"One by one the neighbours left us; the name of Brij Lall had silenced every one; and in a very short time there remained only the watchers by the corpse, my sister, and myself. She was but a girl, my friends, but she watched by me and fomented my shoulder and leg with warm water, until the coagulated blood dissolved, and I was easier. How I wished for the light to be put out! but they would not hear of it. I have seen death in many, many forms since, but never have I seen anything that I could compare with my remembrance of my father's appearance. His features were pinched up, his lips drawn tightly across his mouth, showing his upper and under teeth; his eyes were wide open, for they could not be closed; and the flaring light, now rising now sinking, as it was agitated by the wind, caused an appearance as if of the features moving and gibbering, with that ghastly expression on them. I could not take my eyes off them, and lay gazing at them till the day broke. "The barber, who had been absent at a neighbouring village, soon afterwards arrived, and examined my wounds. One ball had entered my shoulder and had passed into my neck. He groped in the wound for some time with a pair of pincers, and, after putting me to horrible pain, succeeded in getting hold of it and drawing it out. I was then easier: the blood flowed copiously; the wound in the leg was only through the flesh, and having taken some opium I soon fell asleep, and awoke, though still in pain, yet easier than I had been. "My father had by this time been buried, and I was left with the consciousness of having one enemy, and one, too, who would not forego his revenge even to the son of his victim. "The old Kazee could recommend nothing, could suggest no measures to be pursued to bring the murderers to conviction. So, as he said, we sat down on the carpet of patience, to smoke the pipe of regret, and to drown our affliction in the best way we could. Matters continued to run smoothly for the period of a year. I was considered to have succeeded to my father's rights, when, one day, the man who had been set up by Brij Lall as the real patel, in opposition to my father, arrived at the village with a body of armed men, and with orders for his installation. The villagers were too weak to resist this tyranny, and I was forced to resign all my claims to the new comer. By this time my sister had gone to the house of her father-in-law, and I sent my mother after her, for I had no longer a home. I left the village with an aching heart, to see if my father's friends, the sahoukars, could do anything for me at the court. But they, too, had changed, as I might, perhaps, have expected, and would do nothing.