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was not long before the river was flecked with the white sails of fishing-boats. Ramesh hailed one of these craft and with the fishermen's help engaged a large rowing-boat for the journey home. Before starting he gave the police instructions to search for his luckless companions.

When the boat reached the village landing-place Ramesh learned that the police had recovered the bodies of his father and mother-in-law and of several of his kin; a few of the boatmen might have survived, but every one else had been given up for lost.

Ramesh's old grandmother had been left at home. She greeted the advent of her grandson and his bride with loud lamentation and there was weeping in all the households which had been represented in the wedding party. No conches were blown and none of the wonted cries of welcome hailed the bride on her arrival. No one offered to entertain her, in fact people shunned the very sight of her.

Ramesh had decided to leave the place with his wife as soon as the funeral ceremonies were over, but he could not stir until he had put his father's affairs in order. The bereaved ladies of his family had besought him to let them go on pilgrimage, and for this, too, arrangements had to be made.

In his hours of respite from this sad business he was not wholly unmindful of the claims of love. His bride was not the mere child that report had described—indeed the village women taunted her with being beyond the conventional age for marriage—but when