So behind Rash Behari’s triumphal carriage, amid the shouting and the garlands and the flags, death, distrust, and suspicion whispered of mortality. That night few slept. Backwards and forwards, from tent to tent and house to house, the leaders passed, discussing, consulting, deliberating, full of uncertainty and apprehension. Morning found them still apprehensive and uncertain. In a last effort to secure Mr. Surendra Nath Banerjea, if not peace, Mr. Tilak, Arabindo Ghose, and Mr. Khaparde went to his house with proposals. Mr. Moti Lal Ghose, of the _Amrita Bazar Patrika_, went with him as peacemaker, though that remarkable man had qualifications for the task about on a level with a porcupine’s. To Surendra Nath they proposed two conditions under which they would refrain from opposing the President’s election: the four Calcutta resolutions on Self-government, Swadeshi, the Boycott, and National Education must be repeated in the same form as last year, and some “graceful allusion” must be made by one of the speakers on the election of the President, “to the desire of the public to have Lajpat Rai in the Chair.” To make such an allusion graceful at such a moment might have puzzled even Surendra Nath’s eloquence. But he was not the man to abandon either party in their need. He undertook both conditions for himself, and advised the Nationalists to seek an interview with Mr. Gokhale or Mr. Tribhovandas Malvi, a Surat gentleman, chairman of the Reception Committee, and supreme in the Congress till the President was elected. They did not attempt to see Mr. Gokhale. Mr. Malvi could not see them, because he was engaged in prayer.