86 



RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



feet, and the tips of her nails were tinged with red, and her nose 

 had its appropriate jewel, she was considered a Parsee-beauty of 

 the first class, and by none more undoubtingly than herself. 

 Therefore she looked with very contemptuous eyes on Ohandela ; 

 but in the dullness of a life, which hke Mahomet^s angels was 

 composed only of sweetmeats, it was really some amusement to 

 be jealous. Little Ahmed, as the adopted boy was called, had so 

 much love for the poor Pariah, that no rebuke could prevent him 

 from stealing among the remote shrubberies, or into the hut 

 where she ground rice, to teach her all he learnt from the hand- 

 maids of the harem. She was soon able to play on his guitar, to 

 thread beads, and above all to read the beautiful maxims ascribed 

 to Ghee, the Confucius of the Parsees. Ibrahim's wife saw her new 

 talents with affectecl pleasure, and asked her to sing for her amuse- 

 ment. Ohandela complied with a voice of such sweetness, that 

 she might have been mistaken for one of the female deities of 

 music worshipped in the East, and was recompensed by a present 

 of flowers and paung. The latter, consisting of chunam and be- 

 ielnut, wrapped in a leaf of an aromatic plant, is a compliment 

 implying distinguished kindness, and cannot be refused without 

 the highest affront. Ohandela placed it on her forehead, and had 

 opened her lips to receive its contents, when the playful boy 

 snatched and attempted to taste them. The outcast mother ut- 

 tered a scream of terror, and seizing the poisoned gift from her 

 son's hand, swallowed the whole. 



Ibrahim saw and understood this touching scene. He had read 

 the purpose of his wife's malignant jealousy in her large stag 

 eyes ; and well aware that the sweatmeat she had poisoned had 

 been exchanged by his own hand for a harmless mixture of ghee, 

 poppyseeds, and sugar, left his house immediately to execute his 

 own project. In the nearest bazaar hved a barber, whose gup or 

 news shop was famous for good story-tellers and audacious buf- 

 foons. At that hour of night which brings the greatest troop of 

 listeners to such shops, a new assistant appeared in this noted bar- 

 ber's, and the first customer who presented his head to be shaven 

 was a plump merchant of great weight in the Penchait or village 

 council of the Parsees. The new operator bowed with profound 

 reverence three times, and made a long pause before he began his 

 functions with a gravity so strange as to provoke a question. 

 " Sir," said the buflfoon -barber, "I was thinking of Creeshna's 



