Chapter Forty One

When Shanti, leaving her own hermitage, set forth in the deep night for the city, Jibananda was present at the hermitage. Shanti said to Jibananda: "I go to the city. I will bring back Mahendra's wife. Do thou tell Mahendra that his wife liveth."

Jibananda had heard from Bhabananda the whole tale of how Kalyani's life had been preserved, and of her present abiding-place he had learnt from Shanti, who knew the matter of every place. By degrees he made all known unto Mahendra.

Mahendra at first would not believe. At the last, overcome with joy, he was as one bewildered.

In the dawn of that night, by Shanti's aid, Mahendra and Kalyani met. In the silent forest, beneath the dark shadows of close-set sal-trees, before the beasts and birds had broken their slumber, they had sight of each other. Witnesses there were none, save the wan-rayed stars of that blue sky that ranged the heavens, and that motionless and endless line of sal-trees; far off, the murmur, sweet-cadenced, of some narrow rock-fretting river, and somewhere, gladdened by the sight of the diadem-light of dawn rising in the east, the song of a single cuckoo.