worship, with monasteries adjoining them, for his well-fed lazy chelas or disciples, who lived at free quarters on the labour of the industrious. Deonath was a striking example of the identity of human nature, under whatever garb and in whatever clime; whether under the cowl or the coronet, in the cold clime of Europe, or in the deserts of India. This Wolsey of Marudes exercised his hourly-increasing power to the disgust and alienation of all but his infatuated prince. He leagued with the nominal minister, Induraj, and together they governed the prince and country. Such characters, when exceeding the sphere of their duties, expose religion to contempt. The degradation which the haughty grandees of Marwar experienced made murder in their eyes a venial offence, provoked as they were by the humiliations they underwent through the influence of this arrogant priest, whose character may be given in the language of Gibbon, merely substituting Deonath of Marwar for Paul of Samosata: “His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a considerable part of the public revenue. His council chamber and his throne, the splendour with which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited his attention, and the perpetual hurry of business in which he was involved, were circumstances much better suited to the state of a civil magistrate than to the humility of a primitive bishop.”[4.27.8] But his “full-blown pride” at length burst under him. Sequestrations from the estates of the chief barons of Maru became frequent in order to swell his rent-roll for the support of his establishments; his retinue on ordinary occasions surpassed that of any chieftain, and not unfrequently he was attended by the whole insignia of the State—the prince attending on such ceremonies. On these occasions the proud Rajput felt that he folded his hands, not to his sovereign, but to his sovereign’s sovereign; to a vindictive and vainglorious priest, who, amidst the mummeries and artifices of religious rites, gratified an inordinate vanity, while he mortified their pride and diminished their revenues. The hatred of such men is soon followed by their vengeance; and though they would not dye their own daggers in his blood, they soon found agents in a race who know not mercy, the myrmidons of [716] that villain Amir Khan, under whose steel, and within the precincts of the palace, Deonath fell a victim. It has been surmised that Raja Man was privy to the murder; that if he did not command or even sanction it, he used no means to prevent it. There are but two in this life who can reveal this mystery—the Raja, and the _bourreau en chéf_ of Rajasthan, the aforesaid Amir Khan.