Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/33

 

The wood in which the outlaws laid down Kalyani was a very beautiful one. There was no light, and no eyes to appreciate the beauty of it however. It therefore remained unseen like the beauty of a poor man's heart. There might be no food in the country, but, for all that, the woods did not lack flowers, and the odour of these seemed to make even that darkness luminous. The ruffians put Kalyani and her daughter down on a clean spot covered with soft grass and themselves sat round her. They then began to talk about what they might do with her,—they had of course appropriated, before this, every bit of ornament that Kalyani had on her person. A party of them were busy dividing the spoils. This done, one of the robbers said: "What shall we do with gold and silver? Take one of my trinkets any of you and give me a handful of rice instead. I am dying with hunger. I have had nothing more than leaves to eat to-day." When one showed the way, all the rest began to clamour in the same strain. "Rice", "Rice," "Dying with hunger, don't want gold and silver," they cried. Their captain sought to assuage them, but no one would listen. Words grew hot, abuses were freely used and a fight was imminent. In a rage every body threw at the captain the trinkets that had fallen to his share. The captain in his turn struck one or two, when all of