122 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
less. The poor fellow instantly relented, and be- 
came dreadfully alarmed at the possible issue of his 
intemperance. After a short time the woman re- 
covered, but perceiving the person near her who had 
been the cause of her injury, she caught in her hand 
the blood which was streaming from her temples, 
cast it at him with ferocious vehemence, imprecating 
upon him at the same time the most dreadful male- 
dictions. He remained silent as if paralysed with 
horror. " May thy shadow grow less and less until 
it ceases to darken thy path ! ” cried the sibyl with a 
half-suppressed scream of rage. “ May thy pillow 
deny thee slumber, and thy food fail to nourish thee ! 
May thy thoughts be curses to thee, and thy heart a 
plant of bitterness within thee ! Before the waning 
of another moon the alligator shall carouse upon thy 
devoted body. Thy bones shall never crumble upon 
the pyre, but rot in infamy. Go, go ! thou art ac- 
cursed— thou bearest an injured woman’s malediction!” 
The man shrank in dismay from the bitter ana- 
thema. He returned to his master as a creature under 
ban and for whom there remained no hope. He 
could not be persuaded but that the curse pronounced 
against him was to be his doom. He heard only a 
prophetic judgment in that horrible denunciation. 
Deaf to all persuasion, he took little or no food, but 
gradually declined, and on the da} 7 after our arrival 
at Futtygur, I saw him. He was dejected and low, 
declaring that his days were numbered, and that his 
life would terminate before the lapse of forty-eight 
hours. From this time he tasted no food, or not 
enough to sustain life, and on the morning of the 
