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Piari had been shut. I lay on a half-broken easy-chair not far from Niru Didi's bed. She called me to her in her naturally low voice and, drawing my hand close to her mouth, whispered, 'Srikanta, go home.'

'What, Niru Didi, in this storm and rain?'

'Yes, your life before everything else.'

Thinking that her mind was wandering, I said. 'I'll go: only let the rain abate a little.'

She became terribly anxious and cried, 'No, no, Srikanta, you must go at once. Don't delay any more. You must go. You must flee.' Something in her voice startled me. 'Why do you want me to go?' I asked.

In reply she drew my hand closer and, looking at the window, cried aloud, 'Won’t you go? Are you bent on losing your life then? Don't you see those black men who have come to take me away and are threatening me because you are here?'

Then began her screams. 'There! under my bed! They're going to kill me! They're taking me away! They're seizing me!' Her screams were incessant and stopped only towards the end of the night, when she had very little life left in her.

That terrible and pathetic night is still engraved in my memory in images of fire. There is no doubt that I experienced inexpressible fear, and that I thought I saw nameless things and shapes.

It is true that the recollection becomes laughable now. But on that night I would have made a wild dash into the