CHAPTER V.
In his native land.
Nabokumar returned home with Kapalkundala. He had no father though he had his widowed mother and two sisters. The first sister was also a widow and we shall have no occasion to introduce our gentle reader to her. The second one was Shyamasundari. She had her husband alive though she looked a widow to all intents and purposes as she had been married to a high-class Kulin. She alone will make her appearance in our midst once or twice. We are not sure how far Nabokumar's relations would have been satisfied if he chanced to marry an ascetic girl and carried her home in a changed set of circumstances. After all, Nabokumar encountered no difficulty in this respect as every body despaired of his return.
On return home, his erstwhile companions bruited it far and wide that Nabokumar was killed by a tiger. The gentle reader may think that these people who bore the hall-mark of veracity invented the story according to their own beliefs and opinions. If this be his honest opinion, then he does a grave injustice to the fantastic inventiveness of these wise acres. Of the returned pilgrims, many made solemn affirmations that they saw with their own eyes Nabokumar run
