II
IN a few moments the darkness had closed in upon us. All that could be discerned were the swollen waters, immense and dim, flowing in parallel lines on the right and left, and, buoyed up between, the swift little canoe and the two boys in it. Everything else was blotted out. I had not then reached the age at which I could realise the solemn immensity of this aspect of Nature, but I have not forgotten to this day what I saw on that night. It was the vast incarnate form of midnight gloom that shaped itself before my eyes, still and silent without the stir of a breath, lonely and companionless as death itself. Dark masses of her hair covered the earth and the heavens, and through the intense gloom, flashing from the limitless currents which shot out like enormous, glistening rows of teeth, appeared a dim phosphorescence, sinister and malevolent, like a hard, mocking smile half-suppressed. Here a rushing current would suddenly strike against the bed of the river and, rising, burst into foam; there, cross-currents would meet, and dashing together create a whirlpool, and all about us were mad, unimpeded masses of water sweeping furiously by.
I could just feel that our canoe was crossing the river diagonally. But it was beyond my power to observe to what landmark or spot on the opposite bank Indra was steering it through the inky darkness. I did not know then what an experienced steersman he was. Suddenly he said to me, 'Well, Srikanta, are you afraid?'
'Well, no,' I answered.
'That's right,' said Indra, much pleased. 'What is there to fear if you know how to swim?'
A suppressed gasp was my only reply. My uninformed mind could see no difference between swimming on such a night in the midst of those mad currents and swift-flowing tides, and a total inability to swim. But Indra did not utter another word.
After a long time I heard a new sound, muffled and faint; it grew clearer and louder as our canoe proceeded further onward. It sounded like an angry and threatening call, uttered from many throats at a long distance, and wafted across many barriers and impediments. Though heavy with weariness, the sound was incessant, without a break; the anger of those unseen presences did not appear to abate or to increase, and showed no signs of ever coming to an end. At irregular intervals came sounds suggestive of a sudden crash or abrupt splash. 'What sound is that, Indra?' I asked 'It is the sound of the sandy bank opposite being broken off by the currents,' he replied as he again set the prow of the canoe in the direction towards which he was steering.
'How high is the bank?' I asked, 'and what is the force of the currents?'
'Oh, tremendous. The water is black: we can't pass under the bank to-night. If it should break above us we and the canoe would be smashed to smithereens. Can you row, Srikanta?'
'Oh, yes, I can.'
'Then row.'
I began to row, and heard Indra say, 'Look this way. There! Do you see something black on the left? That's a reef. A canal passes through it, and we shall have to go through the canal; but, mind you, as slow as anything! You see, if the fishermen find us out they won't let us come back alive. They will knock our heads to atoms with their poles and bury us deep in the mud.' Terror-stricken, I answered, 'Don't let's go that way then.' Perhaps Indra laughed a little as he said, 'But there is no other way. We must pass through that canal. Even steamers could not force a way through the strong current that flows beside the big reef yonder there, and how could we do it? We can come back that way, but not go now.' 'Then,' said I, as I pulled in the oar, 'let's have no more of this business.'
In an instant the canoe took a sharp curve round and sped back with the current. 'Why did you come then?' asked Indra, greatly disgusted, and in a threatening whisper he added, 'All right! I'll take you back again, coward!'
I was in my fifteenth year, and to be called a coward! In a flash I put out my oar and began to row for all I was worth. 'Right!' said Indra. 'But easy, my boy! The fishermen are terrible ruffians. I will steer beside the willow trees through that field of maize so that the rascals will know nothing of it.' And then he said laughing, 'And what if they do? It won't be so easy to catch us. Look here, Srikanta, never you fear. The idiots have got as many as four canoes, it's true, but when you find that they are drawing all round us and there is no way of escape, then down you jump into the water. You dive, and come out as far away as you can. Do you see? It will beat them all to find us in this darkness. Won't it be fun to swim to Satua's reef and to come across in the morning to our bank and then walk back home along the river? What can the beggars do?'
I had heard the name of the reef before. 'But Satua's reef is such a long way off!' I protested.
'You call that a long way?' said Indra in utter indifference. 'It is hardly twelve or fifteen miles. If your arms get tired, all you have got to do is to keep afloat on your back: besides, you will get plenty of half-burnt logs of wood floating by you, logs with which dead bodies have been burnt.'
As soon as I realised the meaning of Indra's programme of escape, the stout heart within me contracted to a very small point. After rowing for a while longer I asked, 'But what will become of your dinghy?'
'The other day,' said Indra, 'I made my escape just in this way. Next day I came back and took my dinghy from them. I said somebody else must have taken it for the night without my knowledge, and that it wasn't I.'
Then the escape he had been picturing was no idle dream or fancy, but an actual possibility, as proved by his previous experience!
The canoe went up to an opening between two reefs, through which water flowed as in a canal: at its mouth were tied a number of fishermen's boats in a row, their lamps burning dimly. We went round one of the reefs to the other side, where the force of the water had created several passages for its flow, and the mouth of each of these openings was hidden from the view of the rest by clumps of casuarina trees. Passing through one of these openings we came into the central canal and saw fishermen's boats looking like dark bushes in the distance. A little further, and we had arrived at our destination.
The fishermen who guarded the main gateway of the canal had not thought it necessary to set any guard over this spot. They had set up here what is called the 'net lure'. When the canal is dry, fishermen plant wooden posts in a row from one end of the canal to the other and fix a net on the outer side of these posts. Then in the rainy season when big fish like rohi and katla come down the canal they leap over the posts to avoid them and get caught in the net.
In the twinkling of an eye Indra landed five or six rohis and katlas weighing ten, fifteen, or twenty seers[1] each. The huge fish seemed to do their best to break the frail canoe to pieces, lashing their tails against its sides and flapping noisily about.
'What will you do with so many fish, Indra?'
'I want them. But that is enough now. Let's get away', and he let the net go from his hand. There was now no further need for rowing, and I sat still. We were making for the opening through which we had come, going as secretly as before. After being carried down the canal by the swift current for two or three minutes, our little canoe, with a sudden jerk, entered the adjoining field of maize. Taken unawares by this sudden change of direction, I asked, 'What's the matter? What has happened?' Indra sent the canoe further inland with another push, and whispered, 'Silence! The rascals have got the scent—they are coming this way in all the four boats—look!' He was right: making much noise with their sturdy oars, the boats were advancing like demons eager to swallow us. Behind was the net spread across the canal and in front were our enemies—which way could we turn for escape? I did not think it possible for us to conceal ourselves in the field of maize.
'Do tell me what we are to do!' As I gasped the words, tears choked my voice. Who was there to prevent these men from killing us in this horrible trap and doing away with all trace of our dead bodies by burying them in this very field?
Indra had before played the role of a triumphant thief successfully and had reached home safely, but this time—?
He merely said, 'There's nothing to fear', but I thought I could detect a tremor in his Voice. However not for a moment did he stop to think. Discarding the oar for one of the dinghy's long poles, he pushed with all his force, trying to get as far inland as possible and thus conceal our canoe. The whole reef had been inundated with water, above which, to a height of ten or twelve feet, rose crops of maize or jowari. Through the jungle of stalks we two thieves worked our way. The water was at some places chest-deep, and at others not deeper than the waist or knee. Above us there was pitch darkness, and on all sides of us impenetrable forest. The pushing poles began to stick in the mud, and the canoe could hardly move. From behind came indistinct sounds of the fishermen's talk. There could be no doubt that something had raised their suspicion and that they were still reconnoitring the whole area.
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!'[2] 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 in the canoe: my companion, wading through the jungle in mud and water as high as his chest, unable, should the occasion arise, to turn aside a step—who knew what fate awaited him? Fifteen minutes passed in silence. As we advanced haltingly I noticed every now and then a curious sound—a sharp rustle, as if the head of a jowari or maize stalk were being violently shaken, and then a splash. This happened once quite near my hand. Timidly I drew Indra's attention to it. 'If it were not a big boar, might it be a young one?'
'That's nothing,' he said in the easiest of tones: 'those are snakes that have coiled themselves on the stalks; when they get frightened they jump down into the water.' 'This was nothing! Only snakes!' Trembling in every limb I sat huddled up in the middle of the canoe. With a sinking heart I asked, almost in a whisper, 'What kind of snakes?'
'There are all kinds,' said Indra, 'dhora, bora, cobra, krait—they come floating in the water and coil themselves round trees and stalks. Don't you see there's no land here?'
Of course I saw that. But while a paroxysm of fright made my hair stand on end, that strange young man, without a sign of alarm, went on, saying as he plodded onward, 'But they don't bite. They are themselves so panicky, you know; two or three of them just brushed my body as they fled. Some of them are very big too—they must be boras or dhorars, I think. And what if they do bite! One must die some day, my boy.' He went on in this strain in the most natural manner possible: some of his remarks reached my ears and some not. I sat speechless, beside myself with fear, still as a block of wood, afraid even to breathe; for what could prevent one of them taking a plunge down on to the canoe itself?
Minutes passed, and at last I could perceive that we were gradually approaching some roaring concourse of waters. I understood, without further questioning, that at the end of this jungle flowed the furious and awe-inspiring river which even steamers could not cross at that time of the year. I could plainly feel the currents becoming swifter and swifter, and the grey masses of foam produced the illusion of large stretches of sand. Indra clambered into the canoe and, taking the paddle in his hand, sat expectant, ready for the impetuous river ahead. 'There is nothing more to fear,' he said. 'Here we come upon the main river.' 'Well and good, if there is nothing to fear,' was my inward comment; 'though I haven't yet been able to find out what there is that would excite your fear.' The next instant a slight tremor passed over the whole canoe, and in the twinkling of an eye I found that she was rushing along at lightning speed, borne by the great tide of the main river.
The moon was then rising behind the scattered clouds; for the darkness in which we had begun our expedition no longer existed. We could now see, though dimly, a good distance on every side. We left the wild casuarina trees and the reef of jowari and maize to our right and proceeded straight ahead.