146 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

water outside one of the ragged huts, but I went stub-
bornly on to where the forest began again. A man
followed me. He had a few words of English: he said
we would never reach Duogobmai before dark. There
was still another village between. But I went on: I
couldn't bear the thought of waiting; I had been
walking now for more than eight hours, but I had
gained my second wind. One of the two men dropped
behind; I was alone with Babu and the harps; it
was not only the heat that was fading out of the
air, the ferocity of the light between the branches
was tamed.

Suddenly Babu sat down by the side of the path
and changed his vest. He smiled shyly, winningly; we
were coining to a town; he had to clean himself, just
as much as any season-ticket-holder who straightens
his tie before he gets to the City, As the light went
out the forest began to rustle; one wondered whether
after all it was so dead as it had seemed. I couldn't
help remembering that the man in front was in the
greater danger from a snake, but the man behind
from a leopard, for leopards, one is told, always jump
at the back. Another village lifted itself on the sky-
line at the green tunnel's end: the sky was grey, the
huts so black that quite suddenly one realised how
dose night was. It would have been wise to stay, but
it was a tiny village, not more than thirty huts on a
little cracked hill-top. The thatch was falling in, a
few horrible tiny dogs with bat ears came barking out
and three old women sat on the very edge of the hill,
sorting out cotton seeds, dirty and scarred and naked,
like disreputable Fates. The hill dropped straight
below them. They were just on the margin of Hfe.