When Ruzeea Begum quitted Delhi, she took with her the unhappy Bameea, who, on their arrival at Bituhnda, was subjected to a still more rigid captivity than before. The poor girl’s situation was deplorable. She was now apprehensive of never again beholding the object of her heart’s affection, and began to yield to the saddest apprehensions. The hatred of her royal mistress was of too fierce a nature ever to give way to compunction, and she saw nothing but misery before her. Her days were long intervals of bitterness, and her nights seasons of disturbed and unrefreshing sleep. She grew thin, and wasted to a shadow;--hope was banished from her bosom;--she looked forward to death as a release from miseries which now seemed to crush her with the weight of a mountain;--she felt that death would be a relief, but this was a mercy which suited not the purpose of her tyrant, who took delight in seeing her victim suffer. Bameea thought of escape, but this appeared impracticable. As an almost forlorn hope, she tried the integrity of an occasional attendant, who was admitted to clean her apartment. The woman seemed to listen willingly to the tempting promises of reward made by the captive, if she would facilitate her flight. A bribe was placed upon her “itching palm.” She clutched the gold with a miser’s eagerness; the doors of Bameea’s prison were opened, but she was discovered before she had quitted the palace, and borne back again to her captivity. She had been betrayed. The bribe had been received, and the prisoner denounced. Her confinement was now more than ever rigid. She was removed to a small apartment in which there was no outlet save the door, and this was so massive as to stifle all expectations of escape. The poor girl now abandoned herself to the strong impulse of despair. To her surprise she was visited by the Begum, who upbraided her with having attempted to corrupt the woman admitted to her apartment. “There is no guilt,” said Bameea, with earnestness, “in using any means to escape the inflictions of tyranny. All things are lawful to evade the oppression of those who make their passions the medium of their actions. Your cruelty has rendered my life a bane, and I am prepared to relinquish it whenever your malice shall suggest the sacrifice.” The Sultana smiled bitterly. “I would not take your life; that would not satisfy my vengeance. If you were dead, you could no longer suffer the punishment which my ill-requited affections--and of these you are the cause--demand as a just expiation. I intend to punish the wretch who has injured me through you, and he shall yet live to curse the day that he treated with indifference the affections of Ruzeea Begum.” “But why should you longer feel his disregard when you have now one to whom those affections are sacred, and to whom you have relinquished the sole right to possess them?”