Suddenly the canoe gave a lurch to one side. When it regained its balance, I found that I was the only person on board; Indra had disappeared. Stricken with fear, I cried out 'Indra!' From inside the jungle at a distance of about ten feet came the response, 'I am overboard.'
'Why?'
'I shall have to drag the boat out of this. I've got the rope tied round my waist.'
'Where will you drag her out to?'
'To the main river. A short pull will take us back.' I said not a word more. We began to advance slowly. All of a sudden the sound of kerosene tins being beaten and the snapping of split bamboos, coming from inside the jungle a short distance away, startled me. 'What is that?' I asked, overcome with fear. 'It is the peasants sitting on their lofts,' Indra replied, 'and frightening away the wild boars.' 'Wild boars! Where?'
'How can I tell you? I can't see them, of course. They must be somewhere about here,' he said, in his nonchalant manner.
I had not the heart to utter another word. 'Surely,' I thought, 'the person I saw first this morning must have had a most inauspicious face!'[1] Only that evening in our own house I had almost fallen into the jaws of a tiger! What wonder then, that in this jungle I should fall an easy prey to wild boars! But at any rate I was
- ↑ The belief is that there are persons the sight of whose faces, if they happen to be the first faces seen in the morning, is sure to make the day most unlucky and evil.
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