That night Golab made a great feast to all his followers, and bitter were the thoughts of his defeated rival, as he lay sleepless on his string charpoy, listening to the devilish exultation implied by the ceaseless tom-toms.
As days went on, his thoughts became still more poignant; it seemed to him that his friends were showing defection. Golab Rai had fine crops, on which there was no lien; he had a son to light the torch of his funeral pyre; he had the well. Of a truth, he had too much! And he, Pershad, had been flung in the dust, like a broken gurrah. Thus he reflected as he sat brooding on the river-bank at sundown. The cattle were strolling home through the marshes, the cranes were wheeling overhead, close by a fierce, lean, black pariah gnawed some mysterious and ghastly meal among the rushes, and on a sandbank lay three huge alligators—motionless as logs of wood—crafty as foxes, voracious as South Sea sharks. Durga Pershad glanced indifferently at the cattle, at the cranes, but as his eyes fell on the alligators they kindled, they blazed with a truly sinister flash—the alligators had offered him an idea!
It was the feast of lights or lanterns, the festival of Lucksmi, wife of Vishnu, and the goddess of festival. She, however, brought naught but sore misfortune to the house of Golab Rai, for since sundown the child was missing—was gone, without leaving a trace. Amongst the busy excitement of preparing the illuminations and decorations, he had vanished. His mother supposed he was with his father, and his father believed him to be with his mother. Every house, byre, and nook—yea, even the well, was searched in vain. Durga Pershad was humbly appealed to, as he sat on his chabootra stolidly smoking his huka.
“Why question me?” he replied. “How should I know aught of the brat? What child’s talk is this?”
A whole day—twenty-four long hours—elapsed, and suspicion pointed a steady finger at Durga Pershad. Of late it was noticed that he and the child had been friends—that he had given Soonder sweets—yea, and a toy. One man averred that he saw a pair resembling them going towards the river about sundown. The child was jumping for joy, and had a green air-balloon in his hand.
This, Durga Pershad swore, was a black lie; he had never left the village; his kinsman could speak.
“For how much?” scoffed the other side. “What fool will credit a man’s relations?”
Four days passed, and Golab Rai had aged by twenty years. His round, fat face was drawn and shrivelled; he was bent like an aged man, and tottered as he walked.
As for his wife, she had almost lost her senses, though both she and her husband clung wildly to hope, and he had lavished money unsparingly in rewards and horse-flesh. As a last resource, the miserable mother of Soonder came and cast her dishevelled person at the feet of Durga Pershad—Durga Pershad, whom all her life she had mocked, reviled, and figuratively spat upon.