Just as he was about to stretch out on the charpoy, his wife came in. Her hair was dishevelled, her eyes horror-stricken, and shivers ran down her body every now and then. She opened her mouth to speak but only stuttered. With great difficulty she said, ‘It must be past midnight now, no? Please go to Jagat Pande now. I have just awoken from a ghastly dream, my heart is pounding madly against my chest. I feel as though I will die of this anxiety. Please go and settle the matter with him.’
‘I have just returned from there. My worry is much greater than yours. You came just as I stepped into the house.’
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘So you did go! What did he say? Did he relent?’
‘He demands five thousand rupees!’
‘Five thousand!’
‘He will not settle for a penny less and right now I can’t put together more than a thousand.’
After a moment’s thought, his wife said, ‘Give him what he desires, and somehow get rid of this trouble. I can give you the money if you don’t have it. I can foresee very dark days if he dies. His condition is not too bad, is it?’
If Sinha was ebony, his wife was sandalwood. He was her slave, following every one of her commands. The wife too was content with this arrangement. There lies an inherent contradiction between beauty and simplicity. A beautiful woman is never naive. She knows how to establish control over even the most secret corners of a man’s mind that are inaccessible to others.
‘All right,’ relented Sinha, ‘give me the money, I’ll hand it over to him. But the man is a nuisance. What if he goes about showing people the money and telling them how he got the better of me?’
‘He must leave this place, right?’
‘Then give me the money. I will remember this for life.’
With a tinge of suspicion, his wife added, ‘Come, I will also accompany you. There’s nobody to see us at this time of the night.’ Nobody knows the workings of a man’s mind like a wife knows her husband’s. Sinha’s wife too was fully aware of her husband’s ways of thinking. Who was to say that he wouldn’t hide the money on his way to Jagat Pande and return saying that he had handed the money over? And he would then claim that Jagat Pande wasn’t leaving despite receiving the money. So, she went and fetched the bundles of notes from the trunk and, wrapping them in a cloth, set out into the night with Mr Sinha. Mr Sinha looked pale. Every step he took was weighed down with grief. He walked, lantern in hand, his head hanging in regret. How could he recover from such a big loss? It would have been so much better if the devil had just died. It would have amounted to some humiliation, but at least he would have derived comfort from the thought that his money was secure. I pray to God he’s dead, thought Sinha to himself.
The two had only reached the crossing when they saw Jagat Pande walking in their direction—walking stick in hand, staggering at every step. His demeanour was so terrifying it looked as though a corpse had come to life.
Spotting them in the dark, Jagat Pande sat down with a heavy sigh and asked, ‘What took you so long? Did you bring the money?’
The wife replied, ‘Maharaj, why did you take the trouble of walking all the way? We were coming to you. You will take the money and leave for your home right away, won’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ he ensured, ‘I shall be off. Show me the money.’
The woman unwrapped the bundle of money and, casting the light of the lantern upon it, said, ‘Count it if you wish. It’s a full sum of five thousand.’
Pande took the bundle and, squatting down on the ground, started to check if everything was fine. His eyes began to glint with joy. Weighing the bundle in his hand he asked, ‘Are you sure this is five thousand?’
‘Count the whole bundle.’
‘This will fill two baskets!’ he said. Excitedly spreading his hands out to indicate plenty, he exclaimed, ‘Five thousand is this much!’
‘Do you still disbelieve me?’ Sinha asked.
‘No, no. It’s a full five thousand! So should I leave now?’
He took the bundle and began to walk away, staggering like a drunkard, but just a few steps later he stumbled and fell to the ground. Mr Sinha rushed to pick him up, only to find that his eyes had turned blank and his face was pale. He asked frantically, ‘Pande, have you hurt yourself?’
Pande parted his lips as if to speak, like a dying bird opens its beak to chirp, but no sound came out. The last thread of life also snapped. His mouth remained open and the bundle of notes stayed on his lifeless chest. The wife came running and seeing the dead body let out a scream.
‘What happened to him?’ she asked.
‘He died, what else?’
Beating her head with her hands she cried, ‘Dead! Good heavens! What do we do now?’
She scuttled towards the bungalow. Mr Sinha pulled the bundle of money away from the corpse and also began to head home.
‘What will you do with this money?’ Sinha’s wife asked.
‘I will donate it for some religious work.’
‘I beg you, do not keep this money at home! Oh God!’4
Before daybreak the news had already spread across the city—Jagat Pande lost his life because of Mr Sinha. A mob of nearly a thousand men was present when his body was picked up. Curses and abuses were being hurled at Mr Sinha.
After dusk, Mr Sinha had returned from the court and was sitting gloomily when the servants
