116 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
his lair into the town,, whither he frequently re- 
sorted, 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 se- 
cure from desecration by any profane foot from the 
reputed holiness of the male occupant and the super- 
stitious reverence in which he was held by the in- 
fatuated 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 start- 
ed, 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 feel- 
ings 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 point- 
ed to the passage with a look of passionate supplica- 
