drop of blood: they were a bony cavern. In front of me, behind, to the right and to the left of me, darkness reigned: the still, silent night palpitated with the breath of desolation. The moans and sighs of despair seemed to be closing in upon me from all sides. And the cold, frosty breath on my ear would not stop or cease. It was this that did most to break my nerve. It seemed to me that all the cold blasts of the spirit-world were blowing on me through that bony cavern near my ear.
Throughout all these events I had clung to the idea that it would be fatal to lose consciousness, and that its loss would mean death. I found that my right leg was trembling visibly: I tried to keep it still, but without success; it appeared to be someone else's. Just then I heard several voices crying from far away, 'Babu-ji! Babu-sab!'[1] My hair stood on end. Who were these? Again I heard a cry, 'Please do not shoot!' This time the voices were nearer, and, without moving my head, I could see out of the corner of my eye a faint streak of light. One of the voices seemed to be that of Ratan, and a little later I perceived that it was really he. Advancing a little further, he stood behind a silk-cotton tree and shouted, 'Sir, wherever you may be, please don't shoot! We are Ratan.'[2] One could tell by his grammar that Ratan was really a barber by caste.
- ↑ Babu-ji and Babu-sab may be rendered by 'Sir' or 'Your honour'. Babu is the honorific title prefixed to names in Bengal and Bihar; ji is an honorific suffix. Babu-ji is also used alone, in addressing a person respectfully. Sab, a contraction for Sahib, meaning 'master' or 'gentleman', is also used as an honorific suffix here.
- ↑ 'We are Ratan', is characteristic of this caste's indifference to grammar.
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