"
Then Dobe, Chobe, Paure, and Teowari, taking thick bamboo sticks in
their hands, started off for the flower-garden. Debendra, hearing from
afar the sound of their clumsy, clattering shoes, and seeing their
black, napkin-swathed chins, leaped from the summer-house and fled in
haste. Teowari and Co. ran some distance, but they could not catch
him; yet he did not get off scot-free. We cannot certainly say whether
he tasted the bamboo, but we have heard that he was pursued by some
very abusive terms from the mouths of the _darwans_; and that his
servant, having had a little of his brandy, in gossip the next day
with a female friend remarked--
"To-day, when I was rubbing the Babu with oil, I saw a bruise on his
back."
Returning home, Debendra made two resolutions: the first, that while
Hira remained he would never again enter the Datta house; the second,
that he would retaliate upon Hira. In the end he had a frightful
revenge upon her. Hira's venial fault received a heavy punishment, so
heavy that at sight of it even Debendra's stony heart was lacerated.
We will relate it briefly later.
CHAPTER XXVII.
BY THE ROADSIDE.
It is one of the worst days of the rainy season; not once had the sun
appeared, only a continuous downpour of rain.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166