186 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
under her as she stepped through the lofty and mag- 
nificent portal, which seemed to frown upon her as 
if to forbid the entrance of profane feet. Her nerves, 
however, were wound up to too high a tension to he 
relaxed by the mere phantoms of a fervid though ab- 
jected mind. She laid her humble offering before the 
idol, a huge shapeless stone covered with filth and 
daubed with red paint, when her quick eye was sud- 
denly attracted by a figure standing a few feet out of 
her path with his hand extended as if in the act of 
supplicating charity. 
Though reduced to a mere skeleton, there was 
something in the contour of the stranger’s frame 
which brought strongly to her mind certain agreeable 
recognitions. After a short but keen scrutiny, she 
recognised her husband in the thin emaciated form 
before her. His looks had hitherto been bent to- 
wards the ground; but at the sound of her voice, 
when she gently murmured his name, his eye sud- 
denly kindled, his pale cheek flushed, and casting on 
her a glance of mingled joy and horror, he rushed 
from the pagoda. She followed him, her heart 
yearning with revived fondness, hoping that they 
might still be reunited in those bonds which had 
been so cruelly severed. 
The wretched fugitive, soon overcome with the 
exertion of such an active flight, cast himself beside 
one of the tombs of departed saints, with which the 
island of Ramiseram abounds, where he lay panting 
and scarcely able to breathe. His wife approached 
him tremblingly. 
(e Profane not my presence,” he cried, raising his 
