By reasoning and entreaty the youthful bands of “Volunteers” in khaki and forage caps at last cleared a space. A procession of carriages was formed and began to advance step by step through the shouting throngs of orange, crimson, and white-clad people. All the windows and tottering balconies of the beautiful but decrepit city that starves upon its past—even the galleries of Islam’s crumbling minarets and the roofs of Hindu temples—were crammed with faces. Women peeped through shutters or stood shamelessly beside their children and brothers. Boys and girls thrust their heads through holes in the ruinous walls. At every few yards more garlands were offered, more bunches of flowers and sweet-smelling seeds. Thick fell the showers of rose-water sprayed from silver bottles. On every side rose the great cheer of “Bande Mataram!” From end to end the streets were hung with strings of pink and yellow paper flags, and here and there a triumphal arch uttered the universal welcome in Indian or English words. The great Pandal, or Pavilion, for the Congress, and the camp of tents pitched around it for the delegates from all India stood by the river side beyond the town itself. The distance was not much over two miles, and yet that journey took more than two hours to accomplish, so high ran the enthusiasm of joy. But, behind the shouting and the triumph, one heard the quiet voice that whispers of mortality. In the grey light of Christmas morning, as we came through some obscure junction in the train, we had heard that Mr. Allen, the collector of Dacca, had been shot on the platform at Goalundo in Eastern Bengal, and his life was despaired of. Mr. Allen did in the end recover, but at the time recovery was said to be impossible, and the news threw the same gloom and consternation over the Indian party of reform as struck the Irish Home Rulers on the news of the Phœnix Park murders. The month before there had been an attempt to wreck Sir Andrew Fraser’s train as he was returning from Orissa; but this was the first political assassination, and every one knew that it would be answered by more repression, leading to further outrages and more repression again. Nothing worse could have befallen the party that still hoped for some sort of agreement in reform and conciliation with the country’s far-off rulers, and the mute despondency that fell upon the leaders in the train showed the depth of their foreboding.