Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/222

 And clutching the prisoner’s hand she dragged him out of the gates.

On the Varuna’s bank the sun rose. A boat was waiting at the landing. ‘Come to the boat with me, stranger youth,’ Shyama said. ‘Only know that I have cut all bonds, and I drift in the same boat with you.’

Swiftly the boat glided on. Merrily sang the birds. ‘Tell me, my love,’ asked Vajrasen, ‘what untold wealth did you spend to buy my freedom?’

‘Hush, not now,’ said Shyama.

Morning wore on to noon. Village women had gone back home with their clothes dripping from their bath, and pitchers filled with water. Marketing was over. The village path glared in the sun all lonely.

In the warm gusts of the noontide wind Shyama’s veil dropped from her face. Vajrasen murmured in her ears: ‘You freed me from a bond that was brief to bind me in a bond everlasting. Let me know how it was done.’ The woman drew her veil over her face, and said: ‘Not now, my beloved.’

Q