Kapalkundala (Ghose)/Part 4/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
In dream.
Slowly and silently Kapalkundala closed the door—slowly and silently she crept into the bedroom—and slowly and noiselessly she laid herself down on the bed-stead. Man's mind is like a boundless ocean. What man is there who can count the tumbling, rollicking waves that are whipped into fury by the storm and wind raging across its breast? Who could reckon, then, the endless waves that tossed and swelled on the storm-swept ocean-like mind of Kapalkundala?
Nabokumar did not come into the inner-appartments that night through heart-sickness. So Kapalkundala lay alone in her bed-room though sleep did never visit her eyes. She seemed to see around her, in the midst of darkness, that terrible face, surmounted by a crown of matted locks tossed up by the high wind and drenched in the rain that dribbled from it. Her mind retrospected the past events, chapter by chapter, as they happened, and dangled before her vision, the slovenly treatment she accorded to the Kapalik on the eve of her departure—the fiendish acts he used to perpetrate in the sea-side wilderness—his Bhairobi worship—and Nabokumar's bondage and she gave an involuntary start. Her thoughts flew backward again across space and time and recalled the same night's incidents—Shyama's feverishness for the drug—Nabokumar's warning—Kapalkundala's admonition—the weird moon-light beauty in the shaded glade—the gathering gloom under the forest-trees—the chance companion in the forest purview—and the strange commingling of a shapely form with the leering spectre of horridness in him.
When the first glitter of the radiant dawn emblazoned the eastern sky, did Kapalkundala fall into a light sleep and in that short light sleep she saw dreams. It appeared she was out in a pleasure-boat on a joy-row across the bosom of the previously seen ocean. The boat was gaily dressed with bunting, and pennons of gold and yellow flew from the peak, bow and port. The oarsmen rowed merrily with flower garlands festooned round their necks and sang jolly tunes of the amorous ditties of Radha Shyam. The sun was raining down liquid gold from the western sky and under the sunny shower of that golden cascade the sea smiled and gaily rippled by. Clouds scudded along the sky steeped and refreshed in the riotous profusion of the sparkling light and colour. In the midst of such simpering mirth and rollicking jollity, the sun suddenly went out and night came up. Dark blue clouds mantled the sky and everything was kicked up into confusion. The crew turned the head of the boat though they knew not which way to steer her as the compass lost its bearings. They stopped singing and tore through the flower garlands. Flags of yellow and gold were rent through and the flag-staff crashed overboard. Wind rose, mountain-high waves leapt into fury, and out of this tumult of elements, a bulky man of matted locks came forward and, seizing one side of Kapalkundala's boat, was about to hurl her into the mid-ocean. At this psychological moment, the same person of graceful mien tinged with a grim humour depicted on every line of the face and dressed. in a Brahmin's guise appeared on the scene and held fast the boat.
"Whether I shall rescue or drown you" asked he.
"Drown me" issued from the lips of Kapalkundala.
The seeming Brahmin gave a shove to the boat and the boat got her voice and spoke "I can't carry this load any further. Let me go deep down into the bowels of the earth."
With these words, the boat flung away Kapalkundala into water and went down into the pit far into the earth below.
Dripping in perspiration, Kapalkundala startled out of her dream and rubbed her eyes. It was dawn and the window stood wide open. Puffs of balmy, soft spring breeze came stealing into the room through the window bars. Wild birds of the wood were singing their joyous carols amidst tree-branches rocked by the wind. Sundry lovely wood trailers laden with sweet-scented flowers traced a natural trellies-work around the window casement and were gently gesticulating before it. Kapalkundala, through her tender womanly nature was engaged in arranging the blossoms in a bunch and patting the blooms in places when lo! a missive came out from their midst. Kapalkundala was brought up under Adhicary's tutelage and so she learned to read. She read the contents as follows:-
"Please see the last night's Brahmin boy, after evening, to-night. You shall hear important things which you want to."
One in Brahmin's disguise.