My name is Thomas Moore, and I was born in Sussex, England, the eldest of seven children. My father owned four ships trading with the West Indies and, later, interests in sugar plantations. In our house, ships were discussed with the affection other families reserved for relatives. I knew which vessel had a troublesome captain long before I knew which uncle had a troublesome wife.
As the eldest son, I was expected to receive an education suitable for inheriting this prosperity. I attended a private school in Rottingdean, then a school in Gloucester between 1833 and 1835, and afterwards studied privately in Tottenham. My father wished to send me to King's College. He believed that a gentleman should understand something of everything, although he made an exception for the household accounts, which he left entirely to my mother.
In 1841, I entered King's College. There was great happiness at home. My youngest sister asked whether I would return knowing everything, and I told her that this was unlikely in the first term. My father gave me a watch. My mother gave me advice. I regret to say that I took better care of the watch.
Our happiness did not last. The family business collapsed, and the ruin arrived with a speed that seemed quite unreasonable after the leisurely manner in which the fortune had been accumulated. My father died suddenly, broken by his losses. I abandoned my studies. My mother and I found ourselves responsible for debts, and our house, once full of visitors, became a place where callers were examined through the curtains before anyone opened the door.
I went to London to seek assistance from several of my father's friends. Most remembered him warmly. A few remembered him so warmly that they became emotional. None remembered him warmly enough to lend me money.
One gentleman explained that business was dreadful, while a servant stood behind him holding a silver tray worth more than the sum I had requested. Another offered me an excellent luncheon and useful advice about economy. I ate considerably more than usual, feeling that it might be my only opportunity to obtain anything substantial from him.
If I could not settle our debts, I faced imprisonment. My father had once spoken of a family acquaintance who had spent more than ten years in a debtor's prison. The prospect frightened me more than any examination ever had. At least a failed examination ended with permission to go home.
I considered seeking a position on a plantation overseas. It was a respectable way of disappearing, and disappearance had become necessary. Unfortunately, my knowledge of agriculture was limited to recognising a field when I saw one. I therefore asked advice and was directed to Potter's Tropical Agriculture and Laborie's The Coffee Planter of Saint Domingo.
On the following Saturday, I went to a reading room. Neither book was on its shelf. The attendant pointed towards a gentleman of about forty-five who was reading one and had placed the other on the chair beside him. I approached cautiously, as though he might be growing coffee on both chairs.
He readily allowed me to take the unused volume. Later, when he left, I borrowed the second as well. By evening I had acquired a remarkable quantity of information and no practical experience whatever. This, I subsequently discovered, was a common preparation for colonial enterprise.
As I returned the books, I met the gentleman again. He asked whether I was considering plantation work. When I said that I was, he wrote an address in his notebook and invited me to visit him the next morning at ten.
I arrived punctually at a comfortable two-storey house. He was writing in his office and received me kindly. He explained that he was an administrative officer in Ceylon, home on extended leave. After hearing my circumstances, he asked whether I would consider managing a new coffee estate there instead of going to the West Indies.
The work would begin with clearing jungle.
I agreed immediately. A jungle, however inconvenient, appeared preferable to a prison.
He then admitted that he knew very little about growing coffee himself. This might have troubled me had I possessed any knowledge with which to judge him. Instead, I found it comforting. Here was an employer unlikely to discover my ignorance immediately.
He opened a drawer and presented me with new copies of the two books. We were now, between us, the owners of four volumes on tropical agriculture. It seemed an excellent foundation for a hundred acres.
Two days later I signed an agreement. My salary would be one hundred and fifty pounds a year. I received a month's advance and instructions to prepare for departure in a fortnight. I wrote to my mother that my prospects had improved. I omitted the jungle, intending to introduce it gradually in later correspondence.
I purchased stout boots, a hat, various articles recommended by an outfitter, and a small medicine chest. The outfitter sold me a heavy coat on the grounds that mountains could be cold. He would probably have sold me skates if I had asked enough questions.
On the ship, I met William, the brother of an acquaintance, who was travelling to Java to take charge of a coffee plantation. He had spent twenty years growing coffee in the West Indies. We spoke constantly about soils, drainage, nurseries, pruning, and labour. He was generous with his knowledge, and I was diligent in recording it.
For two days I scarcely left him alone. On the third morning, he saw me approaching with my notebook and closed his eyes.
"Unwell?" I asked.
"Only when awake," he replied.
I did not understand him until much later.
During rough weather, my agricultural studies suffered a temporary interruption. I attempted to read a chapter on drainage while sitting on deck, then discovered that I had a more immediate problem involving the same principle. William advised me to look at the horizon.
"Which part?" I asked, for the horizon appeared to be travelling in several directions.
He took my notebook away until the sea became calmer. I was grateful. Even now, certain passages about soil preparation bring back an unpleasant memory of that voyage.
Once, at dinner, I delivered a confident explanation of how coffee roots should be protected from standing water. An elderly passenger listened attentively, then asked whether I had ever seen a coffee tree.
"Not yet," I admitted.
"A promising beginning," he said. "You have not had time to spoil one."
William laughed so heartily that I forgave him at once. A man who had answered my questions for several weeks was entitled to some relief.
I reached Ceylon in 1842. Colombo overwhelmed me with heat, movement, unfamiliar voices, and the discovery that a gentleman could perspire while doing absolutely nothing. I had imagined that tropical discomfort would be earned through exertion. It was discouraging to receive it free of charge.
Mr. Buller, the government agent with whom my arrangements had been made, helped organise my journey inland. From the main road towards Kandy, I travelled by cart towards Aranayaka, and from there to the land west of Nagaragiri village where the estate was to be established.
My driver knew little English, and I knew no Sinhala. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a lengthy conversation. He pointed out things and named them; I nodded. When I pointed to a distant hill and asked its name, he gave an answer so long that I abandoned the attempt to write it down.
Much later, someone informed me that he had probably said the bullocks would need watering before we got there.
At the estate, I found splendid trees, abundant vegetation, and no house. It was a property of considerable natural beauty, although I would have preferred a little less nature and somewhere to put my trunk.
I obtained supplies from a merchant in Aranayaka and hired four men from a nearby village. Within a fortnight we built a small house. It had a roof, walls, and doors, and I was delighted with it until the first heavy rain revealed that the roof and the weather held different opinions about their respective duties.
I placed basins beneath the leaks. By midnight, nearly all my domestic vessels were engaged in collecting water. When I asked for a cup, the boy brought me one from beneath a particularly active drip and waited while I considered whether gratitude or objection was more appropriate.
The village Arachchi became friendly with me and found a man for household work and a fifteen-year-old boy for errands. Their wages were thirty and twelve rupees a month. The older man knew how to live in the country. The boy knew how to laugh without appearing to laugh. Both skills proved useful.
My first attempt to sleep under a mosquito net was unsuccessful. I tucked it in carefully, then discovered that several mosquitoes had accompanied me inside. I spent half an hour striking at them in the darkness. In the morning, the boy inspected the loosened net and the overturned chair.
"Bad night, mahattaya?"
"Very bad."
He nodded sympathetically, though his shoulders betrayed him.
The next great undertaking was a cart road. On paper, it was a line leading from the existing track to my house. On the ground, it involved stones, roots, slopes, and a stream which refused to cross the line at a convenient place.
I stood with my plan while the workers stood with their tools. Eventually the Arachchi suggested a different route. I explained that mine was shorter. He agreed, then pointed out that his was possible.
We built his road.
Clearing a hundred acres required a large expenditure. During the first eighteen months, the nursery, clearing, and planting cost about eighteen hundred pounds, roughly ten times the debt which had driven me from England. I found this figure alarming. In London, a much smaller sum had threatened to put me behind bars; in Ceylon, a larger one was described as an investment.
I initially employed eighty men from neighbouring villages. When the heaviest work was finished, the number was reduced to thirty. I hired a supervisor who understood some English, for Sinhala did not enter my head with the ease I had hoped. His wages were three pounds a month, a useful reminder that knowledge of English could be more profitable than knowledge of coffee.
For some time, I believed myself to be making progress in the local language. I learnt greetings, numbers, and a few commands. My supervisor, whom I generally called the kankani, encouraged me with an expression which I mistook for admiration.
One morning, anxious to show independence, I gave an instruction directly to the men. They stared, then one of them disappeared and returned with a rooster.
I wanted a particular patch cleared.
The rooster was placed at my feet.
I looked at the bird, the men looked at me, and my kankani arrived in time to prevent the misunderstanding from becoming a permanent feature of estate management.
Thereafter, when I spoke Sinhala, the boy occasionally looked towards the poultry yard. I pretended not to notice.
I soon learnt that the men understood matters which were absent from my books. They knew where water would collect, which trees were dangerous to fell, and how a slope behaved after rain. At first, I consulted my volumes before accepting their advice. Later, I consulted the men before troubling the volumes.
One afternoon I confidently announced that we should continue working despite an approaching shower. The men looked at the sky and began putting away their tools. I remained to demonstrate resolve.
Within minutes, I was standing in water up to my ankles, unable to see the opposite end of the clearing. When I reached the house, the boy had a towel ready. It was an attentive service, weakened slightly by the fact that he had apparently been waiting for the entertainment.
"Only a shower," I told him.
"Yes, mahattaya."
He looked at the water running from my sleeves and gave me a second towel.
The first coffee seedlings were planted with almost parental care. I inspected them daily, worrying over pale leaves and celebrating new growth. My letters to England became so full of coffee that my mother eventually asked whether I had made any friends who were not plants.
I had, though some were less reliable. Monkeys visited the estate without invitation and helped themselves to whatever interested them. One took a packet of biscuits from my table and climbed onto the roof. I offered him a banana in exchange. He accepted the banana, then resumed eating the biscuits.
The boy thought this an excellent bargain, provided one considered it from the monkey's side.
On another occasion, a monkey carried away my spectacles. I followed it into the garden, attempting persuasion in English and then, in desperation, Sinhala. Neither had any effect. The animal examined the spectacles solemnly, as though dissatisfied with their workmanship, and dropped them into a bush.
I retrieved them with one bent arm and much reduced dignity. For several days afterwards, the boy addressed any monkey near the house with unusual respect. I suspected that my promotion of the animal into a spectacle-wearing gentleman had amused him.
Other intruders were less entertaining. Leeches taught me to examine my boots before admiring scenery. Ants taught me not to leave sugar uncovered. A snake beneath my chair taught me to stand up quickly. My books were helpful on coffee, but remarkably silent about the correct manner of receiving these visitors.
Nor did the estate concern itself solely with plants and animals. Labour soon occupied more of my attention than either. I had agreed on sixteen rupees a month after considerable bargaining, the men having asked for a rupee a day. Later, they renewed their demand and stopped work.
I was indignant. I spoke at length about agreements. They listened politely and continued to remain at home.
For a month, my kankani and I attempted to keep matters going by ourselves. I discovered that thirty absent men could leave a considerable amount of work behind them. By evening, my hands hurt, my back ached, and my opinions about wages were becoming less definite.
I brought another group from Colombo, partly to demonstrate that I could manage without the villagers. The demonstration was expensive. Eventually, through the Arachchi, the original men offered to return for twenty rupees a month. I accepted, and the Colombo men went back.
One of the returning workers asked how the estate had fared.
"Very well," I answered.
He looked at my blistered hands and wisely refrained from commenting.
It was during these years that I learnt how many of our administrative officers also owned coffee estates. Governor Mackenzie had owned twelve hundred acres; the Colonial Secretary's holdings ran to several thousand. The Treasurer, the Government Agent, the Chief Justice, and even the head of the Church had substantial interests in planting.
At a gathering, I once suggested that it must be difficult to attend to public business while managing such properties. A planter beside me replied that this explained the value of managers.
"Men like you, Moore."
He said it pleasantly, and I could hardly object. I was drinking his whisky.
A merchant from Aranayaka later proposed bringing labourers from South India. He initially offered forty workers at twenty rupees a month, with a fee of five hundred rupees and an additional payment for each worker during the first six months. I bargained the wages down to eighteen rupees. His own fee remained untouched.
I remember admiring how firmly he protected the only part of the arrangement that would enter his pocket.
About a month later, the first group arrived: twenty-two men and eight women, with two children belonging to one family. I pointed out that thirty adults were fewer than forty.
The merchant agreed with perfect composure and explained that the others would come later.
I was learning that a man's confidence in an arrangement did not always depend upon fulfilling it.
Among the newcomers was Thangamma, an unmarried woman whom I engaged for household work. She was willing to prepare beef, which several others had declined to do, and within a month she understood my routine better than I understood it myself.
She was quiet at first, watchful and brisk. She learnt where everything belonged, including things I had not yet decided belonged anywhere. When I asked for an object, she usually produced it before I had finished describing it.
I once announced that my watch had been stolen. She searched the desk, then pointed to my waistcoat.
"That pocket."
"I have already looked."
She waited.
I looked again and found it.
She returned to her work without comment, which was more damaging than laughter would have been.
Noticing her aptitude, I began teaching her to keep accounts. She mastered the figures rapidly. Within three months, she was helping with the estate books, and soon she could discover errors which had escaped me entirely.
The first concerned a column I had added twice.
"This money came once," she said, tapping the page. "Why has it gone twice?"
I explained that it was a clerical mistake.
She considered the expression, then put a neat line through the second entry. Whatever dignity the phrase had been intended to preserve did not survive her pencil.
She also developed a habit of examining purchases. A merchant delivered a sack of rice which, she said, was underweight. He assured her it was correct. She fetched the scales and invited him to observe the correction.
He turned to me with the air of a man seeking support from another reasonable person.
I studied a coffee sample until the weighing was finished.
Afterwards, he brought the missing rice. Thangamma entered the full amount in the book, and I began to understand why the merchants had preferred dealing with me.
Her English improved alongside my accounts. She knew the words for most household articles, several agricultural terms, and the phrase "too much money," which she employed with excellent judgement.
When I bought a handsome new riding coat, she asked the price. I told her it would last for years.
"So will the old one," she said.
The old coat was hanging nearby, entirely without holes. I had no satisfactory reply.
She did not interfere with purchases necessary to the estate. A good tool received her approval; an unnecessary ornament received a silence so deliberate that I eventually explained myself without being asked.
My first serious attempt to introduce a new cooking arrangement went badly. I had obtained a recipe from another planter and gave lengthy instructions through the kankani. Something was to be boiled, something browned, and a sauce prepared separately.
At dinner, all three appeared together in one pot.
I asked why.
Thangamma explained that they were going into one stomach.
The kankani translated this with great care. He need not have done so. Her expression was quite sufficient.
In fairness, the dish was excellent. I ordered it again the following week, requesting that the preparation remain exactly as before. She accepted this victory without celebration, although I noticed that the boy was told about it.
By then, the household had become a small community in which everyone knew my habits. I could no longer claim to be working late when I was reading Practical Mechanics. Nor could I say that I had eaten nothing when a plate of biscuits had disappeared.
Thangamma's concern showed itself most clearly when I fell ill with fever. She arranged broth, cool cloths, and whatever assistance could be found, while the kankani carried instructions to the workers. I remember trying to rise because something needed attention in the nursery.
She put the blanket back over me.
"Coffee can wait."
I doubted this, but she was standing between me and the door. During that illness, I began to realise how much of my supposed independence depended upon other people remaining dependable.
One evening, when the fever had subsided, I woke to find her asleep in the chair beside my bed. The lamp was low. Her hand rested near the cup she had been holding, and for once her face had none of its usual alertness. I lay still rather than disturb her.
When she opened her eyes, she caught me looking.
"You should be asleep," she said.
"So should you."
She smiled, a little shyly, and looked down at the cup. It was the first time I had seen her uncertain what to say. I found myself equally unprepared.
Afterwards, there were evenings when she brought the accounts to the veranda and remained a little longer than the figures required. We spoke of her childhood, of my sisters, of the places neither of us had seen. Once, reaching for the same pencil, our hands touched. Neither moved immediately. Then she took the pencil and asked me about an expense I could not explain, restoring us both to familiar ground.
The estate gradually prospered. My salary increased as my responsibilities grew, and careful living allowed my savings to accumulate. What began as a means of escaping creditors became a life I understood and, despite its difficulties, enjoyed.
I learnt to ride better, to inspect drainage before rain, and to distinguish genuine difficulties from explanations offered by men hoping to finish early. I also learnt that those men could make the same distinction when I spoke to them.
My visits to Kandy became occasional pleasures. I met my employer, attended to my account at the Oriental Bank, collected letters, and obtained the latest issue of Practical Mechanics, which reached me through the post. There were conversations, decent meals, and chairs which remained dry during rain.
At one dinner, a visiting gentleman spoke earnestly of the great wealth to be made in coffee. He had been in Ceylon for three weeks and already intended to purchase land.
"A straightforward business," he said. "One plants the trees and waits."
I asked whether he had decided who would occupy the estate while he waited.
"A manager, naturally."
I wished him every success. I recognised the arrangement too well to spoil his evening with details.
On one such visit, after depositing money and collecting my magazine, I travelled by the mail horse-cart to the Uthuwankanda Inn, where my horse was stabled. I drank two glasses of Bass Pale Ale, ate a roti, and saw that the horse received its feed.
The innkeeper asked whether I required another glass. I said that I had an early start.
"Then you should sleep well," he replied, making a persuasive argument for the third.
I resisted. This small act of discipline later became more important in my memory than it deserved.
At five the next morning, I drank coffee and set off towards the estate. The air was cool, mist lay among the trees, and the road had the peaceful appearance it acquired before people began using it.
About seven, I met a man carrying an injured person on his back. He also had a gun, and his progress was slow. I stopped and asked what had happened. They said they had been hunting during the night and that the injured man had fallen down a steep slope.
The wounds did not entirely persuade me. The man who answered avoided looking directly at them, and the injured youth watched me with an alertness which pain had not extinguished. Nevertheless, he needed help. It seemed an unsuitable moment to demand a satisfactory account of his movements.
We managed to bring him to my house. Thangamma fetched water and cloths, and I did what I could with my medicine chest. I possessed more confidence than medical skill, although I tried to keep the two from becoming confused.
When I applied the spirit, he stiffened and gripped the edge of the bed.
"It must be cleaned," I said.
My kankani translated. The youth answered briefly.
"He says the fall was easier," the kankani told me.
Despite his pain, there was amusement in his eyes. I liked him for that.
His companion remained close, watching every movement. Thangamma brought food when the treatment was finished. Both men ate with the concentration of people who had missed several meals.
Before leaving that evening, the injured youth tried to thank me. I told him to rest the wound and avoid further hunting for a while. He gave a small smile. His companion helped him away, and I returned to estate business, thinking little more of the matter.
Only later did I understand how far that brief meeting would reach into my life.
Many years had now passed since my arrival in Ceylon. My family was older, my debts still required final settlement, and I had been away long enough to feel that England existed largely in letters. I arranged a year's leave with my employer and prepared to return.
By then, my accumulated savings amounted to a thousand pounds. I withdrew the money from the bank in Kandy, intending to take it with me and settle what remained of our obligations. I had booked passage on a mail ship and would leave for Colombo within the week.
The money lay locked in my house. I examined it more often than necessary. Notes and coins which had seemed ordinary at the bank became, in my room, my mother's peace of mind, my sisters' prospects, and the end of a humiliation I had carried across the world.
Thangamma disliked having so much money there. She asked why it could not remain in the bank until the last possible moment.
I explained my arrangements confidently.
She listened, then asked whether confidence made the door stronger.
I laughed. I have regretted that laugh more than many foolish purchases.
Three days before my intended departure, on a Sunday, I went hunting with my kankani. He suggested taking a village hunter. I declined, saying that I preferred to track the animals ourselves.
This was partly true. The other part was that a hunter had once watched me mistake old cattle tracks for those of a deer, and I had no desire to renew the acquaintance under similar circumstances.
Our expedition went well enough, though the kankani did most of the useful tracking. We spent the night near the top of Bible Rock and returned the following morning with two deer.
As we approached the house, something in the stillness disturbed me. Ordinarily, someone would be moving about the yard. That morning, the open doorway seemed to be waiting for us.
Thangamma came running, crying and beating her chest. At first, I could make little sense of her words. My kankani spoke to her gently, and gradually the account emerged.
Three men had entered during the night. They had overpowered the watchman and tied him to a tree. Thangamma had tried to keep them out, but they had broken the door and forced their way inside. They took my thousand pounds and two guns, the other two having been with us on the hunt.
I went into my room. The lock had been forced, drawers overturned, and papers scattered. I stood before the empty place where the money had been and found myself unable to think beyond it.
All those years of work seemed suddenly to have vanished. The young man who had left London to escape imprisonment stood before me again, as frightened as ever, though he now wore better boots.
Thangamma kept saying that she had tried. She showed me where she had pushed against the door. There was a bruise on her arm.
I told her it was not her fault.
She shook her head, as though there were a particular figure in her accounts which she could not make right.
I went to the Arachchi, and together we reported the robbery to the police at Aranayaka. I also sent a letter to Mr. Buller in Kandy by the mail coach. Officers came to inspect the house and question people, but they discovered nothing useful.
The watchman repeated his story several times. A policeman asked whether he had seen the robbers clearly.
He had not.
Could he describe their clothing?
Not with certainty.
Could he remember their voices?
Only that they had ordered him to be quiet.
His inability to help seemed sincere. A man tied to a tree in darkness has limited opportunities for careful observation.
The Arachchi assembled villagers for questioning. Some had heard dogs barking; others had heard nothing. One man supplied a detailed account of strangers on the road, then admitted that he had seen them several days before the robbery. He seemed disappointed that this reduced the value of his contribution.
Because my employer held a senior government position, the matter received further attention. The Superintendent of Police from Kandy arrived with a government officer from the district and several policemen. Their appearance gave me fresh hope.
The superintendent was a native of Ceylon. He sat his horse with greater elegance than the English officers beside him and spoke English with a fluency which made my efforts at Sinhala seem particularly unfortunate.
I later learnt that his father had been an Adigar under the last Kandyan king. During his father's detention in Colombo, the son had come into contact with English officials and received an education which eventually helped him rise in government service.
Four Arachchis were summoned. Their manner towards him astonished me. They answered with profound deference, using expressions which, when translated literally, made them sound like very humble animals.
I asked my kankani about this afterwards.
"Respect," he said.
"A great deal of it."
He nodded. "His family. His position."
I thought of London acquaintances who had praised my father's family while refusing assistance to his son. Here, evidently, ancestry had retained more practical influence.
The superintendent questioned people carefully and examined the scene himself. His presence produced no miraculous discovery, but I respected the seriousness with which he worked. For two days, the officers searched and made enquiries. Then they left, unable to recover the money or the guns.
Their departure was almost harder to bear than their arrival had been reassuring. I had already imagined writing home with news that the robbery had been solved. Now I could scarcely begin a letter at all.
I avoided the room where the money had been kept. I wandered among the coffee trees, attending to tasks which did not need attending to, while postponing decisions which did.
Thangamma continued putting meals before me. Once, when I failed to touch one, she took away the plate and returned with something smaller. She seemed determined to find a quantity of food my grief would permit me to eat.
One afternoon, my kankani asked to speak privately. He said there might be another way of obtaining help.
He reminded me of the injured youth we had brought home from the road.
I remembered him clearly.
"That was Saradiel," he said.
For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood. The name had become familiar throughout the district. Sura Saradiel, the outlaw of Uthuwankanda, appeared in conversations about robberies, evasions, daring escapes, and acts of generosity, according to the sympathies of the speaker.
"Our patient?"
"Yes."
"You knew?"
He hesitated. "I found out."
I wished he had told me sooner. Then I wondered what I would have done with the information. Report a wounded man who had accepted my assistance? Refuse the assistance in the first place? Neither possibility improved my opinion of myself.
The kankani explained that Saradiel's influence among the people was considerable. He might discover what the police had been unable to learn. Perhaps he would remember the kindness shown him.
I gave permission for an approach to be made. My circumstances had become too urgent for me to reject a possibility merely because it was uncomfortable.
That evening, the kankani returned. He had not met Saradiel, but had spoken to Mammale, his close companion. A meeting had been arranged for the following day near the foot of Navgala Rock.
I asked whether I should take a gun.
"Better not."
"For their comfort or ours?"
"Both."
I accepted the advice. By then, I had learnt that a short answer from him often contained more thought than a lengthy explanation from me.
We set out at the appointed time. I wore ordinary riding clothes, though I spent an absurd amount of time deciding what was suitable for meeting a robber. Formal dress seemed excessive. Carelessness seemed unwise. In the end, I wore the old coat Thangamma had defended so successfully.
She watched us leave and told the kankani something in Tamil. He nodded.
"What did she say?"
"Bring you back."
That was reassuring in a way which preparations for my safety had not been.
A short distance into the forest, I heard a bird call. Looking up, I saw a boy high in a tree. He called again, then watched us pass.
"A lookout?" I whispered.
The kankani nodded.
I tried to recognise the call in case it should prove useful later, but he advised me against attempting it. I did not ask why. My earlier experience with the rooster supplied one possible explanation.
A slender young man appeared near the rock and led us deeper into the forest. I followed carefully. Once, my coat caught on a branch, and I had to stop while the guide freed it. He performed this small service without smiling, which increased my gratitude.
About half a mile farther on, we came upon six men sitting with a pot of toddy. The scene was less imposing than I had imagined. I had expected some visible evidence of a celebrated outlaw's importance: perhaps a commanding figure, perhaps an extraordinary weapon.
Instead, I saw men resting in the shade, one of them scratching his ankle.
Yet I knew which was Saradiel before anyone told me. The others attended to him without making a show of it. When he rose, their conversations ceased naturally.
He greeted me through the kankani and said that he had not forgotten the help I had given when he was injured. I recognised the watchful eyes and the small smile from my house.
"The wound?" I asked.
He moved his arm to show that it had healed.
"And no more falling?"
The kankani translated. Mammale laughed before Saradiel answered.
"He says he has been more careful," I was told.
I thought it best to leave the matter there.
He asked about my difficulty. I described the robbery, the thousand pounds, the stolen guns, and my intended return to England. He listened without interruption.
When I explained that failure to pay my debts might expose me to imprisonment, he looked surprised. He asked several questions. Was I accused of theft? Had I injured anyone? Were these debts inherited from the family's business?
I answered as clearly as I could. The kankani translated, sometimes having to explain words for which the situation offered no simple equivalent.
Saradiel considered this, then asked something which made two of his companions smile.
"He asks whether rich men go to that prison too," the kankani said.
"Men unable to pay," I replied.
There was another brief exchange.
"He says then it is mainly for poor men."
I had no useful correction to offer.
He said that his gang had not committed the robbery. Then he promised that he would see my property returned by the following day.
I wanted to ask how he could make such a promise. After several days of official enquiries, he had heard my account for only a few minutes. But there was nothing boastful in his manner. He spoke as a man might speak of an errand he knew could be completed.
"All of it?" I asked.
He nodded.
I thanked him, insufficiently, and he invited me to share the toddy.
I declined, explaining that it upset my stomach. He smiled and asked whether this illness could be passed on to the others.
The men laughed. I could see that refusal had left me in a safer position than acceptance would have done.
"Only if I describe it at length," I said.
When the kankani translated, Mammale laughed again and moved the pot a little farther from me.
We left on friendly terms. On the way back, my kankani asked whether I felt hopeful.
I said that I did, though I hardly dared to trust it. He walked beside me without adding promises of his own. I appreciated that restraint.
The following morning, I rose early and dressed as though expecting a formal visitor. I inspected the yard, then the road, then the yard again. Every sound acquired significance. A cart coming along the track seemed certain to carry news until it continued past the turning.
At noon, Thangamma brought lunch. I asked whether anyone had called.
She said that I would have heard them, since I had been near the door all morning.
I ate a little and resumed waiting.
Towards evening, hope began to weaken. I remembered how readily the promise had been made and wondered whether my gratitude had embarrassed me into believing too much. Perhaps the robbers had fled. Perhaps the money was already divided and spent.
By nine, I had persuaded myself that nothing would come. The estate seemed unusually quiet. I sat with a whisky, then poured another. I began a letter to my mother and abandoned it after three lines.
There was no easy way to explain that years of work had ended in an empty drawer. Nor could I bear to write that I was coming home without the means to settle our affairs.
By the time I went to bed, I had consumed about half a bottle. It did not restore the money, but it temporarily reduced my ability to calculate the loss.
I overslept. Around six the next morning, the little bell outside the door rang. I heard Thangamma moving through the house and opening the door. A man's voice spoke in Sinhala.
I pulled on my clothes with the confused urgency of a man whose hope has awakened before the rest of him.
When I came out, Thangamma was approaching with a gunny sack. Her face had changed entirely. She was trying to speak and smile and hold the sack at the same time.
We put it on the bed and opened it. Inside were my two guns, the full amount of the stolen money, and a small, beautifully carved dagger.
For a while, neither of us said anything. I touched one of the bundles to assure myself that I was properly awake.
Thangamma began counting. Even joy did not persuade her to abandon the habits which had served us so well. I watched her hands move steadily through the money. Once, she had to stop and wipe her eyes.
When she finished, she looked at me and nodded.
"All."
I found that I too was crying. It was an undignified scene, perhaps, but there was no one present whose opinion troubled me.
I asked about the messenger. He had already gone. He had said that the things should be given to the planter and that the little knife was for him.
I examined the dagger. The carving was careful, the blade sound. Nothing explained why it had been included. A gift, a remembrance, perhaps a private jest about my troublesome profession: I could not know. I have always preferred to leave its meaning with the man who sent it.
There was no time to lose. The ship would sail the following day. I sent for the kankani and instructed him to convey my thanks if he could, though the message seemed absurdly small beside what had been done.
The house became busy with packing. Thangamma inspected the clothes, secured the papers, and wrapped the dagger. The boy hovered near my trunk, offering more assistance than he usually considered necessary.
I suspected that the household wished to get me and my money safely off the estate before I found another reason to spend a night on a mountain.
At last, the luggage was ready. I reminded the kankani of matters which would need attention during my absence. He listened patiently, though most were matters he had already arranged.
Thangamma brought food for the journey. I said that I could eat at the inn.
"Then eat this before the inn," she replied.
I accepted the parcel. There were arguments I had become wise enough not to begin.
As I turned to leave, she straightened my collar, though it needed little attention. Her fingers paused against the cloth.
"A year?" she asked.
"I mean to return before it is over."
She looked at me then, searching my face rather than my luggage. I took her hand briefly.
"I shall miss our evenings," I said.
"Even the accounts?"
"Especially the person who keeps them."
Her smile came slowly. From the yard, the boy announced that the cart was ready, with an enthusiasm I considered unnecessary. She withdrew her hand and stepped back, but the smile remained. For the first time, the journey home seemed to involve leaving something behind as well as recovering something lost.
That evening, I left for Colombo by the mail horse-cart, spent the night at the Royal Hotel, and sailed for England the next day. As the coast receded, I felt relief, gratitude, and an unexpected reluctance to leave.
I had come to Ceylon believing that hard work and suitable books would be enough to rescue me. The work had mattered, certainly. So had the books, though rather less than their authors might have hoped. But my life there had also depended upon a headman who knew where a road could be built, a kankani who understood people, a woman who would not permit careless accounts, and a wounded stranger whom I had once helped without knowing his name.
I carried the little dagger with my belongings. When I thought of Saradiel, I remembered him listening to the account of my debts and questioning the strange English custom of imprisoning a man because he could not pay.
I also remembered his enquiry about my stomach complaint.
Somewhere in that forest, I hoped, he and his companions were still enjoying their toddy, undisturbed by an ailment which had proved useful to me only once.
And somewhere behind me, Thangamma was probably examining the estate books, discovering an error I had left in my haste, and wondering how a man with so much schooling could remain so troublesome to look after.
