Hardly had Ramzan perpetrated this odious deed than he felt he would
give his chances of bihisht (paradise) to recall it. He ran along the
bank shouting frantically, "Maini! Maini!" Alas! her slender body was
carried like a straw by the foaming water towards the Ganges and soon
disappeared in a bend of the nullah. Then her murderer sat down and
gave himself up to despair. But the sun was up; people were stirring in
the fields; and so he slunk homewards. Fatima stood on the threshold
and raised her eyebrows inquiringly; but Ramzan thrust her aside,
muttering, "It is done," and shut himself up in his wife's room. There
everything reminded him of her; the scrupulous neatness of floor
and walls--no cobwebs hanging from the rafters, the kitchen utensils
shining like mirrors. He sat down and burst into a flood of tears.
For several days he did not exchange a word with his accomplice, and
dared not go to market lest his worst fears should be realised. Dread
of personal consequences added new torture to unavailing remorse. Every
moment he expected the red-pagried ministers of justice to appear and
hale him to the scaffold. The position was clearly past bearing. So,
too, thought Fatima, for she waylaid her son one afternoon and said:
"Ramzan, I cannot stand this life any longer; let me go to my brother
Mahmud Sardar, the cooly-catcher".
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