The Village in the Jungle by Leonard Woolf

Author:Leonard Woolf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1912-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

Before Silindu reached the Kamburupitiya track, he stopped and squatted down with his back against a tree. He wanted to think. After the wild excitement which had possessed him now for three days, a feeling of immense lassitude came upon him. His mind worked slowly, confusedly; he had no clear idea of where he was going, or of what he ought to do. He was very tired, very unhappy now; but he felt no regret for what he had done – no remorse for the blood of the Arachchi and of Fernando could trouble him. So far as they were concerned, he only felt a great relief.

He wanted to lie down and sleep. He leant back against the tree and began to doze, but he started up again immediately, listening for footsteps of pursuers. His first idea had been simply to run away into the jungle, to get away at any rate from the village. The hunt would begin; he would be hunted once again, he knew that. Then he thought of going east where the thick jungle stretched unbroken for miles. He could live there in some cave among the rocks; he could live there safe from his hunters for months. He had heard stories of other men doing this: strange men from other districts, whom the Government and the police were hunting down for some crime. They came down from the north, so it was said, flying to the sanctuary of the uninhabited jungle where they lay hidden for years; they lived alone in caves and in trees, eating leaves and wild fruit and honey, and the birds and animals which they managed to snare or kill. They were never caught; there were no village in that wilderness from which information could come to the police. Sometimes one of the few bold hunters, who were the only people to penetrate these solitudes, would catch a glimpse of a wild, naked man in a cave or among the shadows of the trees. Some of them perhaps eventually, trusting to the lapse of time and to the short memory of the Government, went back to their villages and their homes. But most of them died of fever in the jungle to which they had fled.

If such a life were possible for men from distant villages, who did not know the jungle, it would be easy for Silindu. But as he squatted under the trees thinking of what he should do, a feeling of horror for such a life crept over him, and his repugnance to flying became stronger and stronger. He was very tired. What he desired – and the desire was sharp – was to rest, to be left alone untroubled in the village – in his hut, in his compound – to sleep quietly there at night, to sit hour after hour through the hot day under the mustard-tree in the compound. But in the jungle there would be no rest. It was just in order to escape

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.