CHAPTER IV.
At the tryst.
The same day until sundown, was Kapalkundala taken up, in thinking out the reasonableness of her meeting with the masqueraded Brahmin. She never paused over the profaneness of the thought for a faithful wife to visit, at night-time, a strange man which goes, always, without a social warrant. The basic idea of her mind was that so long there is the purity of purpose such an action can never be judged impious. The social claim of intercourse exclusively between men or women is as much a legitimate natural right as between men and women specially when the Brahmin-dressed youth is of uncertain description. So her qualms were set at rest. But whether such a meeting would produce beneficial or baneful results gave an uncertain outlook to the whole affair that made her indecisive. First, the Brahmin-like boy's conversation, then the Kakalik's appearance and, lastly, the dream—all these conjoined to confirm her suspicion that she might have some smack of the danger that cast its shadows before. The flutter of a suspicion as to the existence of a connecting link between the advent of the Kapalik and some sort of evil-doing looked to have some substratum of truth. The young boy of a seeming Brahmin appeared to be the Kapalik's associate and the adventure of an interview might have all the risk of ensnaring her into a trap deeply laid in the plot. Did not the disguised Brahmin clearly tell her, the other day, that the conspiracy was set on foot against her alone? Besides, it can be suggestive of the beginning of the end. The man with whom the Brahmin-looking boy was in secret conversation appeared to have been the Kapalik. This is the sure indication that they were plotting, either, somebody's murder, or, transportation. Whose it might be? When she was the subject of all these secret plottings and machinations, then her death or transportation was certainly being contemplated. Come what may! Then the dream!—but what is the significance of it? In vision she saw the Brahmin-guised boy rush forward to save her in the supreme moment of crisis and the dream now looks to have all the appearance of a reality.
"Drown me" said she in dream to the masqueraded Brahmin. Is she to re-iterate the same in actuality? Oh, no! the votary-loving Bhowani graciously sent instructions for her preservation and the Brahmin-garbed youth volunteered to her rescue. Now, in case of refusing the help, she is sure to be drowned. Therefore Kapalkundala made it a point to see the young man. It is under doubt whether a sane man would have similarly concluded. But we have nothing to do with sane conclusions. Kapalkundala had no wisdom of a wise-woman and so she had not a wise woman's counsel all to herself. She came by her conclusion like a young woman eager after the curious—like a girl bewitched by a finely moulded form with a dark sinister air hanging about him—like a Sannyasi-trained girl used to rove gaily amidst wild landscapes at night—like a holy woman actuated under deep reverential feelings towards Bhowani—and like an insect on the eve of its headlong plunge into the shooting flame of a burning fire. Kapalkundala finished her household work and set out towards the forest after night-fall. She had stirred the lamp flame before she went out and the lamp burnt all the brighter. Scarcely she left the room when the light went out. She had forgot one thing before she started on her parlous errand. What could be the place the imposter of a Brahmin fixed as the meeting ground in the letter? So she came back and searched the place high and low where she put the letter. But, alas! no letter could be found there. It occured to her that in order to keep it on her person she had tucked it up in her pleated hair. Accordingly, she ran her finger nails in and around her braided knot. When her finger tips did not come across it, she unloosened her hair. However, the letter remained untraced as before. Then she rummaged every part of the house but still it could not be found. At last, when she lost every trace of it, she thought she might see him where they had met before. Due to the lack of spare moments, she could not arrange the mass of her hair. Thus, she went forth, as with her unmarried days before, her figure within her rich glorious hair that hung down, all around, in wavy curls about her.