The boy's name, as Jerry was to learn, was Lamai, and to Lamai's house Jerry was carried.

It was not much of a house, even as cannibal grass- houses go.

On an earthen floor, hard-packed of the filth of years, lived Lamai's father and mother and a spawn of four younger brothers and sisters.

A thatched roof that leaked in every heavy shower leaned to a wabbly ridge-pole over the floor.

The walls were even more pervious to a driving rain.