Ah! what a relief! For they had shadows, though very faint ones: I wonder if any sight has brought more joy and satisfaction to anyone. The up-country men removed the fish from our canoe with extraordinary despatch and tied them up in a piece of gauze-like cloth. A jingling sound revealed to me what it was they pressed into Indra's hands.
Indra unloosed the canoe, but did not let it move down the stream. He began to punt it slowly along the bank of the river.
I said nothing, for my mind had risen against him in inexpressible bitterness and contempt. And this was the boy whom a moment ago I had wanted to embrace in sheer delight, at the mere sight of his pale shadow in the moonlight! Yes, that is how man is constituted. At the slightest discovery of another's fault we forget in an instant everything we have known to his credit. But what had I seen? Only this—he had not shown the least sign of hesitation in taking money from disreputable men. Until then it had never entered my mind that our nocturnal adventure might be regarded as a thieving expedition. In our boyhood it is the stealing of money that is synonymous with theft, not the stealing of other things. That was why all the glory and splendour of our adventure vanished at the mere sound of the jingling coin. If Indra had thrown away all the fish into the Ganges, if he had done any conceivable thing with them except this one thing of bartering them for money, I should have been the first to resent the suggestion that we were out on a thieving expedition. I have no doubt that in my boyish enthusiasm I should have wanted to knock down anyone who expressed so outrageous an opinion and should have felt completely
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