Understanding why Banarnali wanted to go (From fear of ghosts, the
burning-ground being considered haunted.), Bidhu said: "I daresay!
Meanwhile, I suppose I am to sit here alone!"
Conversation ceased again. Five minutes seemed like an hour. In their
minds they cursed the two, who had gone to fetch the wood, and they
began to suspect that they sat gossiping in some pleasant nook. There
was no sound anywhere, except the incessant noise of frogs and crickets
from the tank. Then suddenly they fancied that the bed shook slightly,
as if the dead body had turned on its side. Bidhu and Banamali trembled,
and began muttering: "Ram, Ram." A deep sigh was heard in the room. In a
moment the watchers leapt out of the hut, and raced for the village.
After running about three miles, they met their colleagues coming back
with a lantern. As a matter of fact, they had gone to smoke, and knew
nothing about the wood. But they declared that a tree had been cut down,
and that, when it was split up, it would be brought along at once. Then
Bidhu and Banamali told them what had happened in the hut. Nitai and
Gurucharan scoffed at the story, and abused Bidhu and Banamali angrily
for leaving their duty.
Without delay all four returned to the hut. As they entered, they saw
at once that the body was gone; nothing but an empty bed remained. They
stared at one another. Could a jackal have taken it? But there was no
scrap of clothing anywhere. Going outside, they saw that on the mud
that had collected at the door of the but there were a woman's tiny
footprints, newly made. Saradasankar was no fool, and they could hardly
persuade him to believe in this ghost story. So after much discussion
the four decided that it would be best to say that the body had been
burnt.
Towards dawn, when the men with the wood arrived they were told that,
owing to their delay, the work had been done without them; there had
been some wood in the but after all. No one was likely to question this,
since a dead body is not such a valuable property that any one would
steal it.