They had not proceeded far before the invincible yearnings of nature prevailed over mere physical torment, and the bereaved mother called in a voice of piteous anguish for her child. She could no longer endure the pains of separation. The idea of having voluntarily consented to become the instrument of its death, was a horror which increased with every step, and she sank exhausted upon the sand. The sun, now rising towards its meridian, poured upon her the fiery effulgence of its beams. The husband’s heart was subdued by her sufferings. Dashing a tear from his cheek, he undertook to return and restore their infant to the arms of its distracted mother. Fixing the handle of his umbrella again in the ground and throwing the palampore over it, he placed his wife under that frail covering, and immediately retraced his steps. With a sad heart he reached the spot where he had lately deposited the infant; but what was his consternation at beholding the leaves removed, and a black snake coiled round it, with its hideous mouth opposed to that of his child! In a frenzy of desperation he rushed forward; but instantly arrested by the instinct of paternal fear, he stood before the objects at once of his tenderest interest and of his terror, as if he had been suddenly converted into stone. The previous motion, however, had evidently alarmed the monster; for it gradually uncoiled itself from its victim without committing the slightest injury, and retired into the hollow trunk which marked this memorable spot. The father snatched up his child, and bore it in ecstacy to its mother; but she was extended under the palampore in the last struggle of expiring nature. Her feeble spirit had been overborne by her lengthened sufferings of mind and body, and she now lay at the point of death. She raised her eyes languidly, received the babe with a faint smile upon her bosom, and tenderly kissed it. The effort overcame her, and she fainted. After a short time she rallied--but it was only to die. The husband hung over her with mute but intense tenderness, cursing in his heart with a bitterness which that very tenderness aggravated, those relatives who had caused the death of all he valued upon earth, and rendered him the most desolate of men. “Aiass,” said the dying woman, “dig me a grave in the wilderness; don’t leave this poor body to the beasts of prey. We shall be restored to each other. There is a paradise beyond this world where all the good meet and are blessed: we shall be among them. I die happy in the possession of your love, and in the consciousness of never having forfeited my claim to it.”