मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

vain, but had in them the power to stir other men even as a drop of oil serves to flare up the burning fire into flame. And it happened like that on the day about which I am writing. Who must have sent the news to India and carried the letters, was a matter of discussion among the jail authorities. And as they could not get at the source, they became more irritated than ever. Days went on in this way when I was informed in reply to my former petitions that I was allowed to move out, and the officers would send me out on the following Monday. I was surprised at the reply! I felt that my brother also would be allowed to go out. I learnt by heart all the lines of poetry that I had scribbled on the walls of my room, and waited for the promised Monday to arrive. I was not sure all the, same that they would keep their word, Monday dawned. Some prisoners were sent out, and I was not among them. I lay confined in my own cell. On the third day the Superintendent came to me, and I asked him about it. As he was honest of word, he felt shamed of himself as he was the man who had given me the news of the promised relief. The Chief Commissioner, he said, had gone to Rangoon and that I would know about it after his return. I felt doubtful about it. The Commissioner had gone to Rangoon to see the Lieutnent Governor, and, as soon as he had returned, there began one fine morning a regular campaign of arrest in the Andamans instead of my being sent out of the Silver Jail as promised by the Superintendent when he saw me last. Mass arrests Some were manacled, others were detained, and others again had their rooms searched. Prom the political prisoners the campaign spread out to the houses of free citizens, of Jamadars and tindels. The search and arrest party was manned entirely by European officers. And it did its work with terrible efficiency. It threatened, it shouted, it scolded and it terrorised, till the whole of the colony was stricken with nervousness and fear. The cause of all this noise and fury was that the officers had information of a bomb- factory started in the island by political prisoners working in the settlement. And it was not altogether without foundation. But the search and the arrests afforded no clue to it. Even a cracker did not come out in the search, not to speak of a bomb. The informant was a Bengali gentleman, Lalmohan by name. On two other occasions he had similarly put the Officers on a false trail. The officers were, of course, furious with him. It was the same warder who was suspected by them of delivering Hotilal's letter from the prison to its proper quarters. The warder had perhaps raised the canard to propitiate the gods he had displeased. However that be, the political prisoners suffered terribly by this tale- telling of Lalmohan. Rumours were afloat that a bomb was found in an adjoining brook; that letters were intercepted by the police containing the plan of chartering boats to take the prisoners across the seas. No one was sure of what he was saying and what he had heard. The only thing one was sure of was the wholesale arrest of political prisoners and their being clapped back into their cells. Now we knew why the Chief Commissioner had gone to Rangoon. Mr. Barrie's stock went high up in the market. He dared say to the Commissioner himself that he was always telling him that these were dangerous men and