unknown to him, I jogged away to my destination with a heavy heart.

To describe the mysteries, to touch upon the interior of a Mason's sanctum, of course, is not my intention; suffice it to say, our labours were followed by the most splendid banquet I ever beheld, and every one seemed happy and elate. As a stranger, I had not supposed it necessary to tell the news I had heard. I naturally imagined they had also learnt the afflicting tidings. In this, however, I was wrong; for in the evening a chit (a note) was brought to the president, who, with unaffected emotion, read it out loud. It told in a few words the event I had already learnt, and confirmed the suspicion I had that poor Robinson was now pennyless, compelled to remain in India at the risk of his life, again to toil for the uncertain chance of living to amass a sufficient competency to return to Europe. A general gloom was evident on every countenance, and many a sigh spontaneously burst forth on hearing the dreadful tale. Presently the countenance of one, whom I dare not name, suddenly brightened up. A proposition was made, which instantly diffused general pleasure, and called forth long and unanimous applause.

In Europe the fact will seem almost incredible, yet it is strictly true, that within one month from the circumstance I have just mentioned, Robinson sailed with his daughter for England, bearing with him a fortune of twelve thousand pounds, the amount of a voluntary subscription created by his warmly-attached brother-Masons in Bengal.

INDIAN JEALOUSY.

"YOUR European news seems at once to surprise and please you," said a young native girl to her patron, an English gentleman, who had laid down his hookah after breakfast, and was reading with avidity a parcel of letters he had just received from his mother-country. "Tell me, Charles, what are they about?"

After a moment's pause, the Briton folded up the communication he had just been reading, and, with a sad expression, fixed his eyes on the female who addressed him.

"Alas! my love, they contain bad news for you."

The poor girl started up, and burst into tears, at the same time throwing her well-made arms round the neck of him to whom she was attached. To explain their relative positions would be unnecessary. It will be sufficient to say that she was one of the loveliest beings, if loveliness can lurk beneath a dingy skin, that ever was seen. Charles Temple was a married man, whose wife had left him some ten years before for Europe, in order to bring up her children. Blame him, if you will. To have formed such a connexion as that alluded to was palpably wrong; but, alas! the examples around, the absence of his wife during a series of years, the certainty that the liaison could, at most, be but temporary, pleaded with those about him as an excuse. Without, however, seeking to palliate an evidently criminal practice, I shall confine myself to the mere circumstances to which this unhappy connexion gave rise.

"Do tell me, what is the matter?" again and again intreated Mary, for, amongst other fancies, Charles had so christened the young Indian, "what do those letters say?"

"My wife is about to return to me."

A thunderbolt would not more suddenly, more fearfully, have stricken the inquirer. For a moment or two she seemed to endeavour to call up tears to her aid, but in vain. Anger and annoyance next swayed her beautiful form, as she swang backwards and forwards in mental agony.

"Yes," calmly resumed Temple, "yes, my wife will be here next week. She is already at Madras, and comes round by the first ship. I must instantly go and meet her at Calcutta."

"And what is to become of me?" passionately demanded the wretched woman, throwing herself at his feet, and convulsively seizing his hand.

"Mary, you shall be cared for. Every comfort and happiness which money can secure shall be yours. You shall have everything you want; but we must part."

"Part! - part!

make way Never!"

to please a white face who loves you not?-to for one who has deserted you during ten long years !—

"My wife has only absented herself for the sake of our children. She now returns, and must be received into my house as the legitimate mistress of it."

"And you tell this coolly to me, who have only lived for you? No! send her away. I will be your slave; I will die for you. See! I am not in joke;" and the frantic girl snatched up a knife, which as instantly Temple wrenched from her.

To portray further this scene is unnecessary. It is only needed to add, that a more heart-rending one never was beheld. Charles, however, was firm, and the only boon he granted to Mary was, that she should live in a bungalow on the grounds; and that his wife should never know who she was. This seemed to pacify her, and Temple started off for Calcutta.

Some weeks after the foregoing scene, Mrs. Temple was strolling one evening through her grounds, once more domesticated, and perfectly happy in Bengal, when she chanced to pass a bungalow presenting a far neater appearance than the generality of such habitations usually exhibit. Having, without success, endeavoured to learn the name of its proprietor, she determined on entering it. She was welcomed by a beautiful young woman, whose agitation on beholding her Mrs. Temple naturally ascribed to Indian timidity. The girl was evidently taken by surprise, and felt the high honour done her; yet there was no servility in her manner, no awkwardness in the way in which she solicited her mistress (of course it was palpable to Mrs. Temple that she was of the household, connected, probably, with some of the male attendants) to sit down and refresh herself. Pleased with the spot and its beautiful owner, she determined on revisiting the bungalow, and expressed herself to that effect, stating that she would send down some fruit and other eatables, of which she would partake the following evening with Mr. Temple in this lovely cottage. The girl for a moment seemed startled; then, suddenly appealing to her, besought her not to tell her husband that she had been there, and declined most respectfully receiving him, as she had made a vow no male should ever enter beneath her roof.

"Well, then," rejoined Mrs. Temple, "as such is your determina

tion, I will not bring him, nor even tell him of my discovery; but I suppose I may come myself?"

The girl eagerly acceded to the lady's wish, and they parted excellent friends.

Late on the following evening Mrs. Temple returned to her mansion, far from well, and hastened to seek her couch. Her husband was called from a party of friends to see her, since she hourly grew worse. The most racking pains began to assail her; she felt that she was dangerously ill. A surgeon was sent for, who declared the sufferer to be in imminent danger. She had, probably, swallowed some poisonous berry or root, for the symptoms were those of deadly poison. The lady heard this, and desired the chamber to be cleared. When alone with her husband, she was about to explain to him her visit of the evening. She had already begun her narrative, when suddenly the door was thrown open, and in rushed the lovely girl, in whom our readers will have already recognized Mary.

"I have come, Charles," cried the unfortunate female, "to see you suffer. Think you I could outlive your love, and see another possess that affection I once so fondly imagined my own? No! Such moderation was not in my power. I avoided the temptation to do ill, and shut myself up from the sight of every one. Fate, however, led your wife to my cottage. I would there have avoided her; but she forced herself upon me. Yes! impelled by her nusseed, she again sought me, and tempted me by an opportunity too palpably placed before me by the gods of my fathers to resist. I poisoned her. Nothing can now save her. In half-an-hour she will be a corpse. You may start, and seem to doubt me; but, by the Heaven of the Christians, it is true. And now you would menace me, I see; but your anger comes too late. I cannot survive your wife many moments. I do not cry, as the pale-faced one does. I do not groan; yet the same pains now tear my frame. The poisoned fruit she left I swallowed. Ah! ah! ah! You thought, because my complexion was dark, I could not feel. You cast me off to die in misery. Who triumphs now?"

I will not further dwell on the dreadful scene. Within one hour Temple sat between the corpses of his wife and his mistress. The matter was hushed up. Suspicion, it is true, directed her glance that way, yet the whole truth was never known. The wretched man, whose grey hairs, and precocious old age speak a youth of sorrow, point out to the passer-by the once gay and handsome Charles Temple.

TOO NEAR TO BE PLEASANT.

THE Bundlecunds may justly be styled the wilderness of India. No human hand has ever endeavoured to recover the jungle-covered land from its primitive wildness, overgrown with closely-tangled brushwood. Its swampy soil is reckoned so unhealthy, that few wretches, however poor, have as yet been found hardy enough to settle here. Through this district, however, the military officer is sometimes compelled to pass to arrive at the head-quarters of his regiment. Such was the fate of Arthur Mactavish, who related to me the following adventure, which there befel him.

Mac, having grown dreadfully weary of his long confinement on

board the little boat in which he was slowly voyaging through the Bundlecunds, determined on landing near the first spot which should present to his eye the agreeable view of a human habitation. Aware that the whole country around him was swarming with ferocious wild animals, he wisely refrained from going on shore on many of the beautiful but solitary spots by which he passed. At length he came to a little knot of Indian hovels, which stood some half a mile from the banks. Arthur here desired his head dandy (boatman) to lugon (the act of fastening the boat to the shore), and instantly shouldering his Manton, started for the native village. On his approach being perceived, a couple of Indians, divested of every strip of clothes except their small langoutes (the very smallest rag which decency requires), hastened to meet him, and warn him of the many pitfalls around him. From these men he learnt that their only occupation was that of digging holes, resembling human graves, about eight feet deep, which they covered with small branches of trees and brushwood. By these means they ensnared the wild animals, who, unconscious of the trap thus artfully set, would often tread on the seeming firm ground, and in the next instant find themselves prisoners at the mercy of their captors, who instantly despatched them, selling the skins of some, and claiming from the authorities the price set upon every tiger's head. Of these animals they had captured above twenty during the preceding twelvemonths. Two of their party, it is true, had been destroyed by these ferocious beasts; but as the natives considered that it must have been their nusseed (pre-ordained fate), they appeared little affected by the circumstance. It was now late in the day; so, desiring them to go and fetch his sleeping mats, he determined on remaining in one of these huts for the night, as they promised him, in this case, that at break of day they would point out some splendid sport to him. To obtain what they described, he would willingly have gone half round the world, so he unhesitatingly accepted their offer, and determined on passing the night there.

After partaking of some rice and ghee, having cleaned his gun, (one barrel of which he always charged with ball, the other with shot,) and arranged his ammunition and shooting apparatus for the following morning, (in places where we have few companions to divert us, this is half the sport,) he laid himself down to rest, taking care, however, to bar the door as well as he could, for he rather disliked the manner of one of the villagers, and already began to repent that he had thus left himself so completely in their power. His servants, whom he now regretted not having brought with him, were full half a mile off. The few natives around him were strong, athletic men, accustomed to struggle with wild beasts, and almost as ferocious in their natures as the animals they were in the habit of hunting. At liberty to change from spot to spot, enabled in the fastnesses of the Bundlecunds to elude the most diligent search, proverbially avaricious, thinking little of the sacrifice of life, why should not these men fall on him, and murder him? He had foolishly displayed his purse to them, filled with rupees, and had vaunted the goodness of his gun, an object to them more precious than gold itself. What, then, was to prevent their making themselves masters of all these? Nothing. He felt this, and revolving it in his mind, fell into a light, uneasy slumber.

It must have been about one o'clock in the morning, when he was awakened by hearing several voices conversing in suppressed tones close to the little window of the hut, which was ill-blocked up by a cuskos tattic (a blind or shutter made of dried grass). Mactavish stealthily crept towards it, and, to his utter consternation, heard them thus explain their bloodthirsty intentions.

"How long," demanded a strange voice, "is it since you got him in ?"

"Just before nightfall."

"Have you since listened, to ascertain if he is stirring?"

"I have, and suspect he is fast asleep."
"Then this is the best time to fall on him.

But as you say he is

powerful, we had better go prudently to work. How do you propose to attack him ?”

"I think," replied one of his entertainers, "the best way will be to fire at him through the crevices with poisoned arrows."

"But, suppose he bursts forth ?"

"Oh! then we 'll despatch him with our knives."

"Have you got them with you?"

"Not yet."

66

Well, then, be quick," said the apparent leader; "be off and fetch them, and we'll get the job over as soon as possible. I'll return in five minutes ;" and Mactavish heard them suddenly go off in different directions.

With a panting heart Mac. listened as their footsteps died away; then, seizing his gun, he determined to endeavour to escape, or, at all events, to sell his life as dearly as possible in the open air, whence the report of his fowling-piece might be heard by those on board his budgerow. In another instant he was out of the door, and with the speed of lightning he started off in the direction (at least so he supposed) of the place of anchorage, where his boat was lying.

The moon was brightly shining as poor Arthur rushed along, heedless of any danger but that of being followed by the inhospitable murderers amongst whom he had thus unluckily fallen.

The cries of the jackal and the fayo, the roar of the larger animals, and the screams of wild birds, suddenly disturbed from their roosting-places, lent additional horrors to the scene as Arthur flew madly along. Presently a sudden bound was perceptible amongst the jungle. The crackling underwood was heard to yield beneath the pressure of some weighty beast of prey. A savage growl, accompanied with a peculiar cat-like, hissing noise, a pair of flashing eyes, gleaming brightly even through the darkness, at once told the unfortunate fugitive that a tiger was springing after him. Poor Mactavish gave himself up as lost. For about twenty yards he kept ahead of his fearful pursuer. Another bound, however, would place him in his power; he had no time even to offer up a prayer. He gave one spring in despairing energy, and, as he did so, he felt a violent shock; bright sparks of fire appeared to flash from his eyes; every joint seemed dislocated. Arthur had fallen into one of the pit-falls, over which, as he fell, the tiger leaped safely.

Relieved for the moment from his fears, Mactavish now ventured to look up. By the light of the moon, which shone brightly, he perceived the tiger crouching down at the edge of the pit, watching with savage wakefulness the wretched being, he evidently seemed 2 K

VOL. XIII.