was a little frightened. He knew what was coming. And, sure enough,
Makhan rose from Mother Earth blind as Fate and screaming like the
Furies. He rushed at Phatik and scratched his face and beat him and
kicked him, and then went crying home. The first act of the drama was
over.

Phatik wiped his face, and sat down on the edge of a sunken barge on the
river bank, and began to chew a piece of grass. A boat came up to the
landing, and a middle-aged man, with grey hair and dark moustache,
stepped on shore. He saw the boy sitting there doing nothing, and asked
him where the Chakravortis lived. Phatik went on chewing the grass, and
said: "Over there," but it was quite impossible to tell where he
pointed. The stranger asked him again. He swung his legs to and fro on
the side of the barge, and said; "Go and find out," and continued to
chew the grass as before.

But now a servant came down from the house, and told Phatik his mother
wanted him. Phatik refused to move. But the servant was the master on
this occasion. He took Phatik up roughly, and carried him, kicking and
struggling in impotent rage.

When Phatik came into the house, his mother saw him. She called out
angrily: "So you have been hitting Makhan again?"

Phatik answered indignantly: "No, I haven't; who told you that? "

His mother shouted: "Don't tell lies! You have."

Phatik said suddenly: "I tell you, I haven't. You ask Makhan!"
But Makhan thought it best to stick to his previous statement.