190 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
They quickly came to the following determination : 
— that as the criminal had been forced from her home 
by violence, and had been, under circumstances, vir- 
tually compelled to renounce the worship of those 
gods who are alone able to confer everlasting rewards 
after the final change, they would visit her with the 
least possible punishment in similar cases awarded. 
They consequently decreed, that if she really aspired 
to regain her caste, she must submit to be plunged for 
the space of fifty-nine seconds — and this near limita- 
tion of time was considered a merciful decision — into 
a vessel of boiling oil. 
When this judgment, from which there was no 
appeal, was communicated to the husband, who had 
permitted his hopes to gather strength from the favour- 
able manner in which his petition had been received, 
he was struck dumb with terror. It was evident 
that no mortal could survive such an ordeal, and he 
immediately made up his mind to behold his wife 
perish under the dreadful judicial probation to which 
she had been sentenced ; for, having appealed to the 
ecclesiastical authorities, there was no evading the 
trial adjudged by that stern court of inquisition. He 
communicated its awful decision to the condemned, 
who heard it without perturbation, and at once pre- 
pared to undergo the terrible infliction. 
“ I am in truth happy,” she said, while a tear suf- 
fused her soft bright eye, “ at the thought that 
I shall at last have the opportunity of expiating by 
my death the enormity of a long degraded life. The 
sacrifice will, I trust, restore me in the next world to 
the privileges which I have so justly forfeited in this.” 
