the courtyard, called out in a shrill unnatural voide,
- "Shaibalini!"
No one responded to the call. So unnatural was Chandra Shekhar's voice that even the weeping maid-servant became quiet in painful surprise.
Chandra Shekhar cried out again. His voice resounded in the house, but no one responded.
By that time the red ensign of the English on Shaibalini's green boat was waving in the gentle breeze of the Ganges—the boatmen were singing in chorus.
******
Chandra Shekhar came to know every thing. He then removed from his house the idol Shalgram, which he had installed there with great devotion, as his household God, and placed it at Sundari's father's house. He next called in his poor neighbours and distributed among them his clothes, utensils, and other household articles. In the evening he gathered together the books, he had read and was to read, and which were to him as dear as his life-blood. He next brought them all in the courtyard one by one, and while doing so, he occasionally opened this or that book, but
52
