the Pathans. The reader will now see how the Pathans got thus excited all of a sudden.
The Pathan’s questions, however, did not have any impression on the meeting. I had asked the meeting to vote on the settlement. The president and other leaders were firm. After this passage-at-arms with the Pathan, the president made a speech explaining the nature of the settlement and dwelling upon the necessity for endorsing it, and then proceeded to ascertain the sense of the meeting, which unanimously ratified the settlement with the exception of a couple of Pathans present.
I reached home at 2 or 3 a.m. Sleep was out of the question, as I had to rise early and go to the jail to get the others released. I reached the jail at 7 a.m. The Superintendent had received the necessary orders on the ’phone, and he was waiting for me. All the Satyagrahi prisoners were released in the course of one hour. The Chairman and other Indians were present to welcome them, and from jail all of us proceeded to the place of meeting where a second meeting was now held. That day and a couple of subsequent days were passed in feasting and educating the community on the settlement. With the lapse of time, if on the one hand the implications of the settlement became clearer misunderstandings on the other hand also began to thicken. We have already discussed the chief causes of misunderstanding. Then again the letter we had written to General Smuts was open to misrepresentation. The difficulty I experienced in meeting the various objections which were thus raised was infinitely greater than what I had felt while the struggle was actually in progress. In the days of struggle, the only difficulties felt crop up in our relations with the adversary, and these are always easily overcome, for then all internecine strife and internal discord are either suspended altogether or at least they lose their prominence in face of the common danger. But when the fight is over, internal jealousies are again fully in play, and if the differences with the adversary have been amicably settled, many take to the easy and grateful task of picking holes
