THE haze cleared and bright moonlight covered the great expanse of sand with a dazzling white garment such as our widows wear. On the river not a boat, not a ripple even, was to be seen, and peace, like the unbroken calm that death bestows on a tortured sufferer, overspread stream and shore.
When Ramesh regained consciousness he found himself lying on the margin of a sandy island. Some time elapsed before he could remember what had happened, then the whole catastrophe came back to him like a fevered dream, and he sprang to his feet. His first impulse was to discover what had befallen his father and his friends. He gazed around but nowhere was there sign of mortal man. He started off along the water’s edge searching in vain. The snow-white island lay like a child in arms, between two branches of the great Padma river — a tributary of the Ganges. Ramesh traversed one side of the island and had just begun to search the other when he espied something that looked like a red garment. He quickened his pace and found, lying as if lifeless on the sand, a young girl clad in the crimson dress of a bride.
Ramesh had learned how to bring back to life the apparently drowned. For a long time he persevered in his efforts to restore respiration by drawing the girl’s arms above her head then pressing them against her sides, till at last she drew breath and her eyes opened.
Ramesh was completely exhausted by this time and for the next few minutes he was unable to command enough breath even to question the girl. Nor had she, it seemed, fully regained consciousness, for hardly had she opened her eyes than she wearily closed them again. Ramesh found, however, on examination, that her breathing was unimpeded. For a long time he sat gazing at her in the pale moonlight. It was a strange environment for their first real meeting, this deserted spot between land and water, as it were between life and death.
Who had said that Susila was not good looking? The moonlight flooded the landscape with a glorious effulgence and the overarching sky seemed illimitably vast, yet all Nature’s magnificence was in Ramesh’s eyes but a setting for one little sleeper’s face.
Everything else was forgotten. “I am glad now,” reflected Ramesh, “that I did not look at her in the bustle and turmoil of the wedding. I should never have had a chance to see her as I see her now. By bringing her back to life I have made her mine much more effectually than by repeating the prescribed formulas of the marriage rite. By reciting the formulas I should merely have made her mine in the sight of men, whereas now I have taken her as the special gift of a kindly Providence!”
The girl recovered consciousness and sat up. She pulled her disordered clothing round her and drew the veil over her head.
“Do you know at all what happened to the others in your boat?” asked Ramesh.
She shook her head without a word.
“Would you mind being left alone for a few minutes while I go and search for them?” Ramesh went on. The girl did not answer but her shrinking body said plainer than words, “Don’t leave me alone here!”
Ramesh understood her mute appeal. He stood up and gazed round him but there was no sign of life on the glistening waste of sand. He called to each of his friends by name, shouting at the top of his voice, but there was no response.
Finding his efforts fruitless Ramesh sat down again. The girl’s face was now buried in her hands and she was trying to keep back the tears, but her bosom was rising and falling. Some instinct told him that mere words of consolation would be useless and he sat close up to her and stroked her bowed head and neck very gently. She could no longer restrain her tears and her grief burst forth in a torrent of inarticulate utterance. Tears flowed from Ramesh’s eyes in sympathy.
By the time they had cried their hearts out the moon had set. Through the darkness the dreary waste showed like a baleful dream and the white wilderness of sand was ghost-like in the gloom. Here and there the river glistened in the faint starlight like the dark glossy scales of some huge snake.
Ramesh took the girl’s hands — tender little hands chilled by fear — in his own and drew her gently towards him. She offered no resistance, fear having deprived her of all instincts except the desire for human companionship. In the unplumbed darkness she found the refuge that she longed for on the palpitating warmth of Ramesh’s breast. It was no time for bashfulness and she nestled confidently into the embrace of his enfolding arms.
The morning star set and over the grey expanse of the river the eastern sky grew pale, then reddened. Ramesh lay in a deep sleep on the sand, while the young bride lay buried in slumber beside him with her head pillowed on his arm. The morning sun fell lightly on their eyes, and both started up out of sleep. For a moment they stared around them in amazement, then suddenly they realised that they were castaways and that home was a long way off.