THE COLONY
15
nation-radio, newspaper and rumor-to spread that information
throughout the area.
All had incidents to report; and all having, naturally, traveled
third class, they had been subjected to the usual humiliations with a
few new annoyances, such as having to fill out in triplicate the lengthy
travel applications at each government inspection station they had
passed. (Some had encountered as many as twenty stations on the
way, had missed their trains and been held over for days without
accommodations. The papers had previously been carried by the
traveller from origin to destination. The new ruling, which had
never been published, and which, the delegates were certain, had
been applied only against them, required that a complete set be made
out at the beginning and surrendered at the end of each stage of
the trip.)
The delegates spoke freely of their fears, confessing to Satya
that, in Bapu's time, they had never known such pessimism. He felt
no jealousy, no resentment. He had already known this to be true,
and had himself shared in the general depression, the grief over losing
a leader whom, he freely admitted, he himself could never replace.
Nor did he remind them, iri self-defense, that the administration had
changed since Bapu's time. What colored man did not know this?
A few of the delegates had been placed, with Satya, under pre–
liminary, or ambulatory, arrest and could go nowhere without the
company of lndefatigables. Satya's own guard had been reduced
by the removal of one of the soldiers-the one who had gone in
advance of the procession and had never known which way to turn.
The remaining Indefatigable now walked at Satya's side, the better
to be seen. He had acquired the white man's usual arrogance. In
private he called Satya "boy." But in public, whenever they passed
a group of white officers in the street, he would find some reason for
addressing Satya by name while the officers were still within earshot.
Once, while: they were abroad on a hot afternoon, he removed his
headgear, wiped
his
forehead and forgot himself to the extent of
uttering a word of criticism of the administration that made him wear
fur in summer. Satya also forgot himself and remarked,
in
all friend–
liness, and with an unforgivable assumption of equality-if not of
actual superiority-that the soldier could consider himself fortunate
that he was not stationed in the mother country, where his duties
would have been more severe: and degrading, since he should have
had to oppress his own people. The soldier replaced his headgear,
lengthened his stride and, prodding Satya along with his stick, re-
