CHAPTER XXX.
NEWS OF SURJA MUKHI.
It is late autumn.

The waters from the fields are drying up; the rice crop is ripening; the lotus flowers have disappeared from the tanks.
At dawn, dew falls from the boughs of the trees; at evening, mist rises over the plains.

One day at dawn a palanquin was borne along the Madhupur road.

At this sight all the boys of the place assembled in a row; all the daughters and wives, old and young, resting their water-vessels on the hip, stood awhile to gaze.

The husbandmen, leaving the rice crop, sickle in hand and with turbaned heads, stood staring at the palanquin.