d village in it, as if the whole were a single
door, with the devil on the other side of it.

But some of the girls behind the door managed to send us messages. Gold
was one of these. She wanted so much to see us again, she begged us to
come and try. We tried; we met the mother outside, and asked her to let
us come. She is a hard old woman, with eyes like bits of black ice, set
deep in her head. She froze us, and refused.

Afterwards we heard what the child's punishment was. They took her down
to the water, and led her in. She stood trembling, waist deep, not
knowing what they meant to do. Then they held her head under the water
till she made some sign to show she would give in. They released her
then, rubbed ashes on her brow, sign of recantation, and they led her
back sobbing--poor little girl. She is not made of martyr stuff; she was
only miserable. For some months we saw nothing of her. We used to go to
the next house and persuade the people to let us sing to them. We sang
for Gold; but we never knew if she heard.

One evening, as two of us came home late from work, a woman passed us
and said hurriedly to me, "Come, come quickly, and alone. It is Gold who
calls you! Come!" I followed her to the house. "I am Gold's married
sister," she explained. "Sit down outside in the verandah near the door
and wait till the child comes out." Then she went in, and I sat still
and waited.

Those minutes were like heart-beats. What was happening inside? But
apparently the mother was away, for soon the door opened softly, and a
shadow flitted out, and I knew it must be Gold. She dropped on her knees
on the little narrow verandah on the other side of the door and crept
along to its farther end, and then I could only distinguish a dark shape
in the dark. For perhaps five minutes no one came except the sister, who
stood at the door and watched. And for those five minutes one was free
to speak as freely as one could speak to a shape which one could barely
see, and which showed no sign, and spoke no word. Five whole minutes!
How one valued every moment of them! Then a man came and sat down on the
verandah. He must have been a relative, for he did not mean to go. I
wished he would. It was impossible to talk past him to her, without
letting him know she was there; so one had to talk to him, but for her,
and even this could not last long. Dusk here soon is dark; we had to go.
As we went, we looked back and saw him still keeping his uncons