“Go and tell him that his Psyche finding the water of the Bheema cool, has drowned herself.”
“Now keep your fooling aside. It is already dark, I cannot wait any longer. And then again, Khemi’s mother has declared that a white man has appeared in the neighbourhood to-day.”
“What is there in that for you or me to be afraid of?”
“Eh! is that it? Come out of the water, or else I go.”
"I am not going to get out——you can go.”
Sundari got very much annoyed, filled her pitcher and got upon the bank.
“La!” cried Sundari turning round, “Do you seriously mean to stay alone in the ghât at this time of dusk?”
Shaibalini did not make any reply, and pointed her finger in a particular direction. Following the direction of the finger, Sundari looked and saw on the other side of the tank under a palm-tree——oh, ruination! Without uttering another word she flung the pitcher on the ground from her hip and ran away with breathless speed. The brass pitcher rolled down emitting its watery contents with a gurgling sound and again disappeared in the water.
Sundari had seen an Englishman under the palm-trees.
The sight of the Englishman did not shake Shaibalini out of her place, nor did she get out of the water. She only dipped herself up to the breast and covering just half of her head, including the chignon, with her wet cloth, remained like a blooming water-lily. In the cloud of waters the fixed lightning smiled; in the dark waves of the Bheema the golden lotus opened in bloom.
When he found that Sundari had run away and the coast was clear, the Englishman under cover of the palm-rows slowly crept up to the ghât.
