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

tramp as if he was returning as a hero of hundred battles. A third treaded as if he was bent to make mother earth fall at his feet, a fourth proceeded with a hang-dog look, nervous and ashamed to look up. The party was moving to its quarters in a row of two each. It was guarded by armed sepoys on either side of it. Between the measured paces of the regular soldiers and the clanging foot-falls of the prisoners, it was a sight full of fun, nay, of grim humour. The Master-criminal Look at that Mussalman from Sindh. He is the super-dacoit. Behold him, stern of face with a jungle of thick hair crowning his head and hanging down his neck. He wears thick and pointed moustaches and a beard to match them. He rolls his protuberant eyes all around him. He flaunts his prisoner’s garb, and wears the chains of his shackles like a girdle round his waist, as if he was decked out for a Kingship. He does it all nonchalantly. He has put his bedding under the arm-pit. He is calling out some one uproariously. He laughs and sports and walks along as if he was a victor returning home in triumph. The warders say of him that it is his third turn to go to the Andamans. He was twice there before, each time sentenced to hard labour and transportation. And now he is transported for life. He boasts and brags that he had worked there as a Jamadar, and that he was a terror to other prisoners in that colony. As an instance he tells, so the warders report to me, that in a fit of rage he knocked down a young fellow with the bludgeoning blow of his stick. The blow had broken the skull and the victim had expired the day following. The dacoit-jamadar had felled the lad for being too intimate with his enemy. And he had taken no permission from the Jamadar to talk to him. The Jamadar had reported that the boy had fallen from the edge of an embankment where he was detailed for duty; hence the accident and the death. And he had escaped scot-free! The new recruits to crime he flabbergasted by telling that all the Officers in the gaol at the Andamans were his friends. His return there meant his sure reinstatement in the old post. In support he referred to them as this and that and the other Mr. So and So. So much did he impress the youngsters in the party by this tall talk, that, ever after, they attended upon him as his minions and propitiated him by flattery and service. Of course, the youngsters did this to save themselves from shame, and from the rigours of their punishment in the horrible prison to which they were being transported. The party on its way to Thana was regaled with plantains, coconuts, sweets and money-gifts by the passers-by on the route. These young recruits passed on the money to their future Jamadar, and champooed his feet on the way. He, on his side, promised them cushy jobs, with the influence he had with Mr. Diggin or Mr. Montford. So he spun yarns and thoroughly enjoyed himself. The gullibles in the party had to pay the price. This One Stabbed His Sister Observe in the same gang this boy who is yet in his teens-not more than nineteen at the most. What did he do to deserve the company of that master-criminal- the dacoit