Page:The Globe of Gold.djvu/5

Rh released her husband's hands, and he, seizing this opportunity, with a long breath, escaped.

The mistress asked her daughter, "What is the matter, Kami? Why has the son-in-law gone in this way? Did you strike him?"

Amazed and wounded to the heart, Kama Sundari answered, "I strike him! why should I strike him—with so evil a fate as mine?" Gradually her voice was lost in sobs. "My evil destiny—some wretch has destroyed me—has bewitched him." These cries attracted a crowd around her. They said, "Yes, you must have struck him, else why should he call out so piteously?" And they called her names—"sinful one," "witch," "ogress," &c., scolding her. The innocent Kama Sundari, thus reproached, went weeping to her room, closed the door, and laid herself down on her bed.

Meantime, Kali Kanta, coming out, saw that a great commotion had arisen. Nil Ratan Babu himself, the gate keeper, and Udbhab, were all belabouring Rama wherever they chanced to find him. Amid the shower of slaps and cuffs raining upon him, Rama kept saying, "Let me go, I never heard of a son-in-law being beaten so; it does not matter to me, but do you want to make your daughter a widow?"

Near by stood Taranga, the maid servant, laughing. She was accustomed to go to the son-in-law's house, and told her master that she recognised the man as being the Babu's servant, Rama. Kali Kanta Babu, seeing the beating going on, paced the courtyard like one distraught, crying, "How dreadful! they are beating the Babu!"

At this, Nil Ratan Babu, yet more enraged, said to Rama, "You, fellow! what have you given the son-in-law to eat to madden him? Beat the rascal with a shoe!"

At this command, as rain follows rain in August, so on the guiltless Rama fell the rain of blows. In the pain of the beating, the ball hidden in his garments fell to the ground. The maid, Taranga, picking it up, offered it to her master, saying, "This good-for-nothing fellow is a thief! See, Sir, he has stolen a golden ball." "Let me see it," said Nil Ratan Babu, taking it from her. Then, letting Rama go, he stood aside, opened the pleated fold of his upper garment, and cast it over his head (like a woman's veil), while Taranga, letting her sari fall from her head, tucked it up like a man's, and was about to beat Rama with the slipper, when Udbhab said to her, "You, woman, why are you again mixing yourself up with this?"

Taranga. "Whom are you calling woman?"