"A man never knows what he can do till the call comes. There, betwixt sleep and waking, I knew that happiness had come to an end for us. Yet I slipped out of bed very softly, took the lamp from her as gentle as you please, set it on a stool and, turning, reached out for her two wrists and held them--for how long I can't tell you. She didn't try to fend me away, or struggle at all, and not a word did I utter, but stood holding her--the babe asleep beside us--and listened to her breathing until it grew easier, and she leaned to me, weak as water. "Then I let go, and lifting the child's head from the pillow pulled Aoodya's charm, the cocoanut pearl, from my neck and hung it about his. 'That's for you, sonny,' said I, 'and if the Berbalangs come along you can pass them on to your father.' I faced round on Aoodya with a smile which no doubt was thin enough, though honestly meant to hearten her. 'It's all right, old girl. Come back to bed,' said I, and held her in my arms until I fell asleep in the dawn. "But of course it was not all right; and after two days spent with this dismal secret between us, and Aoodya all the while play-acting at her old tricks of love for me and the babe--as if, God knows, I doubted they, and not the horror, were her real self--I could stand it no longer, but did what I ought to have done before; sought out my master and made a clean breast of it. "I could see that it took the old man between wind and water. When I had done he sat for some time pulling his beard and eyeing me once or twice rather queerly, as I thought. "'My friend,' said he at last, 'I suppose you will be suspecting me; yet I give you my word--and the Hadji Hamid is no liar--that if Aoodya is a Berbalang, or a daughter of Berbalangs, the same was unknown to me when I married you.' "'I'll believe that,' I answered; 'the more by token that I never suspected you.' "'She had no known father, which (as you know) is held a disgrace among us; so much a disgrace that she grew up without suitors in spite of her looks and my favour. Therefore I seized my chance of giving her a husband, and in that I am not guiltless towards you; but of anything worse I was ignorant, and for proof I am going to help you if I can.' He frowned to himself, still tugging at his beard. 'Her mother was of good family, on this side of the island. Therefore she cannot be pure Berbalang, and most likely the Berbalangs have no more than a fetch upon her'--he used a word new to me, but 'fetch' I took to be the meaning of it. 'If so, we must go to them and persuade them to take it off. They owe me something; for though, as we value peace and quiet, Hassan and I leave them alone in their own dirty village and ask no tax nor homage, we could make things uncomfortable if we chose. Yes, yes,' said he, 'I think it can be done; but it will be dangerous. You are wearing your cocoanut pearl, of course?' "I told him that I had given it up to the baby.