His aunt pursed her lips in contempt and said: ‘You great clumsy, country lout! How can I afford, with all my family, to buy you new books five times a month?’

That night, on his way back from school, Phatik had a bad headache with a fit of shivering. He felt he was going to have an attack of malarial fever. His one great fear was that he would be a nuisance to his aunt.

The next morning Phatik was nowhere to be seen. All searches in the neighbourhood proved futile. The rain had been pouring in torrents all night, and those who went out in search of the boy got drenched through to the skin. At last Bishamber asked help from the police.

At the end of the day a police van stopped at the door before the house. It was still raining and the streets were all flooded. Two constables brought out Phatik in their arms and placed him before Bishamber. He was wet through from head to foot, muddy all over, his face and eyes flushed red with fever and his limbs trembling. Bishamber carried him in his arms and took him into the inner apartments. When his wife saw him she exclaimed: ‘What a heap of trouble this boy has given us! Hadn’t you better send him home?’

Phatik heard her words and sobbed out loud: ‘Uncle, I was just going home; but they dragged me back again.’

The fever rose very high, and all that night the boy was delirious. Bishamber brought in a doctor. Phatik opened his eyes, flushed with fever, and looked up to the ceiling and said vacantly: ‘Uncle, have the holidays come yet?’

Bishamber wiped the tears from his own eyes and took Phatik’s lean and burning hands in his own and sat by him through the night. The boy began again to mutter. At last his voice became excited: ‘Mother!’ he cried, ‘don’t beat me like that.... Mother! I am telling the truth!’

The next day Phatik became conscious for a short time. He turned his eyes about the room, as if expecting some one to come. At last, with an air of disappointment, his head sank back on the pillow. He turned his face to the wall with a deep sigh.

Bishamber knew his thoughts and bending down his head whispered: ‘Phatik, I have sent for your mother.’

The day went by. The doctor said in a troubled voice that the boy’s condition was very critical.

Phatik began to cry out: ‘By the mark—three fathoms. By the mark—four fathoms. By the mark—.’ He had heard the sailor on the river-steamer calling out the mark on the plumb-line. Now he was himself plumbing an unfathomable sea.

Later in the day Phatik’s mother burst into the room, like a whirlwind, and began to toss from side to side and moan and cry in a loud voice.

Bishamber tried to calm her agitation, but she flung herself on the bed, and cried: ‘Phatik, my darling, my darling.’