“Sophistry, prince, is at all times a lame argument. Virtues never can become vices, employ them how we may. The mask is not the face, neither is the pretence to virtue anything more than just what the mask is to the countenance. I am too hackneyed in the world’s juggles to become the ready dupe of fair words which only cover evil thoughts.” “Rajah, this is all beside the purpose for which you were summoned before the sovereign of Delhi. Are you willing to obtain your freedom?” “I am.” “At what price?” “At any that will not commit the honour of a Rajpoot.” “You have a daughter?” “Well!” “I would make her the partner of my throne.” “Proceed.” “Summon her to this city, and you shall be no longer a prisoner.” “If this is the generosity of princes, such can be no longer a virtue; it must therefore be a virtue to despise it. To be the pander of kings is no honour; but for a father to bring pollution upon his child is the most flagrant enormity.” “Then you refuse the offer of liberty?” “Upon any other terms than those which a clean conscience may accept.” “Enough! Guards, bear him back to his prison. A less luxurious regimen than has been allowed him may give different colourings to vice and virtue, when surveyed through the medium of his future reflections. Away with him!” The Rajah was conducted back to the strong apartment in which he had been confined since his captivity, but on the following day he was removed to one of the dungeons of the state prison. His confinement now became extremely distressing. Every indulgence hitherto accorded to him was withdrawn, and he was subjected to the extremest rigours of privation. The soul of a Rajpoot generally scorns to shrink from endurance, however severe. With him a contempt of death, of danger, and of suffering, is the noblest exercise of human virtue; but Rajah Ray Ruttun Sein possessed not these characteristics of his race in an eminent degree. He was fond to excess of those luxuries which his condition in life gave him the privilege and imparted to him the means of enjoying. He was an Eastern epicurean, and therefore the privations which he was now doomed to endure were to him a source of extreme distress. Everything that was not subsidiary to his love of indulgence had no firm resting-place in his heart. He had a high veneration for honour in the abstract, but he had a still higher for those animal enjoyments in which he especially delighted to indulge. He loved his own daughter well, but he loved his own pleasures better. He possessed the haughty independent spirit of his caste, but lacked their qualities of determined endurance and rigid self-restriction. He was brave when the impulse of the moment roused his energies; but as soon as the impulse subsided, the strength of his passions overcame him, and he sank into the imbecility of the mere sensualist. His bearing had been bold and determined before the king, whose prisoner