As I have said, when this sahib so suddenly appeared I was terribly frightened. He seemed to me a giant, so tall and big. Then the ghastly pale face; the reddish hair; the strange clothes, he might be one of the bhuts or jins that carry away little boys and eat them, one each day, for his dinner. Was it strange then, that I sat crouching in my corner, scarcely daring to breathe, lest he might hear me and seize me for his next day’s meal? The clinking of the rupees is written on the first page of my memory. The sound and sight of them gave me a thrill of pleasure, but a moment after came the fright at the sight of the strange being. Scared as I was, I saw everything, heard all that was said and felt a thousand times more than I now can find words to describe. All was so sudden, strange and incomprehensible, that I was dumb with fear at the great thing standing so high up in the room, and when my mother began her piteous wailings, I was hushed to silence with my intense feelings of sorrow for her. As the sahib rushed from the place, my mama threw herself upon the bare earthen floor with a shriek, and there lay moaning and crying out in heart-piercing tones, “My Sahib! my Sahib!” I sprang from my corner, and sat down by her, and placing her head upon my lap stroked her hair back from her face and begged of her “mama, pyari mama! why do you cry so?” There was no answer, but “my Sahib! my Sahib!” O! the agony of that hour! It has never left me, it became a part of my life and is with me now, for I feel it. What could I do, a little tot that had never been out of the court? I do not know how long I sat there; I must have become exhausted and gone to sleep, for in the morning I found myself lying on the charpoy where I suppose my mama placed me. As I awoke, my first thought was of her. I glanced around the room and saw her sitting on a low stool facing the court. Her eyes were turned towards the western sky, but evidently she was not looking at anything. I awakened as from a horrible dream and could not at once realize what had happened, but when I saw that haggard, pallid face, those wide open eyes, that looked and saw nothing, all the night scene flashed upon me and I cried out, “Mama, mama!” She turned her head, without a word, toward me and began again to look far away as if for something beyond mortal ken. I was told years after, that before that night she was the most happy woman of all in the court, always so pleasant to her neighbors, always smiling, laughing and romping with her children; but after that awful night, the light of her life had gone out into utter darkness, for she never smiled again.