Anandamath (The Abbey of Bliss)/Part 1/Chapter 3
The wood in which the outlaws laid down Kalyani was a very beautiful one. There was no light, and no eyes to appreciate the beauty of it however. It therefore remained unseen like the beauty of a poor man's heart. There might be no food in the country, but, for all that, the woods did not lack flowers, and the odour of these seemed to make even that darkness luminous. The ruffians put Kalyani and her daughter down on a clean spot covered with soft grass and themselves sat round her. They then began to talk about what they might do with her,—they had of course appropriated, before this, every bit of ornament that Kalyani had on her person. A party of them were busy dividing the spoils. This done, one of the robbers said: "What shall we do with gold and silver? Take one of my trinkets any of you and give me a handful of rice instead. I am dying with hunger. I have had nothing more than leaves to eat to-day." When one showed the way, all the rest began to clamour in the same strain. "Rice", "Rice," "Dying with hunger, don't want gold and silver," they cried. Their captain sought to assuage them, but no one would listen. Words grew hot, abuses were freely used and a fight was imminent. In a rage every body threw at the captain the trinkets that had fallen to his share. The captain in his turn struck one or two, when all of them fell on him and began to strike him. He was famished and weak, and so he fell dead after a few strokes. Then of the hungry, irate, excited and senseless ruffians one said, "We have delighted in the flesh of dogs and jackals! Now that we are dying with hunger, come, let us eat this rogue to-day." Then every one shouted in delight "Jai Kali"—"Bom Kali! To-day we will eat human flesh." So saying the lank and shorn, black and ghostly, shapes began to laugh and clap and dance like fiends. One of them set about lighting a fire to roast their captain. He got together some dry creepers and wood, and with a flint and iron set fire to the mass. As the light began to glow, the green leaves of the surrounding trees—mangoe, lemon, jack, palm, tamarind, date and others,—slowly came to view. Here a leaf caught fire, there a grass shone bright with the light; at other places the darkness grew thicker. When the fire was ready, one was about to throw the corpse into it when another said, "Tarry, my man, if live we must on the noble meat today, why then eat the stiff flesh of that old wretch? Let's eat what we have secured to day; let us roast that tender girl." Another said, "Roast something—anything—boys, can't bear the hunger any more." And they all greedily looked to the spot where Kalyani lay with her child. But lo! the place was empty; neither mother nor child was there. She had made good her escape while the robbers were busy quarrelling, having silenced the child by putting her to suckle. Seeing that their prey was gone the fiendish ruffians rushed out on all sides, yelling like beasts. There are times when man becomes little better than a beast of prey.