Читать книгу Kapalkundala - Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay - Страница 5

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CHAPTER III.

Table of Contents

In Solitude.

Not far off from the place where Nabokumar was cast away, now stand two straggling villages under the names of Daulatpur and Dariapur. But at that period of which we are speaking, there could scarcely be visible any signs of human habitation. It was all woodland. The part of this countryside was not so as other parts of Bengal which are usually flat. An unbroken range of sand-dunes traversed the whole stretch of ground lying between the mouth of the Rasulpur river and the Subarnarekha. If the series of the sand-elevations would have been a little bigger in height, these might have claimed the appellation of a chain of sandhills. Now people call these the Baliari. The white cliffs of the Baliari or sandhills appear unusually bright under the hot meridian sun. No tall trees grow on those heights. Shrubs and undergrowths abound at the feet of these sand-mounds though the arid desolate belt and summit generally emit a white glow. Of the ​plants overgrowing the downward slope, there is plenty of waterside shrubs comprising bushes and flowering creepers.

At such an unpleasant spot was Nabokumar abandoned by his companions. The first thing that struck his eye, on return to the riverside with the load of wood, was the absence of the boat at the water edge. Though a sudden great fear immediately sent a shiver into his heart, it looked next to impossible that he could be ever forsaken there by his fellow-travellers. An impression gained upon him that due to the swamping of the down by the hightide they might have taken the boat to some secure place and so they would find him out in no time. Fed by this hope, he sat down and lay in wait for some time. But neither the boat came nor did the men put in their appearance. Nobokamar's little mary craved for food and drink. Unable to wait any longer, he wandered over the river-fringe hunting for the boat. But the boat could not be found any where. So the retraced his steps and came back to the starting ground. Though till then he could not see the boat he laboured under the delusion that the boat might have been carried away by the tide-stream and so they would be late in getting back against current. Even when the tide ebbed he thought the boat could not return owing to violence of the stream against which she could hardly make any headway. Now she might come back as the tide was out. But now the ebb-tide settled into a slacker stream, the day declined and the sun went down. The boat would have returned ​by this time if she had been put back on the reverse course.

Then he concluded either the boat was wrecked by the violence of the tidal water or he was left to his fate in this lonely place by his fellow-passengers.

Nobokumar saw no village there—the place without shelter, without men, without food, without drink. The river water tasted bitter brine and his heart was being rent under the agony of hunger and thirst. He found not the shelter that could save him from the biting cold nor had he sufficient clothing on. He had the gloomy prospect of lying down for the night on the icy-cold-wind-swept river bank under the canopy of the unkind sky, unsheltered and unprotected. During night there was the chance of his meeting tigers and bears. In any case death was certain.

Owing to the restlessness of mind Nabokumar could not sit still on one spot for a considerable time. He left the fore-shore, clambered up and wandered aimlessly. Gradually the colour faded out from the sky and darkness fell. The stars came out in the frosty sky overhead as silently as they used to do in his native clime. Now this wooded country-side was hushed in darkness—the sky, the field, the sea were all bathed in a stillness punctuated with the dull continuous roar of the sea and the occasional howling of wild beasts rising above all this. Still in that darkness did Nabokumar tramp around these sand-dunes under the bleak sky. Up hill and down dale, now at the foot of the sandhills and then on their crests did he ramble about ​ceaselessly. At every step of this aimless ramble had he the chance of an attack from the wild beasts. But he had the same fear even when he placed himself on one spot. Nabokumar grew footsore and fatigued with such wandering. He had been fasting all day and so he became all the more weary. He sat down at a certain place supporting his back against a sand-mound and remembered his cosy bed at home. When a man broods in an exhausted condition of his mind and body, sleep sometimes steals a march and closes his drooping eyelids. Thus Nabokumar blooded and glided into a vague sort of forgetfulness. Perhaps, had this not been the order of things, then men in all ages could ill-stand the stress and strain of domestic troubles.