We had just returned from one of these visits, and were grumbling over our headaches, the dust, and the heat, when, to our surprise, the rajah's vabul or confidential representative was announced. As it was nine o'clock in the evening this somewhat surprised us. He was, however, admitted, and after a short, hurried obeisance, he announced "that he must die! that there had been a sudden revolt of the hareem, and that when the rajah knew it, he would listen to no explanations, but be sure to imprison and ruin all round him; and that foremost in the general destruction would be himself, Veneat-Rao, who had always been the child of the English Sahibs, who were his fathers--that they were wise above all natives, and that he had come to them for help!" All this was pronounced with indescribable volubility, and the appearance of the speaker announced the most abject fear. He was a little wizened Brahmin, with the thin blue lines of his caste carefully painted on his wrinkled forehead. His dark black eyes gleamed with suppressed impotent rage, and in his agitation he had lost all that staid, placid decorum which we had been accustomed to observe in him when transacting business. When urged to explain the domestic disaster which had befallen his master, he exclaimed with ludicrous pathos, "By Rama! women are devils; by them all misfortunes come upon men! But, sahibs, hasten with me; they have broken through the guard kept on the hareem door by two old sentries; they ran through the fort and besieged my house; they are now there, and refuse to go back to the hareem. The rajah returns to-morrow from his hunting--what can I say? I must die! my children, who will care for them? what crime did my father commit that I should thus be disgraced?"