In a piercing voice he exclaimed, as he threw up his arms. "Ei dereeghâ, ei dereeghâ, oo ei dereegh! Would to Thee, O God, that I had never been tempted--had never seen her!" and then inspired by what emotion we know not, unless it were to seek succour for Mabel, and to have her saved from the terrible Khond, he took off the cloth of his turban, the last appeal a Mohammedan can make when imploring mercy for himself or a friend, and was waving it above his head, when a ball pierced his brain; he gave a convulsive bound upwards, and fell dead and mangled into the street below. In half an hour after this, the head of "Zohrab the Overbearing" was placed in the public Charchowk, beside that of the unfortunate baronet, Sir William Macnaghten. CHAPTER XII. THE SHADE WITHIN THE SHADOW. So one more dreadful tragedy had been enacted in that land of bloodshed! Barbarous though she deemed the Mohammedan Afghans, she was to find herself in the grasp of those who were more barbarous still--for whose depth of cruelty there was no name--the Khonds, a race or tribe whose sacrifices of human life, though not offered up in such numbers as those of the Thugs, were done in a fashion quite as secret, and known only to themselves, and whose existence, like that of those subtle assassins, had become only known to the Indian Government of late years. Powerless in the hands of Ferishta Lodi, the girl felt as if hovering on the verge of some death of which she knew not the form or fashion, save that it must be lingering, protracted, and horrible! Her past life, with all its peace, happiness, and ease, its gaiety, luxury, brilliance, and good position, seemed to be, as it was indeed, like a previous state of existence--as a dream; the horrible present appeared alone the stern reality. Was her identity the same? she asked of herself many, many times, in half-audible whispers; or had she undergone that species of metempsychosis, or transmigration of soul from the body of one being to the body of another, which is a doctrine of the Indian Brahmins--of those Hindoos whom she was now beginning to loathe? Was she no longer Mabel Trecarrel, a Christian woman, a civilised European, who had a father, a sister, and so many friends? Was the existence of Waller, or was her own, a myth? She felt as if she was about to become insane, and, pressing her delicate hands upon her throbbing temples, prayed God to preserve her senses, whatever her ultimate fate might be. Surely, unknown to herself, she must have committed some great sin, to be tortured thus, and thus punished, enduring here that she might not endure hereafter, was her next idea.