two years later, punchi menika was still living in the hut which had belonged to silindu, but she lived alone. karlinahami had died slowly and almost painlessly, like the trees around her. her death had brought no difference into punchi menika's life, except that now she had to find food for herself alone.
the years had brought more evil, death, and decay upon the village. of the five houses which stood when punchi menika returned from her journey to the prison, only two remained, her own, and that of the headman vederala punchirala. disease and hunger visited it year after year. it seemed, as the headman said, to have been forgotten by gods and men. year after year, the rains from the north-east passed it by; only the sun beat down more pitilessly, and the wind roared over it across the jungle; the little patches of chena crop which the villagers tried to cultivate withered as soon as the young shoots showed above the ground. no man, traveller or headman or trader, ever came to the village now. no one troubled any longer to clear the track which led to it; the jungle covered it and cut the village off.
disease and death took the old first, podi sinho, and his wife angohami, and the jungle crept forward over their compound. and three years later two other huts were abandoned. in one had lived balappu with his wife and sister, and his two children; in the other bastian appu with his two sons, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, and a grandchild. they had tried to help punchi menika by letting her work in their chenas, and by giving her a share in the meagre crop. they struggled hard against the fate that hung over them, clinging to the place where they had been born and lived, the compound they knew, and the sterile chenas which they had sown. no children were born to them now in their hut, their women were as sterile as the earth; the children that had been born to them died of want and fever. at last they yielded to the jungle. they packed up their few possessions and left the village for ever, to try and find work and food in the rice-fields of maha potana.
they tried to induce punchi menika to go with them, but she refused. she remembered her misery and loneliness upon the road to tangalla, and the words of the old man from mahawelagama, who sat among the cows upon the hill there. she remembered babun's words to the mudalali, 'surely it is a more bitter thing to die in a strange place.' it might be a still bitterer thing to live in a strange place. she was alone in the world; the only thing left to her was the compound and the jungle which she knew. she clung to it passionately, blindly. the love which she had felt for silindu and babun—who were lost to her for ever, whose very memories began to fade from her in the struggle to keep alive—was transferred to the miserable hut, the bare compound, and the parched jungle.
so she was left alone with punchirala. he was an old man now, weak and diseased. after a while he became too feeble even to get enough food to keep himself alive. she took him into her hut. she had to find food now for him, as well as for herself, by searching the jungle for roots and fruit, and by sowing a few handfuls of grain at the time of the rains in the ground about the hut. he gave her no thanks; as his strength decayed, his malignancy and the bitterness of his tongue increased; but he did not live long after he came to her hut; hunger and age and parangi at last freed her from his sneers and his gibes.
the jungle surged forward over and blotted out the village up to the very walls of her hut. she no longer cleared the compound or mended the fence, the jungle closed over them as it had closed over the other huts and compounds, over the paths and tracks. its breath was hot and heavy in the hut itself which it imprisoned in its wall, stretching away unbroken for miles. everything except the little hut with its rotting walls and broken tattered roof had gone down before it. it closed with its shrubs and bushes and trees, with the impenetrable disorder of its thorns and its creepers, over the rice-fields and the tanks. only a little hollowing of the ground where the trees stood in water when rain fell, and a long little mound which the rains washed out and the elephants trampled down, marked the place where before had lain the tank and its land.
the village was forgotten, it disappeared into the jungle from which it had sprung, and with it she was cut off, forgotten. it was as if she was the last person left in the world, a world of unending trees above which the wind roared always and the sun blazed. she became one of the beasts of the jungle, struggling perpetually for life against hunger and thirst; the ruined hut, through which the sun beat and the rains washed, was only the lair to which she returned at night for shelter. her memories of the evils which had happened to her, even of babun and her life with him, became dim and faded. and as they faded, her childhood and silindu and his tales returned to her. she had returned to the jungle; it had taken her back; she lived as he had done, understanding it, loving it, fearing it. as he had said, one has to live many years before one understands what the beasts say in the jungle. she understood them now, she was one of them. and they understood her, and were not afraid of her. they became accustomed to the little tattered hut, and to the woman who lived in it. the herd of wild pigs would go grunting and rooting up to the very door, and the old sows would look up unafraid and untroubled at the woman sitting within. even the does became accustomed to her soft step as she came and went through the jungle, muttering greetings to them; they would look up for a moment, and their great eyes would follow her for a moment as she glided by, and then the heads would go down again to graze without alarm.
but life is very short in the jungle. punchi menika was a very old woman before she was forty. she no longer sowed grain, she lived only on the roots and leaves that she gathered. the perpetual hunger wasted her slowly, and when the rains came she lay shivering with fever in the hut. at last the time came when her strength failed her; she lay in the hut unable to drag herself out to search for food. the fire in the corner that had smouldered so long between the three great stones was out. in the day the hot air eddied through the hut, hot with the breath of the wind blowing over the vast parched jungle; at night she shivered in the chill dew. she was dying, and the jungle knew it; it is always waiting; can scarcely wait for death. when the end was close upon her a great black shadow glided into the doorway. two little eyes twinkled at her steadily, two immense white tusks curled up gleaming against the darkness. she sat up, fear came upon her, the fear of the jungle, blind agonising fear.
'appochchi, appochchi!' she screamed. 'he has come, the devil from the bush. he has come for me as you said. aiyo! save me, save me! appochchi!'
as she fell back, the great boar grunted softly, and glided like a shadow towards her into the hut.
