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Updated: May 23, 2025
He stood a little apart, looking sullen, irresolute, and thoroughly uncomfortable, the marks of tears still on his face. "Thanks veree much. I am going now," he blurted out abruptly; and Roy felt quite cross with him. Pity had evaporated. But the other boy's good-humour seemed unassailable. "If you're not in a frantic hurry, we can go back together." Chandranath shook his head.
"Think if you had come three minutes earlier! He only left me just now Chandranath." "And passed me in the archway," added Roy with his touch of bravado. "I've as much right to be in Delhi and to vary my costume as your mysteriously potent friend. It's a free country." "It is fast becoming not so free." Dyán lowered his voice, as if afraid he might be overheard.
So much the better. An obsession could be pricked like an air-ball with the right weapon at the right moment. That, as Roy saw it, was his task: in effect, a ghostly duel between himself and Chandranath for the soul of Dyán Singh; and the fate of Arúna virtually hung on the issue.
In view of that intoxicating possibility, nothing else mattered inordinately, at the moment: though there reposed in his pocket a letter from Dyán with a Delhi post-mark giving a detailed account of serious trouble caused by the recent hartal: all shops closed; tram-cars and gharris held up by threatening crowds; helpless passengers forced to proceed on foot in the blazing heat and dust; troops and police violently assaulted; till a few rounds of buckshot cooled the ardour of ignorant masses, doubtless worked up to concert pitch by wandering agitators of the Chandranath persuasion.
"It is getting late," he said. "There is not much time left to complete our preparations for the journey." At this point Chandranath Babu suddenly came in. Finding us both together, he fell back for a moment. Then he said, "Forgive me, my little mother, if I intrude. Nikhil, the Mussulmans are out of hand. They are looting Harish Kundu's treasury. That does not so much matter.
I was aware that it is unsafe suddenly to awake a sleep-walker. But I am so impetuous by nature, a halting gait does not suit me. I knew I was overbold that day. I knew that the first shock of such ideas is apt to be almost intolerable. But with women it is always audacity that wins. Just as we were getting on nicely, who should walk in but Nikhil's old tutor Chandranath Babu.
The Rajput, with his blood up, is daring to the point of recklessness; deaf to puerile promptings of prudence or mercy; a sword, seeking its victim; insatiate till the thrust has gone home. And, in justice to Dyán Singh, it should be added that there was more than Arúna in his mind. There was India increasingly at the mercy of Chandranath and his kind.
Chandranath Babu rose, and looking towards Bee, said: "Let me go now, my little mother, I have some work to attend to." As he left, I showed Nikhil the book in my hand. "I was telling Queen Bee about this book," I said. Ninety-nine per cent of people have to be deluded with lies, but it is easier to delude this perpetual pupil of the schoolmaster with the truth. He is best cheated openly.
But not being one of them, I have no use for that empty compliment. Chandranath Babu began to talk about Swadeshi. I thought I would let him go on with his monologues. There is nothing like letting an old man talk himself out. It makes him feel that he is winding up the world, forgetting all the while how far away the real world is from his wagging tongue.
The implied sneer enraged Roy; but listen he must, perforce: and in the space of half an hour he learnt a good deal about Chandranath and the mentality of his type.
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