Chapter Three

The place where the voyagers left Nabakumar and went their way lies but a little removed from two small villages now seen there, called Daulatpur and Dariyapur. But in the time whereof we now write, there was upon that spot no sign of any human dwelling. It was but a wilderness. Howbeit, the soil of that region was not, like the soil of other parts of Bengal, of the common level kind. From the mouth of the Rasulpur to the Subarnarekha, for several yojanas of unbroken stretch, runs a long range of sandhills. Were these but somewhat higher, they might well be called a range of little sandy mountains. The people now call them baliyaris. The white crests of these sandhills, by the rays of the noonday sun, show forth from afar with a strange splendour. No tall tree groweth thereon. About their feet there springeth some small scrubby growth; but in the middle and on the summit a shadeless whiteness for the most part is set. Of the shrubs that adorn their lower parts, jhati, wild casuarina, and wild flowers are the greater number.

In such an unlovely place was Nabakumar deserted of his companions. At the first, bearing his load of wood, he came down to the river-bank, and found no boat there; whereupon a sudden fear, indeed, fell on him, yet it appeared not to him that his companions had altogether forsaken him. He thought to himself that, the strand being flooded by the rising tide, they had haply moored the boat in some place near by, and would presently come and seek him. In this expectation he sat there a while waiting; but the boat came not. Nor did any of those that were in her show themselves. Nabakumar grew sore distressed with hunger. Being no longer able to wait, he went up and down along the bank of the river in search of the boat. Nowhere did he find any trace of her; returning, he came again to the former place. Even then, not seeing the boat, he thought to himself that the violence of the tide had borne her away, and that now, with the current set against them, his companions were perforce delayed in their return. But the tide also reached its end. Then he thought: the contrary stream is too strong, the boat could not return with the flood; doubtless she is now returning with the ebb. But the ebb too gathered strength; little by little the day wore to its close; the sun went down. Had the boat been meant to return, by this hour she had been returned.

Then there came upon Nabakumar the conviction that either the boat had been sunk in the surge of the rising tide, or his companions had abandoned him to this wilderness.

Nabakumar perceived that village there was none, refuge there was none, men there were none, food there was none, drink there was none; the water of the river was insufferably salt; and yet by hunger and thirst his heart was being riven asunder. Against the cruel cold there was no shelter, not even a wrapper for his body. Upon that river-bank, where blew an air cold as frost, beneath a heaven that shed down dew, shelterless and uncovered must he lie down. Within the night was the likelihood of meeting tiger or bear. Death indeed was certain.

By reason of the disquiet of his mind Nabakumar could not sit long in one place. Quitting the bank, he climbed to the upper ground. He wandered hither and thither. By degrees darkness fell. In the dew-laden sky the stars came noiselessly forth; even as they come forth in Nabakumar's own country, even so they came forth there. In the darkness all places were void of man — sky, plain, sea — all were silent, save only the unceasing roar of the surging sea, and now and again the cry of some wild beast. Yet Nabakumar still walked about amid the sandhills, beneath the dew-shedding heaven, in that darkness. At every step there was the likelihood of being set upon by some beast of prey. Yet to sit still in one place — there too was the same dread.

As he wandered, weariness came upon Nabakumar. He had fasted the whole day, and was therefore much overcome. Beside one of the sandhills he sat down, propping his back against it. The warm and pleasant bed of his home rose up before his mind. When, with the languor of bodily and mental suffering, thought groweth heavy, then sometimes sleep stealeth on in its train. As Nabakumar was thinking, drowsiness fell upon him. It may be that, were this not so ordered, the unchecked weight of worldly suffering could not at all times be borne by any man.