"Do you want it?" she asked.

Still trembling, Will Farnaby stretched out his hand. Very cautiously, she edged forward, then halted again and, crouching down, peered at him intently.

"Quick," he said in an agony of impatience.

But the little girl was taking no chances. Eyeing his hand for the least sign of a suspicious movement, she leaned forward, she cautiously extended her arm.

"For God's sake," he implored.

"God?" the child repeated with sudden interest. "Which god?" she asked. "There are such a lot of them."

"Any damned god you like," he answered impatiently.

"I don't really like any of them," she answered. "I like the Compassionate One."

"Then be compassionate to me," he begged. "Give me that banana."

Her expression changed. "I'm sorry," she said apologetically. Rising to her full height, she took a quick step forward and dropped the fruit into his shaking hand.

"There," she said and, like a little animal avoiding a trap, she jumped back, out of reach.

The small boy clapped his hands and laughed aloud. She turned and said something to him. He nodded his round head, and saying "Okay, boss," trotted away, through a barrage of blue and sulphur butterflies, into the forest shadows on the further side of the glade.

"I told Tom Krishna to go and fetch someone," she explained.

Will finished his banana and asked for another, and then for a third. As the urgency of his hunger diminished, he felt a need to satisfy his curiosity.

"How is it that you speak such good English?" he asked.

"Because everybody speaks English," the child answered.

"Everybody?"

"I mean, when they're not speaking Palanese." Finding the subject uninteresting, she turned, waved a small brown hand and whistled.

"Here and now, boys," the bird repeated yet once more, then fluttered down from its perch on the dead tree and settled on her shoulder. The child peeled another banana, gave two-thirds of it to Will and offered what remained to the mynah.