"Industry may lead to the country"s prosperity," I explained, "but a mere desire for its prosperity will not make for success in industry. Even when our heads were cool, our industries did not flourish. Why should we suppose that they will do so just because we have become frantic?"
"Why not say plainly that you will not risk your money?"
"I will put in my money when I see that it is industry which prompts you. But, because you have lighted a fire, it does not follow that you have the food to cook over it."
XIII
What is this? Our Chakua sub-treasury looted! A remittance of seven thousand five hundred rupees was due from there to headquarters. The local cashier had changed the cash at the Government Treasury into small currency notes for convenience in carrying, and had kept them ready in bundles. In the middle of the night an armed band had raided the room, and wounded Kasim, the man on guard. The curious part of it was that they had taken only six thousand rupees and left the rest scattered on the floor, though it would have been as easy to carry that away also.
Anyhow, the raid of the dacoits was over; now the police raid would begin. Peace was out of the question.
When I went inside, I found the news had travelled before me.
"What a terrible thing, brother," exclaimed the Bara Rani.
"Whatever shall we do?"
I made light of the matter to rea.s.sure her. "We still have something left," I said with a smile. "We shall manage to get along somehow."
"Don"t joke about it, brother dear. Why are they all so angry with you? Can"t you humour them? Why put everybody out?"
"I cannot let the country go to rack and ruin, even if that would please everybody."
"That was a shocking thing they did at the burning-grounds. It"s a horrid shame to treat you so. The Chota Rani has got rid of all her fears by dint of the Englishwoman"s teaching, but as for me, I had to send for the priest to avert the omen before I could get any peace of mind. For my sake, dear, do get away to Calcutta. I tremble to think what they may do, if you stay on here."
My sister-in-law"s genuine anxiety touched me deeply.
"And, brother," she went on, "did I not warn you, it was not well to keep so much money in your room? They might get wind of it any day. It is not the money--but who knows..."
To calm her I promised to remove the money to the treasury at once, and then get it away to Calcutta with the first escort going. We went together to my bedroom. The dressing-room door was shut. When I knocked, Bimala called out: "I am dressing."
"I wonder at the Chota Rani," exclaimed my sister-in-law, "dressing so early in the day! One of their __Bande Mataram__ meetings, I suppose. Robber Queen!" she called out in jest to Bimala. "Are you counting your spoils inside?"
"I will attend to the money a little later," I said, as I came away to my office room outside.
I found the Police Inspector waiting for me. "Any trace of the dacoits?" I asked.
"I have my suspicions."
"On whom?"
"Kasim, the guard."
"Kasim? But was he not wounded?"
"A mere nothing. A flesh wound on the leg. Probably self- inflicted."
"But I cannot bring myself to believe it. He is such a trusted servant."
"You may have trusted him, but that does not prevent his being a thief. Have I not seen men trusted for twenty years together, suddenly developing..."
"Even if it were so, I could not send him to gaol. But why should he have left the rest of the money lying about?"
"To put us off the scent. Whatever you may say, Maharaja, he must be an old hand at the game. He mounts guard during his watch, right enough, but I feel sure he has a finger in all the dacoities going on in the neighbourhood."
With this the Inspector proceeded to recount the various methods by which it was possible to be concerned in a dacoity twenty or thirty miles away, and yet be back in time for duty.
"Have you brought Kasim here?" I asked.
"No," was the reply, "he is in the lock-up. The Magistrate is due for the investigation."
"I want to see him," I said.
When I went to his cell he fell at my feet, weeping. "In G.o.d"s name," he said, "I swear I did not do this thing."
"I do not doubt you, Kasim," I a.s.sured him. "Fear nothing. They can do nothing to you, if you are innocent."
Kasim, however, was unable to give a coherent account of the incident. He was obviously exaggerating. Four or five hundred men, big guns, numberless swords, figured in his narrative. It must have been either his disturbed state of mind or a desire to account for his easy defeat. He would have it that this was Harish Kundu"s doing; he was even sure he had heard the voice of Ekram, the head retainer of the Kundus.
"Look here, Kasim," I had to warn him, "don"t you be dragging other people in with your stories. You are not called upon to make out a case against Harish Kundu, or anybody else."
XIV
On returning home I asked my master to come over. He shook his head gravely. "I see no good in this," said he--"this setting aside of conscience and putting the country in its place. All the sins of the country will now break out, hideous and unashamed."
"Who do you think could have ..."
"Don"t ask me. But sin is rampant. Send them all away, right away from here."
"I have given them one more day. They will be leaving the day after tomorrow."
"And another thing. Take Bimala away to Calcutta. She is getting too narrow a view of the outside world from here, she cannot see men and things in their true proportions. Let her see the world--men and their work--give her abroad vision."
"That is exactly what I was thinking."
"Well, don"t make any delay about it. I tell you, Nikhil, man"s history has to be built by the united effort of all the races in the world, and therefore this selling of conscience for political reasons--this making a fetish of one"s country, won"t do. I know that Europe does not at heart admit this, but there she has not the right to pose as our teacher. Men who die for the truth become immortal: and, if a whole people can die for the truth, it will also achieve immortality in the history of humanity. Here, in this land of India, amid the mocking laughter of Satan piercing the sky, may the feeling for this truth become real!
What a terrible epidemic of sin has been brought into our country from foreign lands..."
The whole day pa.s.sed in the turmoil of investigation. I was tired out when I retired for the night. I left over sending my sister-in-law"s money to the treasury till next morning.
I woke up from my sleep at dead of night. The room was dark. I thought I heard a moaning somewhere. Somebody must have been crying. Sounds of sobbing came heavy with tears like fitful gusts of wind in the rainy night. It seemed to me that the cry rose from the heart of my room itself. I was alone. For some days Bimala had her bed in another room adjoining mine. I rose up and when I went out I found her in the balcony lying p.r.o.ne upon her face on the bare floor.
This is something that cannot be written in words. He only knows it who sits in the bosom of the world and receives all its pangs in His own heart. The sky is dumb, the stars are mute, the night is still, and in the midst of it all that one sleepless cry!
We give these sufferings names, bad or good, according to the cla.s.sifications of the books, but this agony which is welling up from a torn heart, pouring into the fathomless dark, has it any name? When in that midnight, standing under the silent stars, I looked upon that figure, my mind was struck with awe, and I said to myself: "Who am Ito judge her?" O life, O death, O G.o.d of the infinite existence, I bow my head in silence to the mystery which is in you.
Once I thought I should turn back. But I could not. I sat down on the ground near Bimala and placed my hand on her head. At the first touch her whole body seemed to stiffen, but the next moment the hardness gave way, and the tears burst out. I gently pa.s.sed my fingers over her forehead. Suddenly her hands groping for my feet grasped them and drew them to herself, pressing them against her breast with such force that I thought her heart would break.