Then said Atirupa: Sannyásí, I know that a message carried by thee would be of a value proportioned to its bearer; and tell me quickly what it is, for I am curious to learn.
And the sannyásí looked at him significantly, as it were with a wink of the eyes. And he said: O deity of Love, who knows better than thyself that a high caste lady, when she goes to an assignation, wraps herself up, and fastens her bangles and her anklets, to prevent them even from jingling? And there are words, and names, unfit to be heard, by any other ears than thine. Were I to speak, among all these ears, thou wouldst be the very first to punish me for my indiscretion.
Then Atirupa was filled with curiosity, and he said to himself; It is as I thought, and he is an emissary, and one, moreover, well suited to his task. And he turned, and exclaimed: Chamu, take every one away. And then, the sannyásí looked attentively at Chamu, as they went. And he said, in a low voice, to Atirupa: Maháráj, for I have heard of Chamu, that he is thy widushaka,[44] let him be at hand: for with thy permission, he and I will settle all the details of this negotiation, as soon as it has received thy own approval.
And Atirupa said: Chamu, be ready, when I call. And when they were all gone, he exclaimed with impatience: Now then, O sannyásí, to thy business, without any more delay. Who is thy employer? And the sannyásí said: Aranyání: and if thou hast forgotten her, she has not forgotten thee. But having abandoned her own body, she has entered mine, to give thee, as I said, the kiss of death.
And then, as Atirupa stared at him with amazement; that sannyásí leaped upon him, with a yell, and seized him, and threw him suddenly on his back. And he knelt on his throat, like a very mountain, and taking from his waist a knife, he plunged it, with blows like those of a carpenter that hammers in a nail, over and over again into his heart.
And then, as the retainers came running in, summoned as though on purpose, by his own yell, with Chamu at their head, he started to his feet. And as they looked towards him, lo! that sannyásí began to laugh. And he put up suddenly his hands, and seized, with one, his hair, and with the other, his beard, and tore them from his head.
And as Chamu stopped short, gazing at him with stupor and recognition, he stood for a single instant absolutely still, as if to let him see. And then, he leaned suddenly towards him, and he lifted his finger and he whispered very low: Hark! Dost thou not hear Aranyání calling, out of the other world? So now, then, we will go together, to seek her, along the great road. And he threw himself suddenly on Chamu, and took him by the throat, with huge hands whose fingers resembled the roots of a wata tree.
And as he felt the throat of that ill-doer in his hands, there came over him like a flood madness, that resembled the intoxication compounded of delight, and fury, and despair, as if his life-long devotion to Aranyání, and his wrath at her ruin and his own, had waited till that very moment to mingle with the rapture of revenge, and filling his soul with the ecstasy of the strength of a giant, had then become concentrated to pass into his hands. And as he squeezed, he muttered, not knowing what he said: Laugh, weasel, laugh now at Aranyání. And in the meantime all the others, to whom he paid no more attention than as if they were not there, seeing absolutely nothing before him but the eyes of Chamu that were starting from his head, fell upon him all together in a body, like a swarm of bees, and stung him, as it were, to death, exactly as they chose, cutting him to pieces with swords and knives. But for all that they did, they could not loose his hands, which remained just as they were, locked like an iron ring around the throat to which they clung, as if his will still animated them, even after he was dead.
So it came about, just as he predicted; and those two very bitter enemies went together, and as it were, hand-in-hand, into the other world. And Chamu, with his master Atirupa, went into other bodies. But the soul of Babhru entered, for his crime, into that body of a camel lying yonder, which perished, as I told thee to begin with, in the desert long ago.