“Alas! my boy,” said the old man, “there is little doubt but your suspicions respecting the end of that poor girl are correct. The strictness of the Guebres in maintaining the purity of their women is so severe that even the slightest suspicion subjects them to certain death. The power of inflicting summary punishment upon offenders of this kind is in the hands of the parent, and pardon seldom passes from the domestic tribunal for those sins to which death is awarded. The poisoned bowl has sent that innocent victim to the land of shadows, where our spirits shall everlastingly wail or rejoice.” The son concurred in the probability of this having been the fact, as he recollected the swollen and blackened state of the corpse. The conversation becoming painful, he relapsed into his former mood of silent abstraction. It happened that among the property which the merchant had put on board the vessel was a large royal tiger, so fierce that it was placed in an iron cage, secured at the stern. The merchant had purchased it some short time before he quitted Surat, intending to present it to the King of Ghizny, who, as he had ascertained, possessed an extensive menagerie, and was particularly fond of collecting wild beasts. The tiger had been caught in a trap, and never, therefore, having been tamed, was excessively ferocious. They had been but a few days on their voyage, when the weather began to assume a threatening aspect. The sun was overcast, and the heat became almost suffocating. Not a breath of air stirred. The water had a gentle swell, and was as smooth as a mirror; but there was a dull greenish tint on the surface, which looked like a skin in the human body tinged with the morbid hue of disease. Not a ripple agitated the lazy mass, which undulated with a slow sluggish movement as if its natural principle of motion were impeded. The vessel laboured through the glassy but ponderous waters with a lumbering uneasy roll, that rendered it difficult to maintain an easy position either within or without the cabin. The haze thickened and lay upon the sea, which it shrouded with a thin vapoury veil, through which, when the clouds rolled from before his orb, the sun occasionally glared with a fiery and portentous glow. The Hindoo sailors were silent and looked grave, seating themselves by the ribs of the vessel and looking into the sky with a foreboding gloom that did not much tend to cheer the heart of the venerable merchant. They appeared, however, to take no precautions against the approach of a hurricane.