“It was prepared on purpose for you, and of those very ingredients of which you have always expressed yourself so fond.” “I know it has been prepared for me, and therefore decline it; but to show you how little selfish I am in partaking of anything especially prepared for me, I resign it to you with the greatest cheerfulness--pray eat it, and I shall be much better satisfied than taking the indulgence myself.” The woman shrank back with a consciousness that she had been detected. In a short time the poison began to operate upon her husband. His cheeks became blanched, his lips closed with a convulsive compression, his whole body stiffened, and he fell upon the floor. The poison was of so potent a nature, that within a few minutes he was a corpse. Considerable confusion prevailed; the body was removed; but such is the characteristic apathy of the Hindoo, that the banquet was concluded without further interruption. No inquiry was made as to the cause of the man’s death. It was looked upon as a sudden visitation for some secret crime. No pity was expressed for the sufferer, but for one it was an event to be deeply deplored. The wife had the awful prospect of expiring amid the flames upon the body of her deceased husband. The guests separated, and this wretched woman was left to the dreadful companionship of her own fierce repinings. On the morrow her husband was to be consumed upon the pile amid the flames of which she would be doomed to expire. It was a fearful thought. She was not prepared to die, and the very idea of death was at once a dread and an agony. The day of sacrifice dawned. The noisy tomtoms and harsh brazen trumpets warned her of the solemn obligation which she was called upon to fulfil. The shouts of thousands of mad enthusiasts rent the air; but she was reluctant to answer their acclamations by exhibiting herself as a willing oblation. The Brahmins, perceiving her fears, administered opium in such quantities that she soon became stupefied; still, nothing could remove her extreme horror of death.