mangroves. The mangrove 
root seems made by Nature as a trap for the foot, but Saji 
seemed to have eyes in his feet and he did not trip. He 
passed over this difficult ground as swiftly as though the easy 
parts of the forest, passed the belt of nipah palms that 
bordered it and struck in to the region of cutch and camphor 
trees that lay beyond, always keeping in view the river on 
his right. 
Beyond the camphor trees came very easy ground. In the 
old days when certain animals were more frequently met 
with in this part of the forest, they would come down to drink 
at the river just here, and this fact was to weave itself into the 
te.xture of the story of Macquart in a most unexpected manner. 
Saji had not made twenty yards across this easy ground 
when the earth gave under his feet. He made a wild effort to 
save himself, failed, fell into the darkness and lay half stunned 
for a moment and half smothered by the rush of earth and 
rubble that had followed him. 
He had fallen into a pit trap dug in the old days. A bottle- 
shaped cellar in the earth covered over with laths and clay 
and growing plants. The laths made of split bamboo had 
decayed long ago, but the fine roots of the plants held the 
clay together ; it had consolidated and hardened, making a 
cellar top capable of sustaining the weight of a small animal, 
but not the weight of a man. 
In the old days the bottom of the pit had been dressed 
with sharp bamboo stakes, point upwards. Fortunately 
for Saji time had rotted these to dust. 
He lay for a moment, then he sat up. He knew at once 
what had happened to him, and the knowledge restored his 
faculties hke a stimulant. Looking up he could see above 
the faint hght that indicated the ragged opening through 
which he had fallen. Then he rose to his feet and began 
exploring his prison with his hands held flat, palms against 
the walls. 
He was not long in discovering the exact shape of the trap 
which was that of an inverted funnel. Having obtained 
this fact, he explored the texture of the walls. 
Rain had never come in here, the earth covering and more 
especially the leaf covering of the roof, coupled with the fac t 
that the roof formed part of the gentle shelve of the bank to 
the river, had kept the place dry, and the walls were of hard 
earth, but not so hard as to be proof against the point of his 
spear. 
He had been carrying it aslant over his shoulder when he 
fell, and he had not released his hold on it. It was the first 
filing he-touched when recovering his full consciousness. 
Having explored the texture of the walls, he turned to the 
question of the depth of the trap. By standing on tiptoe he 
could just touch the foliage on the borders of the hole in the 
roof with the spear-point. 
Having obtained all these facts, he crouched down on the 
floor of his prison to grapple with them. 
It was a terrible problem. No less than the problem of 
escape from the interior of an inverted funnel whose walls were 
of hard earth. 
For a long time he crouched wresthng with it. Whoever 
nad devised this trap must, in carrying out his plan, have 
expended no little time and energy. The earth must have 
been drawn up in basket fuls, the del vers carefully broadening 
the base at the risk of an infalling of the walls. But the 
labours of the making of it were nothing to the labours of Saji 
wrestling with the result. 
Unable to hit upon any means in the least feasible, he 
suddenly rose to his feet ; as he did so, something touched him 
on his shoulder. It was the end of a ground liana that had 
been brought down by the spear head when he had explored 
the opening with it. The liana hung down hke a rope ; it was 
half an inch thick. It was salvation. 
Inverting the spear and pushing the point into the further 
recess of the pit, lie managed to seize the butt with his teeth, 
so as to bring it up with him. Even in the overwhelming 
joy of finding an easy and rapid means of escape, he did not 
forget for a moment the necessity of taking the weapon with 
him. 
It was impossible to cUmb with it in his hands, and even now, 
holding the extreme end of the butt in his teeth, he had to 
keep his head bent with his chin on his chest as he chmbed. 
This made the process more laborious and more lengthy ; it 
produced all sorts of extra vibrations in the rope of liana ; it 
was his undoing. His uppermost hand had reached within 
a foot of tlie opening, when the hana broke. 
Instantaneousiy. he must have —so to speak — spat out 
the spear butt, else it would have been driven through the 
roof of his mouth. As it was, he found himself lying on the 
floor of his prison with the spear across him. 
He was shaken, but quite unhurt, and the fall, instead of 
demoralising him, set him to wrestling again with the problem 
he had so nearly solved. Saji had fine qualities amongst his 
many defects, and the finest of them was patience under 
defeat, and steadfastness. The sea and the forest had edu- 
cated these natural qualities inherited from those ancestors 
of his, who had tracked and trapped and fished since the 
beginning of time, ambushed their enemies after weeks of 
patient watching, and secured their heads just as Saji hoped 
to secure the head of Macquart. 
That was the gift which would bring him Chaya, and, much 
as he valued life, that was the object for which he was striving 
now. 
Though he had no erinfity against Macquart, the head of 
Macquart held him to its capture with a grasp stronger than 
the kwe of life. 
Saji had no enmity towards the animals he followed in the 
forest or the fish he followed in the sea, yet in the pursuit 
of fish or beast hfe was nothing compared to he object of 
the chase. His busy mind, working now with the activity of 
a squirrel in a cage, suddenly struck upon a new idea. 
He began to attack the walls of his prison. Going down 
on his knees and with his spear point, he began digging away 
at the clay as though endeavouring to make the beginnings of 
a tunnel. Nothing was further from his thoughts than a 
tunnel. He was digging to bring down earth. 
If he could bring down sufficient to make a pile high enough 
to allow him to stand on it and grasp the vegetation at the 
opening, he fancied that he could save himself. Had the 
pit been flooded with the cold, practical light of day, I doubt 
if he would have attempted the business. 
He worked with the spear point, and then, like a digging 
animal, with his hands. He worked constantly and methodi- 
cally ; he worked through the remainder of the night, through 
the dawn, and on into the day. Then he rested for some 
hours, and recommenced working through the evening. 
Before nightfall, he had brought enough clay out of the pit 
side to make a mound three feet high in the centre. A tremen- 
dous amount, considering the stiffness of the earth, and the 
fact that the higher the mound was built the broader spread 
its base. For every inch of altitude he had to broaden and 
thicken the base of this infernal mound. As a matter of fact, 
to escape by this way it would be necessary to fill the whole 
pit with clay. To come up on a rising tide of clay. The thing 
was impossible. His labour had given him employment which, 
after hberty, is the best gift a prisoner can receive, but that 
was all. 
Now, with the darkness, he knew that he was lost, that 
all the digging he could do would not save him, and knowing 
that he sat down to die. Saji had a terrible philosophy of his 
own. Whilst capable of endless elfort, he was a fatalist 
pure and simple, when faced with the impossible or the in- 
evitable. 
He did not moan to himself or curse his lot. He had to die 
— well, then, he had to die, and there was no more to be said 
on the matter. He did not think, as he sat there, of all 
the pleasant days and good times he would never see again, 
simply because such things were not for him. Blue skies to 
Saji were no more than blue skies to an indiarubber figure ; 
sunshine was good because it warmed him, and for no other 
reason. When it warmed him too much, it was bad. Free- 
dom was good because it allowed him to move about and kill 
things. Food was good because it filled his stomach and 
satisfied his desire for food. He had neither sunshine, free- 
dom, nor food here, but presently he would not need them. 
His mind retired in to itself, folded up, almost ceased to 
exercise its functions. 
Long after dark, how long he could not possibly tell, Saji, 
seated in the darkness of his terrible prison, suddenly came 
to Hfe and sprang erect with a shout. 
The sound of voices had come to him. Voices of human 
beings passing close to the pit mouth. 
(To be concluded.) 
With each day that passes the coat — frock comes more 
surely into its own. At present most of them to be seen about 
are in serge or gaberdine, but it is likely that these will be 
replaced by linen, tussore, or shantung, once summer is here. 
There is a thick weave of Hnen that lends itself uncommonly 
well to this tailored influence, and nothing could be cooler or 
more comfortable during the dog days. 
