484 A CHAPTER ON ANNUALS. 



silence, at the same time evincing, by her nervous timidity of manner, that 

 she was held in terror by some powerful but mysterious influence. I confess 

 I was always much struck with her beauty whenever I saw her, and the 

 strict requisitions of the religion of which I had hitherto been a zealous 

 advocate, began to give way before my desire to become possessed of this 

 lovely idolatress. She was known to have had two or three children; but, 

 as they invariably disappeared as soon as they were born, it was reported 

 that they had been received into the bosom of Siva, among the suras* of the 

 supreme paradise, as the offspring of his vicegerent upon earth ; for so great 

 was the reputed sanctity of this wily devotee, that he was looked upon as the 

 accredited minister of the Godhead himself. 



" I had heard much of this extraordinary man, but held in supreme con- 

 tempt the marvels that were related of him, as the mere fabrications of 

 superstition ; when, however, I saw the subject of these marvels, I felt satis- 

 fied that, instead of being accredited in this world by the source of all good, 

 as he would fain represent he was, on the contrary, a most consummate 

 agent of the source of all evil. His countenance was an index of every thing 

 that was vicious and repulsive, and I could not help pitying the unhappy 

 creature who was doomed to share the dreary home of a being so externally 

 hideous, and whom I suspected to be no less deformed in mind than in body. 

 Having one day caught a sight of the lovely victim of superstition, for such 

 she indeed proved to be, I determined to try if I could not ascertain from her 

 something concerning the supernatural communications of the Ab'dhoot to 

 whom she appeared to have so unaccountably devoted herself. I accordingly 

 one morning watched him from his lair into the town, whither he frequently 

 resorted, and immediately repaired to the prison of his beautiful companion. 

 After some difficulty, I made my way into the cavernous asylum of this 

 young and lovely woman, which was considered sufficiently secure from 

 desecration by any profane foot from the reputed holiness of the male occu- 

 pant, and the superstitious reverence in which he was held by the infatuated 

 Hindoos. Upon seeing a stranger enter the dismal abode, which had never, 

 at least within her experience, been cheered by the presence of any but that 

 of the fiend-like being whose revolting rugosity of aspect, though so long 

 accustomed to it, she still could not behold without an involuntary alarm, 

 she started, and, uttering a faint shriek, threw herself upon the ground in an 

 agony of terror. She entreated that I would depart, assuring me that if her 

 lord and tyrant found me there, she should become the victim of his ferocious 

 vengeance. The appeal was eloquent and irresistible ; but I can scarcely 

 describe what my feelings were at the sight of so beautiful a creature con- 

 fined to such a loathsome dungeon, with a companion who would have been 

 honoured by the designation of a brute, for he was a demon in human shape. 

 The chamber steamed with the unwholesome vapour so long pent up within 

 its close and slimy recess. Its lovely inmate stood just under the aperture in 

 the roof through which light was admitted, and the vivid beam fell full upon 

 her expressive countenance, which was working with all the intense emotions 

 of anxiety excited by the most fearful apprehensions. She pointed to the 

 passage with a look of passionate supplication, but did not speak, as if she 

 apprehended the possibility of her voice reaching the ear of him whom she 

 dreaded more than the presiding Asura of Lohangaraka.f 



" I once more tried to induce her to communicate with me whether her 

 captivity, for such in fact it might be called, was voluntary or constrained. 

 A tear stole into her eye and trickled silently down her cheek. I approached 

 her, but she shrank from me as if I had been the herald of the pestilence. I 



* Suras are good angels. 



f Hot iron coals. This is one of the twenty -one Hindoo hells mentioned in 

 the Institutes of Menu, chap. iv. verses 88, 89, and 90. 



