Sometimes, however, Divya would think that perhaps Amma had become frightened and had returned to the palace, and this thought would keep her quiet.

Behind the ostensibly kind behaviour of Pratool, Divya sensed the trickery of the slave trader in keeping his captive safe and contented. Divya realized that Pratool was sympathetic only because he wanted to take her safely across the borders of Madra. Once the border was crossed, the noose of slavery and oppression would tighten around her neck. Her silence was a form of consent. The impulse to cry out seized her once again. One cry, one word, and she would be saved from the agony. But where would she go? Back to the palace of her great-grandfather in Sagal? No, never!

Even though a slave, she still had a roof over her head. Where would she go if she became homeless? Caught in the rain, a homeless person seeks shelter even behind a fence post. Tears welled up in her eyes and she fell silent. ‘Pratool and Anjana also know of my plight,’ she thought. ‘So they don’t consider it necessary to use real chains to bind me. Far stronger than any physical bonds are the subtle invisible shackles that have kept me a captive.’

The customs clearance given, the slave trader Pratool’s caravan boarded a barge standing on the shallow waters at the bank of the Shatudri river. The boatmen pushed the barge into the current and it began to move swiftly down the river. They then began to ply their oars with full strength, calling out the rhythm of their strokes.

The chorus of the boatmen as they swung their oars, the conversation among the passengers about the situation in Madra—Divya was oblivious to all that she heard or saw. Her eyes saw the vast stretches of the sandy bank on either side of the river, but she felt nothing. She was thinking to herself, ‘I have, with my own hands, pushed the boat of my life into the fast current … Who knows where it will carry me?’

The barge moved slowly eastwards and the shore of Madra receded into the distance. Though she had suffered greatly there, separation from it tore her heart. Her agony struggled to express itself in one word ‘Mother!’ Would she have left that country in her helpless state, if her mother, who had given her birth, had been alive? And her second mother, her Amma, Dhata’s face appeared before her eyes. ‘All daughters leave their mothers one day or the other to go and live with their husbands in the house of their in-laws,’ Divya thought, ‘but they are content to go, they are even eager at heart, to be starting a new life in marriage.’

The thought of a husband brought Prithusen’s face before her eyes. ‘What is the difference between the deceiver Prithusen and the slave trader Pratool?’ she thought and a shiver ran through her body. She felt as though her teeth had closed on a mouthful of grit. Of what use was her love for the country where she had been treated so shabbily? With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes.