Page:Chitra - Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/15



One day in search of game I roved alone to the forest on the bank of the Puma river. Tying my horse to a tree trunk I entered a dense thicket on the track of a deer. I found a narrow sinuous path meandering through the dusk of the entangled boughs, the foliage vibrated with the chirping of crickets, when of a sudden I came upon a man lying on a bed of dried leaves, across my path. I asked him haughtily to move aside, but he heeded not. Then with the sharp end of my bow I pricked him in contempt. Instantly he leapt up with straight, tall limbs, like a sudden tongue of fire from a heap of ashes. An amused smile flickered round the comers of his mouth, perhaps at the sight of my boyish countenance. Then for the first time in my life I felt myself a