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to take the dust of my feet. For me there was no sleep or rest during the twenty-four hours of the journey, and, when I arrived at the terminus at Sealdah before daybreak, I found that a huge crowd had assembled to welcome us. The boys of the Anti-Circular Society, with their honoured President Babu Krishna Kumar Mittra, were in the same train.
We were all taken to College Square, where, in those early hours of the morning, before Calcutta had risen from its sleep, thousands had gathered to see us and to hear us. There are always moments in the lives of men that are worth living for. For me this was one of such moments. My voice was hoarse with the speeches I had had to make so often during the past twenty-four hours. But, overborne by the enthusiasm of the hour, I again spoke, exhorting the audience to stick to the Swadeshi vow and to carry on the agitation against the Partition with unflinching determination, in the certain confidence that it was bound to be undone or modified.
Among the speakers on that occasion was that devoted man, Liyakat Hossain. He said that he had fasted the whole day when he heard of my arrest. Liyakat Hossain is a singular personality. He had suffered imprisonment for sedition. He was shadowed by the police; his public activities were often restrained by official authority. One may or may not agree with him, but he is dauntless and unflinching, unbending in his honesty of purpose. I fear the officials look upon him as a dangerous fanatic. But for sincerity of purpose, single-minded devotion to the interests of his country, and fearless courage in serving them, he has few peers. He is not a Bengalee; he comes from Behar and does not speak our language; but Bengal is the land of his adoption and the Bengalees are the people of his love. I have not always been able to see eye to eye with him in regard to some of his views and methods, but he stood forth as a champion worker in the Swadeshi cause; and for him there has always been a soft corner in my heart.
Before I take leave of this part of my reminiscences I must say a word or two about Mr. A. Rasool, the President of the Barisal Conference. Alas! death has snatched him away in his prime, on the eve of his celebrating the most notable event of his domestic life, the marriage of his only daughter. He died suddenly of heart failure, in the midst of a promising career of great public usefulness, to the infinite regret of his friends and admirers and the heavy loss of his country. Mr. Rasool was a Bengalee Mohamedan and came from the district of Comilla in East Bengal. He was a graduate of