“No,” said the dying man with energy, “I would fain live, because there is a dark uncertainty in the future that clogs my spirit and weighs it down. It is an awful thing to die, and I would if possible escape death until age should no longer encourage a desire of life.” “Dost thou think old men wish to die?” “If their lives have been virtuous, why should they desire to live, when their capabilities of earthly enjoyments are past?” “Because to them there is the same uncertainty in the future as to thee. In life there is positive enjoyment to the last; with the end of life what guarantee have we for the joys of a future existence?--they may be visionary.” “But the blessed Vedas teach us otherwise?” “Ay, the blessed Vedas! they cannot be gainsaid; they are the voice of the divinity: Krishna speaketh through them, but then they are the sealed oracles, which only we of the sanctuary can expound; and they promise that reliance upon the ministers of our temple will be rewarded in the metempsychosis. There is still hope of thy release from this perilous malady. Let thy wife visit the temple, and bow before the image--the deity of our race, and thou shalt have thy health return to thee.” He continued smoking for a few moments, during which not a voice interrupted the silence. Having swallowed a large pill of opium, he rose, and taking the invalid’s wife on one side, said to her, in a low, husky whisper--“The hand of death is upon thy husband; nothing short of divine interposition can save him. If he dies, you know that his widow must accompany him to the swerga.” “I am prepared for the sacrifice. Fear not that I shall degrade my lineage by shrinking from performing that solemn obligation which the most perfect of all religions imposes upon the bereaved widow. It is her blessed privilege; I shall not forego it.” “But would you not willingly evade the consummation of so dreadful a sacrifice?” “No; I would, under no consideration, evade the performance of an obligation as sacred as it is awful, and obligatory in proportion as it is sacred.” “Nay, these are not your real sentiments; you need use no disguise with me. I can save you from the necessity of dying upon the pile, if you’ll make it worth a priest’s while to risk the peace of his own soul in that strange land of darkness or of light--who shall say which?--whither thy husband is rapidly hastening!” “Save me! Why would you save me from a sacrifice which I deem an immunity from mortal cares? In this life, a woman’s condition is one of endurance, of slavery, of pain; I would be glad to enter upon an existence where each and all are unknown.”