that it was my duty to permit the student to kill the snake, and I permitted him. Even as I am writing this, I do not feel that I did anything wrong in granting the permission. I had not the courage to seize the serpent with the hand or otherwise to remove the danger to the settlers, and I have not cultivated such courage to this day.
Needless to say, there was on the Farm an ebb and flow of Satyagrahis, some of whom would be expecting to go to prison while others had been released from it. Once it so happened that there arrived at the Farm two Satyagrahis who had been released by the Magistrate on personal recognizance and who had to attend the court the next day to receive the sentence. They were engrossed in talk, while time was up for the last train they must catch, and it was a question whether they would succeed in taking that train. They were both young men and good athlets. They ran for all that they were worth along with some of us who wanted to see them off. While still on the way, I heard the whistle of the train as it steamed into the station. When there was a second whistle indicating its departure, we had reached the precincts of the station. The young men increased their speed every moment, and I lagged behind them. The train started. Fortunately the station master saw them running up and stopped the moving train, thus enabling them to take it after all. I tendered my thanks to the station master when I reached the station. Two points emerge out of this incident; first, the eagerness of the Satyagrahis in seeking jail and in fulfilling their promises, and secondly, the sweet relations cultivated by the Satyagrahis with the local officers. If the young men had missed that train, they could not have attended the court the next day. No surety had been required of them, nor had they been asked to deposit any money with the court. They had been released only on the word of gentlemen. The Satyagrahis had acquired such prestige that magistrates did not think it necessary to ask them for bail as they were courting jail. The young Satyagrahis therefore were deeply pained at the prospect of missing the train, and ran as swiftly as the wind. At
