Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/87

 municipality and magistracy, and later they saw how Mr. Gandhi shared their daily life and hardships, nursed the sick, and fed the hungry. They knew that the Indian women, who had urged them to strike, were cheerfully suffering imprisonment with hard labour, for their sake, and they felt in honour bound to struggle on until they had secured the repeal of the tax that weighed so heavily upon so many of them. And the women amongst them were no less heroic than the men. One mother, whose little child died of exposure on the road to Newcastle, was heard to say: "We must not pine for the dead; it is the living for which we must work." Such a spirit ensured ultimate success.

As their members swelled, it was felt that the only possible method of compelling the Union Government to realise their responsibilities and assume charge was to march the whole of the strikers into the Transvaal, there to court arrest and imprisonment, and it was accordingly decided to concentrate at Charlestown, the border village, where Messrs. Vallibhai and Mukdoom rendered great service. At the head of a large "army," therefore, Mr. Gandhi marched there on October 30th,