Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/26

4 even at midday and in that darkness pensively sat two human beings like a couple of full-blown flowers at midnight

The famine was before them.

In 1174 there was a bad harvest. So food became a little dear in 1175. The people were in distress but the State realised its dues to the last penny, Having paid down the royal dues, the poor people satisfied themselves with but one meal a day and struggled on. There was a good shower during the rains of 1175 and the people thought with joy that the gods had perhaps smiled on them. The shephard began his carol again and the peasant's wife began to tease her spouse for her silver armlet. Suddenly the gods turned angry in Aswin, for there was not a drop of rain in that month and the crops in the field dried up into hay. Those who reaped a harvest at all had their crop bought up by the State for the support of its army. The people therefore starved. At first they had one meal a day, then they went on half rations, and then starved the whole day. The small Chaitra harvest that they gathered was not enough for anybody. But Mahommad Reza Khan, the officer in charge of the State revenue, thought that he would be a favourite of the authorities by a stroke at this time, and forthwith enhanced the assessment by 10 per cent. There was a howl of grief all over Bengal.

First, people began to beg. But soon there was none to give alms;—they then began to starve.