This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CHANDRASHEKHAR.
105

to strike her. With terror Shaibalini saw that the cane was made of flaming red-hot iron. Finding her hesitating he began to belabour her back. The strokes began to burn her body. Unable to bear them she jumped into the sanguine current. At once the bony crocodiles darted at her, but left her untouched. Shaibalini swam on, the bloody current trickling into her mouth. The stalwart individual walked by her side across the crimson flood without sinking. Now and again, stinking putrid corpses came drifting against her body. In this way Shaibalini reached the opposite bank. No sooner she stepped on the shore and looked round than she shrieked out, “Save me, oh, save me!” What she saw in front had neither limit, figure, colour, nor name. Here the light was extremely faint, but so hot that as soon as it fell on Shaibalini’s eyes they seemed to burst and burn as if by poison. Such a terrible stench stank in her nostrils, that in spite of the covering she had on her nose, she became wild. Piercing, discordant, terrific sounds simultaneously entered her ears; heart—rending wails, demoniacal cachinnations, horrid shouts, splitting of rocks, crash of thunder, grating of stones, tumult of waters, hissing of fire, plaintive outcries of the dying—all simultaneously began to split her ears. Right in front, violent blasts, every now and then, rushed with a dismal sound alternately scorching her limbs as if by flames of fire and lacerating them in an intense biting cold as if with a hundred thousand knives. "I die, oh, save me!” cried out Shaibalini. Then a big ugly worm with an insufferable stench tried to enter her mouth. “Oh save me!” screamed Shaibalini. “This is hell; is there no means of escape from this place?” “Yes, there is,” came the answer from the stalwart individual. Her own cries in her dream had broken