THE COLONY
29
power on earth could stop, would see that it fell, completely cmshed,
never to rise again. "Long live Satya!" they had cried over his pro–
tests. Thus they fell to singing hymns and their voices, bearing the
divine and forgotten words, blended with the purr of the motor.
But the hymns ended and the darkness persisted. It grew close
and hot and finally one of the prisoners fainted. The driver refused
to stop and the military guard did not allow them to have water until
it was time for their meal, at sundown. They had great difficulty re–
viving the invalid. Then, after they persuaded him to sit near the door,
where it was cooler, the whole company circled about inside the van
to bring him to the door and a number were injured, knocking their
heads against the walls.
This had broken the silence. Thereafter complaints of suffering
were heard-physical, mental and finally political. It had not been
such a good speech, after all. Satya had neglected the special problems
of the trade unions and the working class: a fine socialist he was. The
speech had served only to provoke the authorities, who--as everyone
knew-had been reluctant to act. No, argued one of the moderates,
more than the speech was at fault. Satya was wrong to have convened
the general party meeting in a time of crisis. Bapu would have acted
differently, argued another. He would have done thus and such. Or
else, so and so. They argued over what Bapu would have done, for–
getting Satya entirely, until one of the prisoners remarked, "Anyway,
such a speech should not have been delivered until the closing session.
Now think of all the business that did not get transacted." Recalled,
thereby, to Satya, they attacked him with increased bitterness. They
spoke openly now of the collapse of the resistance movement and held
him responsible for the misfortune. All was lost; not the administra–
tion, but the people would be crushed. Satya had been a greedy poli–
tician and a vain and mthless leader, lusting for power and warning
against it only to beguile his followers. They went so far as to accuse
him of having conspired with the administration to cmsh the resistance
movement. He had arranged for his speech to serve as the signal for
beginning the oppression. And now, having used
him,
the authorities
would throw him in jail with the rest. Unless, of course, they set him
free at the end of the trip and rewarded him with a commission in
the civil service. But by then they had lost all reason and were weak
with hunger, having refused, on religious grounds, to eat the rotten
fish which the guards threw to them at nightfall.
Of one thing Satya was sure, as he sat cross-legged on the floor of
