THE FRATRICIDE. 
9 
vengeance. Having previously brought near the spot 
a number of large stones,, which he had concealed in 
the tall grass that grew beside the pathway, he 
dropped them upon the head of his unhappy victim, 
until the latter ceased to breathe. He then filled up 
the hole, and returned to the hut of his murdered 
brother. The wife of the latter had witnessed the 
whole transaction ; but knowing that any attempt to 
rescue her husband after he had fallen into the snare 
so successfully laid for him by his murderer, would 
only provoke her own doom, she returned to her 
now desolate home, determined to retaliate upon 
the sanguinary criminal that destruction which 
he had so cruelly cast upon one of his own kin- 
dred. Having armed her hand with a crease, the de- 
termined woman placed herself beside the entrance of 
her hut, anticipating the Rohillah’s return. Re- 
solved that the traitor should expiate by his own 
death the heinous crime of which he had just been 
guilty, she listened with agonizing eagerness to catch 
the sound of approaching footsteps, naturally imagin- 
ing that he would visit the home of his victim so 
soon as he had fully completed the perpetration of 
his unnatural villany. Her anticipations were shortly 
realized. Her quick ear caught the dull tread of a 
single person advancing with cautious but hurried 
steps to the place where she stood, with an arm 
nerved to vengeance, and a dagger ready to strike. 
The fratricide at length reached the doorway. 
There was no light, save that which the moon flung 
into the hut ; and as the roof was low, the interior of 
this homely tenement was only partially illumined by 
