10 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
the lunar beam. When the Rohillah had reached the 
entrance he asked if any one was within, and receiv- 
ing no answer stepped stealthily over the threshold. 
He had no sooner done this than a crease was buried 
in his breast. Before he could recover from his sur- 
prise, the blow was repeated, and he fell upon the 
floor streaming with blood. He had, however, seized 
the woman in his arms the moment he felt himself 
stabbed, and when he fell, dragged her upon him. 
Feeling that he was mortally wounded, he grasped 
his foe by the throat with desperate energy : she 
struggled to release herself in vain. The gripe was 
too determined for her feeble strength to relax it. 
The more she struggled, the fiercer was the dying 
man’s resistance, and in a few minutes they both lay 
dead upon the floor clasped in each other’s arms, 
their countenances distorted with the desperate throes 
under which they had mutually expired. 
This is one of many facts which might be recorded 
of that fierce tribe, who, in the earlier periods of the 
Moghul supremacy, were a people of considerable poli- 
tical influence, the district they inhabited being very 
flourishing, and containing several cities of great im- 
portance, among which were Shahjehanabad, Bareily, 
Budayoon, Mooradabad, and Sambhul. The country 
is now subject to the King of Oude, who exercises over 
it a despotic dominion. It is at present in a state of 
most deplorable subjection ; and though the fearless 
character of the people is not extinguished, their poli- 
tical resources are at this moment so few and feeble, 
that they cannot emancipate themselves from the state 
of feudal thraldom to which the sad chances of war 
