Page:Chandrashekhar (1905).djvu/129

Rh and said, “Why do you behave like that? Can't you make me out, I am your husband?”

Shaibalini laughed out a loud ha, ha, and reciting the following rhyme :—-

“My husband is a golden bee, From ﬂower to ﬂower about he roams. Hast strayed I ween unknowingly Dear love, ’mong prickly cactus blooms.”

Said, “Are you Lawrence Foster?”

Chandrashekhar found that the divinity whose presence makes the human frame so charming had left Shaibalini; a fearful madness was possessing her golden temple. Chandrashekhar wept, and with soft accents and an unspeakable tenderness he again cried out, "Shaibalini!”

Again Shaibalini laughed out and said, “Who is Shaibalini?Wait, wait. There was a little girl, her name was Shaibalini, and there was a little boy, his name was Protap. One night the boy was changed into a serpent and went to the woods, the girl followed as a frog and the serpent swallowed it up. I have seen this with my own eyes. I say Englishman, are you Lawrence Foster?"

With a voice quivering with emotion Chandrashekhar pathetically cried out, “O my spiritual guide! what is this, what have you done!”

Shaibalini started singing-

“What hast thou done, friend of my soul, By catching the thief who stole my heart? The river of love without control, Has ﬂooded its banks though far apart.”

“Who is this heart thief?” she raved on. “ It is Chandrashekhar. Who was caught ?——Chandrashekhar. Who