The lovely Hindoo shrank from her interlocutor when he declared himself to be the greatest enemy of her nation’s gods. She trembled for the moment, but her high sense of moral obligation bore down the weak fences of prejudice, and she assured him that the preserver of her child could never merge in the enemy of her race. “Prepare,” said Mahmood, “to behold me shortly enter those walls in triumph; but be assured of your own safety, and you may yet live to know that the sovereign of Ghizny never professed a kindness which he did not rigidly perform.” CHAPTER II. The Hindoo mother, having made her acknowledgments to the deliverer of her child, entered the walls of Somnat, and sought her home. She related the adventure of the morning to her husband, at this time lying ill of fever. He was a man of high caste, and entertained all the prejudices of his national superstitions in an eminent degree. This tendency was aggravated to a morbid excess by his present illness. The relation greatly distressed him. The idea that his infant had been snatched from death by a worshipper of gods which his nation did not recognise, agitated him to a paroxysm of excitement. He raved, and cursed the chances that had exposed his offspring to such pollution. He would rather the wolf had devoured it, than that it should have owed its preservation to the arm of a Mussulman, and he the greatest enemy of the Hindoos and their religion. The Hindoo father was a young man of about thirty, handsome and amiable, but a rigid observer of the national superstitions. He was affectionate to his wife, in a degree seldom equalled by Hindoo husbands, and she returned his tenderness with a pure and ardent attachment. In spite, however, of his fondness, like all husbands of his tribe he was not only a master but a tyrant. The wife was subservient to an extent that rendered her domestic life a slavery; but being impressed with a conviction that such subserviency was the proper sphere, because it was the destined lot of woman, she submitted without a murmur. Still she was relatively happy; for, by comparison with the generality of Hindoo wives, her social comforts were considerable. She felt conscious of possessing her husband’s attachment; and, though his general conduct towards her was authoritative, it was seldom harsh. Had it been otherwise than authoritative, she would have despised him as descending from the dignity of his manhood, and foregoing the especial immunities of his privileged sex. Upon the present occasion, harassed by suffering of body and anxiety of mind, the sick man treated his young and lovely consort with a severity which he had never before exercised.