"'Pateljee!' said he, 'I know that Brij Lall well; he will never give up his revenge; you have seen that he behaves like a cow before his patron, but absent from him he is a tiger in heart and in manners; and such is the influence he has obtained, that no one dares to oppose him. You have indeed got well out of his clutches; but had not your affairs been taken up by our Séth, you would have remained in your miserable prison until his hate had been satisfied by your death, from the constant torment and ill-usage he would have subjected you to.' "'Shookur Alla!' said my father, 'I am at least safe now.' "'Not without great caution,' said the Sahoukar; 'his emissaries will beset you wherever you go, and it will require your utmost vigilance and wariness to avoid them. By your soul, O Patel, I beseech you not to disregard what I say, or you will repent it.' "'I will not,' said my father; 'your words are friendly, and I drink them in as grateful sherbet. But this Brij Lall must have long arms and powerful if he can reach Mahommedjee Patel.' "In a very few days after, we took our leave and returned home; but, as had been predicted, in a few months strange men began to be seen about the village; and my father, strange to say, disregarded all our prayers to stay at home, especially after dusk; he would not listen to us, called the men we had seen travellers, and staid from home late of nights out of bravado. However, my mother grew at last so anxious and so alarmed about these repeated visits of unknown people, that she begged of me never to leave my father's side by day, and always to bring him home with me from the fields in the evening. This I did for a long time; but one night, one cursed night--would that I had never seen the dawn of the day preceding it!--having been delayed in a field of sugar-cane to arrange about the cutting of it the following day, we were late in returning home: we were accompanied part of the way by some men of a neighbouring village, but they separated from us about half a coss from ours; and the remainder of the way (if we followed the straight road) was one which was not thought safe, and by which no one went after nightfall if he could help it. I attempted to take another; but the old man observed it, and said sharply, 'That is not the way--that road will keep us out an hour longer.' I had no reason to give to dissuade him from the road I wished to avoid, though an ill-defined feeling that there was danger in the one before us had led me to endeavour to take the other. But, my friends, who can avoid his fate? If it is the will of Alla that one is to die, of what use is human foresight? We went on, and soon reached the inclosed fields, between the high milk-bush hedges of which the path wound. It was scarcely light enough for us to see our way, but we knew every foot of the road. All at once, as we proceeded, I thought I saw in a hedge which crossed the road a glimmer, as if of the match of a gun.