came the more fervent the less inclination Sry Nagasary evinced to realize the hopes excited by the saintly hermit's words. Her presence, remarked the brothers to one another, brought no change in their condition, and if they did not know what to think of a world that refused to acknowledge their superior virtue, or of a heaven full of gods whom they lost no opportunity to wheedle into the belief of their obedient piety but who, nevertheless, suffered their neighbors to treat them according to their works rather than according to their professions, neither could they conceive why the saintly hermit had deluded them by a false interpretation of the dream, making them the laughingstock of the village for the affair had become known and every one ridiculed the credulity of Kyahy Taboos's sons, who expected a wooden image, dressed and bedecked with jewels like a woman of quality, to restore the credit and standing which they had lost by their grasping dishonesty.

When they complained to the saintly hermit and sought redress, they received his assurance that his interpretation of the dream was right.

"You should break yourselves of the bad habit of blaming others for your own faults," he added. "The truth of the apsara's failure to gratify your wishes is a long distance beside your surmise. To exercise her functions in discharge of the task assigned to her, she needs not only a human shape, since she is now dwelling among mortals; and clothes for decency's sake, since she is earthly on earth; and garnishment of her beauty, since even a celestial female will strive with might and main to please men — but also music to guide her dancing. Oh that you had not driven away your younger brother, the musician!" They were surprised and pained by the reproof implied in the saintly hermit's remark and replied somewhat hotly, though he was a holy man, that Mashmool had gone of his own accord. And with respect to his excellence in music, he did not possess a monopoly of the art. If it were not for their sure knowledge of its being an empty, almost sinful pastime, they could no doubt learn to play any instrument as well and better than he. . . .

"Hearts absorbed in the contemplation of the divine will cannot be corrupted by the arts that soothe and recreate," rejoined the saintly hermit, a faint smile enlivening his emaciated countenance. Then he dismissed the brothers who, returning home, had a serious argument, evoked by this utterance as a sequel to his fuller explanation of his interpretation of the dream. Considering and reconsidering, it now appeared entirely clear to them: the rich reward for their righteousness, at last acknowledged by Batara Guru, was to arrive through the apsara dancing to their music; and all their religious scruples anent the propriety of that frivolous diversion vanished the moment they saw their advantage in it.

Bagal commenced practising the rabab, Sompoq the gendang 2 and Paning the katram3 in order to form a complete orchestra, by far more sonorous and melodious, more adequate to accompany a celestial dancer, they flattered themselves, than Mashmool's feeble efforts with a simple bamboo flute ever could be. After persistent and strenuous toil they noticed slight movements in the puppet. It began to quake and quiver; with their progress in the production of a concordant combination from the sounds they generated, to change its posture and position at the measure of the tune to which they strove to do justice. The achievement put an end to the scoffing of their neighbors who, compelled by curiosity, sought their company for ocular evidence of their prodigious command over a wooden image into which they had blown life, causing it to go through its paces as if it were a real dancing-girl.

The neighbors were, of course, made to pay for the privilege. Sry Nagasary's monetary value expelled from the minds of the brothers all doubts of her divine mission to recompense them for their holiness, tardily but now fitly recognized by Batara Guru. This was the rich reward foretold by the saintly hermit, which flowed more and more richly as their proficiency in handling their musical instruments increased, to wit, their mechanical proficiency, always short of the artistic touch born from an inspiration intrinsically foreign to their coarse-grained temperament. And this was the reason, but they knew it not, why Sry Nagasary, instead of budding into life, remained a marionette with lips always sealed; set, truly, in machine-like motion by their music such as it was, but stark again the instant it ceased.

Even though they prospered, thanks to the apsara's offices, the brothers began to mistrust her lack of animation unless specially roused to activity. Constitutionally suspicious and spiteful, they also mistrusted one another, each meditating in his mind how he could become her sole possessor, secure for himself alone the rich reward by releasing the aerial nymph from her wooden prison and marrying her. Surely, Batara Guru had decreed her transmigration into an earthly shape for the highest good. And was not the highest good attainable in this case that the rich reward should go to the most meritorious, the most godly of the three as each of them believed himself to be?

For ways and means the saintly hermit could be consulted. So once more they went up to him; not together, however, but separately and secretly, in fear of being caught at their knavish game, turning on 1 A primitive violin or, rather, a small violoncello, because when played, it is not held up but down, resting on the ground.

2 A sort of drum, made of a piece of nangka wood and hollowed out, both sides being covered with a goat-skin or sheep-skin.

⚫ Cymbals.

their heels at every few steps to keep their father's spirit off their track for Kyahy Taboos, angered in the narrow valley of death at their intent to cheat one another, might contrive to cross it with calamitous result. The saintly hermit showed not the least surprise at their coming and gave each the same answer to his request for advice, again faintly smiling as Bagal, Sompoq and Paning, to conceal their base motives, feigned an ardent solicitude for the ultimate fate of the wooden apsara, whose incarnation they said that they wished to compass for her own weal, namely, to insure her happiness in union with Batara Guru's chosen one.

"To fulfil her destiny and yours, according to Batara Guru's will," declared the saintly hermit, "your apsara needs a human soul to conclude in its human stage the divine labor enjoined on her. Whoever, with a clean heart and clean hands, gives his soul to her in token. of his true love, shall have hers."

Having spoken these words to Bagal, Sompoq and Paning successively, the saintly hermit declined to tell them anything more.

They spent their days and nights in pondering the queer, puzzling recommendation that they should give their souls to Sry Nagasary. Uncertain how to act upon it and avoiding one another because burning with envy, they endeavored to despoil destiny of its secrets by communicating with soothsayers, whose divinations at the cost of incessant offerings on numberless altars to numberless gods, brought them not a step farther. When they met to join in their musical performances, necessary to induce the apsara to dance, it was no pleasure to them, rather a vexation, to observe her growing skill, which attracted to their house people from far and near, and made the treasure in their coffers swell. They got their gold and silver too dear, prospering at the expense of their tranquillity of mind for each of the three was constantly scheming how to defraud the others of that source of income and finally of lasting comfort to its exclusive possessor. Since they had to share their good fortune, it made them utterly miserable.

Meanwhile the fame of the dancing image had spread to distant lands. Mashmool, the youngest brother, heard it spoken of on his travels and also somewhat homesick notwithstanding his unpleasant experience, he resolved to go and see for himself. After many new adventures and subsisting on his minstrelsy during his journey back as he had done all the time, he arrived at last, tired and footsore, in his native village. It was evening and nobody recognized him because he had become taller of stature while his features, too, had undergone a change reflecting a wider knowledge of the world, a riper insight which nevertheless abided by the guileless sincerity of his candid nature.

VOL. 32. NO. 124.-22.

To reach his home he had either to cross the river in a boat or to skirt it upstream for quite a distance to pass over a bridge and return by the opposite bank. Standing near the water's edge, he looked at the rising ground on the other side, purple in the rays of the setting sun. Behind the first bend where, giving way to cultivated ground, the tangled mangroves ceased to fringe the stream, lay the house of his desire. In the growing darkness he saw many lights glimmering between the palms that masked its landing-place. Many more lights floated onward with the flood. They belonged to sampans and larger craft, koleks and jukoongs, all making for the luminous headland. Mashmool inquired of a man, just embarked and ready to push off, what was going on that the whole village, and strangers too, it seemed, were speeding toward the semblance of some palace of a thousand torches, transplanted from a fairy tale to reality.

"Whence comest thou?" asked the man. "Even the people that live beyond the stars know of Sry Nagasary and of her dancing every market day. Jump in if thou hast a wish to behold the marvellous lady, a runaway from Indra's paradise."

Eyeing Mashmool more closely as he did jump in, his flute in his hand and his violin under his arm, a Sumatra rabab he had learned to play when associating with the Rawas brethren of his guild, the man continued, voicing the misgivings naturally awakened by a strolling minstrel's appearance:

"That is, supposing thou possessest the wherewithal to satisfy the craving for lucre which dishonors the sons of Kyahy Taboos who exhibit the apsara. Thou, companion of the road, canst pander to their infamy with cash? If not, thy going up is bootless and unavailing fatigue."

"Verily, thy words lack wisdom," retorted Mashmool, pointing to his instruments. "Shall music be barred where dancing sways the night?"

"Thou speakest truth," assented the man, beginning to paddle. "And oh for the dancing there would be with the youngest son of Kyahy Taboos leading instead of Bagal, who draws his bow across the copper strings as if he were sawing wood, while Sompoq and Paning bang the drum and clank the cymbals like irate husbandmen in their rice-fields shooing off the birds. But Mashmool, where does he wander and what has happened to him since his shameless brothers turned him out?"

Mashmool had his reasons not yet to reveal his identity. His answers to the friendly but garrulous boatman's questions about the country he hailed from, his musical training, the object of his visit and so forth, were short and evasive. Aided by the tide, which was setting in, they soon rounded the point near the landing-place, beached

the boat and joined the crowd that sought admittance to the spacious hall where the performance was to be given. Originally open on three sides, it had been closed by means of screens of split bamboo between the pillars to prevent impecunious or penurious curiosity procuring gratification without pecuniary sacrifice. Over the outer gate, truly, was an inscription in large characters, a motto from the sacred books of ancient lore, extending a cordial welcome to friends, acquaintances and every one else who chose to enter, but Bagal, guarding the door, assisted by Sompoq and Paning, construed that greeting in a fashion which made their guests comment with wry faces upon words soft as butter proceeding from demons of avarice lurking in their hearts.

When Mashmool entered, paying them the gate-money, the brothers never suspected their father's preferred son they had wronged, in the travel-worn stranger questing admission. They took him for a wandering musician attracted by the renown of their marvellous pre-eminence in his art, which forced even inanimate objects to sympathetic obedience, and saluted him with the obligatory phrase in addressing visitors from foreign parts:

"Our gain is great, O bestower of favors! that thy voyage has not been impeded by the perils of the road."

"The gain is mine, O you on whom Batara Guru showers his blessings! and it is your favor I seek," answered Mashmool in a low tone not to let his voice betray him.

Thereupon Bagal ordered the servants to spread mats for the spectators to sit upon with due regard to their rank and station, lining three sides of the space, also covered with matting, which was reserved for the performing puppet. He himself with Sompoq and Paning took place on the fourth side, muttering prayers while in the middle incense was burned as an indispensable preliminary to the exhibition. Then, getting up from their crouched position, they pushed the wooden doll forward, Sry Nagasary, in the regulation dress of a dancing-girl: from her hips down she was clothed in a kahin, a garment of brocade wound round her middle and kept securely attached by the weight of its own graceful folds; her body was wrapped in the kembèn, a narrow strip of silk, encircling her upward to the armpits and held tight by passing the ends under its loops; a pending, that is, a golden girdle, fastened more firmly both kahin and kembèn; a slendang or scarf, stuck to right and left between the pending and her waist, completed her costume with a string of melaty1 hanging down from her neck, and the kerabu, bracelets and finger-rings which were the special admiration of her female beholders.

A white, strongly odorous flower of the genus Jasminum.

2 An ornament which consists of a small bar, inserted into the hole made for that purpose in the lobe of the ear and held in place by a small disk on the inside while on the outside a stud of gold or silver, often embossed with diamonds or other precious stones, is screwed on to it.