CHAPTER VIII
In Shelter.
Under the wing of the inky darkness of the moonless night, both ran into cover of the wood at their top-most speed. The wood path was unknown to Nabokumar and he had no other choice left him than to follow the lead of that fair guide of sixteen summers. This, too, was writ on my brow by that unknown scribe thought he within himself. The reflection betrayed Nabokumar's ignorance that the Bengalee is always the slave and never the master of circumstances. If he even knew this, he would never have felt either sick or sorry for it. On they travelled, they gradually slackened their paces. The gloom enveloped everything under its deep fold. Only at places the chalky crests of sand-dunes seldom loomed sentinel-like under the star-lit night. At odd intervals, in the tiny glow of the fire-flies, the tall trees of the forest stood out in their ghostly outlines against the dark blue sky.
Nabokumar in company of Kapalkundala arrived at a lonely recess in the wood. The turret of a temple was descried in the foreground through the forest gloom. Near the temple was, also, visible a house with a brick wall around it. Advancing, Kapalkundala knocked at the door in the wall and after short sharp raps came out a man's voice from inside "I presume you are Kapalkundala". "Open the door please" chimed in, Kapalkundala.
