Well, resumed Ameer Ali, I was kindly nursed and tended by Ismail and his wife. The curiosity of the villagers was a good deal excited by my appearance, and I have since suspected Ismail thought I might one day reveal what I knew of my origin; and for this reason I was never allowed out of his or his wife's sight. I must then, however, have speedily forgotten all about it, or at least have retained so confused and indistinct a recollection of the circumstances, that had I endeavoured to relate them to any one, I could not have made them intelligible, and should have been disregarded. Ismail, in his village, carried on the trade of a cloth-merchant--at least, when he was at home. He daily sat in his shop, with different kinds of cloths before him for sale; but it was plain, even to me, to see that he was restless and uneasy. He would very often be absent for days together, without his family knowing where he had gone; and he would suddenly return with large quantities of cloth and other goods, which were always exposed for sale. I continued to be the object of his greatest care, and I reciprocated his affection; for, indeed, I was more kindly treated by him than I ever had been by my father, who was a proud and ill-tempered man. My new mother, too, never gave me reason to be displeased with her; for, having no child of her own, I was her pet, and she lavished on me all the means in her power. I was always well dressed, and had every indulgence that a child could wish for. I was about nine years old, I think, when my kind protectress died of a fever, while Ismail was on one of his excursions, and I was taken by a neighbour to his house, until he returned. I shall never forget his despair when he found his home desolate. Young as I was, I could do but little to console him; but he used to go and deck her tomb with flowers every Friday, and bitter were his lamentations over her grave. Poor Miriam! for that was her name--it was well for you that you died; had you lived, what would now have been your condition! As the wife of a noted Thug, your reputation would have been blasted, and you would have become an outcast! Sahib! she never knew what Ismail was. He was to her a man in prosperous circumstances. She had everything she could desire, and not a want remained unsatisfied; and so deeply and well-laid were his plans, that she would never have known, till the day of his capture, that she was the wife of a professed murderer!