Some three years before the time that the division of the army to which I belonged passed through this district, the rajah had married a most beautiful woman, the daughter of a neighbouring rajah, making his third wife. This woman, of all his wives and concubines, he most loved, if such a tyrant can be supposed to be susceptible of such a feeling. In his court he had promoted a young man (his barber) from an indigent sphere to be his chief confidant. This confidant became his greatest favourite, and, indeed, ruler. Nothing could be done but through his interest. Thus things went on for some time, when the rajah was invited some hundreds of miles to an annual festival, which invitation he accepted. The times were turbulent, for the Pindarees were then roving about in large bodies; but, notwithstanding all this, the rajah imagined he could safely leave his confidant in charge of his family and his people. Having made this arrangement, he started on his journey, reposing the most implicit trust in the firmness and integrity of the new minister--for so he was denominated. Scarcely had one week elapsed, when the fiend, who was thus trusted, cast his sensual eye on the object of his master's best love; but he found her virtuous as she was beautiful. He protested his most ardent love, and that he could not exist without her honeyed smiles; that she was everything that could promote his happiness or destroy his life. He entreated, he conjured; but all were as words cast upon the wintry blast: she was firm, and threatened to expose his infamy to the rajah. Thus menaced, his crime seemed to stagger him, and he importuned no more; all the exasperated fury of an offended master rushed upon his mind. The rajah, as he well knew, was of a most violent and ungovernable temper--one of those unhappy mortals who act first and think afterwards; and such a report against his favourite would have wrought his jealous heart to a pitch of utter frenzy. The villain, seeing his danger, immediately turned his own dastardly crime upon her who had resisted his corrupt proposals, and, seeking an interview with the rajah on his return, he represented to him, clothed with the most infamous and plausible falsehoods, that his favourite wife had been unfaithful in his absence. Had the infuriated and jealous-hearted rajah but given this report one instant of consideration, he must have detected the wretch in his infamous falsehood; but the artful favourite knew and relied on his master's fury. The moment he whispered the poisonous words into his ears, the rajah grasped his sabre, flew like a madman into the zenanah, and without speaking one word, he cut his favourite mistress into pieces; then, gazing on the murdered beauty who lay lifeless at his feet, he sought refuge in the bosom of him who had destroyed his peace of mind, and the object of his most ardent attachment. Her lacerated body was committed to the pile, and burnt, after the usual lamentations. He was