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THE WRECK

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Bipin had really no call to be nervous for the boy could swim like a fish and cotdd hardly have drowned himself if he had tried. He wearied at last of flounder- ing in the water and emerging from the river wallowed on the sand, weeping bitterly.

Bipin laid his hand on Ramesh's shoulder to arouse him from his stupor.

"Come, Ramesh Babu," he said, "we're only wast- ing time here. We'll send word to the police and they'll make all possible inquiries."

No one in Sailaja's entourage had any food or sleep that day and the house resounded with cries of grief.

Fishermen were engaged to drag the river thor- oughly and the police scoured the whole countryside. Special inquiries were made at the railway station, but no Bengali girl answering to Kamala's description had been seen entering the night train.

Uncle arrived that afternoon, and when he heard a detailed account of the occurrence and of Kamala's strange behaviour prior to her disappearance, he be- came convinced that she had committed suicide by drowning.

"I know now," remarked Lachminia, "why Umi cried so and took such a turn last night We'll need to exorcise her bad luck pretty thoroughly !"

So utterly stupefied was Ramesh by the catastrophe that He could not shed a single tear.

"To think," he mused, "that Kamala should come to me out of the Ganges and that she should be swallowed up again in the self-same river like some innocent flower that a worshipper throws into the stream!"

He returned to the river after sunset and, stand- ing on the spot where the keys had been found, gazed once more at the little footprints. Then he removed his shoes, girt up his waistcloth, and wading out into

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